Thinking strategically about Ukraine

March 04, 2022
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This article appeared in The Hill on March 3rd, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Just days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europeans and Biden administration supporters are already urging that we begin finding “off ramps” for Russian President Vladimir Putin. These sources counsel “moderating” the West’s current efforts to avoid “backing Putin into a corner.” Some focus particularly on Russia’s heightened nuclear alert status, or speculation about Putin’s mental stability. 

This is exactly the wrong approach at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. It ignores both what’s actually happening in Ukraine, and the real point of Putin’s aggression: to weaken NATO and reestablish Moscow’s hegemony (or even sovereignty) over the former Soviet Union. 

Make no mistake: The stakes are global, as China watches what Russia achieves in Europe to see what it can do in the Indo-Pacific. President Biden’s State of the-Union address, remarkably substance-free on national-security issues, only confirms that he is running out of ideas on Ukraine and the larger strategic challenges. 

Having failed to deter Moscow’s unprovoked aggression against Kyiv; with economic sanctions ramped up only belatedly, and insufficient to halt the ongoing assault; and as Russian military forces continue their attacks, the West does not have a sufficient position of strength to contemplate finding Putin graceful exits. Concessions now will only encourage Putin to continue and substantially expand military efforts to achieve his objectives.  

Ironically, to say the least, we were finally moving in the opposite direction from finding “off ramps.” NATO’s resolve has been strengthened, although not enough. Outside NATO, a recent poll showed for the first time that a majority of Finland’s population supports NATO membership. This unprecedented 53 percent level of support is up dramatically from the last pre-invasion poll in 2017, which showed only 19 percent in favor. Support for NATO membership in Sweden has also reportedly risen to new highs. The prospect of more NATO on its northern flank can only depress Russia’s Defense Ministry. 

In sanctions policy, the United Kingdom and Canada have been leading the way, while complaining quietly about the lack of sustained U.S. leadership. In Britain, especially, concerns are growing that the European Union (EU) rather than NATO will emerge as the West’s main engine of policymaking. London correctly worries that the EU’s congenital institutional myopia will lead to premature concessions, which Biden’s lethargy only reinforces. 

Broaching “off ramps” now is dangerous. So far, Ukraine’s defenses have been remarkably strong, and the courage of its people readily apparent, disproving the refrain of America’s Kremlin surrogates that Russia conquering Ukraine is a “natural” reunion of a common people. Ukraine’s willingness to fight alone (the sad reality, Western illusions to the contrary notwithstanding) against aggression evidences its determination to maintain independence. 

However, and without minimizing the importance of Ukraine’s spirit and strength, today’s highly fluid battlefield demonstrates that the West’s collective effort is insufficient. Moscow’s own mistakes significantly contributed to its relative lack of progress. In the war’s opening week, Putin tried to achieve too many objectives with inadequate human and materiel resources. By ignoring the ancient maxim to concentrate forces on fewer targets, Putin opened defensive opportunities that Ukraine’s military readily seized. Moreover, Russian logistical support for its lead combat elements seemed poorly planned and inadequate, as press and social media reports show repeatedly.  

These early failures and miscalculations cost Russia dearly and bought precious time for Ukraine’s defenders, but the “correlation of forces,” as they said in Soviet circles, is changing in the Kremlin’s favor. Over 80 percent of the troops garrisoned near Ukraine’s borders are now moving into action, with the rest following shortly. Russia’s mistakes will lead in due course to purges in its defense ministry, but the blunt reality is that Moscow still has time to get its act together. 

Existing sanctions will not materially hamper Russia’s near-term war effort, and not necessarily in the long-term either. Iran, North Korea and Venezuela’s Maduro regime have all faced equal or more-severe sanctions regimes, and sadly they are still standing. Russia had ample advance notice of what was coming, and we may well find that those long weeks watching Russian military assets accumulate on Ukraine’s border were also long weeks where Russian assets were exiting vulnerable positions abroad. Even now, the EU is leaving two of Russia’s three largest banks connected to the SWIFT interbank messaging system. 

Most importantly, until the West drives a stake through the heart of Russia’s energy sector, Moscow will continue to profit from this crisis. Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies could soon open debilitating loopholes in the sanctions if “off ramps” for Putin take priority. 

