30 April 2014

Ukraine: The Phony War?



The following article will appear in the May 22, 2014 issue of The New York Review. 

Marko Djurica/ReutersA pro-Russian protester talking to Ukrainian soldiers, whose convoy was halted by a pro-Russian crowd, Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, April 16, 2014

In late April, traveling in eastern Ukraine, I was in the midst of its phony war. Threats were flying, ultimatums were delivered, and jets screamed low over the countryside. Trees were felled to block back roads, tires were piled up to build barricades, and men from backwater towns strutted with their guns, their lives suddenly seeming to have purpose. In eastern Ukraine, where neatly kept memorials commemorate the fallen of the great battles fought there by the Red Army during World War II, all the omens seemed to tell of war coming once again. But even at the eleventh hour it is not inevitable. 

This has been a time when normal life continues while men arm themselves and begin to prepare for combat. It is that strange pre-war moment when the possible future overlaps with the present. Rebels make Molotov cocktails a stone’s throw from roadside shops selling garden gnomes. A halted Ukrainian army convoy is surrounded by locals who mill around chatting to the soldiers. The line of armored vehicles is split by a train coming from a Russian holiday resort; it goes through Ukraine because that is the way the Soviet-era track goes. It blows its horn to get crowds out of the way as it passes on its way to Moscow. People wave to the passengers who peer out, wondering what is going on. 

As men in beaten-up cars race up country roads past towering grain silos, as groups gather to demand referendums, as people tell me that they don’t believe that war is coming and that Russians and Ukrainians are brothers, I remember the same brave talk, the same euphoria, and the same delusions before the Yugoslavs tipped their country into catastrophe in the 1990s. Ukraine is not like that Yugoslavia, although the atmosphere in the east is a horribly similar combination of resentment and disbelief. 

1. What is extraordinary about the Ukrainian disaster is how fast things have moved. Last October, when I came to talk to people about the country signing a trade deal with the European Union, I was told again and again that Ukraine had a date with destiny. It would look west, not east to Russia. Almost everyone I met thought the deal would happen. President Viktor Yanukovych, the head of the Party of Regions, whose support came mostly from the east, had, when he was elected, been regarded as pro-Russian. Yes, it will be tough, officials said, but the future was with Europe and he would sign. 

The U.S. Opts for Ineffective Sanctions on Russia

Tuesday, April 29, 2014


The United States announced new sanctions on seven Russian government officials April 28. A long-used tactic, sanctions can yield unpredictable effects or have no effect at all, depending upon how they are crafted. It is commonly assumed that sanctions are applied when a target country's actions are deemed unacceptable. The sanctioning nation presumably chooses sanctions to avoid war when war would be too costly or could result in defeat. 

Sanctions' stated purpose is to induce behavioral changes in a target state by causing economic pain. To work, sanctions must therefore cause pain. But they must not be so severe that they convince the target state that war is more desirable than capitulating to the demands of the sanctioning nation. 
When Sanctions Work Too Well 

In July 1941, when the Japanese invaded Indo-China, the United States responded by freezing all Japanese assets. The United Kingdom and the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) followed suit. The sanctions were quite effective, and Japan wound up cut off from the bulk of international trade, losing 90 percent of its imported oil. Japan had to respond, but instead of withdrawing from Indo-China, it attacked Pearl Harbor. 

The Japanese example is worth considering. The United States placed Japan in a situation where its oil supplies would be depleted in months, at which point Japan would cease to be an industrial power. Tokyo could have accepted the American terms, but once it did this, it would have established a U.S. veto over Japanese decisions. 

The Japanese did not trust the United States and were convinced that any capitulation to sanctions would simply lead to more U.S. demands. Tokyo understood the risks of war but calculated that these risks were lower than the risks of complying with U.S. demands (though the Japanese might well have been wrong in this calculation, and Franklin Roosevelt might well have known that Tokyo would choose war over capitulation). Faced with sanctions that would cripple the nation, Japan chose war. 

Procurement: Pakistan Gets Back On Board The Gravy Train

April 24, 2014:

In the last year the United States has resumed shipping military equipment to Pakistan. These shipments were halted after the 2011 U.S. raid into Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden. Pakistan was unhappy with this raid and retaliated which led to the U.S. halting military aid. All of that was sort-of patched up in 2013. Thus in the last year Pakistan received several major items, including high-end military radios, upgrades for 35 Pakistani F-16s and on the way are 374 upgraded M113 armored personnel carriers. Between 2002 and 2011 Pakistan received a lot more. This included four refurbished P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. Three of these were destroyed by Islamic terrorists in 2011 but four more are on the way. Items already received include 14 F-16A jets, 59 T-37 jet trainers, nearly 6,000 military radio sets, 2,007 TOW anti-tank guided missiles; six AN/TPS-77 surveillance radars, six refurbished C-130E transport aircraft, a refurbished Perry class frigate, 12 refurbished AH-1F helicopter gunships (with eight more to come) and professional training for over 2,000 Pakistani military officers. Pakistan was also allowed to buy (with its own money rather than U.S. loans or gifts) 18 new F-16C fighters, 500 AMRAAM air-to-air missiles; 1,450 2,000 pound (909 kg) bombs; 500 JDAM Tail Kits and 1,600 Enhanced Paveway laser-guided kits for unguided bombs. 

Since 2002 the United States has provided Pakistan with over $20 billion in economic and military aid. About a quarter of that was military aid, including $3 billion worth of hardware. About a third of this is still awaiting delivery. Much of what was given in cash was stolen, and that was often blatant and with little effort to hide what was going on. Such is the culture of corruption in Pakistan. Even much non-cash aid, like food, office equipment or industrial items ended up getting sold with the cash disappearing into some government official’s foreign bank account. 

It’s also believe that Chinese military experts get to carefully examine any American weapons and equipment delivered and some of it has probably been shipped back to China for the most retailed and thorough analysis.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htproc/articles/20140424.aspx

In the Spying World, It Pays to Advertise If You Are Under Attack

April 28, 2014
In Pakistan, signs praise spies as nation changes
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — On city streets in Pakistan, a curious sight has appeared in recent days: posters bearing the faces of the country’s two most powerful generals that profess love for the military and its spying arm.

