| 28.02.2009 |
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| I've spilled a lot of words in this space about the degree of overlap between Presidents Obama and Bush on national security and foreign policy, and others have started to notice the same thing. But there's a fine line between doing the same thing as one's predecessor and acting in a nonpartisan spirit. The notion to appoint former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican, as special envoy to Sudan would appear to be the latter. It's only a proposal so far, from Rep. Frank Wolf, an influential member of Congress on human rights. Wolf, though, says the administration likes the idea. Some Democrats may have leftover hard feelings about Frist, but on Darfur, Frist was ahead of the curve. Any real skepticism about Frist's appointment has more to do with institutional questions: "An effective special envoy generally requires two important features: 1) diplomatic experience 2) access to the president. It strikes me that former Senator Frist possesses neither." But it might be offset by the signal Frist's appointment would send: America is united on Darfur, left and right. |
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| 27.02.2009 |
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| It doesn't happen often, but sometimes someone expresses an opinion one can entirely agree with. Even more rarely this someone happens to be politician. Well, this just happened to me after reading Senator Richard Lugar's article arguing why the U.S. should reverse its long process of closing its America Centers around the world. I witnessed the closure of all U.S. government run America Centers in Germany over the years, with the last Amerika Haus operated by the U.S. government closing in Cologne in 2007. Sure, many of them have reopened through private initiative and do a great job in fostering transatlantic understanding. But I have always felt that for an issue that is as important for the U.S. as public diplomacy (as everyone has come to understood at least after 9/11) Washington should put its money where its mouth is. To be clear, the internet and other modern information tools as well as private sponsors are and should be a big part of public diplomacy. But can and should they replace a live forum, a marketplace of ideas where people in cities across the world can meet, talk and debate with Americans, not in a virtual chat room, but in a real reading room? I think not. Apropos reading room: Were the American Center in Frankfurt to reopen its library I would gladly donate the hundreds of classical Americana I schlepped away in dozens of bags after the library closed. Ok, maybe not gladly, but it would give them back. |
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| 26.02.2009 |
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| During the campaign on this blog, I spent a lot of time talking about the way foreign policy linked to lots of other issues. The economy. Global warming. Etc. As of Obama's State of the Union speech (I know, I know, he didn't call it that), it's clear that the president sees all those issues as interrelated, too. As Heather Hurlburt noted over at Democracy Arsenal, the blog of the National Security Network: Her final thought, after "having sat through the whole thing, is to point out how we are moving toward a worlcd (sic) where there is no 'foreign policy section' because the issues are woven seamlessly through a framework of issues affecting America, energy security, global warming, and other issues." |
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| 25.02.2009 |
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| According to media reports, President Barack Obama will soon announce his decision to complete the American combat troop withdrawal from Iraq by August 2010 and the pullout of all U.S. forces by December 2011. If implemented, the withdrawal will take a few months longer than Obama pledged during the campaign. But I agree with Marc Lynch that this gap is insignificant. Obama's timetable for withdrawal shows that he is serious about keeping his commitments, while at the same time adjusting them to factors and events on the ground. By most accounts, violence in Iraq has decreased dramatically, a fact that has been underscored by peaceful recent regional elections in the country, which (perhaps for that reason) went largely unnoticed by international media. However, it's also worth pointing out, as Michael Crowley does, that the real test might come if Iraq once again descends into chaos and Obama must decide whether to bring back the American military to stabilize the country or let the Iraqis deal with it themselves. What's more, according to recent reports, escalating tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Arabs could complicate the planned American pullout. The Prime Minister of the Kurdish regional parliament demanded only a few days ago that the U.S. iron out problems between Kurds and the central government in Baghad before pulling out its troops. |
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| 24.02.2009 |
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| With the German Carnival season coming to an official end on Wednesday, here are a few highlights of Monday's traditional parades in the German Carnival capitals Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz. As everyone who has ever been to one of those cities during Carnival season knows, celebrating it properly and extensively is taken very seriously. In Cologne alone more than one million revellers watched Germany's biggest Carnival parade consisting of more than 11,000 participants and more than 100 decorated floats. Keeping with the focus of Across the Pond, all pictures feature Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, or the U.S. in general. - Obama bites Clinton (Düsseldorf Carnival Parade) - Uncle Sam's crumbling empire (Cologne Carnival Parade) - Europe on the heels of America's Obama (Düsseldorf Carnival Parade) - Obama trying to lift up the Statue of Liberty (Mainz Carnival Parade) |
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| 24.02.2009 |