The historical record does not provide a solid basis to believe in EU staying power, whatever the current rhetorical bravado. Russian hydrocarbon sales are reportedly down and selling at bargain-basement prices. The next step: more pressure. 

Russia’s real territorial objectives in Ukraine are still, in my view, expanding control over (1) eastern and southern Ukraine, home to a predominantly culturally, linguistically and religiously Russian population; and (2) the entire Black Sea northern coast, including the port of Odessa, thus landlocking a rump Ukraine, and severely squeezing it economically.  

Russia’s success to date in eastern Ukraine has been limited. But in the south, striking out from Crimea and attacking from the Black Sea, Russia has achieved more, while Western media have focused on Kyiv and Kharkiv. Putin is therefore actually closer to success, his preferred “off-ramp,” than the West realizes. 

In coming weeks, we must avoid “off ramps” or anything else that undercuts the imperative of increasing pressure on Moscow. For example, we should eviscerate Russia’s energy sector by prohibiting sales of hydrocarbons to all NATO and EU countries, and anyone else we can sign up. Dry up Putin’s revenues, which amount to 30 percent of Russia’s domestic economy and 60 percent of its export revenues, and make it expend its foreign currency reserves as fast as possible. Declare a visa ban on all Russian citizens, not just a few elite figures. There is much more to do. 

But above all else, no “off ramps” should be visible while Moscow insists on sustained belligerence in its “near abroad” and its efforts to weaken NATO. This is not the time for tactical thinking about Ukraine alone, but for strategic thinking about global peace and security. 

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room Where It Happened“ (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S. foreign policy. 

Entente Multiplies the Threat From Russia and China

March 01, 2022
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This article appeared in The Wall Street Journal on February 15th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

It’s been more than 75 years since the U.S. last faced an axis of strategic threats. Fortunately, that axis proved dysfunctional. Had it been otherwise, Japan and Germany would have systematically attacked the Soviet Union, not America, first. 

Our current strategic adversaries, Russia and China, aren’t an axis. They’ve formed an entente, tighter today than any time since de-Stalinization split the communist world. Involving some mutual interests and objectives, displays of support, and coordination, ententes are closer than mere bilateral friendships but discernibly looser than full alliances. The pre-World War I Triple Entente (Russia, France and Britain) is the modern era’s prototype. 

Moscow is junior partner to Beijing, the reverse of Cold War days. The Soviet Union’s dissolution considerably weakened Russia, while China has had enormous economic growth since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Russia’s junior-partner status looks permanent, given disparities in population and economic strength (whatever today’s military balance), but Vladimir Putin seems determined to move closer to China. 

This entente will last. Economic and political interests are mutually complementary for the foreseeable future. Russia is a significant source of hydrocarbons for energy-poor China and a longtime supplier of advanced weapons. Russia has hegemonic aspirations in the former Soviet territory, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. China has comparable aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East (and world-wide in due course). The entente is growing stronger, as China’s unambiguous support for Russia in Europe’s current crisis proves. 

Washington would undoubtedly be more secure if it could sunder the Moscow-Beijing link, but our near-term prospects are limited. This entente, along with many other factors, renders especially shortsighted the common assertion that opposing China’s existential threat to the West requires reducing or even withdrawing U.S. support for allies elsewhere. 

Barack Obama’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia produced a decade of variations on the theme that China matters and other threats don’t. Donald Trump agreed, although he wanted primarily to strike “the biggest trade deal in history” or impose tariffs if he couldn’t, along with assaulting China for the “Wuhan virus” when it became politically convenient. Some analysts argue that the global terrorist threat is diminishing and that hydrocarbon resources are becoming less important because of the green-fuel revolution. Both would mean that we could safely reduce U.S. attention to the Middle East. Thus, Joe Biden argued that withdrawing from Afghanistan was required to increase attention to China’s menace. Sen. Josh Hawley and others even believe we shouldn’t be deeply involved in the Eastern Europe crisis, to avoid diverting attention and resources from countering Beijing. 

Such assertions about reduced or redirected U.S. global involvement are strategic errors. They reflect the misperception that our international attention and resources are zero-sum assets, so that whatever notice is paid to interests and threats other than China is wasted. 

