A Tale of Two Lousy Allies: the US and Israel in a War of Their Own Making

 Alliances are hard all the time.  But if the allies share common values and have shared interests, they can find ways to work together.  Watching the US-Israel war with Iran proceed, I can't help but think that those of us who have criticized NATO might have been a bit unfair.  Getting consensus among 30+ like-minded countries is hard, very hard, and the alliance has to have an opt-out for any mission (in Article V, the language is "each contributes as each deems necessary).  But when you have two increasingly autocratic countries both led by criminals (ok, to be fair, Netanyahu hasn't been convicted yet, right?) who are bad faith actors who don't believe in anything but staying in power, things get a bit trickier.

While we are not privy to the actual conversations between Trump's team and Netanyahu, we have had clues in the media---that Netanyahu pushed for this war now, and Trump went along with it.  This would not be the first time a country dragged another ally into a war, as that is one of two horns of the alliance dilemma with the other possibility being a country abandons its ally.  And drag may be a strong word since Trump probably did not have to be pushed hard given his previous attacks against Iran and Iranian interests (killing Solimani, last summer's bombing) and, of course, Trump hasn't thought through the consequences such as oil price spikes and much inflation back home. 

This gets to the larger question: if allies don't agree on the goal, how does an alliance work?  What does Israel want in this war?  It seems to be the destruction of Iran as a state, which means hitting any and all targets that might help fracture the state and destroy its capacity.  For the US?  Damned if I know since the various officials--Trump, Rubio, Hegseth--have all said multiple things.  If it was regime change, the US would want Iran to have infrastructure intact (water desalination, oil refineries) so that the new regime can manage.  If it is ending the missile threat, that too would suggest more limited attacks.  If it is to complete the Christian nationalist dream of ushering in the end of times, well, oh my, I guess that means killing anyone and everyone.

There were some reports that the US was displeased with Israel hitting oil refineries, which raises a big question: how much cooperation is there over targeting?  During the Kosovo campaign, NATO allies coordinated quite a bit over what to hit when?  Libya?  Same thing.  ISIS?  I think so.  Now, hard to tell.  That the Trump regime didn't prepare for or plan for Iran threatening the Strait of Hormuz tells us a lot about American preparation or lack thereof. 

Israel?  Perhaps the epitome of tactically sound, strategically incompetent.  The Israeli military is really good at hitting its targets, but how that relates to security I have no idea.  From my trip back in 2019, I go the impression that hitting hard is not just the key tactic but pretty much the only goal.  Restraint does not make sense for them since they have already priced in world opposition: everyone hates them, everyone is anti-semitic, so they might as well do what they want.  And that has worked really well for them--they have had long periods of peace and stability.*   Oh wait, it hasn't, but the learning curve seems to tilt towards simply escalating whenever they are hit.  It creates deterrence that lasts ... hours or days.  

So, the US has been a lousy but useful ally for Israel as Trump is unreliable and fickle.  Israel is a lousy ally for the US, helping get an all-too-willing US into a war that provides no real benefits to the American people (Americans hate Iran thanks to the hostage crisis, when folks used to sing bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, yet they still hate this war--great achievement by Team Trump).  The US is an even worse ally for, well, all of its allies.  It made all of the Mideast targets for Iranian attacks--why should Iran restrain itself when its very existence is at stake?  The US radically increased oil prices for its friends, which only helps Russia and other oil exporting places (Alberta?), and it has made the coalition/domestic political games of its European allies far more difficult.  

All of this was foreseeable, which is why American presidents have refrained from attacking Iran, even, yes, the ideological and dim Bushies.  But the Trump regime hates being told it can't do something, like a toddler, and is deliberately ignorant.  Which led to being very poorly prepared for the likely Iranian responses that came to fruition. 

 

* I keep putting off writing a post that puts a significant hunk of blame on the increase in anti-semitism around the world on Israel because, yes, yowza.  The Israeli stance of pricing in hate is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Yes, there is anti-semitism in the world, just like there is Islamophobia, and the actions of states that are seen as the homelands of such religions matter in exacerbating or ameliorating those pre-existing tendencies.  Israel will tell Jews to come home to Israel if they want to be safe, which is, alas, mighty rich given that Israel's actions have increased the danger to Jews outside of Israel and.... yes, to Jews inside of Israel.  We can identify anti-semites and hold them responsible for their own actions (say, most of the Trump regime) and still hold Israel responsible for pouring gasoline on these pre-existing fires. 