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| In a clever bit of populist/hometown reporting, the Detroit News found that most of the members of the president's task force on the auto industry owns foreign cars. Also cleverly, the paper just put the information out there -- no analysis, no experts quoted on whether this was a good or bad thing. Just information. Only the lede hints at a viewpoint, and even then it's carefully couched -- "The vehicles owned by the Obama administration's auto team could reflect one reason why Detroit's Big Three automakers are in trouble: The list includes few new American cars." That's where everyone else comes in. Automobile magazine suggests maybe there's something wrong with the team driving foreign cars: "As there seems to be little familiarity with the automotive world on this task force, we hope these guys and gals have some serious business and economic savvy." Autoblog is less convinced: "Between the flow of bailout bucks and the economic turmoil threatening to topple the Detroit 3, you'd figure the investigative efforts of the Detroit News would be better spent digging through the viability plans of Chrysler and General Motors, delving into the minutia that could make or break the domestic automobile industry. Apparently not." |
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| 22.02.2009 |
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| The New York Daily News' sharp James Gordon Meek has a piece up expanding on a theme I've returned to here numerous times: That is, whether President Obama is as dovish and different from President Bush on national security as anyone perceived. Raising points I haven't in previous posts, Meek directs readers' attention to a few items. Hillary Clinton's warnings to North Korea. The hawkish argument for getting out of Iraq to focus more on Afghanistan. That rather than waiting for enemies to "test" him, Obama is putting those enemies on their heels. It's a typically excellent piece from the NYDN man. Read it here. |
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| 20.02.2009 |
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| With President Obama's trip to Canada hogging most of the headlines about U.S. foreign relations, it was only natural that Hillary Clinton's announcement that the United States was looking at a shift on Burma policy didn't get much play in the news. The country's repressive regime hasn't gotten the kind of attention here that other countries with human rights challenges have, like Sudan. The U.S. has been hitting Burma's junta with economic sanctions, recently strengthened, to no avail. Now, Clinton won't won't rule out the easing of sanctions or direct diplomacy. It's a somewhat intractable problem, Burma, and it's complicated by the fact that Congress may not be all that interested in undoing its recent strengthening of those sanctions. The Washington Post this morning editorialized on the subject: "PRESIDENT OBAMA'S inaugural address made the world's tyrants a proposition. 'We will extend a hand,' Mr. Obama said, 'if you are willing to unclench your fist.' It now appears that Burma could be one of the first test cases for this approach." As the Post notes, there's been no fist unclenching it can detect. |
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| 20.02.2009 |
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| It's very interesting to behold most of the headlines about President Obama's trip to Canada. "Obama reassures Canada on open trade," the way Reuters went, was typical. Usually, the stories include an emphasis up high on the pro-trade message Obama sent: "'Now is a time where we have to be very careful about any signals of protectionism,' Obama told a joint news conference after several hours of talks with [Canadian Prime Minister Stephen] Harper on his one-day visit to Ottawa. 'And as obviously one of the largest economies in the world, it's important for us to make sure that we are showing leadership in the belief that trade ultimately is beneficial to all countries,' he said. He stressed the United States would meet its international trade obligations and told Harper he wanted to 'grow trade not contract it.'" By contrast, I liked the "but wait" approach taken by The Guardian. Its headline instead reads, "President Barack Obama raises Nafta renegotiation during first official visit to Canada." Obama, the paper wrote, "tried to square a campaign pledge to renegotiate the agreement while at the same time avoid sparking a trade war with Canada. Obama told reporters at the press conference in Ottawa he wanted to begin talks on adding provisions to the agreement relating to workers and to the environment. 'My hope is as our advisers and staffs and economic teams work this through that there's a way of doing this that is not disruptive to the extraordinarily important trade relationship that exists between the two countries,' he said." This is going to be a very difficult balancing act. On the campaign trail, Obama threatened to pull out of the trade agreement within six months unless it was renegotiated, and he cited a variety of concerns, many of them coming from skepticism that NAFTA had benefited the United States. It's one thing to express opposition on Thursday to "protectionism," but unless Obama is prepared to ditch his campaign pledge, his stance on renegotiating NAFTA will one day soon send exactly the opposite "signals." |
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| 18.02.2009 |
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| Yes. So. Yesterday I was raising questions about whether President Bush and President Obama are very different on foreign policy -- or, more correctly, I was pointing you to points raised by others. Today, a contrasting view must be offered. The 17,000 troops Obama plans to deploy to Afghanistan is a very, very different approach toward that country. Certainly, Bush shifted some troops there several months ago. But this is a far bigger deployment, signaling a big break on one major issue from Bush on foreign policy. By itself, the move doesn't rebut the point of the points made by Stratfor that I linked to yesterday. There is still, in many categories, "continuity" between Bush and Obama. But as of today, there is one fewer. |
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| 16.02.2009 |
