Category: Uncategorized

The EPA man known as Pruitt

Had ambitions, but then he just blew it.

He’s embarrassing Don.

Now it’s time he moved on.

Come on man!  Let him go! Up and do it!

Putin essentially had the following objectives in Syria:

1.  To protect Russia’s military and economic interests in the country;
2.  To prevent another fellow strong man from falling in the face of American    pressure; and
3.  Just to make trouble for America, generally.

He succeeded in all of these things, partly because he and Assad were prepared to be completely ruthless, partly because he had lots of help on the ground from Hezbollah, and partly because he didn’t have to engage in any nation-building–there was already a reasonably competent tyrant in place, so his intervention was completely legal.

The down sides to the intervention are just starting to be felt.  There is no permanent political solution in sight.  The dangers of conflict with American-backed forces, and even with Americans themselves, are very real. And the war hasn’t done anything to improve his brutal image abroad.

Does he care about the last?  My guess is he does.  Is America prepared to turn the tables on him, and make him pay a continuing price for his actions? Unfortunately, that’s ultimately up to Trump.

It is fair to say that Obama viewed terrorism as his greatest international short-term problem, the rise of China as our greatest long-term issue, and Russia as a nuisance.  For the most part, he treated the Russians as just a declining regional power, to be resisted at times and accommodated at others.  Putin’s ambitions are greater than that, so relations between the two countries suffered.

The Democrats clearly (and correctly) see political advantages in publicizing the weird ties between Trump and his base on the one hand and Putin on the other. The danger is that they may start to believe their own rhetoric when they return to power.  Russia is a genuine danger, yes.  But, for the reasons I described a few days ago, it is not the same kind of existential threat as the USSR, and should not be treated as one.

The leader was comfortable talking about, and actually using, military force abroad.  At home, he was a revolutionary.  He initiated a war on corruption, even at the highest levels, which was popular with the public and put his adversaries on the back foot.  He announced an ambitious plan to reshape the country’s economy.  He even changed the rules of succession.

Is it Xi or MBS?  You decide.

You wouldn’t think that a communist state and a divine right monarchy would have much in common, but the facts don’t lie.

My wife thinks I worry too much about John Bolton.  She views Trump as being similar to people who get married and divorced multiple times; the churn gets faster as the partners get disillusioned more rapidly.  In her opinion, Bolton will leave quickly as soon as he figures out that he doesn’t have the magic ability to manage his boss, because he is beyond management.  That means we shouldn’t attach too much importance to any Trump appointment, even one as odious and potentially dangerous as Bolton.

It’s an interesting analogy, and it deserves to be taken seriously, particularly since Trump has had multiple wives.  However, I don’t think it holds up, in that the first crop of “adult” advisers was largely imposed on him;  it is natural that he would feel more comfortable with the second wave, who, in turn, have a better sense of what it is he wants–not real advisers, but mouthpieces who can anticipate his changing moods and shine on TV.  They will have considerable difficulty dealing with his mercurial moods, and many of them won’t last, but I don’t think the churn will be ever faster.  What you will see instead is an administration staffed by unqualified adventurers with no reputation and little to lose, because no one else will be willing to work there.

 

You will recall that Mitt Romney identified Russia as a significant threat to the US during the 2012 debates, and was brushed off by Obama, who clearly viewed the Russians solely as a regional power with strategically useless nuclear weapons. Romney wasn’t completely right, but he wasn’t completely wrong, either, as events since 2012 have established.

How long ago that seems!  Today, a GOP president and his reactionary followers appear to view Russia more as an ally against liberalism and Islamic extremism than an adversary in spite of its aggressive actions in Ukraine and Syria.  On the other hand, the GOP foreign policy establishment still sees Russia as a major threat.  As a result, with the departure of Bannon, Trump is essentially isolated within his own administration on this point.  The hiring of Bolton will make this situation worse, not better.

Where is this ultimately going?  In the short run, it is hard to tell if Trump can prevail over the rest of his own government.  In the long run, the GOP will almost certainly default to its previous position as soon as Trump is out of office.  That, of course, assumes that there is a long run.

