| 31.10.2008 |
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| I’m reminded yet again by an ad war in Virginia that foreign policy and national security are sometimes highly-localized issues. I’ve written about this phenomenon before here. In Virginia, the Pentagon is a prominent local employer. As such, the question of who would provide the most defense spending isn’t only about whether we’re safe from foreign enemies; it’s also about jobs. To make their case, Republicans have leaned on retiring Sen. John Warner, who touts McCain. “I'm confident as our next president, he will continue to support and champion the historic role of the state of Virgina in our nation's defense,” Warner says in an advertisement highlighted by Politico’s Jonathan Martin. Warner is a highly-respected voice on defense issues as a recent former chairman of the Armed Services Committee; he’s immensely popular in his homestate of Virginia; and he has a reputation as someone who doesn’t make partisan attacks.* All three make the advertisement highly significant in a state where polls show McCain trailing. In his own advertisement highlighted by Martin’s colleague Ben Smith, Obama counters a false attack the McCain campaign has been making that Obama intends to cut defense spending by leaning on one of McCain’s own advisers. “John McCain’s gotten so desperate, he'll say anything. His defense spending attack -- it's a lie.” The ad quotes McCain military adviser Robert Kagan: “Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines to fight terrorism.” It's just the tip of the iceberg of the ad war underway there on this very issue. And in addition to the other examples I provided before, the Obama campaign has recently been running ads in Indiana, which has a heavily manufacturing-based economy, highlighting McCain's pro-free trade stance and claiming it would lead to jobs being shipped overseas. How strange would it be if, in a couple key swing states, foreign policy ended up being the deciding issue in an election ostensibly about the economy? (*Notably, Warner himself refrains from making the false allegation about Obama’s plans for defense spending, instead paraphrasing recent remarks from a prominent House member, Barney Frank. “Barack Obama’s liberal colleagues in Congress announced they will cut defense spending by 25%,” Warner says, although from the remarks it seems Frank was only talking about what he wanted to do, not what he would do or what anyone else would want to do. “Fellow Virginians, cuts in the defense budget will weaken Virginia's economy, weaken national defense.” It’s an upgrade from the false attacks on Obama’s intentions. Why not let voters decide if they’re comfortable with Obama in office if some [or even just one] Democrats want to cut defense spending, instead of making stuff up entirely?) |
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| 31.10.2008 |
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| I’ve written repeatedly in this space – in my very first post back in April and plenty more since the economic crisis began to take root – about the links between the economy and foreign policy on the campaign trail. Per the Washington Post Thursday, John McCain is trying to make more of an argument out of it. The argument, though, was a little muddled. "Raising taxes and unilaterally renegotiating trade agreements as they have promised would make a bad economy even worse, and undermine our national security, even as they slash defense spending," McCain said in a speech. "At least when European nations chose the path of higher taxes and cutting defense, they knew that their security would still be guaranteed by America. But if America takes the same path, who will guarantee our security?" As the Post notes, Barack Obama has not proposed cutting the defense budget. He has proposed cutting specific programs, as has McCain but overall, he’s always made it clear that defense spending would increase somewhat under his administration. But McCain also failed to make an interesting point very explicitly with his remarks – that if the economy suffers, so does the United States’ security. A writer for the National Review did a better job of it recently. McCain has argued before that raising taxes – setting aside the question of whether Obama wants that – would hurt the economy, but just reading that quote, it’s hard to understand why McCain thinks that higher taxes would hurt national security in turn. Additionally, there is an argument McCain could make that Obama’s stance on trade agreements could hurt the country both economically and on the world stage – again, setting aside the question of whether McCain is right – but McCain doesn’t make that case very explicitly. And he doesn’t really elaborate on any of this in his speech. The Post notes that Obama also has tried to link the economy on national security. “We can't afford another president who ignores the fundamentals of our economy while running up record deficits to fight a war without end in Iraq,” he said. That’s a clearer message, more easily understood. Generally, both candidates have been effective at times in making the link between international and economic issues. “Both candidates have also made it clear that economic issues loom large on the international agenda for the next four years,” the Post wrote. “Both pledge to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. And although neither has sketched out a detailed plan for dealing with the international economic crisis, one of the early challenges facing a new administration will be how to restructure international economic institutions.” McCain’s latest message is not an example of that, and it may be too little, too late, but I’ve always wondered why McCain didn’t try more often to link domestic issues to what is commonly thought of as his strength on foreign policy issues. |
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| 30.10.2008 |