 

 

NATO in Iraq: More, Same, Or Less

Trump included a semi-throw away line about NATO doing more in Iraq or Mideast.  While Justin Ling argued this is something that should be done, here's why it, like fetch, ain't happening:

1. NATO countries cannot operate without the US on the ground or in the air. The US has unique capabilities (comms), abundant capabilities (medevac helos), strong capabilities (quick reaction forces to defend/rescue allies in harm's way), and so on.  
2. Why would any NATO member want to put their troops in harm's way after Trump endangered the existing NATO troops by launching a strike against an Iranian official without notifying said NATO countries?
3. The NATO mission is one of training--the risk of green on blue (trainees attack trainers) is much greater now than it was two weeks ago.
4. NATO members have domestic politics, mostly governed by coalitions, and with hard requirements to have deployment votes for stuff like this, unlike US or Canada. 
5. The domestic politics is tougher because Trump is toxic in most countries.  Which leaders are willing to buck domestic opposition to stand next to Trump? Hungary? Sure, Orban wouldn't mind, but Hungary is also one of the crappiest allies in terms of showing up and doing heavy military lifting (the New Zealand forces in Afghanistan patrolled the Hungarian sector next door precisely because they didn't trust the Hungarians to do it themselves).   France?  Nope. Germany?  Nope. UK? Probs not.   There is a price to be paid for all of Trump's antagonizing of European countries.
6. If Justin Trudeau allows folks to think that maybe the shooting down of the plane in Iran might just be partly due to Trump's behavior, you can be pretty sure that few allies will trust Trump on anything.

So, no, NATO reinforcement in Iraq to replace the Americans.  

US-Iran: Allies and Proxies Be Damned

I have turned down a couple of radio hits to talk about this, because I don't want to be asked about the Iraqi and Iranian politics all of this stuff in the aftermath of the assassination of Qassem Suleiman.  The joy of blogging is that I can talk about what I want and not be asked about stuff outside my limited area of expertise.

So, let's just focus on the alliance politics of all of this.  American allies were not consulted or even alerted, apparently.  If the British weren't, then I doubt that the Canadians or Germans were.  Now we have reports of US planes carrying troops to the region being turned back from Turkey (will update if that is wrong).   Just raising these two examples indicates this is really a poor time for the US to ramp things up in the Mideast--the US alliance with Turkey is in tatters after the Syria shenanigans over the past several months AND the UK's ability to be both reliable ally and whisperer are both greatly diminished thanks to Brexit.  This attack and escalation with Iran put other troops in harm's way, such as the Canadians who are leading the NATO mission in Iraq.  Would have been nice to put them on alert, if one were a good ally.  One of the basics of war in the 21st (and 20th) century is to get one's allies in place ahead of time.  Scrambling mid-war to put an alliance or coalition together is a bad idea.   


As I tweeted last night and have discussed here repeatedly, one of the basic concepts in International Relations is the alliance dilemma (Glenn Snyder and Patricia Weitsman).  That allies fear two things: being abandoned by an ally when one is needed and being dragged into a war that one does not want.  Either an alliance is too loose or too tight.  Because Trump is an uncertainty engine, he has the amazing ability to make allies fear both at the same time.  South Korea gets pushed around for not giving the US enough dollars for defense at the same time that the US is engaged in a war of words and escalating symbolic measures that might risk war.  At this point in time, the best guarantee for South Korea is still the US troops in South Korea--but before, they were there to deter a North Korean attack.  Now, in more than a few South Korean eyes, they are there to prevent the US from unilaterally striking North Korea.  

A second core reality is that allies and proxies have their own domestic politics.  Yes, this attack will be complicated for the Democrats--how to salute the death of an adversary yet criticize a messed up process and potentially dangerous outcomes--but it is a bit simpler for most of the other relevant players:

1. This is not going to lead to an uprising in Iran, contrary to Ari Fleisher and other "flowers in the streets" folks who appeared on Fox.  It will make it harder for folks to protest the Iranian government because, guess what, Iran is now at war.
2. While Sunnis in Iraq might be thrilled, they are not in charge.  The Iraqi government has been receiving much aid from Iran, and this attack may have killed a key Iraqi government official.  So, expect to see much noise from the Iraqi parliament, including motions to eject the Americans from Iraq.  This attack is part of a series of escalations where the US was supposed to be coordinating with Iraq about attacks on Iraqi soil and was not.  
3. Another unilateral effort by the US in the Mideast is going to make it harder for any European politician to stand with Trump.  2003 all over again?  Maybe not quite, but it has already gotten harder for politicians in Europe to work with the US since Trump is so reviled.  
4. Israel?  Damned if I know--their domestic politics is so screwed up--a third election underway in about a year.

 Of course, these are all second/third order consequences.  Trump's team only focused on the immediate consequence--the US killed a bad guy.  Reminds me of Iraq 2003 where the Bush team also was focused on a singular outcome--getting Hussein--despite all of the potential (and realized ultimately) second/third order consequences--huge $ cost, serving as recruiting videos for terrorist organizations, empowering Iran, weakening the effort in Afghanistan, etc.  I opposed that war partly because I thought the team involved--Rummy and his band of ideologues--was incapable of running the war well.  This time, well, Trump's team makes Rummy's team appear thoughtful and humble.  