Putin, it would seem, is flying high.  He just won re-election again, easily.  Russian military might and cyberwarfare expertise are feared again.  He’s pulled Russia out of the Yeltsin vortex and made it great again.

But has he, really?  He has taken Crimea, but Ukraine, which was this close to being under his control, is violently hostile.  The likelihood of incorporating Ukraine into his political and economic sphere is very low at this point.  Syria has been a victory so far, but now he has to find a political solution that works for him and everyone else.  Russia has no real friends in the world, and is still suffering from economic sanctions.  The economy is growing at a snail’s pace, particularly relative to China, and the country’s only real asset (oil) is becoming less valuable over time.  He can’t get rid of corruption because it is the guiding principle of the political system. Finally, he has no clear heir, so no one knows what happens after he leaves.

Does that sound like winning to you?  If your definition of winning revolves around the use of military power, maybe.  Otherwise, no.

I didn’t watch “Roseanne” the first time around, and I see no reason to change my ways now.  That said, from all published accounts, Roseanne Barr (and her character) is a social liberal who supports Trump’s economic nationalist program.

In terms of the GOP factions, that makes her a CL on social issues and a Reactionary on economic questions.  In other words, she’s a unicorn.  Or the opposite of Ted Cruz.

Chamberlain advocated moving away from free trade largely because he didn’t see the point of having an empire if it didn’t produce some kind of economic and political benefits.  A modern American analogy would be to vastly strengthen NAFTA in order to improve our political and economic ties within the hemisphere and to combat increased Chinese influence.

Is that what Trump is doing?  Umm, not exactly.

Here’s my analysis of where we are relative to the threat posed by the USSR:

1.  Nuclear weapons:  Both today’s Russia and the USSR had the ability to annihilate the United States.  Putin talks more openly about using nuclear weapons, but the likelihood of a nuclear exchange has not changed much.

2.  Conventional forces:  The decaying Russian military of the 1990’s is a distant memory.  Nevertheless, the loss of Ukraine and the Warsaw Pact countries completely changes the calculus in favor of the West.  The real threat here is that NATO lacks the will to defend itself.

3.  Economic power:  The USSR didn’t build anything that anyone wanted other than tanks.  Russia is a slow-growing, resource-based feudal state with a GDP about the size of Australia’s.  Neither was much of a threat from an economic perspective.

4.  Ideology:  Decayed left-wing idealism versus cynical right-wing authoritarianism–take your pick!  Communism had more of a universal appeal.

5.  Unconventional warfare:  The Soviets did it, too, but they weren’t as good at it, and they didn’t have such a receptive audience.

In short, Putin’s Russia is less of a threat than the USSR, except for its gift for cyberwarfare and political assassination.

Some folks’ lives never roll at all—Paul Simon

We have spent the week at our new second home in the North Carolina mountains.  My wife has admitted to feeling twinges of guilt about it.  I don’t.  Who is right?

On the one hand, I have worked hard for what I have. I have overcome some challenges along the way.  No one served me my life on a silver platter.  As far as I know, my good fortune never cost anyone anything along the way.  On the other hand, I know I didn’t create myself; I had the invaluable assistance of countless people, most notably my family, along the way.  My life, and yours, is an infinite chain of events mostly outside my control that could have turned out differently in a universe of ways.  Finally, I was lucky enough to grow up in the US, not South Sudan.  For all these reasons, you will never hear me say “I built this.”

I think the best response to good fortune is humility and gratitude, not guilt.  Our objective should be to see that as many people as possible can realize their dreams, not to feel bad about achieving our own.

Happy Easter!

 

Today the trade war with the Chinese began in earnest.  Whether it is just a futile gesture and a nuisance or something far worse than that depends on the Chinese response.  Some measure of retaliation is inevitable, but if it remains within bounds, it might not be a big deal.  If it causes Trump to make matters worse, things could spiral out of hand in a hurry.

As appalling as the trade war and the corresponding market reaction is, that isn’t the worst news of the day.  That would be John Bolton getting the NSC job.

