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sábado, 25 de setembro de 2021

“I Have Eliminated 'the West’ from My Vocabulary” - Christoph Heusgen, Merkel's Foreign Policy Advisor (Der Spiegel)


 French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Merkel and foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen in 2017 during a flight from Triest to Paris.

Foto: Energistyrelsen / Bundesregierung / Guido Bergmann / action press

Interview with Merkel’s Former Foreign Policy Adviser “I Have Eliminated 'the West’ from My Vocabulary”

Christoph Heusgen served for 12 years as Angela Merkel’s top foreign policy adviser. In an interview, he speaks about the chancellor’s successes, mistakes, the amateurish nature of Donald Trump’s government and the right approach to an ascendant China.
Interview Conducted by Christiane Hoffmann und Christoph Schult


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Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini. Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire; book review by Jennifer Wells

Um aspecto do direito humanitário internacional e do direito da guerra. 

H-Diplo Review Essay 371- "Human Shields"

by George Fujii

H-Diplo Review Essay 371

24 September 2021

Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini.  Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire.  

Oakland: University of California Press, 2020.  ISBN:  9780520301849 (hardcover, $29.95).

https://hdiplo.org/to/E371


Editor: Diane Labrosse | Commissioning Editor: Andrew Szarejko | Production 

Editor: George Fujii

Review by Jennifer Wells, George Washington University

In March 2011, as the Arab Spring rippled across North Africa and vicious conflict erupted in Libya between rebel forces and the country’s longtime leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the United Nations Security Council implemented a no-fly zone over the country, marking a dramatic escalation in the international community’s involvement.  Just days earlier, Gaddafi had promised an assault on any foreign troops should a no-fly zone be enacted.  Caught up in the midst of this wrangling were four New York Timesjournalists who had been captured by Gaddafi’s forces while covering the conflict and, at the time that the UN resolution was passed, found themselves in a well-appointed government jail in Tripoli.  The group later wrote that “after the no-fly zone was imposed and we heard volleys of antiaircraft fire, we thought that a desperate government could make us human shields.”[1]

I would have forgotten about this episode and the journalists’ (well-founded) fears had it not been for Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini’s outstanding and thought-provoking book, Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire.  Theirs is a work laden with insights and offerings, the most salient of which force the reader to consider the innumerable ways in which a person can become a human shield, and, disturbingly, to confront the realization that not all shields – and thus not all humans – are created equal.  In untangling the complexity of shielding, the authors have achieved that most elusive of feats, producing a book that is at once pathbreaking for the specialist and compulsively readable for the public. 

The introduction frames the idea of the human shield fluidly and comprehensively.  From the outset, the authors make clear that there are two types of human shields: involuntary (those coerced to serve as a buffer) and voluntary (those who put themselves between aggressors and an intended target).  But, it soon becomes evident that political, social, cultural, economic, and geographic stakes attach different values to the “human” in human shields.  As the authors note, “it is the value ascribed to the lives of some people that explains why their vulnerability can become a weapon of deterrence, while the lives of others are perceived to be expendable” (5).  The death of Rachel Corrie, an American college student who placed herself between an Israeli bulldozer and the home of a Palestinian pharmacist in Gaza, shocked and appalled much of the world because she was a young, affluent, white Western woman volunteering with a humanitarian organization (1, 114-115).  Similar headlines and outrage would likely not have appeared if the victim had been a Palestinian.  The inherent disparity that characterizes human lives and determines who is an “effective” shield is accounted for in part by the laws of war, which reinforce how race, religion, gender, and class, amongst other conditions, have shaped contemporary and historical understandings of “the human” and, consequently, the ethics of violence (6).  This dynamic, between violence and power relationships, most animates the authors and becomes the book’s lodestar.  “Human shields are the book’s main protagonists,” Gordon and Perugini write, “and the production of humane violence is the plot” (12). 

The book proceeds chronologically as the authors make their case.  The first of its twenty-two snappy chapters addresses the American Civil War and the creation of the 1863 Lieber Code while the last offers a meditation on civil disobedience in contemporary protest movements, including Standing Rock and Black Lives Matter.  Its temporal breadth is matched only by its geographic and thematic scope.  The book moves from continent to continent, and conflict to conflict, detailing how human shielding is becoming more sophisticated and widespread while the laws of war and international humanitarian law (IHL) struggle to adapt to man’s seemingly endless ability to out-brutalize himself.  Human Shields can roughly be divided into three segments.  Chapters 1-9 are geographically and temporally restricted, addressing discrete conflicts from the mid-nineteenth century through the Vietnam War.  Chapters 10-17 revolve around different themes – environment; resistance; humanitarian crimes; manuals; scale; hospitals; proximity; info-war – that are sometimes bounded to a specific time or place but whose lessons can be applied to manifold conflicts, past, present, and future.  The final five chapters, which are also largely thematic, move into decidedly modern realms and tackle thorny topics such as propaganda, social media, and post-human shielding.  Sources consulted include scholarly literature in political science, international relations, law, and history; reports compiled by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the United Nations, and various governments; and countless investigative news articles, interviews, and legal records.  Photographs, infographics, paintings, drawings, Tweets, and even stills from To Kill a Mockingbird and videogames regularly appear, providing compelling visual imagery to accompany the text.  

The shielding narrative is twinned with the evolution of the laws of war and IHL from early modernity to the present.  Despite the fact that Gordon and Perugini routinely argue that human shielding has “blurred” the laws of war, the book does not include a substantive discussion on the subject.  On the one hand, avoiding a digression into the finer points and competing visions of the laws of war and IHL expedites the tantalizing read and propels the narrative forward; on the other, beginning in the seventeenth century, legal theorists Hugo Grotius and Emer de Vattel (both of whom are mentioned in chapter 2) addressed the complexities of man “presenting his Body as a Shield”[2] and the ethics of subjecting noncombatants to “terror to a certain degree” when circumstances demanded it.[3]Analyzing the work of Grotius, de Vattel, and other thinkers on their own terms rather than relying so heavily on secondary literature would only have enhanced the compelling arguments advanced throughout the book. It may also have elucidated other fascinating points that are raised but only cursorily addressed.  For instance, a key argument in both chapter 3 (on the Boer War) and chapter 6 (on the Italo-Ethiopian War) is that colonialism and the enemy’s race determined “which methods of warfare were perceived to be legitimate and humane” (37).  Because the Boers were white, humanitarians balked at “their use as human shields” while the fledgling international community, which regarded Ethiopians as “‘white negroes,’ where whiteness denoted their sovereignty and acceptance into the League of Nations, while negro gestured to the population’s ‘uncivilized’ nature,” brokered less resistance to the aerial bombings of medical units (41, 61).  These issues were hardly novel; jurists had struggled since the Middle Ages to differentiate between ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized,’ Christian and non-Christian, white and non-white, particularly in determining rights afforded to noncombatants.[4] By the early twentieth century, a robust framework that rested on edifices constructed by Grotius, de Vattel, and Samuel von Pufendorf, amongst others, did consider race and religion in the application of both humanitarian law and the laws of war. Examining the nuances within this legal scaffolding would sharpen Gordon and Perugini’s significant contributions on how the laws of war have evolved to address shielding, complementing work by Anne Orford, Marco Sassòli, and Michael Schmitt.[5]