Lamp posts, street signs and cars carry the banners, which bear mottos like: “A traitor of Pakistan army is a traitor of the country” and “We love Pakistan army and ISI,” referring to its Inter-Services Intelligence wing.

The mystery signs arrived in Pakistan as its powerful military faces off with the country’s largest private television station over allegations that its forces were behind a shooting that seriously wounded one of its top anchors. But behind the chanting demonstrations and garish loyalty posters lies the deep challenge confronting Pakistan: Where does power lie in this country that’s undergone three military coups since independence, with its army or its nascent civilian government?

The controversy started last Saturday when gunmen opened fire on Hamid Mir, an anchor for Geo News, wounding him six times. After the shooting, his journalist brother appeared on Geo and blamed the ISI for the shooting while the station showed a photo of its chief, Lt. Gen. Zaheerul Islam. The station repeatedly aired the accusations and blamed the ISI for the “assassination attempt” against Mir.

The Defense Ministry then petitioned government regulators to remove Geo from the air — a decision that’s likely to come in early May. The station then reported that it’s signal was blocked in areas of the country as small rallies supporting the military began. Last week, the posters began appearing, some with the ISI leader on them.

Their origin is a mystery. Some said they were from the people of Islamabad, the capital. Others mentioned a Pakistani religious figure. Some listed the All Traders Welfare Association, a little-known trade group in the capital, headed by a man named Furqan Murtaza.

When reached by The Associated Press, Murtaza denied that any government or military agency encouraged his campaign.

"This is an expression of public sentiment," he said.

Generally, people have to get permission before hanging posters and banners in the capital and pay a fee. An official from the Capital Development Authority, which manages Islamabad, said the agency did not receive any requests to hang the posters, though it’s common for people to do it without permission. He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

How Will We Know When China is Number One?

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)

It has been conventional wisdom for well over a decade that China is a rising power. The statistics on China’s current size and projections about its future growth have become such clichés that they scarcely warrant repeating. Suffice to say that most observers agree that China, already the world’s most populous country and one of its military and economic powerhouses, will replace the United States as the world’s largest economy at some point mid-century. The implied corollary is that, if unstopped either by external pressure or internal fissure, China inexorably is set to replace the United States as the world’s dominant military and geopolitical force in due course. Pax Sinica impends. 

By most accounts, however, the American Era is far from over. As of 2014, the United States still boasts the largest economy in the world and a vastly superior GDP per capita to China, which, its leaders are keen to remind the world, still considers itself a developing nation. It is U.S. leadership that remains truly essential for global agreements to be concluded and implemented, and it is towards Washington that the world looks when global, regional and local crises emerge. The Pentagon’s budget continues to dwarf those of its rivals. And while the People’s Liberation Army might look menacing from the perspective of Tokyo, Taipei or Manila, China’s military hardly constitutes a direct threat to the United States. China, on the other hand, finds itself encircled by a string of formal and tacit U.S. alliances from the western Himalayas to the East China Sea. 

As such, the question presents itself: assuming the continued rise of China, when will we know—indeed, how will we know—that Beijing has knocked Washington off the top spot? The various gauges of national power favored by international-relations scholars—military spending, total industrial output, population, territorial size and so forth—have the virtues of being concrete measures of material wherewithal and at least open up the possibility of comparing the United States and China along objective dimensions. Yet such measures are also highly discrete from one another—that is, they constitute an array of fragmented indicators that are difficult to synthesize into a single index of national power. Attempts to create such aggregated measures of power abound, but often end up failing basic “sniff tests.” And, of course, actual influence in international politics is even harder to grasp, let alone measure. 

In fact, the attempt to operationalize and measure China’s ascent to global preponderance may be a lost cause. For China’s assumption of primacy will not be announced by fanfare; no committee of experts will confer to bestow upon China the mantle of world leader. Just as it has been to date, China’s rise will be gradual, uneven and extremely complicated. To understand the coming process more fully, it is helpful to recall the last time one nation replaced another at the pinnacle of the international-political league table. 

China Is Fine With Obama’s Trip to Asia - Except for Japan

China’s official response to Obama’s Asia trip has been restrained – except for comments on U.S.-Japan relations. 
April 29, 2014

U.S. President Barack Obama’s trip to Asia is drawing to a close this week. Obama arrived in the Philippines, the last stop on his tour, today. As expected, Obama’s trip to Manila was accompanied by the formal signing of a new defense agreement that will give U.S. troops access to certain Philippine military bases. Despite numerous protestations by Obama and Aqunio that the new deal was not targeting China, that’s exactly how popular perceptions paint the new agreement: as a counter-measure to China’s rise. In fact, to many, that’s the entire purpose of the U.S. “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia.

However, despite a flurry of commentary and op-eds on this subject in advance of Obama’s trip, Chinese media and officials are currently reserving judgment on the broader implications. In Monday’s press conference, when asked about China’s take on Obama’s visit to Asia, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang offered a wait-and-see approach. “Whether [the trip] is to counter China or not,” Qin said, “we will tell based on what the U.S. says and does.” Qin expressed China’s hope that U.S. engagement in Asia will follow the Asia-Pacific “trend” of “peace, development and win-win cooperation.”

Even with regards to the new U.S.-Philippines defense cooperation agreement, Qin’s response was restrained. He noted Obama’s repeated reassurances that the U.S. does not intend to contain China, and again said that China will be watching “what the U.S. says and does” to evaluate this claim. Qin also added that the U.S. and China share “a wide range of common interests in the Asia-Pacific,” a more optimistic note than might have been expected after the U.S. inked a defense agreement with one of the most vocal parties in China’s maritime disputes.

That’s not to say that China is convinced that the “pivot to Asia” is benign. An article in Global Times suggestedthat Obama was rewarding Malaysia with a visit in part because Kuala Lumpur recently shifted its stance on maritime disputes with China. Prior to that, the article said, Malaysia “was a missing element in Washington’s strategy to utilize South China Sea claimants to hedge China’s growing military assertiveness.”