 

The State of American Allies in the Age of Trump

I continue to think that the big change in the departure of SecDef Mattis is not that Trump has lost his guardrails but that it has caused others to lose their ability to engage in wishful thinking.  Macron's "brain death" comment might be read as self-serving since France, including under Macron, has generally sought to build up a European replacement to NATO.  However, the basic statement--that there is no one in the US engaging in the thinking that is required to lead NATO--is on target.

How so?  Each NATO summit is preceded by a series of Ministerials--meetings of Foreign Ministers (North Atlantic Council FM or NAC/FM) and Defense Ministers (NAC/D).  In between those, there are plenty of meetings within DC and between those in DC in the Pentagon and State and their counter-parts in Canada and Europe.  These meetings push agendas--items to be considered and ultimately some reaching a state of consensus.  But what happens when there are few people at State and the Pentagon staffing those desks?  What happens when the Secretary of State is more interested in promoting the next apocalypse as part of his vision for the rapture and also focused on Kansan politics?  When the SecDef is distracted by other alliance messes (see below)?  Well, we might have counted on the Brits to game the system in the old days, but Brexit has caused a fair amount of brain damage and distraction in London.  So, the alliance is not moving forwards and figuring out how to adapt to the various changing dynamics, including Turkey becoming more aligned with Russia.

The funny thing is that NATO is, compared to other places, a good news story.  The moves made in the past to create deterrence and deny Putin a fait accompli in the Baltics are in place, are working, and have yet to be undone.  How about elsewhere?

Things are looking awful in East Asia, where folks were worried before about being abandoned and being drawn into a war at the same time (rarely does one get gored by both horns of the alliance dilemma at the same time, but that is Trump's gift).  Now, they are mostly worried about abandonment.

First, let's focus on "diplomacy"

#Breaking: Defense Secretary Esper announces the U.S. and South Korea have decided to postpone the “Combined Flying Training Event,” to facilitate diplomacy with North Korea.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) November 17, 2019

What has diplomacy gotten the US and its allies from North Korea?  Kim Jong Un has gotten heaps of recognition and pats on the back, in addition to the US cutting back on exercises in the region, and he has given up what?  Nothing.  Diplomacy is about give and take, and thus far KJU has taken and not given, and Mr. Art of the Deal has given and not taken.

Second, let's focus on "burden-sharing."  Trump's focus on all allies has been on getting paid, not on how the allies are helping the US pursue its interests.  Because as we know from Ukraine, what matters is Trump's interests, not America's.  The latest salvo is Trump demanding Japan and South Korea pay 4x or 5x more than they are currently paying for the basing of US troops.  As a reminder, these troops are not there because of American altruism but because of American interests:

1. Conflict in these regions would be bad for the US economy in a huge way
2. Keeping Europe and East Asia free has long been seen as important for American security--also, better to prevent a war than have to enter one halfway through, a lesson learned after a couple of world wars.
3.  If the US wants to contain China, these bases and these countries are damned handy.  Threatening to pull out unless these countries pay up, protection-racket style, is good for China, bad for the US. 

Back in 2016, one reason I got the election wrong is that it was so obvious that Trump would be bad for US alliances, and I thought there were enough Republicans who cared about US national security that it would tip the balance.  I was wrong about that.  NeverTrumpers may be a thing, but they are small and not a relevant voting bloc.  The question is now the 2020 election because the damage to American alliances is severe but may be somewhat (not entirely) reversible.  After eight years of Trump?  Not so much.

Alliance Theory in a Time of the Mad King

Carvin first drafts me and then she takes an action shot.

I got grabbed by Stephanie Carvin as she was off to teach her International Security course yesterday.  The day's topic was alliances, and she thought I might have a few things to say about Trump/Turkey/Kurds.  She wasn't wrong.  My 20 minute guest gig went on for 45 minutes or so.  The class had read a bunch of alliance stuff (including a piece by my former student Jessica Trisko Darden and my pod-cast pal, Stefanie von Hlatky, the Steve and Dave ISQ piece, and a bunch of other stuff), so they were armed with heaps of IR theory.

I started with the Alliance Dilemma (hat tip to Glenn Snyder): that any country has to fear two things--being abandoned by their ally and being dragged into a conflict by an ally.  I asserted that usually a country fears one or the other, but the joy of the Trump era is that countries can feel simultaneously too strongly connected to an aggressive ally and also likely to be dropped at a moment's notice (or a tweet's) by said ally.  That one of the core ideas of Neo-Realism is that the system is one of self-help so relying on others for one's security is always, always perilous.  While Waltz (father of Neo-Realism) might not have anticipated Donald Trump, his theory is not focused on the strange behaviors of an individual state, but how the general dynamics of the system will, well, punish those who make poor decisions.

What does the decision to drop the SDF (the Kurds the US has been supporting in Syria that have been perhaps the most effective anti-ISIS force) imply for other proxies?  Something they already knew--that the US will drop you when it is convenient.  Various Kurdish groups know this from past experience--Kissinger famously sold out Iraq's Kurds in the mid-1970s.