Perhaps befitting of its title, Human Shields is at its best – which is often – in humanizing conflict.  By focusing on countless individual stories and seemingly minute details, Gordon and Perugini draw the reader into a deeply personal world, driving home the importance of the ethics of violence and the cost of war.  In the early twentieth century, progressive Western feminists, such as Millicent Fawcett and Emily Hobhouse, condemned man’s inhumanity to man, critiquing concentration camps established for Boer and African civilians, and demanding that Boer prisoners of war travel first class when serving as human shields on British trains (39-41).  Agnes Maude Roydon drew on Mahatma Gandhi’s theory of satyagraha in the 1930s in an effort to send activists voluntarily into the Second Sino-Japanese War and “create a ‘living wall’ against war itself” (56).  Roydon’s tactics radically altered how people thought about shielding.  Previously, it was a coercive tactic; from that point on it emerged as a voluntary choice that exposed flaws within the law of armed conflict. 

The tension between voluntary and involuntary shields unearthed by Roydon’s actions dominates the remainder of the book.  Following the Second World War, a wave of codifications, including the UN Charter, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, and 1949 Geneva Conventions, all struggled to address civilian protections during war (78).  Ultimately, the drafters of the Fourth Geneva Convention settled on protections for “passive civilians,” and agreed that warring parties could not transfer civilians into theaters of conflict to use as shields (81-83).  On voluntary shields, however, there was silence.  Civilians already stranded in war zones were similarly excluded from shielding safeguards, the argument being that military necessity might take precedence over the sanctity of individual human life (84-85).  These decisions, crafted by Western policymakers in the late 1940s, have had dire repercussions for human shielding in a host of countries from the Global South in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, revealing yet again the friction between an Atlantic-centric international order and the application of its laws in the wider world.  Legal hair-splitting in military manuals, CIA reports, NATO investigations, and UN tribunals only further cloud an already hazy picture as to permissible shielding (111, 122-124, 129-132, 142-143). 

Gordon and Perugini effectively draw out the complications that arise because of the lack of legal settlement in a series of provocative chapters in the middle of the book.  Framing the dropping of Agent Orange as a means to obliterate the vegetative shield afforded to the Viet Cong by the dense Southeast Asian jungle provides an excellent segue to environmental shielding more generally (93-95).  Here, the authors describe activists who, influenced by Roydon’s “living wall” and Gandhi’s satyagraha, hugged trees in India to prevent deforestation, lashed themselves to boats in Mururoa to protest nuclear testing, and sailed rubber Zodiacs between harpooners and whales (100-103).  The law of the sea and sovereignty are fleetingly discussed but neither one is evaluated in great detail, which would have both strengthened the overall argument and clarified the distinctions between the law of the sea and the law of armed conflict that render voluntary shielding “easier” (and legal) in international waters (106).  Back on land, activists from around the globe flocked to London in 2002 to ride buses commandeered by a US army veteran, Kenneth O’Keefe, to Baghdad to protest the impending American-led invasion of Iraq (110).  Policymakers were flummoxed by these actions, leading General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George W. Bush, to proclaim “that all forms of shielding of military targets are illegal, even when civilians ‘volunteer for this purpose’” (111).  Collectively, these chapters illustrate human ingenuity in voluntary shielding and human uncertainty in how to effectively police it.  Further elucidation on these subjects would make for compelling scholarship. 

Even if, as Human Shields reveals, there is no satisfactory legal resolution, one thing becomes exceedingly clear: civilians, particularly nonwhite civilians, almost always bear the brunt of shielding and the law’s lackluster response to it.  This realization is born out chapter after chapter.  The Tamil Tigers and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) both effectively converted humanitarian zones and urban landscapes into battlegrounds, the former by constructing bunkers and fortifications in Sri Lanka, the latter through a maze of tunnels connecting apartment blocks and houses in Mosul and Raqqa.  The net effect was the same: “civilians became shields due to the space they occupied and its proximity to the fighting” (144).  Despite admonitions from Pope Francis and Amnesty International, which condemned ISIS for “ruthlessly and unlawfully exploiting civilian immunity from attack in an attempt to shield its own forces,” (160) there was no swift action from the international community in either the Levant or, years earlier, Sri Lanka.  Once fighting commenced, moreover, the proximity of noncombatants to the belligerents rendered them “potential weapons, thereby stripping them of some of the protections international humanitarian law bestows on civilians” (160).  Similar scenarios have played out, repeatedly, in Gaza, where, in July 2014, social media accelerated the spread of propaganda produced by the Israel Defense Forces.  Colorful infographics justified the bombing of Palestinian houses and shelters by invoking the “dual-use” doctrine to argue that “Some bomb shelters shelter people.  Some shelter bombs” (173-174).  (At the time of this writing in May 2021, Israeli authorities have once again besieged Gaza and destroyed a tower containing the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera offices, claiming that the building also housed Hamas militants). 

Some of the most arresting images to emerge from recent conflicts show lifeless children in the arms of their parents following blasts on a Gaza beach or aerial bombardments of refugee camps conducted under the pretext that militants occupied these places.  When the world sees these pictures, it reaffirms Gordon and Perugini’s point “that the concept of shielding has congealed to denote ‘mostly women and children’ – and mostly among populations that are nonwhite” (185).  Shielding, the authors astutely note, has little to do with these women and children, but rather is “more about the effort to depict men of dark skin color as inhumane,” the effects of which have bled into vicious debates over migration in Europe and the United States in recent years (187, 189).  These chilling observations bring Human Shields full circle, as Gordon and Perugini argue that shielding in the twenty-first century appears “almost exclusively in conflict zones taking place in decolonized parts of the world” and draw connections back to the earliest chapters (168).  Once again, accidents of birth – from gender to race to creed to country – prove determinative in sealing an individual shield’s fate.  And once again, the international legal order struggles to effectively respond. 

The critiques that can be made about Human Shields are extraordinarily few and exceedingly minor.  The sheer amount of material is the book’s greatest strength but it is also overwhelming to digest in one reading.  Gordon and Perugini also rightly point out that shielding has become more common as conflict moves into urban theaters, thereby rendering combatants and civilians virtually indistinguishable, but they do not necessarily offer any prescription to remedy or rectify this ever-expanding problem.  It would be worthwhile to hear how international law might develop to address human shielding in the twenty-first century.  How, too, do the authors envisage the human shield evolving?  Gordon and Perugini presciently acknowledge in their closing line “that Gaza becomes a terrifying prophecy, exposing how the denial of civilian protections in war zones is informing attacks on citizens participating in protests” but one wonders what cyber dimensions to shielding would look like beyond videogames and drone technology (217)?  Could there be a situation in which a shield is purposefully infected with an easily transmissible virus to induce a pandemic?  How does such an action complicate the “ethics of violence” and attendant international responses?  These questions, scenarios, and debates are the stuff of future books, articles, policy proposals, and, hopefully, changes in international humanitarian law to address a proliferating phenomenon. 