AT YOUR FEET; OR, AT YOUR THROAT: GERMAN FM SAYS “RUSSIA PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME”

April 28, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner 


SPIEGEL ONLINE International

Frank-Walter Steinmeier Talks About the Ukraine Crisis and Russia

Foreign Minister Steinmeier: ‘Russia is Playing a Dangerous Game’

Interview Conducted by Nikolaus Blome

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “I don’t have a crystal ball.”

DPA

Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier: “I don’t have a crystal ball.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier talks to SPIEGEL about military escalation with Russia, which he describes as the “worst crisis since the end of the Cold War,” Vladimir Putin’s long-term goals and how NATO is adapting to a difficult new reality.

SPIEGEL: Minister Steinmeier, do you understand why people might currently be afraid of a war breaking out with Russia?

Steinmeier: We all sense that the events of the last few months could lead to a break, to a crossroad for Europe. I understand why that might scare people — nobody could have foreseen how quickly we’ve slid into the worst crisis since the end of the Cold War. Those who can remember the fall of the Berlin Wall know what we’ve accomplished over the past 25 years. The gains we’ve made almost everywhere in Europe in terms of peace, freedom and prosperity are now at risk. That’s why it’s important we take every measure to prevent things from getting worse.

SPIEGEL: For a long time, a military escalation between Western and Eastern Europe was considered out of the question. Is that certainty still valid?

Steinmeier: I don’t even want to think about military escalation between the West and the East. One thing, however, is clear: If the wrong decisions are made now, they could nullify decades of work furthering the freedom and security of Europe. Nobody of sound mind can seriously want that. Because we would pay the price for it in Europe — all of us, without exception.

SPIEGEL: Is the Russian leadership playing with fire?

Steinmeier: It is, in any case, playing a dangerous game with potentially dramatic consequences, for Russia in particular. The financial markets are already reaching their verdict: Moscow stocks and bonds have fallen sharply. The outlook for growth has disappeared. Many Russians are openly cheering their leadership on while simultaneously withdrawing as-yet unknown amounts of capital out of Russia. And this doesn’t even take into consideration the investments that Russia so urgently needs from outside the country for its modernization. This nationalist exuberance could lead to a swift hangover.

SPIEGEL: Why is the situation in East Ukraine so opaque and chaotic?

Steinmeier: In 1991, Ukraine inherited a difficult legacy with its independence. It’s on the border between East and West, with regions that have completely different histories, with a plethora of unresolved ethnic, religious, social and economic conflicts. It doesn’t surprise me that when the pressure in the pot rises, it would erupt. Now there are people on location there during this crisis who aren’t revealing their true motives or deeds to us, and others who are playing with loaded dice.

UKRAINE CRISIS: U.S. EXTENDS SANCTIONS ON RUSSIA

April 28, 2014 · by Fortuna's Corner 

FINANCIAL TIMES

Last updated: April 28, 2014
Ukraine Crisis: U.S. Extends Sanctions On Russia
By Geoff Dyer in Washington, Jack Farchy in Moscow and Guy Chazan in London
©Bloomberg Igor Sechin
The US has imposed further sanctions on Russia by targeting seven government officials and 17 companies linked to President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, including Igor Sechin, chief executive of the Kremlin-controlled oil company Rosneft.

Accusing Russia of breaching a diplomatic agreement to defuse the crisis in Ukraine, the White House said it would place sanctions on three banks as well as a string of other companies connected to the Russian oligarchs who were named in two previous sanctions lists: Gennady Timchenko, and Arkady and Boris Rotenberg.

Washington will also deny export licence applications for any high technology items that can be used by the military and will pay particular attention to the area of microelectronics.

A senior administration official said the new sanctions were unlikely to create “an immediate change in Russian policy” but were designed to “steadily show the Russians that there is going to be much more severe economic pain and political isolation” if Moscow did not try to defuse the crisis.

Individuals on the list are subject to US visa bans and asset freezes while the companies will have their assets frozen.

The new sanctions could pile pressure on the multinational oil companies that have inked big ticket exploration deals with Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil company.

BP, the British oil major, holds a stake of just under 20 per cent in Rosneft after the buyout of TNK-BP last year, while ExxonMobil, Statoil of Norway and Eni of Italy have all signed up to partner Rosneft in drilling projects in Russia’s Arctic seas. Trading houses Glencore, Vital and Trafigura have all lent large sums to Rosneft, though these loans have subsequently been syndicated out to other institutions, significantly reducing their exposure.

People close to the companies said that as Rosneft itself is not subject to the sanctions, overall exposure for these companies was limited.

In a statement, Mr Sechin said: “We assure our shareholders and partners, including American ones, that . . . our co-operation won’t be hurt and will dynamically evolve”.

While Mr Sechin, who has a small personal stake in Rosneft, is one of the best paid executives in Russia, he is not known to have extensive assets outside of Russia.

Others added to the sanctions list include Dmitry Kozak, deputy prime minister, and Aleksei Pushkov, the chairman of the Duma committee on international affairs. No Gazprom executives appeared on the list.

The sanctions were introduced as tensions in eastern Ukraine showed further signs of escalating. Gennady Kernes, mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv, was seriously wounded in an apparent assassination attempt. The Kharkiv website said Mr Kernes, who is seen as a supporter of a unified Ukraine, had been shot in the back and was in hospital “fighting for his life”

Russia’s Latest Land Grab: How Putin Won Crimea and Lost Ukraine

APR 25, 2014

Russia’s occupation and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in February and March have plunged Europe into one of its gravest crises since the end of the Cold War. Despite analogies to Munich in 1938, however, Russia’s invasion of this Ukrainian region is at once a replay and an escalation of tactics that the Kremlin has used for the past two decades to maintain its influence across the domains of the former Soviet Union. Since the early 1990s, Russia has either directly supported or contributed to the emergence of four breakaway ethnic regions in Eurasia: Transnistria, a self-declared state in Moldova on a strip of land between the Dniester River and Ukraine; Abkhazia, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast; South Ossetia, in northern Georgia; and, to a lesser degree, Nagorno-Karabakh, a landlocked mountainous region in southwestern Azerbaijan that declared its independence under Armenian protection following a brutal civil war. Moscow’s meddling has created so-called frozen conflicts in these states, in which the splinter territories remain beyond the control of the central governments and the local de facto authorities enjoy Russian protection and influence.