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| On Tuesday, GQ’s Robert Draper published a blog post that quoted a top official with John McCain’s campaign amplifying on the defense of Sarah Palin’s international experience -- which is that Alaska is close to Russia -- by saying that Alaska and Russia have had “like, fishing disputes.” It is true that there have been fishing disputes in the region. It’s not a tiny sum at stake: Fishing for Alaskan pollock is a billion dollar industry, and the pollock catches constitute “the largest human-food fishery in the world,” according to the Los Angeles Times. As those fish began to migrate toward Russia, tensions have escalated; the U.S. is worried about Russian poaching of the fish and mafia influence in the fish trade, as well as Russian opposition to U.S. scientists studying the phenomenon. On the other hand, it’s not exactly been World War III, or whichever World War number is in vogue these days. After the broader, non-fishing specific Palin-Russia argument became prominent, a reporter who worked in the region a couple years ago wrote of a trip aboard a Coast Guard vessel: “Every once in a while, a Russian fishing boat would appear on the boat's radar, and the Coasties would have to board and inspect it. At that point, he would be called upon to translate. But this didn't happen very often. I asked him what he did the rest of the time. ‘I lift weights,’ he replied. ‘And play a lot of poker'... I guess the Alaskan-Russian front was more exciting than I remember it being -- I mostly recall seeing a lot of whales.” So even if it was an issue Palin had gotten involved in, it certainly doesn’t suggest Palin had acquired any major international experience in dealing with it. But as it happens, I searched far and wide for any evidence that Palin had gotten involved in the fishing dispute, to no avail. On the contrary, I only found evidence that she had not been. Slate’s Fred Kaplan wrote in September, when the Palin-Russia argument was first being trotted out at length: “There are no issues between the United States and Russia in this region, except for the occasional tussle over fishing rights (in which, even so, Gov. Palin has never involved herself).” The McCain campaign, and conservatives generally, have tested a lot of different messages by way of explaining how Palin has the foreign policy experience necessary. In fact, a conservative strategist apparently unaffiliated with the McCain campaign trotted out the “fishing dispute” argument all the way back in September, but no one took it seriously, except a liberal blog or two that mocked it. They might have been better off just picking one story and sticking to it, because they come in for a fresh round of mockery every time they throw out a new explanation. The reason is because Palin has no substantial foreign policy experience, and it’s just not possible to explain her into having it. And the McCain campaign knows it. Draper also recently wrote that he was sympathetic to a pair of campaign aides who had remained loyal by not “leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me -- namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues.” |
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| 29.10.2008 |
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| A handful of outlets, since John McCain called for Sen. Ted Stevens to step down following his conviction at his corruption trial, have made mention of the fact that the two have fought over earmarks. That has been the biggest source of animosity between the two, but not the only one, a search of my full-time employer CQ’s records shows. Indeed, a close second are two fights the pair have had over respective pet issues with a national security bent. One of Stevens’ biggest legislative goals has been to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in his home state of Alaska to oil exploration. When Stevens tried to add a provision to that effect to a Pentagon spending bill in 2005, McCain called the maneuver “disgusting.” Likewise, Stevens tried to stand in the way of a McCain provision to ban cruel and inhuman treatment of terror suspects during consideration of the same bill. Stevens wasn’t as vociferous in his language toward McCain’s pet item as McCain was toward his, perhaps because he knew momentum was against him. “I asked him if we could take it out, and he said no,” Stevens said in his role as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. “It does seem to me that he has the votes.” There have been other conflicts, too. The earmarks feud between the two has sometimes spilled into Pentagon spending. Again in 2005, McCain called earmarks in the Defense spending bill (that Stevens helped negotiate) for non-defense projects like parks and museums “obscene” and “disgraceful.” And after a furor erupted over the award of an Air Force tanker contract that benefited a European company (EADS) instead of U.S.-based Boeing, Democrats tried to pin the blame on McCain, who had fought attempts to steer the contract toward Boeing because, he said, taxpayers deserved an open competition to see who could do the job best with their dollars. Along the way, McCain and Stevens again crossed swords. Wrote CQ’s John Donnelly this year: “McCain led the way in 2004 to block a no-competition contract for 100 Boeing 767 passenger aircraft that were to be modified as military tankers. That proposal was championed by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who now is preparing legislation that would give Boeing an undefined piece of the new contract.” There have been smaller skirmishes between the men on national security issues, such as how best to free radio spectrum up for the use of first responders like police and firefighters who would need it in the event of a terror attack. And much of their skirmishing died down once Democrats took control of Congress again in 2006; they even have lent support to each others’ reelection campaigns. But that doesn’t mean the relationship has been warm. When it appeared that McCain was on the verge of winning the GOP presidential nomination, CQ’s Kathleen Hunter wrote, Stevens was asked whether conservatives would rally to support McCain. “They’ll have nowhere else to go,” he answered coolly. |
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| 26.10.2008 |