One could look at this decision as being a pro-alliance decision since Trump is doing Turkey's bidding, but then again:

As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I’ve done before!). They must, with Europe and others, watch over...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2019

Um, so, yeah, not a great, reliable ally.  Indeed, Trump's series of tweets and statements also lambasted European countries for not taking in their foreign fighters.  So, while Realists could not predict the tweets and Trump's policies (and, tis another day where I scoff at folks that say that we ought to ignore his tweets and focus on his deeds), they can understand the dilemma that allies face--being reliant on anyone is dangerous, but, then again, having no allies can also be dangerous. Which is why it is called the Alliance Dilemma.

Stephanie prompted me to address how two other theories address this stuff as well: Liberalism and Constructivism.  For Liberals, institutions are paramount as they reduce uncertainty and finesse the transaction costs that often get in the way of cooperation.  While no such institution really existed to help the Kurds, NATO is an institution that is supposed to provide security and stability for its members.  Liberals have argued that institutions can last even after dominant players fade as they help to resolve collective action problems (how to get cooperation when there are temptations to free ride) but they didn't anticipate Hegemonic Arson.*  That is, the declining dominant player destroying institutions that have helped it get what it wants.  Yes, hegemonic stability theory suggests that a declining state may be less enthusiastic about paying the costs for such institutions (so Trump's whining about burden-sharing is predictable), but actually engaging in behavior to rip apart the institution (see Open Skies news of late and where the allies stand?  Not predicted.  Of course, the challenge here is the Liberal theory of institutions rely on leaders pursuing their national interests in a rational way, not their own monetary interests in a less than rational way.

Constructivism focuses on how countries can be driven either by a logic of consequences (does this help the country) or a logic of appropriateness (is what I am doing ok or even imaginable).  The problem of applying this theory to US foreign policy today is that Trump has no sense of appropriateness (see the above tweet) so he is never constrained by norms, shame, or anything like that.  However, like Neo-Realism, constructivism can address how countries react--that they find Trump's behavior not just bad for their interests but appalling, that they may find it hard to cooperate with a sociopath because of what it means for their own identities.  How can you be a good and just state if you are working alongside someone who will do literally anything?

For both Liberals and Constructivists, it is now much harder to cooperate with the United States.  Of course, the big question is what happens after Trump.  Will things just go back to how things were before?  Probably not entirely (I am spacing on who talked with me about IR being plastic so things don't snap back all the way).  The institutions may remain, but they will not be as binding, and states will realize that they will not be protected by the agreements they have signed and the communities they have built.  Which means they will hedge--by finding other allies (South Korea, for instance, may lean towards China) or by allying amongst themselves or opting out of American efforts.

Good luck getting the allies to bleed for the US in a place like Afghanistan again.  I have to run to meet up with some potential partners (or allies) of the CDSN, so I will leave this for now.  I guess the main point of all of this is that rhetoric does matter--that America First always meant screw over the allies--and everyone forgets that or diminishes that at their peril.







* I am kind of disturbed that half of the wikipedia entry about Neo-Liberalism focuses on John Mearsheimer who is hostile to Neo-Liberalism.  But that is something for another day.

Trump and a Multilateral Coalition? Um, No

This morning, Steven Metz asked:

Is the Trump administration capable of creating and leading such a multinational coalition? https://t.co/lpqNI4iBe2

— Steve Metz (@steven_metz) June 17, 2019

And sure, it might be my confirmation bias to say: hells no.  But let me explain why Trump is incapable of creating and leading such a multinational coalition.

First, Trump doesn't want to do so.  Sure, Bush and Rummy didn't want to do so either, but but fighting two wars at the same time required help in holding the fort in the lesser priority (alas, Afghanistan).  While Bush and Rummy and others seemed exasperated by alliances, Trump is far more hostile.

Second, Trump will make it very, very hard for the allies to get their domestic politics lined up.  In most democracies, legislatures need to vote in order to deploy their forces abroad.  This is hard even when the US President is popular--ask David Cameron about failing to get support for a Syria mission.  It is much harder when the US President is unpopular.  While all of these wars are seen as American wars, Iraq and Iran are very much so.  Politicians are far more likely to compete with each other in how distant they are from Trump.  This outbidding combined with coalition politics (is Canada the only Western democracy that has a single party owning a majority of seats?  That may not last past October) means it will be very difficult to get countries to join the US.

Third, this potential war with Iran is one where the US could not take yes for an answer.  Iran signed the deal, the US--under a new President--rejected it.  Last time, the US couldn't get France and Germany on board.  Who will join in now when the alternative--getting an agreement--was something the US spurned?

Fourth, um, what would the strategy be?  To be the coalition leader, the US would need to develop a strategy for winning a war against Iran and one that does not impose a very high price because, again, this is a war of choice.  How does the US defeat Iran?  Please, tell me how this war proceeds.  Because I have no clue.  Iran's military will not disappear overnight, and it is well set up to conduct an insurgency after the US eventually wins the conventional battle (who gave some Iraqi and Afghan groups really destructive IEDs?  Oh yeah).  In chatting with experts on this stuff, we are all flummoxed--what is the theory of victory? Wishful thinking?  Maybe allies will think about joining the US, but if the US can't provide a strategy, most (if not all) will stay out of it.

