RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/trump-disrupted-american-transformation-into-lead-from-behind-nation/

The ‘unpresidential’ outsider disrupted America’s transformation into a ‘lead from behind’ nation.

Much of the controversy that surrounds the policies of Donald Trump can be explained as a reaction to the past. He was either clumsily disrupting the sacrosanct or trying to resurrect what was lost.

In other words, what you feel about Trump is inseparable from what you think of the world before Trump.

Was the status quo, especially in the years between 2009 and 2017, normal or abnormal — at least compared with the prior half century?

Take the challenge of China. We are now locked in a veritable trade war with the Chinese. Each side escalates with a threatened new round of tariffs. The subtexts of the conflict range from Chinese military ascendency to patronage of nuclear North Korea.

Is Trump creating unnecessary conflicts ex nihilo, or trying to address what was an abnormal, one-sided assault at which most prior presidents had shrugged their shoulders?

Certainly, China is a proven systematic trade cheater. Given its size and clout, traditional international means of rectifying such massive violations had proven impotent.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/2018/September/43/9/magazine/article/10845200

President Donald Trump’s meeting with President Vladimir Putin of Russia and their joint press conference in Helsinki on July 16 have ignited an ongoing paroxysm of rage and hysteria in the U.S. media. Morbid Russophobia and Putin-hate are déjà-vu, but the outpouring of vitriol against Trump has been raised to an entirely new level. The deplorable vulgarian of yore has morphed into a metaphysical incarnation of evil, an “enemy of the people” par excellence. Orwell’s “two minutes of hatred” has become a continuous, 24/7 orgy.

The roll call of attackers reads like a Who’s Who of the U.S. Deep State. The list of their hyperbolic adjectives (including “sellout,” “traitor,” “Putin’s pussycat,” etc.) is familiar to the curious, starting with Barack Obama’s CIA chief John Brennan (“high crimes and misdemeanors”). The outraged were particularly incited by Trump’s refusal to parrot the “Russiagate” narrative, falsely presented as the result of an “intelligence community consensus.”

Trump’s refusal was justified, on factual as well as political and moral grounds. No evidence of any kind exists to prove Russian meddling in the presidential election, or thereafter. It never will be found, for the simple reason that both Podesta’s and DNC emails were leaked, not hacked. The meddling myth is just a tool the Deep State has used since late 2016 to torpedo Trump’s attempt at détente with Moscow. Its operatives saw this attempt, with reason, as a threat to the maintenance of the duopolistic, neolib-neocon system of full-spectrum global dominance.

Just three weeks after the Helsinki summit, it is tricky to discern its implications and likely consequences, but three themes seem clear.

First and foremost, nothing of substance has been settled. It is of course possible and desirable to make a fair and enduring deal with Russia on all contentious issues (Ukraine, Syria, cyberspace, terrorism, trade, etc.). In operational terms, the biggest problem for Trump is not how to keep his supporters loyal; it is how to ensure that his own bureaucratic machine will obey and apply his vision, regardless of what Putin and he may yet agree to next fall. A chronically disloyal civil-service apparatus—especially at the Department of State and the CIA, but also at Defense—overwhelmingly subscribes to the Weltanschauung of Trump’s haters and detractors.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/08/chinese-military-buildup-dangerous/The Chinese armed forces will surpass ours unless we allocate more funds for modernization.

Robert Hood, the assistant secretary of defense for legislative affairs, recently stated that the DOD does not expect, and evidently will not request, another significant budget increase in financial year 2020. Given what is happening in East Asia, that is inexplicable to me.

Four years ago, I wrote two columns in these pages detailing the ongoing buildup of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the reasons for it. The buildup has continued apace since then. Here is a graphic that I first posted a year ago showing how the balance of power in East Asia has shifted:

The implications of this graphic are exactly what they appear to be: Chinese arms now dominate, albeit imperfectly, the East Asian strategic environment. It’s become their sphere of influence. The peace of the region, and the ability of other nations to trade and travel through it on equal terms, now hang on the margin of China’s fear that a major confrontation would trigger escalating armed conflict with American and allied forces before they are ready for it.

https://nypost.com/2018/08/11/trumps-foreign-policy-is-actually-boosting-americas-standing/

A story is supposed to have  two sides, but there is only  one when it comes to President Trump’s foreign policy. Most American media treat his every effort as a savage assault on a harmonious world order.

Whether it’s the trade dispute with China, his pushing North Korea to scuttle its nukes or his demand that NATO members spend more on defense, the headlines sound the same shrieking note: “Trump inflames . . . Trump escalates . . . Trump doubles down . . . Trump risks . . .”

The parade of horribles continues to this day, but it will be hard to out-fear-monger a Time magazine headline from May: “By Violating Iran Deal, Trump Jeopardizes National Security.”