Until Russia annexed Crimea, the situation on the peninsula had played out according to a familiar script: Moscow opportunistically fans ethnic tensions and applies limited force at a moment of political uncertainty, before endorsing territorial revisions that allow it to retain a foothold in the contested region. With annexation, however, Russia departed from these old tactics and significantly raised the stakes. Russia’s willingness to go further in Crimea than in the earlier cases appears driven both by Ukraine’s strategic importance to Russia and by President Vladimir Putin’s newfound willingness to ratchet up his confrontation with a West that Russian elites increasingly see as hypocritical and antagonistic to their interests.

Tensions in the Saudi-American Relationship

Foreign Policy Essay | April 27, 2014

By: F. Gregory Gause, III


Editor’s Note: Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in December 2010, commentators have regularly described relations between Washington and Riyadh as strained at best and near collapse at worst. The potential for regional democratization, disagreements over how to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and—most importantly—the question of Iran seem to have divided the once-close allies. F. Gregory Gause, III, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont and a non-resident scholar at the Brookings Doha Center, argues that concerns of a split are overblown and that the U.S.-Saudi relationship still rests on firm foundations.

President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia in March 2014 seems to have alleviated, at least for the time being, the sense that the relationship was “in crisis.” And that sense of crisis, fostered more by the Saudis than the Americans, was always overblown. Riyadh and Washington have survived far worse periods of friction in their relationship, such as during the 1973-74 oil embargo and in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. All sorts of interests continue to tie the two unlikely allies together, from counterterrorism cooperation to containing Iranian regional influence. Most importantly, there is a strong sense on both sides that, no matter how uncomfortable each is with the other, neither has a better alternative partner.

Episodic feelings from the Saudi side that the relationship is in crisis are not accidental; they are structural. They are inherent in the very nature of an asymmetric alliance between a stronger power and a weaker power. Glenn Snyder, the late international relations scholar, encapsulated this dynamic in his reflection that the weaker power in such alliances is always caught between the opposing fears of “entrapment and abandonment.” In the past, when Washington was more bellicose toward Iran, the Saudis worried that they would pay the price of Iranian retaliation for any U.S. attack on Iran. Now, with Americans and Iranians sitting at negotiating tables with each other, Saudi elites worry that their interests will be neglected, if not actively sold out, by their U.S. ally. In October 2013, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Saudi Consultative Council, the appointed and non-binding Saudi version of a parliament, said “I am afraid there is something hidden…If America and Iran reach an understanding, it may be at the cost of the Arab world and the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia.”

The president’s visit to Riyadh was aimed at putting to rest those more extreme worries about American intentions and the trajectory of the new Iranian-American relationship. Given the exaggerations involved in imagining an imminent Tehran-Washington “grand bargain,” that was not difficult. But the visit did little to bridge the gaps between the United States and Saudi Arabia on two important issues, each of which will represent an ongoing challenge in the bilateral relationship.

The first issue is Syria, though the underlying dynamic here is Iran. Washington and Riyadh do not disagree on the ends. Both want Assad out. The disagreement is over priorities. For the Saudis, rolling back Iranian influence in the eastern Arab world is a major goal, perhaps the most important current goal in their foreign policy. Having failed to dislodge the Iranians in Lebanon and Iraq, Syria is their best shot. This is as important to Riyadh as the Iranian nuclear issue, and much more immediate. Syria has not only evolved into the major arena of regional international politics, but it also has become an emotional public opinion issue among Saudi Arabia’s Sunni majority. The Obama administration would also like to roll back Iran’s regional influence, but it is not going to let this stand in the way of a nuclear deal with Tehran, if one is available on acceptable terms. The Saudis are wrong to fear that Washington is cooking up a geopolitical grand bargain with the Iranians, one that trades Iranian nuclear restraint for American acceptance of a dominant Iranian regional role. But they are not wrong in thinking that the United States does not share their sense of urgency about getting rid of the Assad regime and thus beginning to roll back Iran’s regional influence.

The second issue is Egypt, though the underlying dynamic here is democracy. This is, in fact, a disagreement about ends. The Saudis have, in effect, declared war on the Muslim Brotherhood. They, along with their equally anti-Brotherhood neighbor the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have poured money into Egypt since the July 2013 military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammad Morsi. In March 2014, the Saudis formally labeled the Brothers a terrorist organization. In that same month, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain all withdrew their ambassadors from their Gulf Cooperation Council partner Qatar to pressure the new ruler there to reduce his country’s support for the Brotherhood. For the Saudis, democratically elected Sunni Islamists call into question their own claim to speak for Sunni Islam regionally and their contention that “real” Islamic governance does not require democracy. Thus, an Arab Spring that brought elected Islamists like the Brotherhood to power was both an immediate threat to Saudi foreign policy interests and a longer-term threat to their own domestic stability.
The Obama administration took a very different view of the Brotherhood’s electoral successes. It lifted the official ban on American diplomats having direct contact with Brotherhood members. It welcomed the free elections in Egypt that produced a Brotherhood majority in the (subsequently dissolved by court order) parliament and a Brother as president, as well as the free elections in Tunisia in which Ennahda (in effect the Brotherhood branch in Tunisia) won a parliamentary plurality. It criticized the Egyptian military’s decision to overthrow Morsi, while simultaneously twisting itself in a pretzel to keep from calling it a “coup” (which would have required an immediate halt to American military aid to Egypt). The administration saw the Brotherhood’s willingness to play the democratic game as an essential move if the Arab world were to have any hope of developing stable democracies. Washington would actually like to see the Arab Spring produce stable, democratic Arab governments, and such governments would naturally have to include Islamist parties. Saudi Arabia, of course, would not.