This is false, both its underlying zero-sum premise and in underestimating non-Chinese threats. Our problem is failing to devote anything like adequate attention or resources to protecting vital global interests. Political elites (who are noticeably lacking in figures like Truman and Reagan) focus on exotic social theories and domestic economics rather than national-security threats. America’s own shortsightedness, particularly an inadequate defense budget, makes us vulnerable to foreign peril. Washington must pivot not among competing world-wide priorities, but away from domestic navel-gazing. 

Critically, those who exclusively fear China ignore the Russia-China entente. The entente serves to project China’s power through Russia, as Beijing also projects power through North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Moreover, Beijing closely assesses Washington’s reactions to crises like the one in Ukraine to decide how to structure future provocations. 

Mr. Biden had it exactly backward in Afghanistan. The U.S. withdrawal not only signaled insularity and weakness, but allowed China and Russia to extend their influence in Kabul, Central Asia and the Middle East. Beijing and Moscow thereby also became more confident and assertive. And that’s not to mention that even the Biden administration admits that terrorism’s threat is rising again in Afghanistan. 

Beijing is not a regional threat but a global one. Treating the rest of the world as a third-tier priority, a distraction, the U.S. plays directly into China’s hands. Pivoting to Asia wouldn’t strengthen America against China. It would have precisely the opposite effect and weaken our global posture. 

We need to see this big picture before the Russia-China entente grows up to be an axis. 

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06. 

 

John Bolton on the lessons to be drawn from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

March 01, 2022
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This article appeared in The Economist on February 28th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

The West must not lapse back into complacency about potential aggressors, says a former US national security adviser

 
JUST DAYS into what might be a protracted Russia-Ukraine war, politicians and pundits are already drawing sweeping conclusions. For some, Russia’s failure to gain a swift, decisive, low-casualty victory renders Vladimir Putin’s downfall inevitable, and imminent. For others, a Russian victory, however bloody, directly threatens Ukraine’s neighbours and would mean sustained tensions in Europe. Which is correct, I can’t tell. Edmund Burke’s advice is, as usual, apt: “Please God, I will walk with caution, whenever I am not able clearly to see my way before me.” A few prudential lessons, however, are clear. 
 
First, pay attention to what adversaries say. In 2005 Mr Putin said that the Soviet Union’s disintegration was the 20th century’s greatest geopolitical catastrophe. Slowly but systematically since then, he has sought to reverse the collapse, most visibly through invasions, annexations and creating independent states—in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014). Mr Putin has also used less kinetic means to bring states like Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan into closer Russian orbits. 
 
While this unfolded, the West remained largely insouciant: not spending adequate amounts on defence; growing increasingly reliant on Russian oil and gas supplies; and mirror-imaging Russia’s leadership as Europeans-in-waiting (ie, just like us except not as refined). Those days may be over, but Winston Churchill’s insight as to “the confirmed unteachability of mankind” remains profound. Been reading speeches by Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Khamenei and Kim Jong Un recently? 
 
Second, the aggressive use of military force is back in style. The “rules-based international order” just took a direct hit, not that it was ever as sturdy as imagined in elite salons and academic cloisters. Although the steps taken to prevent Russia’s invasion and aid Ukraine in advance were obviously inadequate, the strength of the international reaction once the shooting actually started is impressive. It helps immeasurably that, so far, Ukraine’s resistance has been stiff. But let’s not be naive. Reports that Russian forces got lost, ran out of fuel, surrendered readily or even refused to cross into Ukraine all bespeak a Russian military not nearly so prepared, in morale or resources as Mr Putin believed. 
 
The real unknown remains whether the widespread spontaneous outrage is sustainable, or whether the West lapses back into complacency regarding Russia and other potential international aggressors. World peace is not at hand. Rhetoric and virtue-signalling are no substitute for new strategic thinking and higher defence budgets. Germany’s commitment on February 27th to meet a commitment it had already made in 2014 to spend 2% of its GDP on defence merits applause. More will be merited when we see the colour of its money. 
 