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| I wrote a piece for CQPolitics.com about how there are many areas of intelligence policy where President Obama is either much the same as President Bush or has left open the option of doing much the same as his predecessor: rendition, interrogation, surveillance, etc. You can read it here. But the trend apparently extends to the entire international arena. At least, that's the implication of a Strafor piece you can read here. It argues of Vice President Biden's speech in Munich: "Most conference attendees were looking forward to a dramatic shift in U.S. foreign policy under the Obama administration. What was interesting about Biden’s speech was how little change there has been in the U.S. position and how much the attendees and the media were cheered by it." |
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| 15.02.2009 |
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| I could write a dozen blog entries on the latest annual "Worldwide Threat" briefing -- there's something in there about a great many countries, and various pieces of it have been broken out about India, Latin America and everywhere else -- or I could just point you to it in case you haven't seen it yet. It's here. |
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| 13.02.2009 |
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| The new U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, had to deal with a setback on her first significant issue at the UN. Libya defeated unanimous support for a U.S. draft proposal that would have condemned the increasing civilian deaths in Sudan's Darfur region and would have implicated the Sudanese government. "We had hoped to have a presidential statement that would have spoken with one voice in condemning the ongoing violence," Rice told the AP calling the situation in Darfur "ongoing genocide." The episode shows that even an administration with a multilaterialist bent, and a decidely more positive view of the United Nations than the Bush administration, doesn't necessarily guarantee progress on intractable issues. |
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| 13.02.2009 |
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| Just to follow up on Michael's post, it is not just the lack of travel to Europe by Hillary Clinton that is worth a little examination. It very much appears that President Obama will not, after all, give a policy speech in a Muslim capital in his first 100 days, an idea that the campaign had mulled at one point. Of course, he did give his first interview to a Middle East news outlet, which perhaps had a similar effect: communicating that Obama would pay close attention to and open a dialogue of sorts with the Muslim world. And you can't exactly call it a broken campaign pledge, because it was only ever a discussion by aides that was reported by the New York Times. There's a secondary question of whether Obama will follow through on a proposal to hold a summit with Muslim leaders. |
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| 12.02.2009 |
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| Is Hillary Clinton dissing China because she will kick off her Asia tour in Japan and visit China last? Or is it a sign that she is bowing to Asia's increasing power and thereby dissing Europe? It's fun to interpret travel plans, but I think both of the assertions above read too much into the Secretary of State's itinerary. If Clinton left out China on her trip that could truly be considered a slight of the country. She isn't. And there's also another way of looking at it. By visiting China last, her talks in Beijing will probably have the most lasting news impact of the entire trip. Example: Barack Obama's trip last year to Europe and the Middle East. He travelled to the Middle East first and also to France and Britain, but what do you most remember about the trip? His speech in Berlin, even though he really didn't spend all that much time in the German capital. What does that mean? Ultimately, content not the sequence of countries visited or time spent in capitals matters. That's also the reason why Clinton's trip to Asia is by no means a slight for Europe. Just a few days ago Vice President Joe Biden delivered a major speech about the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda at the Munich Security Forum. And in April, President Obama himself is expected in Germany and France for the NATO summit. Therefore, it makes sense that Hillary Clinton visits Asia first. If she hadn't, Asia rightly could have felt slighted. |
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| 11.02.2009 |
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| Unlike the previous administration, the Obama administration's support for a planned missile defense system in Eastern Europe is luke warm at best. Even before the inauguration, the incoming administration said it would review the plans, a clear signal that a shift in direction on the issue was coming. Recently, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated the policy shift in favor of a possible sweeping nuclear arms reduction deal and better relations with Russia. Fair enough. But then why try to create a nexus - as Secretary Clinton did - between Iran's "behavior" and the setting up of the missile shield after having all but announced that the missile shield had been shelved? You can't signal the Russians and the Europeans that the missile shield is history, and at the same time want to use it as a stick vis-à-vis Tehran. That's simply not credible and therefore not exactly a stellar diplomatic moment. |
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| 11.02.2009 |