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| Couple days late on this, but passing it along in case anyone missed it: Sarah Palin's stylist makes more than John McCain's foreign policy adviser. There's not much to it; sure, one could raise questions about Republican hypocrisy for attacks on John Edwards' expensive haircuts, or questions about whether the McCain campaign values style of substance. It's an amusing diversion at best, any way you cut it. I wouldn't even mention it in this space if it wasn't foreign policy-related. But amusing diversions on the foreign policy front have been few and far between this year. |
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| 25.10.2008 |
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| And so, in the stretch run, foreign policy is thrust back onto center stage. One of the McCain campaign’s three major messages in the final days of the election will be to highlight the remarks of Joe Biden that Barack Obama will be tested on the international stage early on in his presidency. “We will focus like a laser on those messages in the closing days,” a McCain campaign aide told the Washington Post in a Friday story, with the other two chief messages being that Democratic control of Congress and the White House is dangerous and Obama’s remarks to “Joe the Plumber” about “spread[ing] the wealth.” Biden was supposed to bolster Obama’s foreign policy credentials, but instead he has given John McCain some of his best ammunition to attack Obama on that front. Obama tried to wriggle out of it by saying that Biden was referring to the next president, no matter who it would be. It’s my own estimation that adversaries of the United States would want to test either Obama or McCain early, but it’s also pretty clear from Biden’s original remarks that he was referring explicitly to Obama. He said: “The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.” Now, it is true that Biden, despite saying that Obama would need “help,” also has strongly argued that Obama is equipped to pass the test. But it’s ironic that on the subject Biden was meant to strengthen the ticket, he has instead handed weaponry to the opposing campaign to aid their concluding attack. |
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| 24.10.2008 |
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| I’ve written before about how Barack Obama, John McCain and President Bush have been playing a three-way game of tag on foreign policy subjects like Iraq and Iran. In each of those instances, though, at no time was the trio really ever on the same page, and certainly not without a bunch of feudin' and cussin' first. Now they are all magically as one, as of this month -- on the idea of meeting with moderate elements of the Taliban. Says Obama, per Time magazine: “The Sunni awakening changed the dynamic in Iraq fundamentally. It could not have occurred unless there were some contacts and intermediaries to peel off those who are tribal leaders, regional leaders, Sunni nationalists, from a more radical, messianic brand of insurgency. Whether there are those same opportunities in Afghanistan I think should be explored.” Says Gen. David Petreaus, per Reuters: “If there are people who are willing to reconcile (with the government), then that would be a positive step in some of these areas that have actually been spiraling downward.” Says McCain, per a McCain campaign source who spoke to Wired’s Danger Room, via Noah Shachtman: “There are differences over timing, strategy, etc. But there is consensus that at some point there will need to be an effort to talk with some of these [Taliban] guys and peel off more moderate elements.” "There are differences?" So maybe this time, they'll all start off on the same page, then end up going opposite directions. |
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| 23.10.2008 |
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| Not so long ago, John McCain jumped all over Barack Obama after a Hamas leader said he would prefer to see Obama win the 2008 election. Now, with the tables turned after the Washington Post reported on Al Qaeda websites cheering for a McCain victory, the McCain camp finds itself in a very peculiar position. The most important thing in all of this is that neither Hamas’ endorsement of Obama based on what THAT terrorist organization thinks Obama would do to aid its cause, nor Al Qaeda’s endorsement of McCain based on what THAT terrorist organization thinks McCain would do to aid the cause, reflects on the candidates themselves. Hamas thinks Palestinians would fare better under an Obama administration in negotiations with Israel. At least some in Al Qaeda think that McCain would continue the policies of President Bush, which would advance Al Qaeda’s aims of keeping the United States in a draw-out war that the U.S. would ultimately lose. But Hamas doesn’t speak for Obama, and Al Qaeda doesn’t speak for McCain. Only Obama and McCain and officials affiliated with their campaigns speak for Obama and McCain. Voters should feel free to consider whether Hamas or Al Qaeda are right about Obama and McCain, but when considering the policies of the two candidates, they’d be better off going straight to the source. That said, the shoe being on the other foot has been an uncomfortable fit for the McCain campaign. Randy Scheunemann, McCain's top foreign policy adviser, responded in part Wednesday by rejecting the Post story and arguing that the terrorists actually support Obama, not McCain. That argument got no sympathy from the Tribune’s Washington bureau. “I'm not sure Scheunemann win many points from the fair-minded by doing to the Democratic presidential nominee the exact same thing he excoriated the Post for doing to McCain,” wrote The Swamp’s Frank James. |
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| 22.10.2008 |