Here, I return to my recollection of the kidnapped New York Times journalists who feared becoming human shields in Libya a decade ago.  Excellent scholarship does not just make needed interventions for its intended audience.  Rather, it forces the reader to think beyond the immediacy of the page, to draw connections to current events, to reevaluate the past with newfound clarity, and to humanize inherently complicated situations.  Human Shields achieves these objectives on every level.  In the process, the book makes perhaps its greatest contribution, one that has little to do with the laws of war or the ethics of violence: it exposes, at times hauntingly, the frailty of the human condition and the precarity of life.

 

Jennifer Wells is Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs at George Washington University.  She has published widely on international law and history in Past & Present, Genocide Studies and Prevention, various law reviews, and for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial & Museum.  Wells’s current research projects focus on war crimes, humanitarian law, refugees, and how non-state actors, rogue states, and ungoverned territories are financed through illicit international networks.  Her first book, Prelude to Empire: State Building in the Early Modern British World forced a fundamental reassessment of European empire by evaluating the shared links between early modern state formation and colonial expansion.


Notes

[1] Anthony Shadid, Lynsey Addario, Stephen Farrell, and Tyler Hicks, “4 Times Journalists Held Captive in Libya Faced Days of Brutality,” New York Times, 22 March 2011, https://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/world/africa/23times.html. 

[2] Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace (1625): Book I, Chapter II, Section 1.

[3] Emer de Vattel, The Law of Nations, Or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, with Three Early Essays on the Origin and Nature of Natural Law and on Luxury (1757): Book III, Chapter XV, Section 228.

[4] See, for example, Theodor Meron, War Crimes Law Comes of Age: Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

[5] See, for example, Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Marco Sassòli, “Taking Armed Groups Seriously: Ways to Improve their Compliance with International Humanitarian Law,” Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies 1:1 (January 2010): 5-51, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/187815210X12766020139767; Michael Schmitt, “Human Shields in International Humanitarian Law,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 47:2 (January 2009): 292-338, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004219120; Michael Schmitt, “Targeting and International Humanitarian Law in Afghanistan,” International Law Studies 85:1 (2009): 307-339. 


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sexta-feira, 24 de setembro de 2021

Congresso Internacional do Bicentenário da Revolução de 1820 - Lisboa, Portugal, 11-13/10/2021

CONGRESSO INTERNACIONAL DO BICENTENÁRIO DA REVOLUÇÃO DE 1820 

Programa 

Assembleia da República, Lisboa, Portugal


Dia 11 de outubro 

9:30 Horas 

Acolhimento dos participantes (entrada principal da Assembleia da República) 


(...)


Sessão Solene de Abertura | Sala do Senado 

17:00 Horas | Abertura pelo Presidente da Assembleia da República 

Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues 

17:10 Horas | Intervenção do Presidente das Comemorações do Bicentenário do Constitucionalismo Português 

Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins 

17:20 horas | Intervenção da Presidente da Comissão Organizadora do Congresso Internacional do Bicentenário da Revolução de 1820 

Miriam Halpern Pereira 

17:30 Horas | Encerramento pelo Presidente da República 

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa 


(...)


Dia 13/10; 14: 30 Horas – Sala 1 

As Revoluções na América do Sul (3) 

Coord. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva, Ana Frega e Maria Lúcia Bastos P. Neves 

Adriana Pereira Campos e Kátia Sausen da Motta (Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo) -Petições atlânticas: brasileiros dirigem-se às cortes de Lisboa por direitos de justiça 

Paulo Roberto de Almeida (Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil e Centro Universitário de Brasileiro) - A revolução liberal de 1820 como precursora da independência do Brasil: o papel do Correio Braziliense de Hipólito da Costa 

Rafael Cupello Peixoto - “Como soldado, como Português, e como filho de uma Ilustre Pátria por quem ainda darei a vida, e fazenda [...]”: Felisberto Caldeira Brant e a Revolução do Porto de 1820 

Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (Universidade de São Paulo) - 1820: Luís do Rego Barreto governador de Pernambuco (P) 


(...)

16:00 Horas | Pausa 


16:30 Horas | Mesa Redonda - Encerramento 

Miriam Halpern Pereira, Gabriel Paquette e Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins - O Antigo Regime em questão: continuidades e mudança 



Íntegra do programa neste link: 


https://www.academia.edu/53289748/Congresso_Internacional_do_Bicentenario_da_Revolucao_de_1820_Lisboa_Portugal_2021_

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O Instituto de Pesquisa Estratégica das FFAA francesas divulga um relatório sobre o momento maquiavélico da China - Paul Charon, Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer (IRSEM)


LES OPÉRATIONS D'INFLUENCE CHINOISES

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qxUvLrLG4SSg8ANZnqvBfDOxUrtPmaB5/ 

(fichier PDF)
Septembre 2021
646 pages  

Pendant longtemps, on a pu dire que la Chine, contrairement à la Russie, cherchait davantage à être aimée que crainte ; qu’elle voulait séduire, projeter une image positive d’elle-même dans le monde, susciter l’admiration. Pékin n’a pas renoncé à séduire, à son attractivité et à son ambition de façonner les normes internationales, et il reste essentiel pour le Parti communiste de ne pas « perdre la face ». Mais, en même temps, Pékin assume de plus en plus d’infiltrer et de contraindre : ses opérations d’influence se sont considérablement durcies ces dernières années et ses méthodes ressemblent de plus en plus à celles employées par Moscou. C’est un « moment machiavélien » au sens où le Parti-État semble désormais estimer que, comme l’écrivait Machiavel dans Le Prince, « il est plus sûr d’être craint que d’être aimé ». Ce qui correspond à une « russianisation » des opérations d’influence chinoises.

Ce rapport s’intéresse à cette évolution, avec l’ambition de couvrir tout le spectre de l’influence, de la plus bénigne (diplomatie publique) à la plus maligne, c’est-à-dire l’ingérence (activités clandestines). Pour ce faire, il procède en quatre parties, présentant successivement les principaux concepts ; les acteurs mettant en œuvre ces opérations, notamment la base 311 de l’Armée populaire de libération ; les actions conduites par Pékin à l’égard des diasporas, des médias, de la diplomatie, de l’économie, de la politique, de l’éducation, des think tanks et en termes de manipulations de l’information, entre autres leviers ; et enfin quelques études de cas (Taïwan, Singapour, Suède, Canada, et les opérations ayant visé les manifestants hongkongais en 2019 ou cherché à faire croire à l’origine américaine de la Covid-19 en 2020). La conclusion revient sur cette « russianisation », qui a trois composantes : Pékin s’inspire de Moscou dans plusieurs registres, il subsiste évidemment des différences entre les deux, et il existe aussi un certain degré de coopération. Pour finir, le rapport évalue l’efficacité de cette nouvelle posture chinoise qui peut s’enorgueillir de certains succès tactiques, mais constitue un échec stratégique.

