This morning my piece ran in @TheNatlInterest arguing that everybody is concerned about China and nobody has a clear idea what to do about it. Here's a thread laying out the argument: nationalinterest.org/feature/no-one…
The article takes as a given that policy elites and the public are increasingly anxious about China's rise and would like to prevent China from taking on a more active political role in Asia. But it points to three important problems with existing policy:
First, and most importantly: Economic engagement with China, which has only recently come under scrutiny, is enabling China's rise. I whined about this first in my 2013 paper at Cato, pointing out that engagement works against expansive US goals in Asia. cato.org/sites/cato.org…
As far back as 2014 or so, the business community was growing queasy about engagement in China, but remained pro-economic engagement, for obvious reasons. Increasingly, one now hears calls for "decoupling" the two economies
For example, Paula Dobriansky says the US and its partners should "set up new supply chains, restructure trade relations, and start to create an international economic order that is less dependent on China." This would be... an enormous shift. wsj.com/articles/an-al…
Efforts such as Aaron Friedberg's, here, attempt to put meat on these bones. This is admirable and overdue. At the same time, there's a lot left to determine: foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/08/uni…
Friedberg suggests using the tax code, government procurement, and the ill-will created by China's bullying of the private sector with forced tech transfers, &c, to help decouple. Ask yourself, though: Is it close to enough?
Second problem: US allies in Asia are being lapped by China in power terms. in 2009, Japan was spending roughly 75 percent as much as China on defense. By 2019, that figure was down to under 27 percent. In 2009 Taiwan spent 14 percent as much; now it's 6 percent. Is this enough?
Finally: Is everyone betting that we can extricate ourselves from the Middle East? (We should!) I'm not seeing it. If Washington, for a variety of reasons, is still hell-bent on micromanaging the region, it's going to be a real suck on attention to Asia. politico.com/magazine/story…
In short, the hawks have a big point: China is the most important issue in international politics. But I'm not satisfied with their answers on the effects of economics over time; with their water-carrying for allies, or their ability to win the domestic fight for pride of place.
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Today marks the release of my paper, “Uncle Sucker: Why U.S. Efforts at Defense Burdensharing Fail.” The Ukraine war has made policymakers ask why we carry such a large share of the burden. Every US president going back to Eisenhower had similar questions cato.org/policy-analysi…
The title comes from Eisenhower’s lament to Gen Goodpaster in *1959* that “the Europeans are close to ‘making a sucker out of Uncle Sam’; so long as they could prove a need for emergency help [on defense], that was one thing. But that time has passed.”
How badly do US allies cheap ride? Measuring how many allies spend 2% of GDP on defense, the common NATO measure, is unduly rosy. That is because many countries that do their part are relatively small and weak, and many large, wealthy countries are the worst shirkers.
Just a periodic reminder: Putting Ukraine into NATO would make Russia's attack on Ukraine an attack on NATO. NATO chose not to provide a MAP to Ukraine and not to enter the war. Presumably because its members were not unanimously in favor of defending Ukraine from Russia.
It is interesting to see HR McMaster resign from the Atlantic Council because a wealthy American he disagrees with is giving money to the think tank. A thread 1/ freebeacon.com/national-secur…
First, it is a cowardly move. McMaster clearly believes that opposing views are somehow beyond the pale, and therefore to be stifled, not argued with. It is a pinched, cliquish view of the marketplace of ideas. 2/
Secondly, and how to put this nicely: Charles Koch is out of bounds, but... all of the genuinely shady money flowing into the Council isn't? Burisma? UAE? Michele Dunne "departing" after Bahaa Hariri complained she called the Egypt coup a coup? 3/ seattletimes.com/nation-world/f…
Periodic reminder that Don Rumsfeld thought about striking Iraq on 9/11 after the Pentagon had been hit, Paul Wolfowitz advocated for it 9/15/01, and President Bush asked Rumsfeld to start working on plans November 21, 2001.
Assumption #9 of the initial cut of Iraq War planning was "Regional states would not interfere."
Bush on including Iran by name in the Axis of Evil: "I doubt the students and the reformers and the liberators inside Iran were displeased with that. I made the calculation that they would be pleased."
Rare sappy personal thread. Four years ago today, I opened a restaurant, a dream I had had for years. Two years ago today, I closed that restaurant. I’ve just been accumulating thoughts since then, so here they are. 1/
My first thought is of my wife and sons. I regret the stress I put them through. I worked 70+ hours a week for about three years. My wife supported our family and my youngest was born just before the restaurant opened. I missed out on so many memories of his development. 2/
I got home between twelve and three o’clock any given night, and I think I can count on one hand the number of times I couldn’t answer the bell at six or six-thirty. I knew we had obligations, and we mostly met them, but meeting them took a toll on me. On my wife more than me. 3/
The US is in the Middle East for three main reasons: oil, Israel, and terrorism. There must be something witchy about those things, because the region is a dwarf: ~3% of world GDP, ~3.5-5% world population. If a single state possessed those resources, we wouldn't worry much (2/)
Oil: FP scholars almost uniformly misunderstand how energy markets work. As M.A. Adelman argued in 2004, "U.S. oil policies are based on fantasies, not facts." The dreaded "oil weapon" is a dud, and normal instability doesn't cause economic catastrophe. (3/)