Category: foreign affairs

The Nuclear War Threat: Way Beyond North Korea

If you think you’re worried about nuclear conflict now . . .

THINK SOME MORE. 

Sure we’re deeply troubled by the prospect of a nuclear war between an American Narcissist Who Would Be King and a North Korean Dictator Who Would Be a God.  But—trying not to diminish the horrific losses such a conflict would entail—at least it would not lead to global Armageddon.  The leaders of Russia and China would keep cooler heads than either of these madmen, and avoid a widespread holocaust, although the damage to North Korea and perhaps the U.S. would be immense and long-lasting.  I trust those other leaders to be rational: however cruel, repressive, and callous they may be, they are not suicidal, neither are they unpatriotic enough to risk the destruction of their nations over North Korea.

So that you can worry about the potential for  a nuclear exchange far more consequential than Korea’s, I call attention to a piece in the September 23-29 New Scientist by Debora MacKenzie, entitled “Accidental Armageddon” —that’s the title within the pages; on the cover the headline reads “End Game: You’re right to worry about nuclear war – but not for the reason you think.” If these headlines make your blood run cold, you may find it run colder once you read MacKenzie’s article. Unfortunately, at this moment I can’t give you a link to the story, but you can find the magazine in material form at most libraries.

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Afghanistan “Win”: Surely You Jest, Mr. President

Is the Joke on Us, or on Our Glorious Leader?

Some days ago, the brat who poses as our nation’s president declared we would commence a winning strategy in Afghanistan.  I believe he said “win” at least five times, eliciting a lighthearted “ha ha ha” among the more jaded listeners.

That this flies in the face of logic—given the seventeen-year history of our military adventure in Afghanistan—is no impediment to Mr. Trump, whose logical faculties (such as they are) are overwhelmed by his egotism, vainglory, and desperate cravings for winning at any cost.

Containment of the Taliban, not defeating them, is the name of the game in Afghanistan, which the generals whom Trump maintains he consulted at length know very well.  (He also said he had looked at the Afghanistan situation “from every angle.” That was not the only time that I laughed out loud at this speech, but it was probably the loudest.) My guess is that the only way they could sell their strategy to him was to tell him it was a “winning” strategy, because the language of zero-sum games is the only language he understands. I’d wager they had a good laugh among themselves once the ruse succeeded.

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War on Women Grinds On

Trump Gang Pulls Plug on Women’s Empowerment

In addition to slashing the U.S. contribution to the United Nations, the Trump administration plans to take the axe to a State Department program promoting women’s rights around the world: The Latest Blow to Women Worldwide

It’s another measure to find funds to increase the Defense Department’s budget by $54 billion.

It’s also another slab dumped on the mounting pile of wrongs meant to overwhelm the opposition.  The Trump administration is waging war on many fronts: Women, the Poor, the Sick, Immigrants fleeing war and rule by street gangs, Science, Climate Change Resistance, Habitat Protection, Oceans, Lakes, and Waterways Protections, Renewable Energy, Voting Rights, the National Parks and Monuments, Native American Rights, Black Lives Matter. . . the list goes on.

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“Very powerful”. . . a Trumpian Epiphany

The Errant Armada

Sorry, it’s almost impossible to get through a day without some shard of Trump-inspired government wreckage getting lodged in your throat, to be expelled by laughter over folly so ridiculous that future generations will have to conclude that someone made it up.  They would be viewing it through the cracked lens of Fake-News-Making that has become the paradigm for information dissemination in the Age of Social Media.

The ridiculous part was Donald Trump’s announcement of an “Armada” en route to the shores of North Korea, when it was at the moment actually headed in the other direction for a training exercise in the Indian Ocean. (Hapless White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was once again thrust into Alternative Facts Limbo, suspended between his clueless boss on one side, and on the other side a Press Corp hungry for the truth.)

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The Calculus of Fear

As of this writing the  infamous Presidential executive order banning entry into the U.S. from seven predominantly Muslim countries has yet to get a final judicial ruling. But whether it succeeds or fails, its main purpose will have been achieved: to instill fear in those deemed undesirable by Trump, Bannon, & Co.

From that perspective, it’s all the worse if the ban is eventually determined to be constitutional. You can do more than just scare helpless undesirables, you can lawfully inflict pain on them. The undesirables could be any group—Muslims, Mexicans, Arabs, etc.—for which you can find some pretext to justify barring them from entry, throwing them out, or jailing them.