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| Joe Biden gave Republicans an opening to attack Barack Obama on the foreign policy front recently with his remarks that the world is likely to “test the mettle of this guy” and “he’s gonna need help.” Biden was brought on to the campaign in large part to provide that help, but surely speaking about it in those terms is not what the Obama campaign had in mind. The National Review examines the remarks from one perspective – the right – and Think Progress, from the left, digs up an example of a surrogate for John McCain who said much the same thing. Starting with Think Progress: the organization found a video of Joe Lieberman noting that “our enemies will test the new president early.” But Lieberman doesn’t think McCain would need any help, so the video, while countering some of the Republican arguments, doesn’t counter the fundamental one that McCain is ready if that test comes, and Obama is not. Aside from the question of who’s going to be ready, one thing that is noteworthy here is that there’s recent historical evidence that the next president will indeed be tested, with the last two presidents encountering challenges from Al Qaeda in their first years on the job. And there are older examples of this, too. The National Review elaborates on Biden invoking John F. Kennedy, noting that after his first meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, Kennedy admitted, “He just beat the hell out of me. I’ve got a terrible problem if he thinks I’m inexperienced and have no guts.” That would be a terrible problem for Obama if other world leaders thought that, too, even if the Think Progress team notes, plausibly, that “showing strength,” excessively, got the United States into Iraq. One suspects that the United States’ enemies would go after any new leader of the country, and maybe Republicans can make a solid argument that with his experience and guts, McCain will be better prepared for it than Obama. The experience side, anyway, suggests an advantage for McCain. It is on the question of whose policies are best that the argument is grayer. (As an aside, one of the most interesting things discussed in the pieces above comes at the beginning of the National Review piece, where the author makes a valid point about how the economic crisis and foreign policy are linked: “Our country’s national security is inextricably linked to our economic vitality — especially in an increasingly interconnected world. In order to project power, we must have the ability to build wealth at home.”) |
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| 21.10.2008 |
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| What took so long? The attitude of the presidential candidates toward two continents gets some overdue attention from news organizations, with Congressional Quarterly examining the Asia policies of Barack Obama and John McCain and the Voice of America examining their Africa policies. My CQ colleague Josh Rogin finds that the approaches of the two candidates toward Asia breaks down very much along the lines of their overarching foreign policy views. McCain favors “preaching democracy to adversaries in the region while at the same time prioritizing alliances over engagement with competitors in the region,” while Obama “leans toward more pragmatic strategies stressing incremental progress on regional security issues.” The piece focuses on North Korea, China and Japan. VOA concludes that “Washington's foreign policy, whether under a President John McCain or a President Barack Obama would be almost identical to that of President George W. Bush.” Where there is a difference, experts concluded, it is that Obama has shown a tendency to be a little tougher toward Africa over its own problems, such over Darfur. A political science professor from New York does another take here. Meanwhile, McClatchy and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel take a very long look at the candidates’ overarching attitudes toward foreign policy, in particular focusing on the hottest topics in the campaign. McClatchy’s ace team of Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay also go in-depth on McCain and Obama running mate Joe Biden. None of these stories reveal anything particularly surprising. But what they do is condense mountains of material for readers – in the case of the McClatchy and Journal-Sentinel pieces -- or go in-depth for them on subjects that haven’t previously been explored at length – in the case of the CQ and VOA pieces. |
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| 20.10.2008 |
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| The economy may be foremost on the electorate’s mind, but for two voter groups, foreign policy-related issues appear to be heavily influential, and they could be with a third group, too. In turn, those voters can be influential on the entirety of the presidential race. Barack Obama is the favored candidate among Jewish voters by a 30 percent margin, but that margin climbs to 40 percent among Jewish voters who rank Israel “very high” among their priorities in evaluating presidential candidates. Given Obama’s periodic knack for remarks about Israel that have upset some supporters of the country, that is particularly surprising; the Jerusalem Post has the details on both that phenomenon and the poll itself here. Obama has also fared well among Latino Protestants, a group President Bush won over in 2004, and according to a poll that measured that community, increasingly anti-immigration GOP rhetoric and policy stances are partly to blame. Again, this is something of a surprise, considering that McCain’s record on immigration is more moderate than that of the majority of his party’s elected leaders in Washington. Reuters breaks it all down here. And Asian-American voters, some of whom pay close attention to U.S.-Asia relations, “could hold the White House key,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Catering to Asian-American voters’ interests in overseas affairs is complicated, as I wrote about here, but there’s anecdotal evidence that Asian-American voters do pay attention to foreign policy issues that affect the countries from which they trace their heritage. Which may explain why McCain was putting out statements last week on North Korea and Taiwan. “If either campaign is looking for a place to get an extra one or two percentage points, Asian Americans are not a bad place to get it.” Taeku Lee, an associate professor of political science at the University of California-Berkeley, told the Journal. |