 

Auteurs : Paul Charon (directeur du domaine « Renseignement, anticipation et menaces hybrides » de l’IRSEM) et Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer (directeur de l’IRSEM).

 

 Résumé 

 

     Pendant longtemps, on a pu dire que la Chine, contrairement à la Russie, cherchait davantage à être aimée que crainte ; qu’elle voulait séduire, projeter une image positive d’elle-même dans le monde, susciter l’admiration. Pékin n’a pas renoncé à séduire, à son attractivité ni à son ambition de façonner les normes internationales, et il reste très important pour le PCC de ne pas « perdre la face ». Mais, en même temps, Pékin assume de plus en plus d’infiltrer et de contraindre : ses opérations d’influence se sont considérablement durcies ces dernières années et ses méthodes ressemblent de plus en plus à celles employées par Moscou. C’est un « moment machiavélien » au sens où Pékin semble désormais estimer que, comme l’écrivait Machiavel dans Le Prince, « il est plus sûr d’être craint que d’être aimé ». Ce qui correspond donc à une « russianisation » des opérations d’influence chinoises. Ce rapport s’intéresse à cette évolution, avec l’ambition de couvrir tout le spectre de l’influence, de la plus bénigne (diplomatie publique) à la plus maligne, c’est-à-dire l’ingérence (activités clandestines). Pour ce faire, il procède en quatre parties, présentant successivement les concepts, les acteurs, les actions et quelques cas.

 

1. Les concepts importants pour comprendre les opérations d’influence chinoises sont notamment ceux de « Front uni »– une politique du PCC qui consiste à éliminer ses ennemis intérieurs comme extérieurs, contrôler les groupes qui peuvent défier son autorité, construire une coalition autour du Parti pour servir ses intérêts, et projeter son influence jusqu’à l’étranger – et des « Trois guerres », qui représentent l’essentiel de la « guerre politique » chinoise, une forme de conflictualité non cinétique visant à vaincre sans combattre, en façonnant un environnement favorable à la Chine. Entreprise en temps de guerre comme en temps de paix, elle est composée de la guerre de l’opinion publique, la guerre psychologique et la guerre du droit (qui s’apparente, sans correspondre complètement, à ce que l’on appelle en anglais le lawfare).

Un autre concept, d’importation soviétique, est également utile pour décrire le répertoire utilisé par Pékin : celui de « mesures actives », dont font notamment partie la désinformation, les contrefaçons, le sabotage, les opérations de discrédit, la déstabilisation de gouvernements étrangers, les provocations, les opérations sous fausse bannière et les manipulations destinées à fragiliser la cohésion sociale, le recrutement d’« idiots utiles » et la création de structures de façade (organisations de front).

 

2. Les acteurs principaux mettant en œuvre les opérations d’influence chinoises sont des émanations du Parti, de l’État, de l’Armée comme des entreprises. Au sein du Parti, il s’agit en particulier du département de Propagande, en charge de l’idéologie, qui contrôle tout le spectre des médias et toute la production culturelle du pays ; du département du Travail de Front uni (DTFU), qui comporte douze bureaux, reflétant ses principales cibles ; du département des Liaisons internationales (DLI), qui entretient des relations avec les partis politiques étrangers ; du Bureau 610, qui a des agents dans le monde entier agissant en dehors de tout cadre légal pour éradiquer le mouvement Falun Gong ; il faut inclure dans ce groupe la Ligue de la jeunesse communiste (LJC), tout à la fois courroie de transmission vers la jeunesse, pépinière pour de futurs cadres du Parti et force mobilisable en cas de besoin, même si elle n’est pas formellement une structure du Parti mais une organisation de masse.

Au sein de l’État, deux structures en particulier sont impliquées dans les opérations d’influence : le ministère de la Sécurité d’État (MSE), qui est la principale agence civile de renseignement, et le bureau des Affaires taïwanaises (BAT), qui a la charge de la propagande à destination de Taïwan.

Au sein de l’Armée populaire de libération (APL), c’est la Force de soutien stratégique (FSS), et notamment le département des Systèmes de réseaux, qui dispose des capacités et missions dans le domaine informationnel. Plus précisément, le principal acteur identifié dans ce domaine est la base 311, qui a son quartier général dans la ville de Fuzhou, et qui est dédiée à l’application de la stratégie des « Trois guerres ». Elle gère aussi des entreprises de médias qui servent de couvertures civiles et un faux hôtel qui est en réalité un centre de formation.

Enfin, les entreprises publiques comme privées jouent un rôle important dans la collecte des données dont l’efficacité des opérations d’influence dépend puisqu’il faut savoir qui influencer, quand et comment. Peuvent en particulier servir à la collecte des données les infrastructures, notamment les bâtiments et les câbles sous-marins ; ainsi que les nouvelles technologies, dont les plateformes numériques WeChat, Weibo et TikTok, des entreprises comme Beidou et Huawei, et des bases de données offrant un aperçu de ce que des chercheurs appellent le « techno-autoritarisme », ou « autoritarisme numérique » chinois, et qui sont utilisées pour alimenter et préparer des opérations d’influence à l’étranger. Il faudrait ajouter le département d’état-major interarmes qui semble avoir hérité des missions de renseignement humain de l’ancien 2APL. Faute de sources celui-ci n’est toutefois pas abordé dans le présent rapport.

 

3. Les actions mises en œuvre par Pékin dans ses opérations d’influence à l’étranger relèvent de deux objectifs principaux et non exclusifs l’un de l’autre : d’une part, séduire et subjuguer les publics étrangers, en faisant une narration positive de la Chine, dont témoignent notamment quatre récits (le « modèle » chinois, la tradition, la bienveillance et la puissance) ; d’autre part et surtout, infiltrer et contraindre. L’infiltration vise à pénétrer lentement les sociétés adverses afin d’entraver toute velléité d’action contraire aux intérêts du Parti. La contrainte correspond à l’élargissement progressif de la diplomatie « punitive » ou « coercitive » pour devenir une politique de sanction systématique contre tout État, organisation, entreprise ou individu menaçant les intérêts du Parti. L’une comme l’autre passent généralement par une nébuleuse d’intermédiaires. Ces pratiques visent en particulier les catégories suivantes :

- les diasporas, avec le double objectif de les contrôler pour qu’elles ne représentent pas de menace pour le pouvoir (Pékin mène une campagne de répression transnationale qui, selon l’ONG Freedom House, est « la plus sophistiquée, globale et complète dans le monde ») et de les mobiliser pour servir ses intérêts.

- les médias, l’objectif explicite de Pékin étant d’établir « un nouvel ordre mondial des médias ». Pour ce faire, le pouvoir a investi 1,3 milliard d’euros par an depuis 2008 pour mieux contrôler son image dans le monde. Les grands médias chinois ont une présence mondiale, dans plusieurs langues, sur plusieurs continents, et sur tous les réseaux sociaux, y compris ceux bloqués en Chine (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram), et ils investissent beaucoup d’argent pour amplifier artificiellement leur audience en ligne. Pékin cherche aussi à contrôler les médias sinophones à l’étranger, avec succès puisque le PCC a de fait une situation de quasi-monopole, et les médias mainstream. Enfin, le Parti-État s’intéresse aussi au contrôle du contenant, influençant chaque étape de la chaîne d’approvisionnement mondiale de l’information, avec la télévision, les plateformes numériques et les smartphones.