There has rightly been growing attention to the enormous threat China poses to Taiwan’s independence. So grave is it that Abe Shinzo, a former Japanese prime minister, and others have advised Washington to abandon “strategic ambiguity” over whether it will defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. The Japanese now fully understand that an attack on Taiwan is an attack on Japan. 
 
North Korea’s threat to South Korea is neither trivial nor a cold-war relic, especially in light of Pyongyang’s increasingly successful nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programmes. For Beijing, the prison-state North is an asset with which to threaten the western Pacific and beyond. South Korea’s impending presidential election will reveal much about the impact of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and its implications for smaller countries abutting large, former-Communist, land empires. 
 
In the Middle East, Iran proves that extremist, expansionist theology is still alive and well. Tehran’s hostile activities parallel Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats, and extend to providing drones and missiles to Yemen’s Houthi rebels to attack civilian targets in nearby countries; aiding terrorist outfits like Hamas and Hizbullah; and using conventional forces and terrorist tactics in Iraq and Syria to advance Iran’s interests. 
 
Third, the new Russia-China entente is rolling along. Breast-beating about isolating Russia refers primarily to isolating it from Europe (which has, entirely through its own fault over several decades, become over-dependent on Russia for energy supplies). It remains to be seen whether the rest of the world will concur in the long run. Merely as one example, when Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Ukraine invasion, India, China and the United Arab Emirates all abstained. China may well be providing Russia with a tacit insurance policy through a willingness to buy any oil and gas Europe decides to embargo (not that Europe has acted yet; it’s cold in Berlin). 
 
More important is the strategic positioning of the Russia-China entente. Although not yet a full-scale alliance, the Beijing-Moscow relationship is something the West feared during cold-war days. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger were determined to “play the China card” to widen the gap between Beijing and Moscow that had been opening since Nikita Khrushchev launched de-Stalinisation. There is no doubt the entente has legs, after years in which the two countries’ interests have been converging. With both empires now showing their fangs, playing a new strategy “card” to split them will be difficult. The entente is likely to be a threatening reality for decades. 
 
In sum, international threats are back with a vengeance. The critical unanswered question is whether the United States and the West generally can shake off their lassitude. ■ 
 
John Bolton was America’s national security adviser in 2018-19 for President Donald Trump. He was ambassador to the United Nations in 2005-06 and served in the administrations of presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.  

Broken Biden sank the West’s efforts to stop Putin invading Ukraine

February 28, 2022
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This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on February 28th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Joe Biden has explained why he failed to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He admitted that he had no idea what he was doing. 

For months, Nato members and other governments thought they were working to deter Vladimir Putin from unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. The entire debate centred on choosing the most effective measures to convince Putin of the enormous consequences he and Russia would face if they resorted to military force. 

Western leaders asked themselves what combination of preventative actions, threats of economic sanctions and even – in the minds of some, myself included – military force would be the most effective deterrent against a Russian invasion. What measures would persuade Moscow that the costs of any military action would be prohibitive, and more serious for Russia than any possible benefits? 

Today, it is tragically obvious this collective effort failed. Last Thursday, at a White House press conference, we may have learnt why. Biden admitted that he never believed his threats to impose economic sanctions against Russia, and other steps the West might take if the Kremlin “further invaded” Ukraine, would deter Putin. The transcript is admittedly confused, as are so many of Biden’s unscripted remarks, but the meaning is clear. 

A reporter asked: “Sir, sanctions clearly have not been enough to deter Vladimir Putin to this point. What is going to stop him?” Biden answered: “No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.” That was news to Washington and beyond, where people believed their deliberations and preparations were intended to do precisely that. 

Another reporter asked: “If sanctions cannot stop President Putin, what penalty can?” Biden said: “I didn’t say sanctions couldn’t stop him.” Perhaps stunned at Biden contradicting his own words, uttered just moments before, the reporter tried again: “But you’ve been talking about the threat of these sanctions for several weeks now.” Biden interrupted: “Yes, but the threat of the sanctions and imposing the sanctions and seeing the effect of the sanctions are two different things… He’s going to begin to see the effect of the sanctions.” If that wasn’t bad enough, Biden said repeatedly that “this is going to take time”, as though every day in Ukraine isn’t agonising. 