Fifth, having Israel involved might be toxic for many potential Arab allies.  Having the Saudis involved may be toxic for some Western allies.  And these two countries seemed to want to defeat Iran by recklessing throwing American soldiers and marines at the problem. 

Six, allies join in because they expect to get something back.  At the very least, they expect that their ally will support them in a time of need.  Can anyone count on Trump to either remember what an ally has done before or care about it?  No.   

Alliance warfare is damned hard.  It requires patience, empathy, finessing domestic tradeoffs, a decent plan for at least the first stages, and a plausible case both for the need for war and for a strategy to achieve victory.  I can't see how Trump and Bolton and Pompeo are up to providing any of this.  Do you?

Pardons of War Criminals and the Future of Allied Cooperation

The weekend’s news suggests that President Donald Trump’s pardon of a war criminal, former Army officer Michael Behenna, is not going to be a one-off thing but part of a broader trend of pardoning those accused or convicted of war crimes.  While this policy presents challenges to the American armed forces—endangering discipline and cohesion, my focus here is on the impact on present and future allies.  Simply put, this new stance will make it much harder for many countries to join the US in any future military campaign.  Here, I take a quick look at what the allies provide and then focus on how pardoning war criminals is likely to affect future military cooperation.

The ongoing debate about burden-sharing within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] might cause one to believe that America’s allies do not contribute much. However, other than the quick and minor military efforts in places like Grenada and Panama, the US does not fight alone.  American allies bore far more of the costs of World War I and World War II than did the US.  Many countries joined in the American efforts to push back the North Koreans and then the Chinese in Korea.  South Koreans, Australians and others joined American troops in Vietnam.  The Cold War effort to deter the Soviet Union required a global effort requiring not just bases in foreign lands but significant military assistance from dozens of countries. 

The Gulf War of 1991 involved hundreds of thousands of non-American troops, where the multinational nature of the alliance—fighting alongside not just British and French troops but also Syrian and many others reduced the risks the Americans faced.  When the Bush Administration shifted its focus from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2003, it meant that there were more allied and partner troops fighting to hold the fort in the former than American troops.  Even in that very unpopular campaign in Iraq, the “coalition of the willing” fought alongside American forces and paid a significant price.

It became much harder for our allies to fight in Iraq and even in Afghanistan after the pictures of American crimes at Abu Ghraib came out.  Our allies, particularly France, Germany and other European countries, had pushed for the creation of the International Criminal Court, established by the 1998 Rome Statute, expending significant political capital because they felt that those who commit war crimes should be held accountable particularly after the horrors of the post-Yugoslav conflict and the genocide in Rwanda. 

In 1998, the US voted against the Statute, concerned that it not be subject to ICC law. This subsequently has been a sore spot in relations with allies. When it was clear in 2002 that the Statute would come into effect due to accomplishment of the necessary number of ratifications,  the Bush Administration pushed to change all of the mandates for UN and NATO missions in which Americans played a role to write exceptions so that the countries hosting American troops would not send suspected war criminals to the ICC [I was on the Bosnia desk of the US Joint Staff at this time, and I got to watch this up close].  This effort antagonized our allies at a key moment—as the preparation for the next Iraq war was underway.  To be clear, under its doctrine of “complementarity,” the ICC only to pursue suspected crimes if a country does not handle its accused war criminals responsibly. 

By pardoning convicted and/or suspected war criminals, Trump shows that the US system of military justice does not live up to international standards, is and will be irresponsible.

Our allies already take concerns with war crimes quite seriously.  In Afghanistan, mentoring Afghan troops was a major part of the training effort, and it meant going out on patrol and into battle alongside Afghan troops.  Some countries were most reluctant to do so, including the otherwise quite aggressive Danish forces who were willing to fight in the most dangerous parts of the country.  Why?  Because they did not want to be present if and when their trainees engaged in war crimes.  They did not want to be complicit. 

For many democracies, it is difficult enough to get mandates from the parliaments to approve these deployments.  Countries governed by coalition governments often have a hard time agreeing on the conditions they will impose upon their troops when they join a cooperative military effort.  If the President continues to pardon war criminals, two things are likely to happen:

1.  Some countries will impose restrictions on their troops, so that the forces they contribute to an allied operation are not be allowed to fight alongside Americans;  
2.  Many countries may find it politically impossible to join American-led campaigns at all.

American forces are currently working with allies in partners in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Trump’s pardons of war criminals will make it more likely that we will get less help in those places.  Getting allies to join the US in a new Iran war was always going to be tough but will become even harder if these pardons continue.