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| 19.10.2008 |
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| The U.S. presidential candidates haven’t spent much time lately talking about Europe, but the continent made a cameo on the campaign trail this weekend. John McCain this weekend compared Barack Obama to socialist leaders across the pond: "Barack Obama's tax plan would convert the (Internal Revenue Service) into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington," he said. "At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives." But then, isn’t everyone a little less of a pure free marketer these days? Even if that's not the way they want it to be? “John McCain is so out of touch with the struggles you are facing that he must be the first politician in history to call a tax cut for working people ‘welfare,’” answered Obama. |
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| 17.10.2008 |
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| While contemplating ways the financial crisis is affecting foreign policy in this presidential campaign – aside from the fact that the candidates are spending a lot less time on international affairs than they might otherwise – I thought back to something Joe Biden said during his debate with Sarah Palin. Asked what spending programs a Barack Obama administration might set aside because of the financial crisis, Biden remarked: “The one thing we might have to slow down is a commitment we made to double foreign assistance. We'll probably have to slow that down.” Obama had pledged last year to double foreign aid to $50 billion by 2012, “arguing that improvements in stability and living conditions in poor nations would reduce the appeal of terrorism abroad and bolster the security of Americans at home,” according to McClatchy and USA Today. In fact, foreign aid spending would not necessarily increase under John McCain, either. His proposal for an across-the-board spending freeze would exclude some programs – Defense dollars, for example – but McCain did not say foreign aid would be allowed to increase. It’s already going to be hard for the next president to get on the rest of the world’s good side, and the financial crisis hasn’t exactly helped U.S.-world relations, either. But a reduced emphasis on foreign aid spending also means less of a chance to do what Sen. Dick Lugar said the next president needs to do more of, and what Obama’s foreign aid proposal was meant to accomplish: take steps to head off future problems by addressing them at their root now. As it happens, the Council on Foreign Relations was thinking along the same lines, I discovered in researching this proposition. They make some additional points here. |
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| 16.10.2008 |
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| One of the most respected voices on foreign policy in the United States gave some advice to the next president Wednesday, not that much of anyone noticed. And while not everyone agrees with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar on all of his positions, few would dispute he knows of which he speaks. His message, ultimately, was that many of the foreign crises of the last few years and the next few years might be averted by a more forward-looking foreign policy. What few news outlets that covered Lugar’s speech took assorted different messages from it. CQ saw Lugar siding with Barack Obama by “part[ing] ways with his party’s presidential nominee Wednesday by endorsing Democrat Barack Obama’s approach to diplomacy,” although Congressional Quarterly also noted that John McCain “is right to warn that ‘there are times when diplomatic approaches to rogue regimes have little efficacy.’” The Times of Northwest Indiana, Lugar’s home state, wrote that Lugar “called Tuesday for the next U.S. president to be ‘relentless’ in pursuing national energy security by developing wind power, cellulosic ethanol and other renewable energy sources.” Both takes are fundamentally accurate. What I found most interesting about Lugar’s speech was the way he used specific examples of how the United States and a rival, Russia, have laid the groundwork for future success. Lugar singled out the India nuclear deal Congress recently approved as a way in which the United States has ensured continued friendship with an emerging world power that will be fundamental to future U.S. aims in the world. Likewise, he said, “history may record Russia’s unchecked movement toward an energy supply monopoly over our European allies, as one of the most damaging foreign policy developments of the post-Cold War era.” Lugar has some specific remedies worth examining here. |
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| 15.10.2008 |
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| At the final debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, this exchange is almost certain to happen again: Obama says McCain wants to give tax breaks to oil companies. McCain says Obama already did. Obama says he didn’t want to. This USA Today piece is the best I’ve seen all year about tax policy toward oil companies. It gets into the nitty gritty about how oil companies are taxed now, what a windfall profits tax would do and how this all compares to taxation of other industries. It details the records and proposals of both candidates, so you can come out of the debate knowing for a fact that McCain’s tax plan would give breaks to oil companies, albeit incidentally, and that Obama did indeed vote for tax cuts for oil companies already. The article leaves out that Obama's support of the tax cuts was just as incidental as McCain's, because he voted for the overall bill that contained them, despite his opposition to them. |
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| 13.10.2008 |