Translating Biden’s answers into sensible English leads to disturbing conclusions. Possibly, he simply doesn’t understand what deterrence is, and that it almost always includes credible threats of future punishment to affect an adversary’s current actions. It hardly inspires confidence in US leadership when its President fails to grasp the vital concept that kept the West safe during the Cold War’s nuclear standoff. Yesterday, Putin showed what he thought of Biden’s leadership by placing Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert – a provocative move, to say the least. 

It may be that Biden was never confident Putin could be deterred, certainly not by threats alone. In that case, unless Biden was prepared to accept the inevitable devastation that an invasion of Ukraine would cause, he should have spared no effort to develop additional steps to prevent it. He did not, despite widespread, urgent advice that the sanctions he threatened were insufficient, and that real-time costs had to be imposed on Putin before he initiated military action. 

The rubble in Biden’s mind is what it is. We should not await improvement. Instead, we immediately need new ideas that can change the direction of events and impact Putin and Russia. 

The Ukrainian people are certainly doing their part. They are fighting hard and courageously, and their spirit is high. The contemptuous riposte of a small outpost in the Black Sea (“Russian warship, go f— yourself”) reminds us all of General McAuliffe’s equally defiant response to German demands he surrender during the Battle of the Bulge: “Nuts!” 

One new idea is for Nato and EU countries simply to bar entry to any Russian citizens. Such a visa ban is clear, sweeping, immediate and readily enforceable. This would be far more shocking to Russians than sanctions against a small number of high-ranking targets. (Now under both Russian and Chinese sanctions myself, I can say confidently they don’t affect me at all. I only regret I didn’t have any assets Russia and China could have seized!) We could go further and expel Russians already in Western countries. 

Some will say this is too harsh and disruptive. Really? Ask Ukraine what harsh and disruptive mean. The West has failed to deter Russia’s attack, and its post-invasion sanctions have so far been pinpricks, hardly even touching Russia’s critical energy sector. If there are better ideas than a visa ban, let’s get them out in public. Otherwise, we will just be sitting back watching the casualty lists get longer. 

John Bolton is a former US national security adviser 

Gradual Sanctions Against Russia are a Loser

February 27, 2022

This article appeared in The New York Post on February 27th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

The Biden Administration has been explicit that it is pursuing a strategy of “graduated escalation” in imposing sanctions against Russia for invading Ukraine. This approach is virtually certain to be less effective in imposing economic hardship on Russia than a more robust effort, thereby prolonging Ukraine’s agony and postponing Russia’s isolation. Gradual escalation in economic warfare carries precisely the same risks as in kinetic warfare; the enemy has a say in both cases. Biden could be introducing us to to the Vietnam of economic sanctions.

Indeed, to all outwards appearances, Biden’s graduated-escalation policy is motivated largely by domestic American political considerations, especially regarding Russia’s energy sector. With U.S. inflation high and rising, economic pain at home is the last thing the White House wants, especially soaring oil and gas prices. Consumers feel the squeeze not only when they fill their gas tanks, but in their other purchases that require transporting good to stores or front porches, especially food.

A little history on sanctions and recent U.S. foreign policy. It says something about today’s Democratic Party that Woodrow Wilson’s views are too hard-line to contemplate. Wilson, amidst his prolonged reveries about the League of Nations, strongly advocated using economic sanctions in lieu of military force to resolve international disputes. He called sanctions “a peaceful, silent deadly remedy,” and “a hand upon the throat of the offending nation.” Too much for the Biden Administration.

America’s experience with sanctions has been mixed, and suggests several conditions for effectiveness. First, sanctions should be imposed swiftly and by surprise if possible, to prevent targets from taking precautionary or protective steps to mitigate the sanctions’ impact. That obviously did not happen with Russia, international sanctions having been threatened for months, and even if not known in precise detail, easily imaginable. If Russia is not prepared for the measures already imposed so far, the Kremlin is guilty of governance malpractice.