These two differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia, though important, do not constitute a crisis in their relationship. The two countries have agreed to disagree about plenty of things in the past, most notably Arab-Israeli issues, and there are still plenty more issues on which the two sides share important interests—counterterrorism cooperation against al-Qaeda, preventing even more chaos in Yemen, maintaining a roughly stable world oil market, and continued military-to-military cooperation (including U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia). Even on those two divisive issues, we have already seen some sanding down of the sharp edges. The Obama administration looks ready to deal with a Sisi presidency in Egypt, despite its misgivings. Saudi moves to give their internal security chief, Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, a bigger role in shaping the kingdom’s Syria policy could indicate that Riyadh is coming to share Washington’s fears about the threat of Sunni jihadist spillover from Syria. Prince Muhammad is in charge of internal security in the country. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who recently stepped down as head of foreign intelligence, had been in charge of the Syria portfolio and had moved Saudi policy in Syria toward greater support for Salafi, though non-al-Qaeda, fighting groups. Certainly, Saudi Arabia’s recent criminalization of their citizens’ joining foreign jihads is a clear sign of growing worries about blowback from Syria. Nonetheless, the two allies have important differences in their overall strategic views of the region that will continue to cause tensions in the relationship in the future.


Tensions in the Saudi-American Relationship


Editor’s Note: Since the outbreak of the Arab Spring in December 2010, commentators have regularly described relations between Washington and Riyadh as strained at best and near collapse at worst. The potential for regional democratization, disagreements over how to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, and—most importantly—the question of Iran seem to have divided the once-close allies. F. Gregory Gause, III, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont and a non-resident scholar at the Brookings Doha Center, argues that concerns of a split are overblown and that the U.S.-Saudi relationship still rests on firm foundations. 

President Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia in March 2014 seems to have alleviated, at least for the time being, the sense that the relationship was “in crisis.” And that sense of crisis, fostered more by the Saudis than the Americans, was always overblown. Riyadh and Washington have survived far worse periods of friction in their relationship, such as during the 1973-74 oil embargo and in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. All sorts of interests continue to tie the two unlikely allies together, from counterterrorism cooperation to containing Iranian regional influence. Most importantly, there is a strong sense on both sides that, no matter how uncomfortable each is with the other, neither has a better alternative partner. 

Episodic feelings from the Saudi side that the relationship is in crisis are not accidental; they are structural. They are inherent in the very nature of an asymmetric alliance between a stronger power and a weaker power. Glenn Snyder, the late international relations scholar, encapsulated this dynamic in his reflection that the weaker power in such alliances is always caught between the opposing fears of “entrapment and abandonment.” In the past, when Washington was more bellicose toward Iran, the Saudis worried that they would pay the price of Iranian retaliation for any U.S. attack on Iran. Now, with Americans and Iranians sitting at negotiating tables with each other, Saudi elites worry that their interests will be neglected, if not actively sold out, by their U.S. ally. In October 2013, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the Saudi Consultative Council, the appointed and non-binding Saudi version of a parliament, said “I am afraid there is something hidden…If America and Iran reach an understanding, it may be at the cost of the Arab world and the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia.” 

The president’s visit to Riyadh was aimed at putting to rest those more extreme worries about American intentions and the trajectory of the new Iranian-American relationship. Given the exaggerations involved in imagining an imminent Tehran-Washington “grand bargain,” that was not difficult. But the visit did little to bridge the gaps between the United States and Saudi Arabia on two important issues, each of which will represent an ongoing challenge in the bilateral relationship. 

The first issue is Syria, though the underlying dynamic here is Iran. Washington and Riyadh do not disagree on the ends. Both want Assad out. The disagreement is over priorities. For the Saudis, rolling back Iranian influence in the eastern Arab world is a major goal, perhaps the most important current goal in their foreign policy. Having failed to dislodge the Iranians in Lebanon and Iraq, Syria is their best shot. This is as important to Riyadh as the Iranian nuclear issue, and much more immediate. Syria has not only evolved into the major arena of regional international politics, but it also has become an emotional public opinion issue among Saudi Arabia’s Sunni majority. The Obama administration would also like to roll back Iran’s regional influence, but it is not going to let this stand in the way of a nuclear deal with Tehran, if one is available on acceptable terms. The Saudis are wrong to fear that Washington is cooking up a geopolitical grand bargain with the Iranians, one that trades Iranian nuclear restraint for American acceptance of a dominant Iranian regional role. But they are not wrong in thinking that the United States does not share their sense of urgency about getting rid of the Assad regime and thus beginning to roll back Iran’s regional influence. 

The second issue is Egypt, though the underlying dynamic here is democracy. This is, in fact, a disagreement about ends. The Saudis have, in effect, declared war on the Muslim Brotherhood. They, along with their equally anti-Brotherhood neighbor the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have poured money into Egypt since the July 2013 military coup that overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammad Morsi. In March 2014, the Saudis formally labeled the Brothers a terrorist organization. In that same month, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain all withdrew their ambassadors from their Gulf Cooperation Council partner Qatar to pressure the new ruler there to reduce his country’s support for the Brotherhood. For the Saudis, democratically elected Sunni Islamists call into question their own claim to speak for Sunni Islam regionally and their contention that “real” Islamic governance does not require democracy. Thus, an Arab Spring that brought elected Islamists like the Brotherhood to power was both an immediate threat to Saudi foreign policy interests and a longer-term threat to their own domestic stability. 

The Obama administration took a very different view of the Brotherhood’s electoral successes. It lifted the official ban on American diplomats having direct contact with Brotherhood members. It welcomed the free elections in Egypt that produced a Brotherhood majority in the (subsequently dissolved by court order) parliament and a Brother as president, as well as the free elections in Tunisia in which Ennahda (in effect the Brotherhood branch in Tunisia) won a parliamentary plurality. It criticized the Egyptian military’s decision to overthrow Morsi, while simultaneously twisting itself in a pretzel to keep from calling it a “coup” (which would have required an immediate halt to American military aid to Egypt). The administration saw the Brotherhood’s willingness to play the democratic game as an essential move if the Arab world were to have any hope of developing stable democracies. Washington would actually like to see the Arab Spring produce stable, democratic Arab governments, and such governments would naturally have to include Islamist parties. Saudi Arabia, of course, would not. 