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| If you thought Sarah Palin’s steady debate performance would put an end to her foreign policy missteps for good, you were mistaken. After John McCain came out against removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Palin said: “Condoleezza Rice, of course, having worked on this strategy for quite some time—I have faith in her that they're making this wise decision and North Korea, of course, better live up to its end of the bargain there.” The McCain campaign tried to explain away the gulf thusly: “Governor Palin's position is identical to Senator McCain's: the verification steps are not sufficient to date to warrant North Korea's removal for the state sponsors of terror list. ... She believes Secretary Rice and the Bush administration are wise to pursue diplomacy and that is what she meant.” Except McCain’s rejection of Rice’s decision is the very opposite of having faith in Rice’s wise decision. At no point was it apparent from her remarks that Palin was talking generally about diplomacy. This is not her first contradiction of McCain, with that honor going to her repeated contradiction of the presidential candidate on whether to cross over into Pakistan to hunt Al Qaeda. If it's a disagreement on the issues -- such as her stance on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge -- why not just chalk it up to the "team of mavericks," as she did there? No, this appears to just be a lack of familiarity with her campaign's stance on North Korea. |
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| 11.10.2008 |
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| Add another item to the list of world grievances with the United States the next president will have to deal with: Blame for the expanding global economic crisis. Whether it’s Barack Obama or John McCain, the new president already is going to have to grapple with a severely diminished U.S. reputation abroad. The Bush years, I learn anew every time I travel to another country and talk to people there, have made the rest of the world hostile toward America. Now, the financial crisis has led to yet more resentment. “German Peer Steinbrück, points a sharp finger of blame at the United States, telling parliament recently that it is ‘the source’ and ‘the focus’ of the crisis,” wrote the Christian Science Monitor. “British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was quick to point the finger last week. ‘This problem started in America. They have got to sort it out,’ he said then,” reported ABC News. In many cases, that criticism of the U.S. has turned inward as countries deal with their own unique situations, and there are differing opinions on the degree of blame the United States should shoulder. And yet the fact remains: The next president is inheriting a world standing that has declined in recent weeks from the low, low point it was at, and that’s almost assuredly going to make it harder for the United States to call in favors even from its allies, be it on Afghanistan or any other foreign policy front. |
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| 11.10.2008 |
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| For the second time this week, the presidential campaign of John McCain has released a statement to reporters about a news development in Asia that the presidential campaign of Barack Obama has not. This time, the country in question is North Korea, as opposed to Taiwan. Responding to reports that the Bush administration is moving forward with the process to take the country off the list of state sponsors of terrorism, McCain said that not only does North Korea deserve that distinction, but the administration did not properly include other Asian countries in its decision. It’s unclear what McCain’s camp hopes to achieve by speaking out on a news story that hasn’t gained major play, and what Obama’s camp hopes to achieve by remaining silent. Is McCain interested in steering the conversation back to an area of strength, foreign policy? Is he trying to work his way into news stories where he can? Is he trying to gain traction with segments of the elusive Asian American voter community? By taking a position that is in one way to the right of the Bush administration (opposing the removal) and in another to the left (favoring additional diplomacy), what message is he sending to whom? Does the McCain campaign merely think this is something he has an obligation to comment upon, as a potential future leader of this country? And why hasn’t Obama weighed in on either of these Asian subjects? Does his camp see little value in distracting attention away from the economic crisis that has driven a rise in his poll standings? UPDATE: Obama weighed in one day after McCain, when the news was announced rather than before it. |
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| 10.10.2008 |
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| This Slate article is more than a week old, but it touches on two recent posts of mine, first about Indian American voters and more recently about the candidates' positions on Taiwan. The point of the Slate piece is that Asian American voters are often neglected by national campaigns. There are logistical reasons for this, such as the diversity of languages spoken and the fractured partisan allegiances among an ethnicity that includes Filipinos, Indians and Chinese. There is the fact that Asians of all kinds are concentrated in non-swing states, a point I raised about the component Indian community. But this is the key portion from the standpoint of substance, similar to the one I raised about what issues matter to Indian voters: "There are also hyperspecific concerns that are not ideal campaign talking points: Chinese care a lot about U.S.-China relations. Taiwanese care about China-Taiwan. Vietnamese favor anti-Communist policies. And Filipinos often vote based on whoever supports benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II. Plus, segments of the Asian-American community often disagree—as Taiwanese-Americans and Chinese-Americans do on Taiwan, for example, or Pakistanis and Indians on Kashmir," writes the author, Christopher Beam. The piece goes on to discuss different ways Asian American voters can enhance their influence -- all, of course, with drawbacks. But it's fascinating to see there's a nascent effort there. If it pays off, maybe in 2012 or 2016 the two presidential candidates will spend more time on their policies on Taiwan. |