Second, sanctions should be as sweeping and comprehensive as possible, since no sanctions will be completely effective. Lesser measures produce lesser results. Phrases like “targeted sanctions” sound good in diplomatic communiques, but broad-gauge sanctions are far more likely to cause sustained pain. Even history’s most-extensive sanctions, the UN Security Council measures against Iraq after invading Kuwait, did not ultimately succeed in forcing Saddam Hussein out. Concern for second-order impacts of sanctions on America’s economy is warranted, but sanctions should maximize harm to the target, with other measures separately protecting the domestic economy. Dialing down sanctions to protect the sanction-imposer does far more to shield the target than Biden realizes.

Finally, sanctions should go for the jugular. With Russia, its very existence as a major threat relies on the revenues from its oil and gas production and exports. As some wags have said, it’s more a big gas station than a real national economy. Russian earnings from hydrocarbon sales internationally totaled 60% of its export revenues in 2019, and forty percent of its national-government budget. Russia’s dependence on oil and gas revenues has grown steadily over the last eight years.

The Biden Administration argues that blocking Russian hydrocarbon sales would not immediately damage Russia because of currency reserves accumulated in anticipation of just such sanctions. Of course, many more non-hydrocarbon sanctions are also required than currently announced, also hastening expending the reserves. The aggregate effect of more robust and comprehensive sanctions, including particularly oil-and-gas sanctions, would strangle Russia’s government and broader economy.

The Administration’s misguided graduated-escalation strategy and failure to strike Russia’s energy sector unfortunately reinforce one another, providing Putin a lifeline. Postponing any sanctions now, especially against energy, only sustains Moscow’s war machine. If Biden wants to keep U.S. hydrocarbon prices down for political reasons, he should consider the supply side: U.S. production increases, quickly available through already-existing horizontal-drilling and fracking infrastructure, could substantially mitigate price rises on American consumers.

Europeans may have a harder time, entirely through their own fault, and contrary to U.S. warnings dating to Ronald Reagan against depending on Russian energy sources. And what better opportunity or higher motive for Germany and other governments to force their economies toward green energy than supporting the courageous Ukrainian people. No one is asking for unnecessary sacrifice, but no anti-aggression policy in Ukraine is cost free. That is the reality of a globalized economy. Otherwise, the West’s policy is simply, “we support Ukraine, but not when it is inconvenient.”

It’s time to squeeze the Kremlin hard, not engage in semiotic warfare, gradual escalation, and pearl clutching. Drive a stake through Russia’s energy sector. Now.

Putin’s effort to split NATO may depend on Germany

February 03, 2022
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This article appeared in The Hill on February 1st, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

Make no mistake, Russia’s fundamental strategic objective in coercing Ukraine is to undermine NATO. In Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mind, a weaker NATO directly correlates with a stronger Russia. Long-festering policy differences within the alliance, self-inflicted vulnerabilities to external pressures and weak political leadership in key Western states are already on full display. Ponderous rhetoric about NATO solidarity, endlessly repeated by the Biden administration, only underscores rather than conceals these problems.

Putin well understands these phenomena. He is actively seeking to exacerbate existing tensions and weaknesses, and create new ones, and has already made significant progress in undercutting the alliance. Today, these divisions eviscerate the credibility of threatened post-invasion sanctions against Russia, no matter how serious the West might be. If Russia remains undeterred, the long-term damage to America’s global position, compounding the corrosive effects of the Afghan withdrawal, could be incalculable.

NATO’s problems are hardly new. Not for nothing was Henry Kissinger’s pathbreaking mid-1960’s analysis entitled “The Troubled Partnership.” Nonetheless, the undeniable Soviet Cold War threat; America’s sustained, vitally important perception that ensuring Europe’s security enhanced its own; and U.S. leaders like Ronald Reagan, determined to defeat communism not merely “manage” or contain it, ultimately prevailed. NATO members’ collective-defense commitments held, and the USSR collapsed. The story becomes vaguer from there, with upticks after 9-11 and during the ensuing war on Islamicist terrorism.

During the 1990’s generally-shared Western euphoria (remember “the end of history”?), NATO’s expansion was both inevitable and beneficial to all involved. But Washington failed to think through how far NATO should grow. There was talk of possibly including Russia at some point, although that opportunity, not nurtured seriously during the Clinton administration, died through inattention. Spain’s former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar proposed making NATO a global alliance, including members such as Japan, Australia and Israel, but Europe’s burghers were uninterested.