Much was made by Republicans that it was only a “temporary” ban. But of course once you have a “temporary” ban, what’s to keep it from being extended in the name of national security? The point is not about temporariness or permanence, the point is about power and intimidation.

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Another Disrupter: Prince Charles

British officials are all in a sweat about Prince Charles possibly confronting Trump over Climate Change when the latter visits UK.  White House is telling UK that Prince Charles raising the issue would be “counterproductive.”

Counterproductive!?! Isn’t Climate Change counterproductive enough already without trying to sweep it under the diplomatic rug?

See http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/trump-and-charles-in-climate-row-d2qwb7962

Two-and-a-Half Reasons Not to Confirm Rex Tillerson That Will Not Work

Rex Tillerson: the Man and the Phenomenon

FIRST: Rex Tillerson, most obviously, represents the interests of Big Fossil. No matter how much he divests financial holdings, the social proclivities of human nature ensure his bias toward his longstanding friends, and thereby a tilting of the international energy field toward fossil fuel. No one, not even the Pope, is immune to the psychological influences of friends.  It’s not just Tillerson’s personal bias, it’s the fact of his being in the position itself that declares to the world: We Like Fossil Fuels.

SECOND: Not quite so obvious is the signal of the nomination of Tillerson not as a person, but as a phenomenon.  It’s the tacit agreement that a captain of a key international industry naturally belongs as chief diplomat of the world’s most powerful nation, no matter what industry s/he is connected with. The nomination of Satya Nadella (current CEO of Microsoft) would send the same signal. It’s the signal that we’re now unquestionably in the era of what David Korten wrote in When Corporations Rule the World, first published two decades ago.*

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World Order 2.0 and National Debt

Richard Haass Stumps for a Reset of World Order, Targets National Debt

Centrist Big Thinker and President of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass has a new book out, The World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy  and the Crisis of the Old Order. As I gleaned from an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition today, and from the summary offered on Amazon, he’s looking for a reset (my word) of our foreign policy that recognizes our limitations but still projects our strength—reflecting “the reality that power is widely distributed and that borders count for less.”

In case you were wondering, Haass was pretty satisfied with the world order from the Cold War up through September 11, 2001. It may have been a tense world order, but at least it was orderly. Sort of.

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Donald Dishes Out Nuclear Trash Talk

Yes, you’ve all heard it,  thanks to Joe Scarborough, that not only will we have an arms race, but WE the USA will crush the opposition! Hooray! The fun begins January 21st. Courtesy of Donald Trump.

Esquire on 2017 Detonation Device

So, that’s not news.  What’s most newsworthy about this, for those seeking to “read between the lines,” is the spin (not so much spin as cartwheel) from Trump spokesman Sean Spicer:

“He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message that he’s not going to sit back and allow” them to engage in nuclear proliferation, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told NBC. “And what’s going to happen is they will come to their senses, and we will all be just fine.”

Fortune cites “loose cannon.”

We will all be just fine.

Per Sean Spicer, who, if you have actually seen him speak, exudes all the charm of a badger in a leg-hold trap, assures us that his boss is just sending a message. As in, trash talk, “Listen up, MoFos, we gonna whup yo’ MoFo-ing nuclear ass,” which everyone understands is just showmanship to boost ratings, no one to take it that seriously, once “they have come to their senses.”  (Doesn’t this sound like something like Don Corleone might have said?)

For his part, Russian leader Vladimir Putin kept his pragmatic head, pointing out that a nuclear arms race was unaffordable.  Vlad, bless his cold cold heart, was not about to take the bait—and I, for maybe the first time, was grateful for the wisdom of a tyrant with a long memory and a long projection into the future.

 

 

 

Hope for Afghanistan? Maybe.

See the following thoughtful essay on Afghanistan from Joel Vowell, a veteran of three tours in the infantry in Afghanistan. I believe his rank is lieutenant colonel, maybe full colonel by now. He speaks of “rational optimism.” He makes a credible case for staying the course.

Most of you readers are wary of “military solutions” and attempts at regime change in the Middle East, for good reason. Nevertheless, what Vowell speaks of sounds deeper than a mere military engagement.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/09/07/rationally-optimistic-on-afghanistan/?utm_campaign=Brookings+Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=33974175

– Mark