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| 08.10.2008 |
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| Taiwan hasn’t exactly been a priority for the presidential campaigns, and Taiwanese publications see no major difference between the two candidates – or President Bush – on the country. But where there is a difference, it can be illustrated thusly: John McCain’s campaign sent reporters a statement today calling on President Bush to add additional items to its sale of military goods to Taiwan, and Barack Obama’s campaign sent out no such statement. That jives with the general sentiment that McCain, for whatever reason, is more attentive to Taiwan than is Obama. Not that the Taiwanese population seems to notice, since they resoundingly back Obama, according to a Reader's Digest poll that also found, contrary to most polls here, that the United States favored McCain. Now, that wasn’t the end of the story from the Obama campaign. It apparently responded to a Washington Post request for comment by simply saying that he supported the military agreement, but did not echo McCain’s call to include submarines and aircraft. And then they sent out to reporters that very Washington Post story, which, as it happens, focuses on the fact that a top McCain adviser until a few months ago lobbied on behalf of Taiwan. Neither McCain’s statement on Taiwan or the Obama campaign’s emphasis of his possible motive is liable to have any impact on the campaign whatsoever. But it all falls under our bailiwick here, and it’s not been examined much of anywhere else. More importantly, the candidates’ positions could have ramifications for whichever candidate wins, since the military deal angered China so much that it canceled planned visits from its military officials to the United States. |
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| 06.10.2008 |
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| ‘Tis the season for looking ahead to the challenges the next president will confront, and how John McCain and Barack Obama would approach those challenges. Michael directed you to the National Journal’s series, but everyone’s doing it, including Popular Mechanics, which has taken a look at the candidates’ positions on science and technology issues that includes their views of the Law of the Sea. (And here, they offered some fascinating technology/foreign policy questions for the candidates’ first debate that I missed. Popular Mechanics!) I’m going to shill once more for my daytime employer on this front, because when Congressional Quarterly puts together a package like it did for its magazine this week, people need to see it. The package starts with CQ Weekly’s “11 Issues for the Next President.” The international angle on many of them is obvious: “War,” “U.S. Image,” “Military,” “Energy,” “Immigration” and “Intelligence,” the last of which I wrote and I’ll discuss more in a moment. But the “Infrastructure” piece, for instance, delves into investments in transportation in Europe; the “Deficit” piece explores foreign lending; and the “Economy” piece dips into international trade. The package also has a fun feature at CQPolitics.com: “Cabinet Maker.” CQ reporters culled the best information they could to project possible Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and other Cabinet picks for McCain and Obama. The interactive tool makes it enjoyable, but there’s also a helpful explanation of some of the Cabinet candidates’ work experience and past positions. In my piece on intelligence, I explore the status of al Qaeda, the ongoing restructuring of the national security apparatus, what kinds of attacks experts say the United States needs to better defend against and more. I found that national security agencies were undergoing “reform fatigue,” and that while many experts believe the next president should focus less on the proper structure and more on achievable results, those two things are necessarily intertwined. But I recommend reading the entire series under “related content” here, and using the Cabinet Maker feature. |
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| 06.10.2008 |
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| Much of the focus on Sarah Palin’s remarks about Barack Obama “palling around with terrorists” has been on whether negative attacks work or not. The answer to that is: Sometimes. They do not appear to be helping Sen. Norm Coleman right now. On the other hand, it’s hard to deny that John McCain’s attacks on Obama, about him being a celebrity and that kind of thing, were having an effect on the polls. Ben Smith says the purpose of the new McCain/Palin attacks on Obama’s associations has more to do with raising broader questions about him than trying to tie him to a controversial figure, and that may be, too. I think a whole ‘nother question, though, is whether the specific “terrorist” attack can work anymore. And that is one element of the Palin remarks. Accusing Democrats of being soft on terror – and it’s harder to be soft on terror than by “palling around” with a practitioner – worked well in 2002 and 2004. But in 2006, Republicans fell short when they accused Democrats of opposing surveillance on terrorists. And that has something to do with the changing nature of voters’ interests. |
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| 04.10.2008 |