- la diplomatie, et notamment deux éléments. D’une part, l’influence sur les organisations et les normes internationales : Pékin déploie non seulement des efforts diplomatiques classiques mais aussi des opérations d’influence clandestines (pressions économiques et politiques, cooptation, coercition et corruption) afin de renforcer son influence. D’autre part, la diplomatie dite du « loup guerrier » désigne les postures du porte-parolat du ministère des Affaires étrangères et d’une dizaine de diplomates qui font preuve d’une agressivité croissante. Les attaques adoptent des formes classiques mais aussi relativement nouvelles, reposant notamment sur une utilisation des réseaux sociaux et un recours décomplexé à l’invective, l’admonestation voire l’intimidation. Globalement, ce tournant agressif de la diplomatie chinoise est contre-productif et a largement contribué à la dégradation brutale de l’image de la Chine dans le monde ces dernières années, mais l’évolution est sans doute durable parce que l’objectif de cette stratégie est moins de conquérir les cœurs et les esprits que de plaire à Pékin.

- l’économie, la dépendance économique à l’égard de la Chine étant bien souvent le premier levier utilisé. La coercition économique chinoise prend des formes extrêmement variées : déni d’accès au marché chinois, embargos, sanctions commerciales, restrictions aux investissements, contingentement du tourisme chinois dont dépendent certaines régions, organisations de boycotts populaires. Pékin fait de plus en plus de la censure un prérequis pour l’accès à son marché. Et beaucoup d’entreprises finissent par plier sous la pression.

- la politique, avec l’objectif de pénétrer les sociétés cibles afin d’influencer les mécanismes d’élaboration des politiques publiques. Entretenir des relations directes avec des partis et des personnalités politiques influentes permet d’infiltrer les sociétés cibles, de recueillir des soutiens officiels et officieux, et de contourner d’éventuels blocages au sein du pouvoir en jouant sur des personnalités politiques de l’opposition ou à la « retraite ». Pékin pratique également l’ingérence électorale (au cours de la dernière décennie, la Chine se serait ingérée dans au moins 10 scrutins dans 7 pays).

- l’éducation, d’abord et en premier lieu via les universités, qui sont l’une des principales cibles des efforts d’influence du Parti. Ses principaux leviers sont la dépendance financière, engendrant de l’autocensure dans les établissements concernés ; la surveillance et l’intimidation, sur les campus étrangers, des étudiants chinois, mais aussi des enseignants et administrateurs de l’université, pour faire modifier le contenu des cours, le matériel pédagogique ou la programmation d’événements ; et le façonnement des études chinoises, en incitant à l’autocensure et en punissant les chercheurs critiques. Le Parti-État utilise également les universités pour acquérir des connaissances et des technologies, par des moyens légaux et non dissimulés comme des programmes de recherche conjoints, ou des moyens illégaux et dissimulés comme le vol et l’espionnage. Dans un contexte de fusion civilo-militaire, certains programmes conjoints ou des chercheurs cumulant des postes dans des dizaines d’universités occidentales aident involontairement Pékin à construire des armes de destruction massive ou développer des technologies de surveillance qui serviront à opprimer la population chinoise – plusieurs scandales ont éclaté en 2020 et 2021.

Enfin, il existe un autre acteur important de l’influence chinoise dans le domaine de l’éducation, qui est d’ailleurs lié aux universités : les instituts et classes Confucius qui sont implantés partout dans le monde et qui, sous couvert d’enseigner la langue et la culture chinoises, accroissent la dépendance voire la sujétion de certains établissements, portent atteinte à la liberté académique et pourraient aussi servir occasionnellement à faire de l’espionnage.

- les think tanks, la stratégie chinoise dans ce domaine étant duale, Pékin cherchant à implanter à l’étranger des antennes de think tanks chinois, et à exploiter des relais locaux qui peuvent être eux-mêmes des think tanks, avec trois cas de figure : les partenaires ponctuels servant de caisse de résonance sur les marchés des idées locaux, les alliés de circonstance qui travaillent avec le PCC de manière régulière et les complices qui partagent avec lui une vision commune du monde et dont les intérêts sont convergents.

- la culture, d’abord par la production et l’exportation de produits culturels, tels que les films et les séries télévisées, la musique ou encore les livres, qui sont de puissants vecteurs de séduction. L’influence s’exerce aussi sur les productions culturelles étrangères, notamment sur le cinéma, avec l’exemple d’Hollywood : pour ne pas contrarier Pékin et maintenir leur accès au gigantesque marché chinois, beaucoup de studios de cinéma américains pratiquent l’autocensure, coupant, modifiant des scènes, voire font du zèle, en donnant aux personnages chinois le « bon » rôle. Le déni d’accès au marché chinois est une pratique généralisée pour tous les artistes critiquant le Parti-État. Par d’autres types de pressions, Pékin espère également inciter les artistes à modifier leurs œuvres, ou ceux qui les montrent ailleurs dans le monde à cesser de le faire, voire à faire le travail des censeurs chinois.

- les manipulations de l’information, en créant de fausses identités pour diffuser la propagande du Parti dans les médias, en ayant recours à de faux comptes sur les réseaux sociaux, des trolls et de l’astrosurfing (pour simuler un mouvement populaire spontané), en utilisant un grand nombre de « commentateurs internet » (labellisés à tort « armée des 50 centimes »), payés pour « guider » l’opinion publique. En général contrôlés par l’APL ou la LJC, les trolls défendent, attaquent, entretiennent des polémiques, insultent, harcèlent. Une autre manière de simuler l’authenticité est de faire publier des contenus par des tiers, contre de l’argent (fermes de contenu, achat d’un message ponctuel, d’une influence sur un compte, d’un compte ou d’une page, ou recrutement d’un « influenceur »). Depuis 2019, Twitter, Facebook et YouTube n’hésitent plus à identifier des campagnes coordonnées comme étant originaires de Chine. Des dizaines de milliers de faux comptes ont ainsi été suspendus, certains « dormants » depuis longtemps, d’autres achetés ou volés, amplifiant la propagande chinoise et attaquant les États-Unis, en chinois et en anglais. Certains comptes ont des images de profil générées par intelligence artificielle – une pratique désormais régulièrement observée dans les opérations chinoises sur les réseaux sociaux. Un aspect important de ces campagnes est qu’elles ne se contentent pas de défendre la Chine : la promotion du modèle chinois passe par la dégradation des autres modèles, en particulier de celui des démocraties libérales, comme le font les opérations d’influence russes depuis des années. L’APL est au cœur de ces manœuvres : elle utilise les réseaux sociaux pour, d’une part, de l’influence « ouverte », en diffusant de la propagande, souvent à des fins de dissuasion et de guerre psychologique et, d’autre part, des opérations clandestines et hostiles contre des cibles étrangères.