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| Because I've returned to the subject from time to time, this Walter Pincus piece on the question of shifting responsibilities back from the Pentagon to State is worth reading. Noteworthy: The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also thinks that foreign policy has become too "militarized." But having folk in the military world on board so as to avoid turf wars is just step one in the transition. Even in ideal circumstances, and these are not ideal circumstances, it's going to be hard to scale back the Pentagon role in favor of State and other agencies. Funding is another part of the equation, and that won't be easy. Yet another, which I hadn't thought of until reading the piece, is the idea that Defense has a unique culture that makes it easier for it to perform overseas roles. "Although the problem is recognized, [Adm. Michael] Mullen said, 'We're a good decade away before we've created . . . the capacity and the career paths [for] young people who will come into the Agriculture Department and say, 'Part of my life is, I expect to go to Afghanistan for a year out of every four or five.' . . .That is not what they thought their career path would include at this point.'" |
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| 10.02.2009 |
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| In an interview I did with Moisés Naím about Barack Obama's international agenda and Europe's stance toward it the Editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy called on Europe to start helping the U.S. instead of merely applauding the new president. You can read the interview here. |
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| 10.02.2009 |
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| On Monday, President Obama announced a 60-day review of federal cybersecurity programs. It was but the latest uptick in federal government concentration on protecting computer networks. Given increasing reliance on those computer networks, it's already unsurprising that there would be an increasing focus on cybersecurity as an intelligence issue. The campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain were hacked at one point, and recently news surfaced of breaches in Congress' cyber defenses. Both nominees to Obama administration top administration posts told the Senate that cybersecurity was high on their list of issues, and the last director of National Intelligence said it was one area he wishes he was further along on before stepping down. The future of what the United States will do on this front is ambiguous, but it's clear that the attention is only going to increase. In fiscal 2009, the top item in the intelligence budget was a cybersecurity initiative, according to the House Intelligence Committee. And Reuters reported: "Industry executives say the sector will be one of their fastest-growing markets in coming years, and analysts say it could generate over $10 billion in contracts by 2013." |
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| 09.02.2009 |
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| Vice President Joe Biden's speech at the Munich Security Conference was generally well received. The AP thought Biden hit most of the right notes. Europeans liked what they heard. And the Russians were also warmed by Biden's remarks. But that's not the whole story. An analyst for the BBC pointed out that Biden's speech was applauded around the globe, the proof whether it signalled a new world order was still outstanding. In a similar vain, Politico argued that Biden, despite his conciliatory tone, returned home with no concrete results. Even more negatively were conservative commentators such as Nile Gardiner, who in his blog for the Daily Telegraph, called the speech weak-kneed and criticized the Obama administration for ceasing to use the phrase war on terror. In his blog for The Heritage Foundation, he wrote Biden gave "one of the weakest projections of U.S. leadership on foreign soil in recent memory." The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol called it vague and underwhelming. While the wish to reap instant results after a speech that was intended to break with the rhetoric and policy of the Bush administration is understandable, it is unrealistic. Just because of Biden's speech, Russia will not immediately reverse its stance on Iran, Georgia or U.S. missile defense. And neither will Germany all of sudden commit to sending more troops to Afghanistan. But without such a speech, offering a new partnership, there wouldn't be even an impetus for any of those steps to take place. Now the ball has been passed back to America's partners and adversaries. As for the criticism that Biden's speech was one of the weakest projections of U.S. Leadership, I am not sure that, at a time when America's economy and global image is lying in tatters and after eight years in which power projection appeared to many to be Washington's main political tool, the projection of U.S. leadership on foreign soil is what would be deemed very helpful right now. |
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| 06.02.2009 |
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| For all foreign policy and international affairs buffs, the plans for this weekend are clear. Check out what's happening at Munich's Security Conference. The event is for the first time being headed by Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany's former ambassador to Washington. There should not be any shortage of topics and there certainly is not shortage of high-ranking politicans. Just have a look at the opening night line up here. Obviously one of the highlights of the trip will be the outline of President Barack Obama's foreign policy plans by Vice President Joe Biden on his first trip abroad after taking office. You can watch the live stream of the conference here. |
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| 06.02.2009 |
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| Ex-vice president Dick Cheney's interview this week has been discussed nearly to death, but there's a point I haven't seen raised about this quote: "When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry." Obviously, Miranda rights don't enter into this, so Cheney is talking generally here about rights vs. security. But Republicans always say that's a false choice, and that the controversial programs of the Bush administration both protected rights and ensured security. So is Cheney now saying that security trumps rights? It's possible he's resorting to administration legal arguments that terrorists fundamentally don't have rights, and not saying you have to pick between security and the rights of citizens. But it's ambiguous enough that it made me wonder if, outside the message-massaging Bush White House, whether Cheney honestly has always thought you have to sacrifice one to get the other. (That's an argument anyone is welcome to have, but it's a different argument altogether.) That's the way Obama administration CIA pick Leon Panetta took it, anyway, at the confirmation hearing I attended today: "I was disappointed by those comments, because the implication is that somehow this country is more vulnerable to attack because the president of the United States wants to abide by the law and the Constitution. I think we’re a stronger nation when we abide by the law and the Constitution." |