These two differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia, though important, do not constitute a crisis in their relationship. The two countries have agreed to disagree about plenty of things in the past, most notably Arab-Israeli issues, and there are still plenty more issues on which the two sides share important interests—counterterrorism cooperation against al-Qaeda, preventing even more chaos in Yemen, maintaining a roughly stable world oil market, and continued military-to-military cooperation (including U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia). Even on those two divisive issues, we have already seen some sanding down of the sharp edges. The Obama administration looks ready to deal with a Sisi presidency in Egypt, despite its misgivings. Saudi moves to give their internal security chief, Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, a bigger role in shaping the kingdom’s Syria policy could indicate that Riyadh is coming to share Washington’s fears about the threat of Sunni jihadist spillover from Syria. Prince Muhammad is in charge of internal security in the country. Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who recently stepped down as head of foreign intelligence, had been in charge of the Syria portfolio and had moved Saudi policy in Syria toward greater support for Salafi, though non-al-Qaeda, fighting groups. Certainly, Saudi Arabia’s recent criminalization of their citizens’ joining foreign jihads is a clear sign of growing worries about blowback from Syria. Nonetheless, the two allies have important differences in their overall strategic views of the region that will continue to cause tensions in the relationship in the future.

Palestinian-Israeli Talks: Time for a “Time Out”

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)


In basketball, when a team scores a number of baskets in a row, the opposing team’s coach usually calls for a “time out.” Its purpose is not only to give new instructions to the team, but more importantly, to stop the psychological slide that may be causing the collapse of the team’s defense and the impotence of its offense. 

Therefore, it was hardly surprising that, as an avid basketball player, U.S. President Barack Obama reacted last Friday to the news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas by suggesting a “time out” in the currently morbid Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. [3] Implicitly, when suggesting the pause, Obama also acknowledged that the talks had reached a dead end even before the latest crisis, noting that the two sides’ leaders failed to make the difficult decisions that a breakthrough required. 

Secretary of State John Kerry should heed the president’s advice. Moreover, he should use the suggested pause to take his negotiations team, headed by Special Envoy Martin Indyk, to a weekend retreat. There, they should review the process as it has unfolded since this phase of the talks began in July 2013. They should ascertain the strategic—not operational or tactical—mistakes made during the period. They should also determine what a “recalibrated” process should look like and assess whether they can do what it takes to achieve better results. 

What are the key mistakes that should be discussed at the retreat? First, Kerry should not have permitted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to engage him in endless discussions regarding the conditions for negotiations. Kerry should have told the two leaders: 

Gentlemen, if you want peace, the United States is prepared to facilitate. If you reach an agreement, issues like a settlement-construction freeze and release of prisoners will be taken care of. Prisoners will be released and construction will cease in whatever settlements will find themselves located on the Palestinian side of the negotiated boundary. But the world presents the United States with too many important challenges for us to be engaged in negotiating precursors to negotiations. So make up your mind: If you want peace, we need to focus on border demarcation, security, Jerusalem, refugees, and water resources. Not on your conditions for negotiating these issues. 

The Truth About Japan’s Economic Decline

ARTICLE 
APRIL 25, 2014 

SUMMARY

Japan’s economic situation is not as dire as some rumors suggest. The country’s growth slowdown is far from terminal—especially if Tokyo implements domestic reforms.

Japanese officials are gripped by anxiety about the state of their country’s economy, considering it to be structurally uncompetitive and in terminal decline. Yet the reality is quite different. Japan may not be the economic juggernaut it once was, but reports of its demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Japan sees itself—and is commonly viewed by others—as the worst student in the class in terms of economic performance. The country that once inspired the best-selling book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America by Harvard’s Ezra Vogel now frets about a host of perceived economic shortcomings. Japanese complain of their country’s slow growth and big government debt, and they worry about deflation and Japan’s rapidly aging population. They point to labor-market inflexibility and claim unemployment is more widespread than official rates indicate. They also contend that Japan seems unable to attract foreign investment and suffers from sluggish exports and a deterioration in its balance of payments—all the familiar refrains of struggling business executives and beleaguered policymakers across Europe and the United States. A controversial hike in consumption taxes to deal with the country’s budget deficit has only increased concerns.


SENIOR ASSOCIATE
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS PROGRAM

How Can The World Trade Organization Stay Relevant?These economic worries are compounded by political and geopolitical ones. The debate about whether Japan should reopen its nuclear plants in the wake of the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the conflict with China over the Senkaku Islands, and tensions with China and South Korea over Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s refusal to acknowledge Japanese war crimes all add to a profound national anxiety that is evident in every public discussion.

But the perception of economic decline does not match the on-the-ground realities. A visitor to Japan would see a country that has a very high standard of living, with sober and functional public buildings and magnificent transport infrastructure. It is a society in love with high-tech innovations, producing such marvels as the Honda motor company’s Asimo, a robot that walks, runs, and dances like a human being—and that I hope will never learn economic analysis. And statistics show a more equal income distribution and much lower unemployment than in the United States.

Even a cursory look at the data reveals that assertions of Japan’s decline are exaggerated. Japan’s per capita income, adjusted for purchasing power, is now almost exactly in line with that of France and the UK—hardly a disaster. The UN’s 2013 Human Development Report, which accounts for education achievement and longevity as well as income, places Japan at number ten in the world, just behind Switzerland and ahead of Canada.

The U.S. Army's Asia Opportunity

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)


In the May 1954 issue of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings magazine, Dr. Samuel Huntington, a young scholar slated to make his mark as one of the most influential political scientists of the next half-century, penned an eloquent and direct challenge to the military services. Huntington observed [3] that when there are major changes in the principal threats to a nation, these changes “must be met by shifts in national policy and corresponding changes in service strategic concepts.” Moreover, as the U.S. military services struggled to define their roles in national security policy following the Korean War, Huntington insisted, “the resources which a service is able to obtain in a democratic society are a function of the public support of that service. The service has the responsibility to develop this necessary support, and it can only do this if it possesses a strategic concept which clearly formulates its relationship to the national security.” 

In other words, each military service isn’t guaranteed a ‘fair-share’ of the budget indefinitely, but a level of resourcing commensurate with the strategic contribution it can make toward the security of our nation. 

It is a sensible argument, but its implications will inevitably have disruptive impacts on organizations and budget plans. Just as it did in the 1950s, the United States is now facing a shifting security environment that will require our military to adjust its focus in new directions. We are seeing the emergence of an international system that places a renewed emphasis on great power competition [4] different from the last decade’s counterinsurgency-focused land wars in South Asia and the Middle East that consumed our Nation’s attention. 