The US military was stretched to the breaking point when it was fighting wars in Afghanistan an Iraq at the same time even with much allied assistance.  Alienating allies via these pardons will make any future war effort unnecessarily more challenging. Yes, the US can fight alone, but it will mean more Americans pay the price in blood, more US tax dollars expended, and far less legitimacy.  This may be a price that Donald Trump is willing to pay, but the American military and the American people should not.

Alliances Are Hard: GoT Version

I saw this tweet and could not help but respond:

I enjoyed @mchorowitz on GoT Dragon airpower, but it’s time for @RyanGrauer to give the people what they want- an analysis of how Westerosi alliance politics will affect military command structure and battlefield effectiveness.

— Jon Askonas (@JonAskonas) April 15, 2019

Given that I have written about both Game of Thrones and alliance politics, I have to enter this discussion.  Spoilers dwell below as we get into this:

European Army? No. A NATO Without the US?

One of the advantages of working at a place like NPSIA is that we have all kinds of interesting people floating through asking good questions and making me think.  Today, the topic of the European Army came up.  I asked our German post doc and she pushed it back at me.  So, what do I think?

First: deja vu.  For most of the cold war and after, the Americans simultaneously demanded that the Europeans do more and opposed efforts by the Europeans to build stronger Euro-defense institutions, fearing that would undermine NATO. So, Macron says European Army, and Trump, who has demanded Europe do more, complains.  Does this mean that Trump gets the tangled tradeoffs?  No, he just thinks the US should get paid for European defense.

Second, I am a long-time European Defence and Security skeptic.  I remember the Europeans trying to take the lead on the dissolution of Yugoslavia and that didn't work out so well.  Thus, I scoff at the idea of the Europeans getting their act together.

Third, as someone who co-wrote a book on how the domestic politics of civilian control of the military lead to difficulties in multilateral military operations, I cannot imagine a situation where the Europeans would form a single military.  They can and have engaged in bilateral efforts and then in multilateral missions where they have to do as much force generation work as NATO--begging to get contributions.  But a standing army under the command of a single officer with the ability to act and react without getting permission from more than two dozen legislatures?  No.  Remember, nearly every European country has a far more complicated deployment approval process than US/CA/UK (and the Brits showed during the Syria stuff that they have their own surprising complexity).

So, what to make of it?  Maybe aim big and then get something in between?  How about an ETO: a European Treaty Organization that looks a lot like NATO but with no US (or Canada)?  That reproduces the "attack upon one equals an attack upon all" and leans on the French nuclear deterrent and German political/economic heft, but does not rely on the US or have to be worried about a Trump blocking consensus?  Still difficult and not likely, but far more likely than a European Army.  Is this what Macron is thinking of?  Probably not, but he might stumble into it.

How does that sounds?  A European Treaty Organization??  That the UK is out of the EU makes it more likely since the UK always blocked this kind of thing.  Greece and Turkey always made EU/NATO cooperation really hard... can they continue their games in the Age of Trump?

Why NATO?

Thanks to Donald Trump, people are now questioning whether it makes sense for the US to be in an alliance with a bunch of European countries (and Canada, too!).  Last week, a tweet went around comparing NATO to vaccines--that preventative measures work so well that people start forgetting why we developed them and then only find out that not investing in such efforts leads to the stuff that they were designed to prevent.  So, let's consider both NATO's intended and unintended benefits that continue to make it a smart investment. 

NATO was formed to prevent yet another war in Europe.  After World War II and with the rise of the Soviet Union, it seemed to make sense to develop a collective effort to deter conflict and to defend like-minded countries in Europe and North America. Rather than developing a series of bilateral agreements with many different countries, the US and its friends in Europe formed a multilateral defensive alliance. The whole "an attack upon one is an attack upon all" is the heart of it.

To be clear, it is a defensive alliance so if the uppity Montenegrins (jeez, Trump is dumb) try to start a war, there is no compulsion for the US or anyone else to fight.  Yes, alliances have twin challenges--fears of entrapment and fears of abandonment. That an ally may suck you into a war you do not want to fight or may not help you if war comes (Glenn Snyder,  Patricia Weitsman).  NATO, unlike Trump's fever dreams, mitigates the first problem--that NATO operates by consensus, so if an ally wants to suck you in, you can say no.  And, thanks to the key clause in Article V, "each country responds as each deems necessary," even if you go along with a declaration of Article V, any/all countries can opt out.  See the Dave and Steve book. Also, we have plenty of practice at not getting sucked into wars started by members thanks to Greece and Turkey (however, the other members may point to the US sucking them into unwanted wars--Iraq and Afghanistan).*

The first big question is easily answered: is it in American interests to invest in peace in Europe?  Hells yeah.  WWI and WWII were very expensive enterprises, and war has only gotten more destructive.  While Trump thinks of these countries as rivals and competitors, the reality is that European countries and Canada have contributed greatly to American interests via preventing war in Europe--that American firms have a secure market to sell to, to invest in, and so on. 