Unfortunately, and critical here, NATO’s eastern European flank was left unfinished, with many former Soviet republics isolated in an ambiguous, clearly dangerous grey zone between NATO and Russia. In 2008, with bipartisan support, President George W. Bush proposed fast-tracking NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. Germany and France blocked the move, and now assert tautologically that not being NATO members means they are of no special concern to the alliance. Contemporary criticisms that Ukraine is not ready for NATO membership because of corruption and an unsteady democracy overlook Bush’s prior initiative. They also conveniently ignore that eastern and central European states admitted after the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed were hardly clones of Luxembourg or Canada.

But who determines the strategic status of the grey-zone countries? Ukraine exemplifies this issue, struggling to shed its communist past and create durable representative government. While key national territory has already been annexed or subjugated by Moscow, Ukrainians nonetheless still believe they should decide their international future. Russia believes it should decide, and many Europeans and Americans seemingly agree: Russia is powerful, borders Ukraine and there are historic antecedents. Perhaps we should ask China’s neighbors how they feel about that logic. Not long ago, we could have asked that question of Germany’s neighbors.

Undeniably, Ukraine is now under brutal pressure, including the palpable risk of further Russian military invasion. In response, President Biden has not solidified the alliance. He has in fact increased its divisions through his soon-to-be-historical banter about “minor incursions,” desperate efforts to concede something to Moscow to halt the march toward military hostilities and public disagreement with Ukraine itself on the imminence of a Russian attack. Observers watch daily for more signs of Biden going wobbly.

Europe’s reaction is mixed. Despite domestic political turmoil, Great Britain has been firm, even ahead of the U.S. by some measures. Eastern and central European NATO members need no lectures on the Kremlin’s threat, and they are wholly resolute, notwithstanding reliance on Russian natural gas. More “distant” NATO countries are less visible, but at least not obstructionist. France is being France, with President Emmanuel Macron, facing a difficult reelection race, pirouetting around the international stage searching for attention.

Then there’s Germany. Basing its reluctance to do much of anything on its recent history, Berlin has it exactly backwards. Precisely this history should impel Germans to be the most steadfast and resolute opponent of efforts to change European borders by politico-military aggression. Of all European countries, Germany owes this to its neighbors, in concrete deeds not just words. Instead, it has been passive at best, and frequently unhelpful. This is NATO’s core weakness, and Putin is pounding on it for all he is worth.

Germany led Europe in ignoring Reagan’s 1980’s admonitions not to become dependent on Russian oil and gas. Incredibly, Russia’s Gazprom hired former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to help complete the first Nordstream pipeline, begun during his tenure. Schroeder’s successors effectively did nothing to mitigate Germany’s vulnerability and now act as if terminating Nordstream II is unthinkable. Maybe the devil made them do it.

Germany has not come within sight of meeting NATO’s 2014 Cardiff agreement that members spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. It has long refused to provide Ukraine with lethal military aid, and recently barred Estonia from sending German-origin weapons to Kyiv. Berlin’s offers to send 5,000 military helmets and a field hospital were greeted with well-deserved mockery and incredulity. To top it off, the commander of Germany’s navy was recently fired for all but supporting Russia’s position.

Newly-installed Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet Biden in Washington on Feb 7. They have a lot to talk about. Germany was delighted to shelter under Cold War America’s nuclear umbrella and NATO’s European fastnesses. We will soon see if Germany is ready to do the right thing by Ukraine. Putin is watching closely.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Trump from 2018 to 2019, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006 and held senior State Department posts in 2001-2005 and 1985-1989. His most recent book is “The Room Where It Happened” (2020). He is the founder of John Bolton Super PAC, a political action committee supporting candidates who believe in a strong U.S. foreign policy.

Putin’s playing chess in Ukraine and Biden steps in as pawn

January 25, 2022
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This article appeared in The New York Post on January 23th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Biden’s first press conference in 10 months, on the eve of his inauguration’s anniversary, made news. But not the kind he wanted. Asked about Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine, NATO’s lack of unity and the likely failure of economic sanctions to deter Vladimir Putin, Biden answered that “the idea that NATO is not going to be united, I don’t buy . . . It depends on what [Russia] does. It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do, et cetera.”