Bolton is a warmonger, plain and simple.  His appointment means the war with Iran is even more certain, and it may well not be limited to an exercise in cutting the grass for the Israelis.  Bolton wants regime change in Iran.  Cutting the grass isn’t going to cut it; a full scale conflict will be necessary, possibly involving the use of nuclear weapons.

He also supports a preemptive war with North Korea.  Whichever comes first, it will be a disaster for the world, and the domestic political consequences will make the fallout from the Iraq War look like a picnic.

 

The addition of “Xi Jinping thought” to the Chinese Communist Party’s constitution was viewed as a great boost to the potential President for Life, and correctly so.  However, “Xi Jinping thought” will also operate as a restraint on Xi; he can only claim a mandate to rule as long as he behaves in a manner consistent with his own published thought.

By way of contrast, there is no “Vladimir Putin thought,” so he can do what he damn well pleases.  It’s all about the man himself in Russia, and if he wants to change course on a dime, he can do it.

A note to my readers:  I will be on vacation until April 3.  Don’t expect any new posts until then.

While large and persistent trade deficits are not, by themselves, evidence of flaws in the international trading system, the Chinese approach to trade does present problems which require an appropriate response.  I have indicated in a previous post that our choices come down to two:  beat ’em or join ’em.  What would that mean in practice?

Any analysis of this situation has to begin with an understanding of the fundamental differences between the American and Chinese political and economic systems.  The “Chinese dream” is about the wealth and power of China, not its individual citizens; the Chinese culture emphasizes the collective over the individual; and the Chinese Communist Party asserts the right, and often uses it, to intervene in every aspect of society.  Mercantilism is a logical outgrowth of that approach.  Chinese businesses are correctly viewed as agents of the state, because that, in fact, is what they are, and the Chinese government has every right and reason to pick winners and distribute assets as it sees fit.

The American system, on the other hand, is built around limited government, individual freedom, the rule of law, and a level playing field.  American businesses are emphatically not agents of the state, and any attempt to pick winners would be met with outrage.

With this in mind, Trump may think that he’s emulating the Chinese by imposing tariffs, but is he, really?  If you genuinely wanted to fight fire with fire, you would have to force Chinese companies to turn over their technology to specified American companies in order to gain access to our market.  You would have to identify and subsidize national champions.  You would impose lots of regulations on Chinese companies and force them to take on American partners.  Trump isn’t proposing any of that, because it would be unthinkable under our system.  His failure to do so means that his approach cannot work.

The alternative is to work closely with our friends throughout the world to create and strengthen rules-based institutions (e.g., the TPP) that effectively prohibit obnoxious mercantilist practices.  As big as the Chinese economy is, if China were confronted with a united world demanding change, it would come. Unfortunately, Trump rejects multilateral action on trade, and appears to believe that our European and Asian allies are just as bad as the Chinese, which simply isn’t true.  As a result of this fundamental blunder, the world may well support the Chinese in the trade war to come, and it will fail.

As I’ve noted previously, tariffs split the GOP; PBPs and CLs hate them, while Reactionaries (free-trading farmers excepted) strongly support them.  The split closely resembles the division over immigration; both sides are very passionate on the subject.

The Democrats have their own division.  The Sanders wing of the party echoed Trump’s position on protectionism during the 2016 campaign, although Sanders illogically also supported high levels of immigration, and the voters appeared to support Trump’s more consistent position over his.  Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton, who was assumed by all parties to be a free trader, felt compelled to water those views down in response to Sanders’ appeal to white working men.  It made her look weak and hypocritical, and it did her no good in November.

The dynamics of the issue will be different in 2020.  While some prominent Democrats have actively supported Trump’s tariffs, polls showed that the blue base supported free trade even before Trump made protectionism toxic, so I can’t imagine that the party will nominate someone who is determined to out-Trump the man on golf cart. On the other hand, there obviously is an argument that support for protection could help swing the Rust Belt voters who won the 2016 election for Trump back to the Democrats.  In light of that, what will the party do?

Fortunately, there is a logical middle ground:  to identify Chinese mercantilism as the real issue, and to propose solutions to it that don’t involve imposing tariffs.  I will discuss that in a post tomorrow.