But since the world hasn’t ended and since we’re not dead yet, I humbly suggest it’s time to take a deep breath and consider the other side of the story.

We don’t have to look far. Numerous signs are popping up that the impact of Trump’s policies is far from the disastrous scenario the media predict. By wielding America’s power instead of apologizing for it, and by keeping his focus on jobs and national security, Trump is making progress in fixing the ruinous status quo he inherited.

America First, it turns out, is more than a slogan. It is a road map to reshaping America’s relationship with friend and foe alike.

Take China. Despite press accusations that Trump risks a global recession with tariffs on Chinese imports, recent reports from China say there is growing criticism there over how President Xi Jinping is handling Trump. One brave professor published an essay citing “rising anxiety” and “a degree of panic” about Xi’s combativeness on the issue and his autocratic ways.

http://thehill.com/opinion/international/399610-nato-needs-to-be-fully-financed-and-nimble-going-into-the-future

It has been said time and again that NATO is indispensable as a defense of the West. Even Trump accepts this assertion. What he doesn’t accept is the U.S. burden to sustain the treaty. A combative President Trump has made it clear member states must meet their obligation to spend at least two percent of gdp on defense. The U.S. presently spends 3.6 percent or about twice the average expenditure

Trump noted as well the irony of Germany’s reliance on a new $11 billion pipeline to import Russian natural gas into Western Europe when a significant portion of NATO’s defense budget is to buttress against Russian ambitions. How odd he notes to pay Russia and at the same time defend against Russia.

Chancellor Angela Merkle – who grew up in East Germany when it was controlled by Russia – speaks passionately of a united and free Republic of Germany today, a sound debater’s point but distraction from Germany’s defense spending. Although not always said explicitly, the allies hope that Trump will sign off on a summit deal to deter Russian aggression. It also appears as if Trump’s jaw-boning has had some effect since eight new nations are about to meet the two percent threshold. How this will unfold remains unclear. An alliance that is indispensable must be sustained. My guess is that NATO nations including Germany will be playing a more active defense role than has been the case heretofore. This will be a test of Merkle’s political skill with elections just over the horizon.

“The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” then-Secretary of State John Kerry told the Organization of American States in 2013. It was, like many foreign-policy declarations of the Obama years, gloriously optimistic and utterly wrong.

President James Monroe’s declaration in 1823 that the U.S. would not permit the establishment of hostile powers in the Western Hemisphere has become the most famous idea in American foreign policy. The so-called Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 adds that if other nations in the Western Hemisphere default on their international obligations or endanger their neighbors through misgovernance, the U.S. has a “police power” to intervene.
A 1912 painting of the birth of the Monroe Doctrine showing, left to right, John Quincy Adams, William Harris Crawford, William Wirt, President James Monroe, John Caldwell Calhoun, Daniel D. Tompkins and John McLean.
A 1912 painting of the birth of the Monroe Doctrine showing, left to right, John Quincy Adams, William Harris Crawford, William Wirt, President James Monroe, John Caldwell Calhoun, Daniel D. Tompkins and John McLean. Photo: Getty Images

Monroe’s original doctrine and Roosevelt’s extension have never been popular in Latin America, but U.S. presidents from Thomas Jefferson to Bill Clinton have taken an activist role in the region when they saw fit.

Latin America policy has set off one firestorm after another in U.S. politics, especially during the Cold War. Notable examples include the Eisenhower-backed coup in Guatemala; the Kennedy administration’s Bay of Pigs fiasco; President Lyndon Johnson’s deployment of troops to the Dominican Republic; the Nixon administration’s opposition to Chile’s Marxist government ahead of the 1973 coup; and President Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal.

Yet after the Cold War it seemed that U.S.-Latin American relations could relax. The fall of the Soviet Union reduced American concerns about Latin American leftism. Radical governments took power in countries like Ecuador, Bolivia and even Venezuela, but this didn’t prompt a vigorous American response.

Meanwhile, some Latin American nations—most notably the regional giants of Mexico and Brazil—seemed to be completing a swift transition to modern democracy and stable growth. When Mr. Kerry proclaimed the death of the Monroe Doctrine in 2013, he did so on the belief that the U.S. not only faced no great-power competition in the region, but that the leading Latin American states had achieved such stability and prosperity as to make “policing” concerns obsolete.

The situation looks less rosy now. The main problem isn’t Washington’s Cold War nightmare of a triumphant Latin left spreading communism in the Western Hemisphere. It’s precisely the opposite: The implosion of Venezuela’s leftist government is driving a regional crisis. As waves of refugees flee the socialist utopia, bad actors ranging from Vladimir Putin to Hezbollah are nosing around in the ruins of the Bolivarian republic. This weekend’s alleged assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is a harbinger of more violence to come.