- Parmi les autres leviers utilisés par Pékin dans ses opérations d’influence, figurent notamment des mouvements citoyens, en particulier indépendantistes (Nouvelle-Calédonie, Okinawa) et pacifistes (groupe No Cold War), les touristes chinois, les influenceurs, notamment les Youtubeurs occidentaux et les universitaires étrangers, mais aussi les otages puisque Pékin pratique une « diplomatie des otages ».

 

4. Les études de cas prennent la forme de cercles concentriques. Taïwan et Hong Kong constituent le premier front de la « guerre politique » de Pékin : ce sont des avant-postes, des terrains d’entraînement, des « laboratoires de R&D » des opérations chinoises, qui peuvent ensuite être affinées et appliquées à d’autres cibles dans le monde – comme la Géorgie et l’Ukraine ont pu l’être pour les opérations russes. La première étape de l’élargissement du cercle des opérations chinoises a porté sur l’Australie et la Nouvelle-Zélande. La seconde étape a porté sur le reste du monde, en particulier, mais pas seulement, l’Europe et l’Amérique du Nord. Cette partie présente quatre situations : Taïwan, Singapour, Suède, Canada – et deux opérations : celle ayant visé les manifestants hongkongais en 2019 et celle ayant cherché à faire croire à l’origine américaine de la Covid-19 en 2020.

Enfin, la conclusion revient sur ce « moment machiavélien » en deux temps. D’abord, pour confirmer qu’il s’agit bien d’une « russianisation » des opérations d’influence chinoises depuis 2017 environ : le parallèle avait déjà été fait en 2018 au moment des élections municipales taïwanaises, puis en 2019 lors de la crise hongkongaise, et c’est en 2020, pendant la pandémie de Covid-19, que le monde entier a pris conscience du problème. Cette russianisation a trois composantes, qui sont développées : Pékin s’inspire de Moscou dans plusieurs registres (et la littérature militaire chinoise reconnaît que, pour l’APL, la Russie est un modèle à imiter en la matière) ; il subsiste évidemment des différences entre les deux ; et il existe aussi un certain degré de coopération.

Ensuite, la conclusion cherche aussi à faire une évaluation de l’efficacité de cette nouvelle posture chinoise et conclut que, si elle implique certains succès tactiques, elle constitue un échec stratégique, la Chine étant son meilleur ennemi en matière d’influence. La dégradation brutale de l’image de Pékin depuis l’arrivée de Xi Jinping, en particulier ces derniers années, pose à la Chine un problème d’impopularité qui prend des proportions telles qu’il pourrait à terme indirectement affaiblir le Parti, y compris vis-à-vis de sa propre population.

L'IRSEM 

L’Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’École Militaire est le premier centre d’études sur la guerre dans le monde francophone.


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O discurso que deveria ter sido e não foi: subsídios do Itamaraty para o discurso na AGNU, expurgados na PR - Matheus Leitão (Veja)

 O discurso que o Itamaraty vazou e Bolsonaro não fez

Circula entre empresários brasileiros a versão moderada do discurso que o presidente faria. Para que tentar melhorar a imagem? Chanceler fez “arminha” 
Por Matheus Leitão | 23 set 2021, 10h54

Após o discurso pária do presidente Jair Bolsonaro nas Organizações das Nações Unidas, o Itamaraty resolveu tentar melhorar a sua imagem, como numa contenção de danos, vazando trechos do que seria a ideia original do discurso do chefe da nação brasileira na ONU.

Segundo a coluna apurou, o Ministério das Relações Exteriores fez circular esses trechos até entre empresários. Essa versão do discurso não lido, pode ser uma espécie de Porcina, porque ele também foi sem nunca ter sido.

Geralmente é assim. Em um evento como o da ONU, a Presidência recebe do Ministério das Relações Exteriores propostas iniciais e normalmente a assessoria direta do presidente altera certas palavras, acrescenta algum ponto. Às vezes muda para pior. Neste caso específico, não só piorou muito como adicionou mentiras, como quando disse que no último 7 de setembro os brasileiros fizeram a maior manifestação da história do país.

Um ponto que o ministro Carlos França queria passar era o ambiental e climático, já que haverá a reunião do Clima em Glasgow em dezembro. Mas o trecho foi muito distorcido.

Esta coluna escreveu sobre isso em reportagem com o título “Na batalha da ONU, Bolsonaro massacrou o Itamaraty”, mostrando até trechos que seriam do Ministério das Relações Exteriores e os que seriam de Bolsonaro.

A ideia agora de vazar “o discurso que não foi” faz parte de uma tentativa de mostrar que o Itamaraty seria uma força moderadora no governo Bolsonaro.

O único problema é que esse movimento da pasta é em vão, já que o atual ministro das Relações Exteriores, Carlos França, conseguiu destruí-lo em um só gesto, ao fazer o sinal de arminha a manifestantes brasileiros contrários ao governo em Nova York.

Qualquer outro ministro poderia fazer o gesto ridículo, tão repetido pelo presidente Jair Bolsonaro há anos, já que a democracia brasileira escolheu eleger um governo armamentista. Mas, Carlos França não.

Desde cedo aprende-se no Itamaraty que os diplomatas defendem os interesses do Estado e não de um específico governo. Isso tem que ser a máxima de qualquer diplomata. É o primeiro ensinamento da diplomacia.

Quando ele faz a arma, França aderiu ao bolsonarismo. Defendeu o bolsonarismo. E não os interesses do estado brasileiro.

Na verdade, a tentativa de melhorar a imagem do Ministério das Relações Exteriores, vazando o discurso porcina, não resolve o problema, senhor chanceler.

Recolha as armas, ou as arminhas, porque o senhor fez um gesto que demonstra o que escolheu: representar um grupo político e não país como um todo.

https://veja.abril.com.br/blog/matheus-leitao/o-discurso-que-o-itamaraty-vazou-e-bolsonaro-nao-fez/

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quinta-feira, 23 de setembro de 2021

The Trump “Legacy” for American Foreign Policy: Charles S. Maier

 America and the World—The Effects of the Trump Presidency

The Trump “Legacy” for American Foreign Policy

Essay by Charles S. Maier, Harvard University


Published on 22 September 2021 | issforum.org

Editor: Diane Labrosse  | Commissioning Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii

We cannot calculate President Trump’s “legacy” for United States foreign policy simply by describing his diplomacy while he was in power.  Virtuous fathers can fritter away family wealth, and Mafiosi can leave ill-gotten gains to charity.  It is still too early to know what long-term consequences might emerge, and it is difficult to sort out what trends would have prevailed even with a less disruptive leader.  Happily, a one-term presidency is less likely to leave durable wreckage in terms of our international reputation than eight years would have done.  My own admittedly non-impartial view is that Trump’s domestic legacy was more damaging and dangerous than his international one.  With his wanton disregard for truth, his use of social media to spread vituperation and contempt, whether for opponents or supporters who fell out of favor, his winking at practitioners of political violence, he simply trashed the norms needed for a functioning democracy – and that is not to mention the continual challenges to the 2020 election results.  Still, H-Diplo has asked about the consequences for foreign policy, and those remain the focus here.   