The multilateral nature of the alliance--each country agreeing to the collective defense of all members--has benefits that can be best illustrated by looking at East Asia.  Japan and South Korea cannot agree with each other on very much, so instead of an East Asian alliance system, the US had a much harder time and a more expensive effort.  The US has to work to separate relationships again and again and again, and the level of ROK/Japanese interoperability is mighty low as a result. 

Ok, that's the obvious NATO is a collective effort to defend stuff argument.  The second and unintended aspect is that Robert Keohane was right--that once an organization exists, countries will maintain it as it continues to facilitate cooperation.  NATO has not just been helpful for the United States in preventing war in Europe, it has also facilitated American interests in other ways.  Let's listicle, shall we:

1. NATO ended one civil war that the UN and EU failed to manage (Bosnia) and stopped ethnic cleansing (Kosovo) that could have destabilized an entire region.
2. Despite my criticisms of NATO conditionality, it is the case that NATO helped the transition of East European countries to democracy by encouraging/developing the civilian control of their various militaries--note that whatever movements being made to autocracy are not being led by anyone's armed forces in the region (Vachudova, Epstein).
3. Flying AWACS planes over American cities in the aftermath of 9/11
4. NATO has had fleets doing counter-terrorism and counter-piracy work.  We don't hear much about them, but they have been pretty effective.
5. NATO held the fort in Afghanistan while the US was distracted by its Iraq adventure.  The allies were very much doing the US a favor at the costs of more than a thousand lives of their soldiers (many private contractors as well, but their lives don't count) and billions of dollars, Euros and other currencies.  That the war was complicated by caveats (see Dave and Steve book) does not mean that allies did not contribute and did not pay for it, yes, even the Germans.  That Afghanistan hasn't worked out that great is much less about caveats and allied contributions and much more about American bad decisions and, well, third party counter-insurgency being really hard (Simpson)
6. Stopping a mass killing before it happened, and, yes, doing a smidge of regime change in Libya.
7. Providing a market for American arms manufacturers.  Oh yeah, that whole technical interoperability tends to mean buy American.  Nice coincidence, right?

I am sure I am leaving stuff out.  The general point is that after the end of the Cold War, NATO didn't disappear.  Instead, its members found other uses for it, since it had a handy set of capabilities (managing an air campaign over Libya illustrated that).  It also made for very cooperative relations that spilled over to other areas.  Yes, being part of a multilateral alliance meant compromises--that the US didn't always get what it wanted, but it has always been very much a force and power multiplier--the US had more influence, not less, in Europe and beyond. 

It would be dumb to throw it away, especially when its original purpose--defending against the enemy to the east--is now quite relevant again.  But Trump is dumb and speaking of being compromised ....  Anyhow, NATO has an instrument of American influence and power.  If one tosses it aside, well, it is because one is either too dumb to see it or uninterested in having the US remain influential.  Which one is Trump?






* No, 2003 did not involve NATO, but members of NATO faced great pressure to join that effort and many did so.

Dodging a Bullet or Missing an Opportunity?

I don't know whether to be angry or relieved that Trump will not be meeting Kim Jong Un in Singapore.  On the one hand, this is incredibly amateurish:

1. Respond to a visiting South Korean official who says KJU might be cooperative by announcing a summit.
2. Do no homework, prep, or work on anything besides coins and other symbols.
3. Set expectations at maximal NK surrender.  The experts kept saying complete denuclearization was not on the table for NK....
4. Brag about maximal pressure that pushed NK into a corner.
5. Leave the Iran deal which almost certainly had tougher verification than anything the North Koreans would agree to.
6. National Security Adviser Bolton talks dreamily of the Libya model--meaning the US fucks over North Korea in future with regime change (not to mention all the regime change stuff in the Iran conversations).
7. Issue a coin and use various statements that make it abundantly clear that Trump needs this meeting more than KJU.
8. Cancel meeting after NK issues testy press releases, as it wants to make clear it is not submitting to maximal pressure.

On the other hand, I have been legitimately worried that either a cranky Trump, after a long flight to Singapore, would get supremely angry at Supreme Leader OR he would suck up to KJU and abandon South Korea and/or Japan.  I really didn't expect anything good to come out of the summit, so I guess I am not that disappointed.

The big question is: what next?  Is the path to war shorter and faster or can we dither and blamecast and push that down the road some more?  I just don't know.  All I do know is that South Korea (and almost certainly Japan) were surprised by this announcement, and this is bad alliance management.  Which, of course, is to be expected, but we can still be appalled.  Most of the South Koreans I met earlier in the month were cautiously optimistic, but I felt that was mostly due to wishful thinking.  Sorry, folks.  Trump don't play that. 

All I know is that if I were an ally of the US right now, I would be hedging as much as possible. 

Ally Rules Because Alliances Rule

In response to the US/UK/France attack on Syria and questions about Canada, I tweeted thusly:

Ally rule number 3: Don't ask allies to do things they can't do.