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| 05.02.2009 |
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| In an interview I did with Jimmy Wales, the Wikipedia founder talks about Google's Knol, why Wikipedia is so big in Germany and why he wouldn't want to trade with the founders of Facebook and Google. And Wales also talks about his recent call from the Obama transition team and why he likes Jimmy Carter. You can read the interview here. |
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| 04.02.2009 |
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| Judd Gregg's selection for Commerce secretary closes the loop on a subject I've written about in this space a couple times. The Obama administration has filled some key trade-related positions with people who are on all sides of the trade debate, and I'd wondered whether the president would replace the departed pro-"free trader" Bill Richardson with someone who's more in the "fair trade" camp. Nope. Obama could hardly have picked a more pro-free trade Commerce secretary. In the past 15 years or so, Gregg has voted against only one major free trade deal. You can check out his entire record here. |
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| 03.02.2009 |
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| I did an interview with Reid Hoffman, founder and CEO of Linkedin at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Here's what he had to say about President Barack Obama's first days in office: "I think he has been very good at being focused. That's extraordinarily important. From what I can see and I don't have inside information, but I can see him focusing on two things. One is stimulus package and fixing the economy. And he is soliciting ideas very broadly about how to do that well, which is very good, because it's open to a variety of new ideas. And the second one is the U.S. reputation internationally and communicating in the most tangible, possible way: We are a member of the world order, not ignoring it, not running roughshot over it. So I think those are the exact right things to focus on. You have to get to a bunch of other ones later, but those are the right two things to start focusing on." |
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| 03.02.2009 |
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| We link, you decide. AFP: "US President Barack Obama has already used experts within the last few months to hold high-level but discreet talks with both Iran and Syria, organizers of the meetings told AFP." Mere Rhetoric: "Any meetings that happened between November and the inauguration - that was merely Obama circumventing and potentially undermining a sitting Commander In Chief." The Cable: "'All the reports that say ‘Obama talks secretly with Iran' are wrong,' Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, the secretary general of Pugwash and the key mover behind the dialogue told The Cable Monday. 'These were not official negotiations. First of all, the dates of all our meetings were in 2008,' when the Bush administration was still in power." |
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| 02.02.2009 |
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| A "Buy American" provision in the stimulus has provoked a heated debate inside and outside Congress, with even the Obama administration taking two seemingly different stances. ABC News has the best take on the domestic dispute. The International Herald Tribune has the best take on the international backlash. It's still early, but with fire coming from a few different directions over this bill, enough opposition to the provision could force its removal, lest it threaten to help sink the overall legislation. There is some divide over this issue domestically, and many past Buy American feuds have ended in a standstill -- although that was in a different economic environment. |
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| 01.02.2009 |
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| Yes, it's a trend, at least of perception. No more question marks, like the one that accompanies a recent post. There is at least a significant segment of the left that views the Obama foreign policy team as hawkish, whether it is or not. That, in fact, is the very premise of this AlterNet piece. The author, Stephen Zunes, views essentially every Obama pick on foreign policy as highly interested in military intervention, and explains why. One way of looking at it, which even Zunes acknowledges, is that Obama establishes his non-ideological approach to things by picking people who lean right (or lean more right than some of the left would like). Why does this matter, beyond the mere labels of things? Because if enough progressives mount complaints like this, it could have an impact on the shaping of policy. It is at least arguable that pressure from progressives already derailed the prospective nomination of John Brennan as director of the CIA. And Zunes spells out the strategy: "Another reason that an Obama administration will not likely be as far to the right as these appointments may imply is that his electoral base – energized by popular opposition to the Iraq War – is perhaps the most progressive in history when it comes to foreign policy. It is also the most engaged and organized base the party has ever seen. Once the relief of Bush's departure and the glow of Obama's inauguration has worn off, he will have to face the millions of people responsible for his election who will expect him to keep his word regarding 'change you can believe in'... As a result, what may be most important will not be the people that Obama appoints, but the choices we give them." |
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