The impulsiveness of Trump’s foreign policy, exemplified by the withdrawal from the Paris climate accord and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Iranian nuclear framework along with the coarsening of rhetoric – yes, words matter – has damaged America’s stature as a reliable partner (or adversary) in foreign affairs.  By the end of the first term an impartial observer might plausibly have believed that the United States was a danger to global peace, not because the country intended a war – George W. Bush was far clearer about that goal in 2003 – but because its leader was brutally transactional, and like every American president possessed extraordinary constitutional power over foreign policy and military decisions.  To my mind, as a historian of Europe, American behavior sometimes recalled the Germany of Kaiser William II – a country, like the United States, that was given to revering its military forces and saddled with a mercurial ruler, unpredictable and heedless of the lamentable impression it was making abroad.  Fortunately, the American defense and state department bureaucracies were inertial or intelligent enough to resist some, though not all, of the White House whims.  And even the president managed to resist the potential for untethered policy making from advisers such as Michael Flynn or John Bolton.

Fortunately, much of the behavior that dismayed those who prize a collaborative relationship with allies and friends involved style more than substance, so can probably be repaired.  Nevertheless, as the Trump presidency fades into history – assuming that he will not successfully run again in 2024 or that his approach to U.S. international behavior will not be reproduced under a Republican successor – it is also evident that the considerable challenges now facing the Biden administration are not simply legacies from the Trump administration.  They are agonizing issues that transcend the question of which president is in power.  President Barack Obama could not resolve them, and it is hardly clear that President Biden can either.  To be sure, Trump denied their gravity and believed he could overcome them on the basis of vague threats or of personal bonding with one or another dictator.  Still, the issues involved would have vexed, and will vex even the wisest leadership.  And to judge from initiatives taken so far, the Biden administration has not figured out, or believed it appropriate to stake out positions, that are fundamentally different.  

This essay was largely written before President Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan, but a final version must take account of that defeat.  One can argue that the Trump administration’s signing of a peace accord with the Taliban in 2020 foreclosed Biden’s options.  But enough maneuverability remained in terms of timing and residual force levels to leave the current president some freedom of action.  Biden, however, like Obama – with respect to Syria -- and perhaps like Trump, saw the alternative as a ‘forever war’ that could yield no decision.  I appreciate the reasoning that led to this disengagement, but fear that a generation of aspiring Afghan women and those citizens who wagered on presidential assurances will pay a heavy price for U.S. abandonment.  President Biden has claimed that the country will no longer be an al-Qaeda haven (just as President Trump declared that the danger of ISIS had ended), but that proclaimed goal has long been less compelling now that terrorist networks subsist in many different territories.  Indeed, the alleged removal of a terrorist threat from a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan may prove a spurious achievement given the recent actions of the so-called ISIS-K network.  The greater consideration was perhaps that both the Trump and Biden administrations decided that if the Afghans could not finally defend themselves, they did not deserve to be forever defended by the United States.  This is a justification, however, that ignores the role of the allies of United States, and the sacrifices Afghans themselves have made.  Defenders of the sudden withdrawal have also stressed that the United States was unlikely to turn the country into a functioning democracy.  But acknowledging this limitation did not have to mean that the U.S. could not have helped to preserve a non-authoritarian and more tolerant regime at an acceptable cost.  

That admittedly less exalted mission has now been foreclosed, and the decision is in line with Trump’s policies even if Biden faced up to more honestly.  For better or worse, American policy in the Middle East and Central Asia has long been a messy bipartisan one.  It has occasionally been mendacious and disastrous such as in the case of the 2003-04 war in Iraq, which was also supported on both sides of the aisle.  More often it has been one of temporizing, what the British called cunctation – kicking the can down the road, which works until it doesn’t.  This approach has characterized the U.S. approach to the Saudi regime, and it has characterized the government’s unwillingness to pry Israel from its policies that are determined to forestall any viable Palestinian national structure.    

Cunctation may be the only realistic policy with respect to the other issues Biden must face.  In the long run the United States is unlikely to overcome the assertiveness of China in geopolitical and economic terms, the resistance of both China and the Soviet Union to human rights, and the global turn to authoritarianism more widely.  With respect to international economic and social issues, the major Western nations will all confront throngs of migrants fleeing collapsing or abusive state authority in Central America and the Middle East (the latter of which are more of a European concern); they have already had a hard time facing the global health issues raised by the COVID-19 pandemic; and all them are struggling to institute the collective action needed to mitigate the massive impact of climate change.  The harsh truth is that every president inherits a heavily encumbered international situation and must judge what to accept and what to contest.  Biden has accepted Germany’s plan to move ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia as a “fait-accompli,” even though it threatens to further squeeze Ukraine, and will not reduce German dependence on hydrocarbons[1]  Despite ritual denials, NATO partners in general have apparently accepted the Russian annexation of Crimea as a fait-accompli.  Swallowing the fait-accompli may become the leitmotif of U.S. decline even though acceptable political rhetoric will never allow it to be confessed openly. 

President Trump did nothing to reverse this melancholy prospect.  His massive over-confidence in his mastery of the art of the deal and his personal presence led him to believe that Kim Jong-un would succumb to his blandishments and renounce North Korea’s nuclear program.  He was foolish to think so and to have disregarded the unsettling impact it would have on the delicate triangle with South Korea and Japan.  Still, if it had been adequately prepared, I would not condemn the wager on a personal meeting as such.  The underlying problem is that Trump seemed to have little capacity to understand the ‘structural’ limits to personal cajolery.  So long as Kim Jong-un remains willing to disregard the economic costs to his population, his nuclear arsenal provides him with a power and status he has no reason to renounce.  The Chinese could change his calculus, but why should they bring Pyongyang to heel so long as it remains an irritant to the United States, South Korea, and Japan?  Beijing has no motive to make life easy for Washington. 

The dilemma posed by the Iranian nuclear program is somewhat different since Tehran has not yet achieved a nuclear stockpile.  The question was (and remains) whether the JPCOA was really likely to forestall that eventuality in the long run.  The Biden administration has not rushed to rejoin it unconditionally.  Detractors of the agreement believe that its 15-year limit is dangerously brief.  Supporters are wagering that somehow Iran’s rulers will find it in their interest to extend it.  In both cases the wager is on the long-term nature of the Iranian regime.  Is it realistic for the United States to seek long-term cooperation from Iranian moderates?  Or should it accept their weakness in the current institutional structure and simply confront the hard-liners with ever-harsher sanctions (assuming that the U.S. and its Israeli allies forswear the option of a preemptive strike with all the incalculable consequences that would entail)?  Obviously, the division between hard-liners and moderates is far too crude and allows for no evolution of positions.  (The historian does well to recall the dilemmas posed by the Versailles treaty framework and its impact on German political institutions between 1919 and 1939.  Would earlier revision have forestalled the advent of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler?  Should it have been enforced integrally early on once he came to power?  These issues are still debated.) 