In better times, Venezuela’s oil wealth allowed it to lavish aid on its neighbors. Now that aid is drying up. Choices are narrowing for countries like Nicaragua, where near-civil-war conditions exist, and Cuba. Farther north in Guatemala, where some of the world’s highest homicide rates coincide with severe food shortages, asylum seekers stream toward the U.S. Washington can’t ignore so much instability so close to home.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/1/islamic-triumphalism-or-jihad-can-be-finished-if-p/

Psychiatrists tell their patients they have to “name their fears.” A fear that cannot be named cannot be understood or faced. An unnamed threat cannot be defeated. This is particularly true of what is called the threat of “terrorism.”

A recent Washington Post commentary, “Terrorism won’t just go away,” exemplified the problem. By Joshua A. Geltzer and Nicholas J. Rasmussen, two well-placed former Obama administration officials, the column mentioned “terrorism” and “terrorist” 14 times. But “terrorism” is simply a tactic used by “terrorists” in pursuit of political, ideological, economic, religious or nationalist aims.

Something called the “global war on terrorism” might never end. But the struggle against the threat posed by what can be termed Islamic triumphalism or jihad might be finished if properly fought.

Not only must the threat be named, but also the ideology. And so must the practitioners — including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, which The Post Op-Ed specified — and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Republic, Hezbollah, Hamas and other movements inspired by anti-Western, anti-Christian and anti-Jewish political Islam.

After Japan struck Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, killing 2,400 Americans, the United States did not declare war on surprise attacks, a technique. It went to war against Imperial Japan, which embodied military expansionism.

But following al-Qaeda’s destruction of New York City’s World Trade Center and devastation of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed more than 3,000 non-combatants, the United States insisted on fighting terrorism, not the aggressive ideology behind the technique.

As a result, although United States and allied forces have killed tens of thousands of ISIS, al-Qaeda and other terrorists in the greater Middle East and elsewhere, the end is not in sight. After expenses potentially totaling several trillion dollars, more than 7,000 American troops killed and tens of thousands wounded, the fight exhibits whack-a-mole characteristics.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/25/trump-russia-and-the-future/

Herbert London is President of the London Center for Policy Research: https://londoncenter.org/

In what can only be regarded as an ingenuous diplomatic assertion President Trump agreed that the Russians had not attempted to influence the 2016 election, despite Intelligence reports to the contrary. It appeared as if President Trump had more confidence in Putin’s strength and powerful denial, than the general belief in Washington on both sides of the aisle. To his critics, President Trump abased himself abjectly to a tyrant. Senator John McCain said, “Today’s press conference in Helsinki was one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.”

Recovering from this self-imposed injury won’t be easy, unless the president has a strategic vision that ultimately yields results for the United States. For example, if this modus vivendi leads to stabilization in the Middle East, it might have been worth the embarrassment at the Summit. Having been invited to cope with the Syrian poison gas question by President Obama, the Russian position continued to expand as an enforcer of Iranian imperial ambitions and Hezbollah defender. If the president can alter this arrangement by “peeling” Russia away from Iran, the threat of a Shia Crescent – an Iranian land mass from Tehran to the Mediterranean Sea – will diminish, thereby giving Sunni states a reprieve from the tension of potential war.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-putin-and-the-montenegro-question-1532989476

Two weeks have passed since the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, but there is still no public account of what the two leaders said—other than their own self-congratulatory remarks. But the recent actions of the U.S. and Russian presidents suggest they may have discussed the role and ambitions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, taking steps toward a rebalancing of power that should worry Europeans and Americans alike.

President Trump provided one clue in his statements about Montenegro, a tiny Eastern European country and the newest NATO member. During a July 18 conversation with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, he suggested that “aggressive” Montenegrins might start a global conflict. To be fair, Mr. Trump didn’t raise the subject; it was Mr. Carlson who suggested that honoring NATO’s mutual-defense obligation might entangle the U.S. in a fight Americans would rather sit out. But once the subject was raised, Mr. Trump pounced—conjuring the specter of Montenegro dragging the U.S. into World War III.

Where did that come from? There’s no evidence that Mr. Trump had any earlier concern about Montenegro, or even that he knew where it was. Though Montenegro joined NATO shortly after he took office, Mr. Trump’s only direct interaction with the country on record came during a photo session at last year’s NATO summit, when he shoved aside Montenegrin President Dusko Markovic to get a spot in the front row.

There is plenty of evidence, however, that Russia is worried about Montenegro’s accession to NATO. The Kremlin promised unspecified retaliation against NATO in 2015 when the alliance first formally offered membership to Montenegro. Senior Russian officials claim that, in adding the Balkan country to the alliance, NATO members violated their promise not to expand the alliance eastward—an assurance they had given Russia during the presidency of George H.W. Bush.