No CAF assets nearby, right? https://t.co/Ku4bMSGJZF

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) April 15, 2018

Which inevitably produced this tweet from an old colleague and now Naval Reservist on his way to Afghanistan (Naval Comms).

What are your top ten ally rules? I might need those for easy access.

— Grant Neeley (@grantneeley) April 15, 2018

I may not have ten, but here are my rules for ally management (if I had elaborated the rules before the tweet, rule number 3 would probably be a bit further down):

1. Allies have similar but not identical interests--never forget this as nearly all follows from this rule.
2. Allies have much fear--whether they might be abandoned or entrapped or both (h/t to Glenn Snyder and Patrica Weitsman as well as Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen).  They will never be completely reassured.  And remember what Yoda said about fear.
3. Don't ask allies to do things they can't do.  It just raises the cost of participating for the ally.  So, don't put the German navy on the inner ring of a blockade where the job is to fire on the violating ship--put them on the outer ring where they can alert and coordinate. 
4. Allies do not always tell you what they can or can't do, what they will or won't do.  So, work more with those you know best when the stakes are high.  Tis why it is ok for Canada to be operating in Latvia with countries with whom they have never been deployed--their job is mostly to exercise and, if the balloon goes up, to die. Unstated caveats matter more when combat will be an on-going thing (Kandahar).
5. Some allies will almost always be more reliable than other allies. If one is being positive, then this would be the British rule, if one is being negative, then this is the Greek rule.  Whether it is because of domestic institutions (see the Dave and Steve book) or very compatible positions in the world or shared histories or whatever, some countries simply get along better again and again. 
6. Personalities/relationships matter in alliances. Despite the structure of agreements and the institutions that tie the countries together, how the intent and rules of engagement are interpreted and obeyed depends on the commanders on/near the ground and how they get along.  We can call this the Monty rule if we are being negative or the Ike rule if we are being positive.
7. Burden-sharing is always uneven.  It may not always be very politicized, but countries will always vary both in what they can bring to the fight and what they actually bring to the fight.  Realize that haranguing one's allies has limited effectiveness.
8. The intersection of international relations and domestic politics can make alliance management easier or harder.  Unpopular American presidents make it politically difficult for other members of NATO to commit more to joint efforts, and popular ones make it easier.  Was the Bush rule but now the Trump rule.
9. Napoleon is still wrong--he said it is better to fight a coalition than be in one.  Churchill is still right--the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them.
10. Insisting on ten rules is a sign of silly devotion to even numbers.

Decoupling and the Alliance Dilemma: Get Out!?

As Glenn Snyder and then Patricia Weitsman so clearly identified (as well as Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen), alliances always pose two threats to those who join: that they might be abandoned despite reassures to the contrary AND that they might get dragged into a war they do not want to fight.  So, abandonment vs. entrapment are the dual horns of the alliance dilemma.  So very relevant today as the story du jour is of "Decoupling" South Korea from the US.

It has long been a concern that North Korea would maneuver to separate the US from South Korea, and they have made a heap of progress lately.  This morning there are reports of talks leading to more negotiations between North and South Korea.  The concern is that South Korea might sign some kind of separate peace, giving into North Korea and leaving the US out. 

For much of the cold war and post-Cold War period, the South Korean concern would be that the US would abandon it.  Jimmy Carter proposed and then reversed himself on pulling the US troops out, as this undermined the credibility of the US commitment to South Korea, for instance.  Just like the Europeans, the South Koreans worried that the US might not show up, that it would be very costly for the US to defend South Korea.  The advent of the North Korean ICBM with the capability to hit the US gave the South Koreans the chance to re-visit all of the "would the US sacrifice Chicago for Bonn or Paris" debates.  So, yes, the South Koreans still fear abandonment and perhaps even more so with an uncertainty engine in the White House who confuses North and South.  You would think that this fear would lead them to focus on tightening the alliance, not decoupling.

Ah, but here's where the other horn of the alliance dilemma gets super-pointy: the US has been making noises about a new Korean war, that a punch in the nose or whatever effort to disarm North Korea, would be harmful to South Korea but not the US.  Indeed, Lindsay Graham has recently agreed with the White House rhetoric of, well, burning South Korea to save American lives.  The South Koreans know only too well that the opening shots of a new Korean war would lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dead South Koreans.  So, with all of the war talk in DC, they have good reason to fear being entrapped in a war they do not want.

So, I can't blame the South Koreans for seeking an alternative path, away from the races up the escalation ladders.  The problem, of course, is that if South Korea is decoupled from the US, that the alliance is broken, then North Korea can break its promises to South Korea and the US will find it hard to respond to a fait accompli in the aftermath of US forces being expelled from South Korea (the possible result of decoupling).  Where does Japan fit in all of this?  Completely screwed but that is an alliance that will be broken via other means (trade wars)....

In sum, Trump has made a difficult problem far more challenging.  The no good policy options problem is now far more likely to be all the worst policy problem.  Thanks, Trump.