More specifically, the growing importance of the Asia-Pacific region to our national interests [5], and the peacetime competition that is emerging with the People’s Republic of China, have prompted a natural debate [6] among U.S. defense experts and policy makers about the roles and missions of our military in the decade ahead. Many have chosen to view changes needed to adapt to this competition as threats to the current order of things, including the size and shape of the Army and Marine Corps. Instead, I believe this is a moment of opportunity for the services, just as Huntington encouraged, to sharpen their arguments and make the most compelling case to the American people for the utility they can offer our national security policy in the second half of this decade and beyond. Indeed, what could be more American than a robust, transparent discussion amongst the Army, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Navy? 

This debate has already resulted in some tangible shifts in the recent FY2015 budget request and 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review, such as greater attention to resourcing a healthy balance of military power and capabilities in the Asia-Pacific. However, change has been slow, the means to achieve this objective are mired by budget sequestration cuts, and the services remain trapped in an egalitarian mentality resistant to prioritizing the investments necessary for success in future war-fighting environments. 

Western Jihadists in Syria Threaten to Bring Their War Back Home



Europe and the U.S. must challenge the Islamist ideology that encourages young Westerners to join the most extreme and dangerous factions in the Syria war.

We are watching the largest mobilization in a generation of volunteers traveling abroad to join a war. An estimated 11,000 foreign fighters have been mobilized in Syria, according to a just-published study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (PDF). More than a quarter of those combatants are from Western countries, mostly from Britain, France, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Australians, Canadians and U.S. citizen also have joined the ranks. 

But judging by our complacency, you would be forgiven for not knowing this. Partly, that’s because some on the left in Britain and elsewhere have been busy downplaying the conflict or romanticizing it as something akin to the international brigades during the Spanish Civil War that attracted George Orwell and other idealists. But unlike Orwell in the 1930s, these fighters on their way to Syria are not traveling to fight against fascists. Many are young Western Muslims rushing to join a fascist group that is too extreme even for al-Qaeda: the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Members have been known to behead even fellow fighters. And it’s not much consolation that the more “moderate” volunteers are joining, Jabhat al-Nusra, which is the official Al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. 

The problem is metastasizing rapidly. As the number if ISIS volunteers grows, and as all other jihadists groups -- including al-Qaeda -- unite to fight against them, they are beginning to leave Syria and spread their uniquely “Western”jihadist-criminal brand to third countries, including next-door Iraq. 

So what can be done? We must start by asking why so many Western Muslims are prepared to travel and risk their lives to fight everyone else, including their fellow Muslim rebels, in Syria. Such decisions are not made overnight, and not in an isolated context. No amount of charismatic recruitment alone is powerful enough to achieve this feat if people are not already primed for exploitation

For years, the intolerant Islamist ideology has been spreading unchecked across Western capitals, as we stand by navel-gazing and wondering what to do. There are thousands of young Muslims who already subscribe to the basic views of ISIS and al-Qaeda and thus are ready to be called upon for mobilization. Yet the ostensibly non-violent versions of Islamism are patronized as antidotes to Al Qaeda and violent extremism. It is time to challenge that idea and to challenge its advocates in civil society. 

A new standard, expecting a commitment to universal human rights and a freedom of varied cultures and identities must be raised by government, by private organizations and the media, to combat the kind of one-dimensional Islamism prevalent among many angry Western Muslims. 

When the “moderate” option for Western fighters in Syria is Al Qaeda, the term “moderate” loses all meaning. In fact, jihadist affiliation has become a brand and ISIS, in particular, has a very attractive online presence. My organization, Quilliam, will soon release a ground-breaking report on the way the Internet is utilized to recruit jihadists. 

What we will recommend is that private-public partnerships build grass-root initiatives that discredit the ideas, symbols and leaders of this jihadist brand in all forms of media, online and off. The information is out there, and there are many people willing to engage in this work, but sadly the resources to make it possible have been few and far between. 

When the “moderate” option for Western fighters in Syria is Al Qaeda, the term “moderate” loses all meaning. 

As part of the fight back against this jihadist brand, it is crucial that the alternative -- a free and fair civil society -- be respected by the rest of us. If we are to push for human rights as a standard, then government measures to stem the flow of these fighters must be seen to adhere to the rule of law. This requires genuine engagement at multiple levels and across the government spectrum, not simply the blunt tools of police and prosecutors. 

In both Britain and France this month, the governments put forth proposals meant to discourage young men from heading off to war in Syria. The French aim to heighten surveillance of websites, encouraging relatives to notify police if family members are attending radical mosques or if they are spending time watching jihadi sites online. Police files on young people can now be opened with no higher standard than “strong intuition” that they might go abroad to fight. In Britain, counter-terrorism police chiefs are trying to persuade mothers to keep their boys at home. 

A more coherent messaging strategy needs to be employed. We are missing an opportunity when we fail to highlight the fact that joining one of the militias in Syria is futile and counterproductive, especially when an aspiring jihadist is more likely to be engaged in fighting other rebels than against the Assad regime. Indeed, many Britons have already been killed by intra-jihadist infighting. 

While it is important to engage with Muslim families and focus on the role that parents can play, the messaging must involve all aspects of society, and needs to reach a wider audience. Some of those who travel to Syria are converts to Islam and less likely to listen to the admonitions of their non-Muslim relatives. Many are alienated from their families already and defiance is part of their motive for leaving. 

Political inclusion and engagement through the mainstream political system must be encouraged as a non-violent and legal way to address grievances. At the same time we should discourage the kind of isolationist, exclusivist identity politics one sees where only intra-community solutions are looked for or accepted. In the United Kingdom we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds. 

We are already years behind in this work. We are faced with people who are battle-hardened, indoctrinated, globally networked and fluent in English. They are not bound even by Al Qaeda’s discipline. They are angry at everyone because of what they have seen in Syria; because they have been rejected there; because they were angry to begin with. It would be naïve in the extreme to assume that some of these fighters will not plan attacks on the West. In fact, they are already warning us. A member of ISIS with a North American accent recently released a video vowing to Canada and “all the American tyrants: We are coming and we will destroy you.” 