There is another alternative: simply accept that after fifteen years the Iranians may well acquire nuclear weapons, and that thereafter the Islamic Republic’s potential adversaries will have to rely on the balance of terror to keep them from being used.  This is, after all, the regime that India and Pakistan, China, Russia, France, Britain and the U.S. have relied on since 1945.  Before insisting that it remains unacceptable in the case of Iran or North Korea we have to ask what feasible and acceptable alternative promises greater stability.  

In any case, the non-proliferation regime that has been in theory a bipartisan commitment of U.S. foreign policy is always going to be vulnerable short of global nuclear disarmament.  It establishes a hierarchy of great powers that second-rank authoritarian powers will be tempted to challenge.  In practice it is a regime of slowed proliferation, in which one or two new nuclear powers have been allowed to emerge every couple of decades.  The major deterrent to acquisition aside from cost has been the quite rational conclusion that to possess atomic weapons is likely to make one a target for other nuclear powers.  Trump apparently asked his advisers why, if the United States has nuclear weapons, it doesn’t use them.  The question suggested that the rationality needed for a deterrence regime may not be foolproof.  The Soviets and Americans have preserved a mutual deterrence regime for some 70 years, but it can only be judged successful if it lasts forever.  Israel may ultimately have to live with such a Damoclean status quo.  The debate that Trump’s legacy should reopen is whether the U.S. should strive for universal nuclear disarmament including its own arsenal if it would keep countries such as Iran from acquiring atomic weapons.  A hierarchical system of limited access to weaponry is unlikely to provide stability forever.

Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JPCOA had, of course, wider implications in terms of regional Middle Eastern politics.  It further cemented an alignment with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli policies, a clear choice to write off any remaining tattered hopes for a two-state solution and to humiliate the Palestinians.  Trump’s turning over a highly complex set of questions to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was not unprecedented (Italian dictator Benito Mussolini also relied on his son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano as foreign minister… before he had him shot for supporting his ouster), but it revealed again how all complex issues were filtered through personal relationships.  

Nonetheless, an implicit strategy was emerging for the Middle East from Kushner’s bricolage.  The administration in effect was brokering an alignment of authoritarian Gulf rulers, the Saudis, and Netanyahu to tamp down the troublesome (and yes, sometimes terrorist) subaltern peoples of the region – whether Palestinians or the non-Arab proletariats of the Gulf.  Having an authoritarian regime in Egypt preoccupied with its own repressive agenda, a hapless Iraqi state, and an epic tragedy in Syria helped facilitate this combinazione.  Probably any international agreements involving Israel and the other Middle Eastern powers should be welcomed, but the so-called Abraham Accords were clearly a coalition of conservative elites against radical change, a latter-day Holy Alliance sanctimoniously named for the spiritual ancestor of the three monotheistic faiths.  None of its signatories apparently recalled how Hagar fit into that story as well.

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When it comes to foreign policy it seems to me that several fundamental choices currently face the United State, and they are often obfuscated by worn-out slogans.  Does it wish to retain its “global leadership”?  Is it in fact an “indispensable nation”?  Does it make sense for political leaders to insist that its “greatest days lie ahead”?  I am not sure what global leadership consists of these days.  If it involves military preponderance, the U.S. may still retain it, but an edge in hardware probably means less than it once did.  If North Korea managed to land nuclear missiles on any American city the result would be disastrous, no matter what vengeance the United States might choose to exact.  If Russian-protected cyber outlaws brought down urban transportation and medical systems, the consequences would be catastrophic.  It has been evident for over half a century that the United States could not maintain its post-World War II share of global production and wealth, and the real success of foreign economic policy would be a more universal economic development.  If moral “leadership” is at stake – which is where Trump failed most egregiously—then the United States has serious tasks ahead:  absorbing migrants, closing Guantánamo, and reforming its incarceration system (more the product of the Clinton years than Trump’s administration – indeed one area where Trump promised some meaningful reform), and reversing glaring inequalities of race, income, and wealth.  Rather than insisting on global leadership, the task of the U.S. should be to manage America’s relative decline in a multipolar system without military conflict.  Measure success by raising the health, education, and welfare levels of the world’s poorest, including America’s own.

And what about the constitutional provisions for setting American foreign policy?  After the Vietnam War Congress moved to reclaim more power over American military interventions abroad – a tendency that was reversed again after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  Normally vigorous Congressional oversight should seem desirable.  But let us be candid, Congress supported the cold-war engagement that liberals called for during a period when Democrats still ruled a one-party South and segregationist senators chaired key committees concerned with foreign policy and defense.  Do supporters of a strong presidential role really want Congressional oversight when Trump’s legacy still seems so strong over a Southern white electorate?  

On the other hand, whether speaking as historian or citizen, I am not ready to endorse the calls for a withdrawal from international commitments to the degree that has now become fashionable among some in both conservative and progressive circles.  Andrew Bacevich and Stephen Wertheim have exposed some of the grandiose visions that have motivated American imperial pretensions since the outset of World War II, but perhaps because of my age (a child of the Marshall Plan, so to speak), I think that the military and diplomatic retrenchment they recommend would be unwise in today’s world.[2]  Aside from the global upheavals that might follow, I do not believe that American politics would witness a succession of uncontested catastrophic outcomes, whether in the Middle East, or Taiwan, or elsewhere without descending into a series of domestic witch hunts or ultimately giving way to a sudden reversal of security policy from an objectively disadvantaged position (cf. Britain in 1938-40).  

I believe it is appropriate to defend values as well as interests, although to what degree military force should be engaged has to be weighed case by case.  There is a case for speaking loudly as well as wielding a big stick.  Speaking truth to power is a more appealing way of putting it.  I would submit it is the best choice for dealing with China even while the United States reengages with regional Asian and European allies.  Human rights cannot be the only guideline for policy but neither can acceptance of the fait accompli.  Public opinion loves to find a suitable “doctrine” for foreign policy – the Monroe Doctrine, the Truman Doctrine, the Nixon Doctrine, etc. – but case-by-case wisdom is probably more useful and will certainly be more necessary.  Ironically, the Trump presidency may have done one indirect public service through all its brutal disruptions if it compels a rethinking of what foreign policy the American imperial republic can and should defend.

 

Charles S. Maier received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1967 and is currently Leverett Saltonstall Research Professor of History at Harvard University.  His most recent book is Once within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016).

© Copyright 2021 The Authors

 


Notes

[1] John Hudson, “Amid internal disputes over Russia policy, Biden has chosen a mix of confrontation and cooperation,” The Washington Post, 15June 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-putin-summit/2021/06/15/19657e2c-cd44-11eb-9b7e-e06f6cfdece8_story.html

[2] See among his other works, Andrew Bacevich, After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed (New York: Macmillan, 2021); The Age of Illusions (New York: Henry Holt, 2020); The Long Wars: A New History of U.S. National Security Policy since World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); and Stephen Wertheim, Tomorrow the World: the Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020).

 

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