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| So much for the love affair between Barack Obama and Gordon Brown’s government in Great Britain, now that the a memo by U.K.’s ambassador to the United States criticizing the Democratic presidential candidate has been leaked to the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden. That’s probably an overstatement of the original condition; it’s been more an up-and-down thing, as detailed by British newspapers. But this won’t help relations, should Obama win. Much of the coverage of the leaked document has focused on criticisms of Obama’s leadership style, personality and experience, where the ambassador, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, also offered some praise of Obama. But there were some substantial passages in the Obama memo detailing how Obama’s policies compare to Brown’s, too. Among them: --Conflict over Iran. "If Obama wins, we will need to consider with him the articulation between (a) his desire for 'unconditional' dialogue with Iran and (b) our and the [United Nations Security Council]'s requirement of prior suspension of enrichment before the nuclear negotiations proper can begin." --Agreement over Iraq. "Whatever the detail, our own proposed transition in south-east Iraq would be consistent with Obama's likely approach. Obama's ideas on a more expansive regional framework for Iraq would also fit well with our thinking." --Common ground on climate change and larger security issues. The memo praised Obama’s “progressive position on climate change" as well as his “pragmatic realism" and "balanced approach to the big security issues." --A lack of shared vision on trade and Middle East peace. “Sir Nigel concludes that searching for a deal between Israel and the Palestinians is ‘unlikely to be a top priority for Obama’ and he expresses concern about his protectionist trade policy, while noting that he has ‘repositioned himself somewhat towards free trade.’” But in the end, Sir Nigel concluded that Obama is still evolving, and his record offers little to suggest where he might end up. “Although he has been a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for four years, and a regular attender of meetings in his first two, there is little Obama track record to refer back to." |
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| 04.10.2008 |
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| The day after the vice-presidential debate, let’s review where the fact-checkers came down on what the candidates had to say on foreign policy. It wasn’t pretty out there. --At Politifact, Sarah Palin gets a “barely true” for claiming Joe Biden had “supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race.” Biden gets a “half-true” for saying “John McCain voted against funding the troops because of . . . a timeline in it to draw down American troops.” Also addressed: Palin remarks on that natural gas pipeline and Biden’s statements about whether Barack Obama was ready to be commander in chief. --At Washington Post’s Fact-Checker, Palin gets downgraded for claiming she was at the forefront of a movement in Alaska to divest in Sudan, when in fact her administration originally opposed legislation to do so; Biden gets downgraded for claimed that the United States and France had “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.” Also addressed: Palin remarks on Iraq, and Biden’s claims on Hamas. --At Factcheck.org, Palin gets knocked for claiming that violence in Iraq had fallen to “pre-surge” levels, and Biden gets knocked for mis-characterizing McCain’s views about meeting with Spain’s president. Also addressed: Palin and Biden remarks on Afghanistan, Biden’s remarks on clean coal and Palin’s remarks on overseas sources of energy. For more, here’s fact-checking at USA Today, The L.A. Times, and the Associated Press. |
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| 03.10.2008 |
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| It'll be dissected here and elsewhere in the coming days, but here's my quick, unpolluted, pre-talking head take on Sarah Palin's performance on foreign policy, which we've discussed so much here this week: She sidestepped many questions. In doing so, she delivered several memorable lines -- "white flag of surrender" -- that were better than making a mistake but not as good as answering competently. She also effectively exploited differences between Joe Biden and Barack Obama, on topics like funding for the troops. On that subject, whether Biden was wrong then and right now (my reading of the pertinent facts) is secondary; it undermines the credibility of Biden's current argument for him to have held the opposite position not so long ago. She made some errors, but nothing too shocking. All in all? She did not fail terribly on foreign policy by any standard, let alone the low, low standard of the expectations she had set with some clumsy interviews. That was the least she had to do, and in my estimation, she accomplished that. |
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| 02.10.2008 |
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| The Associated Press just did the most comprehensive digging on Sarah Palin’s record of meeting with foreign officials yet, and came up with… not much. Palin had said in an interview that she had been involved in “trade missions” with Russia, but the AP came up empty on that count. As it turns out, a gubernatorial spokeswoman had previously refused to even answer questions about the Russian “trade missions.” But the AP got a Russian Federation official to speak up, then another official who works for the governor. In fact, the AP only found that she had ever had any substantial negotiations of any kind with one foreign country, that being Alaska’s other neighbor, Canada. Contrast that with Biden’s list, and it’s apparent what a daunting hole Palin will be fighting out of when Thursday night’s debate rolls around. Things beside experience – like judgment – matter when it comes to foreign policy. And yet, it’s hard to deny that Biden gets some kind of advantage from having met and talked with these foreign leaders in a way that Palin never has. The good news here for Palin is that, in the expectations game candidates usually play, it would be hard for her to come in any lower. Maybe she demonstrates previously unrevealed savvy and ends up profiting from looking better than both opponents and advocates fear she might. Maybe, as well, Biden slips up in some way that makes whatever slip-ups she experiences pale in comparison. But, again, she is starting from a stunningly unequal footing with Biden on foreign policy. |
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