What is coming, without doubt, is the blowback from Syria’s savage war, and we are woefully unready to address it. 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/27/western-jihadists-in-syria-threaten-to-bring-their-war-back-home.html

Iraq's Never-Ending War

By David Ignatius - April 27, 2014

AMMAN, Jordan -- Iraq appears to be slipping back into civil war, and Sheik Zaydan Aljabiri, one of the political leaders of the Sunni insurgent group known as the Tribal Revolutionaries, seems confident that his side is winning.

"We are three kilometers from Baghdad airport! We are 20 kilometers from the Green Zone!" Zaydan proclaims in an interview here. Dressed in a princely gold robe and red kaffiyeh, he conveys the tribal authority of one of the leading sheiks of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's Anbar province.

With Iraqi parliamentary elections scheduled for Wednesday, war has come back with a vengeance to that shattered nation. But this time, there's no U.S. military around to broker a truce. The last U.S. troops left three years ago, and war-weary Americans would gag at the thought of returning to such a pitiless battlefield.

But make no mistake: Brutal sectarian war has come again to Iraq, and many say it's as bad as in the dark days of 2007. "In some ways, it's almost scarier today," says a Pentagon official who follows Iraq closely. The Iraqi military isn't strong enough to fend off the Sunni insurgents, so Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is relying increasingly on Iranian-trained Shiite militias.

As the Sunni fighters push toward Baghdad, they are turning to extremists for help, some of them linked with the al-Qaeda affiliate often known by its Arabic acronym, pronounced "Daash." Zaydan insists that his 15,000 fighters don't have extremist support, but other Iraqis say that the jihadists have been on the front lines, especially in Fallujah, at the gates of Baghdad.

"It's only going to get worse," warns Maj. Gen. Ali Shukri, a retired Jordanian commander who was the late King Hussein's special adviser on Iraqi tribes. He notes that many Sunni tribal leaders have never given up the atavistic dream that one expressed to him in 2005, after the U.S. had toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and transferred power to a Shiite-led government: "Iraq has always been ruled by Sunnis, and it will be again."

A vivid snapshot of the battle raging in Anbar province comes from Jalal al-Gaood, who's running for parliament in Wednesday's election. I spoke with him by phone Thursday while he was campaigning near Ramadi. He says that in town after town, extremists seize government buildings, triggering bombing reprisals and tank assaults by Iraqi government forces that drive residents away.

Gaood cites the example of a town called Albu Ali Jassim, west of Ramadi along the Euphrates River. "In the last week, violent extremists rampaged the police building and pushed people out," he explains. "The Iraqi military then began bombing and shelling the village, and the whole tribe moved out, 250 families." Because they're refugees now, these Sunnis from Albu Ali Jassim probably won't vote on Wednesday, which Gaood thinks is precisely what Maliki wants.

Iran turns the bend?

Ravi Joshi
28 April 2014

Amidst Indian media's obsession of the elections, a small but significant news- report of the Reuters, that Iran's oil exports to India have grown by two fold in the last one year, has gone unnoticed by the media. According to Reuters, Iran exported 387,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to India in this period. In March 2013, India imported 187,000 bpd of crude oil from Iran, which grew by 117% in the same period this year. India's oil imports in March indicate a 45% increase against that of February, which was 260,000 bpd. Reuters added that India's average oil imports from Iran in the first 3 months of 2014 amounted to 358,000 bpd, up by 43% year-on-year basis. 

Similarly, China's crude oil imports from Iran in the first 3 months of 2014 saw an increase of 36% year-on-year basis. China's oil imports from Iran in the first quarter of this year were at 557,605 bpd. 

The figures mark a continuing rise in oil exports from Iran, in the light of November 2013 Geneva accord between Iran and P5+1. 

Now, do these figures indicate that Iran has turned the bend and worst phase of sanctions is over? Well, there is more good news for Iran. 

The oil giants, including Spain's Rapsol, Russia's Lukoil, France's Total and Italy's ENI, have shown interest in returning to Iran following the Geneva accord. 

What exactly has changed for Iran, since the Nov 2013 Geneva accord? Well, for starters, on 1st April this year, the US State Department announced that it had authorised release of $450 million, its first installment of the assets frozen by the US Treasury. Iran has also received $2.5 billion from Japan for its oil exports and one payment from South Korea. So, if Japan and South Korea have paid Iran in hard currency, India too appears to have resolved its payments problem with Iran, the one issue that weighed heavily on the relationship, despite many alternative routes that were jointly explored. 

Don't Worry About Worried Allies

Published on The National Interest (http://nationalinterest.org)

April 28, 2014 

A leitmotif of much reporting and commentary about U.S. foreign relations in recent months has been that U.S. allies are worried about the strength of U.S. commitments and the ability and willingness of the United States to stay active and engaged in their regions. Allies are said to be hungry for reassurances from Washington about this subject. This was a major theme of analysis anticipating President Obama's trip to the Far East. A similar theme has infused much commentary about the Middle East, especially with reference to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Arab states. Reassurance of allies within NATO [4] has become a topic of concern in connection with the standoff with Russia over Ukraine. 

One reason we are hearing so much of this sort of thing is that it flows from another leitmotif, that of American “retreat” from the world. The latter idea partly reflects that we are in a period of winding down extensive overseas military commitments, and of the American public not being in a mood to wind military commitments back up. It also partly reflects political incentives in some quarters to portray Mr. Obama as weak (at least as far as foreign policy is concerned), and for that reason alone we ought to be skeptical of the retreat theme and the theme about worried allies that is connected to it. 

Nonetheless there actually have been many expressions of worry along this line from people associated with governments generally considered U.S. allies. The question to consider is how much of such professed allied disquietude ought to worry us. The answer is that most of it shouldn't. 

Alliances are important tools of U.S. foreign policy. They are force multipliers that help the United States to advance and protect its interests without trying to do everything itself. 

It also certainly behooves us to listen to the perspectives of allies and to think carefully about what they have to say. To do so will make us less likely to get into trouble than by practicing lone ranger unilateralism. Twelve years ago we would have been well served by paying more attention to what our allies in parts of Old Europe were saying rather than by showing displeasure with them by renaming deep-fried sticks of potatoes.