In a stroke, Biden demonstrated he didn’t understand his own Ukraine policy, undercut Kiev’s government and people, and handed Moscow an engraved invitation to make a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.

That was bad enough, but further answers made his position even more unintelligible. He said, “and so, I got to make sure everybody is on the same page as we move along . . . But it depends on what [Putin] does, as to the exact — to what extent we’re going to be able to get total unity on the Rus — on the NATO front.”

Biden was correct that Putin “was calculating what the immediate . . . and the long-term consequences of [sic] Russia will be.” Right now, Putin has the initiative and a broad range of options. America and the West are reactive and disunited, as Biden all but admitted. Putin is following a strategic playbook encompassing the entire former Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact “allies,” grounded on his 2005 precept that “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.” The United States and NATO are answering this strategic threat only tactically. The West focuses on avoiding imminent hostilities, whereas Putin is seeking enduring hegemony over former Soviet territories. The White House still fails to comprehend that Putin need not conduct all-out invasion of Ukraine to win significant new advantages. Seizing “pro-Russian” areas, leaving a rump independent Ukraine or installing a Moscow-friendly government might be Putin’s real goal. Or he may make political or military moves elsewhere, in Belarus, Georgia or Kazakhstan for example, for which the alliance seems completely unprepared.

Even worse, Moscow is now suckering Washington into negotiations over “security guarantees” that weaken and divide NATO itself. Biden said, “NATO is not going to take in Ukraine anytime in the next few decades,” an astonishing unforced error. George W. Bush was ready in April 2008 to fast-track Ukraine and Georgia as NATO members, but Germany and France objected. Four months later, Russia invaded Georgia and in 2014 invaded Ukraine, annexing Crimea and seizing control over the Donbas. NATO has never admitted a country with unwanted foreign troops on its soil because that would effectively put NATO in a state of war with the occupying country. Of course, Russia is the aggressor in every case, with its “minor incursions” not just in Georgia and Ukraine but many others.

Russia creates an artificial crisis, then graciously accedes to resolve it by “accepting” precisely the objective it sought in the first place. Biden’s response is totally backwards, signaling willingness to discuss restrictions on Ukraine’s NATO candidacy and limitations on missile and troop dispositions near Russia’s borders, all key Kremlin demands. This is a major error, which will only prompt further demands. Russia, a consistent violator of international commitments, is the aggressor, not NATO, which has always been a purely defensive alliance. Geographic restrictions on NATO deployments endanger its members and benefit Russia, as Poland, the Baltics and other central Europeans fully grasp, even if Germany and France don’t. Russia has always feared violating a NATO member’s border, but weakening NATO resolve undermines even its historically successful defensive purpose, as Moscow clearly understands.

Playing small ball with Putin, as Biden is doing, will not durably protect Ukraine or other endangered states. Biden’s inadequate and now incoherent policy is not deterring Russian military action, and timidity simply incentivizes Putin to increase his demands. We risk a downward spiral of NATO concessions to avoid military conflict today, but which will only increase its likelihood soon thereafter.

Indeed, the situation may be so far gone Putin inevitably emerges the winner. The last hope is that Biden immediately reverses course and seizes the initiative and insist the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline never operate until Russian troops leave any country that does not want them. Urgently required are more weapons and more NATO troops, not to fight but to train and exercise with Ukrainians, thereby increasing Moscow’s uncertainty and risk. So doing, of course, requires strength from the Europeans, especially France and Germany, that they may well lack.

This is Putin’s calculus, which Biden’s statements and last week’s negotiations did not change.

Time is on Putin’s side.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump from 2018 to 2019 and US ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006.

Biden’s weakness is a danger. The West needs Britain to keep him in check

January 03, 2022
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This article appeared in The Telegraph on December 29, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

As 2022 nears, Joe Biden and his party are in political trouble. Elected largely to restore pre-Trumpian normalcy, Biden campaigned as a safe pair of hands, promising effective Covid-19 programmes, a more-complete economic recovery, and a leader who could remain quiet at times. Pandemics, however, have no political favourites. Delta and omicron have Americans frustrated and irritable, economic recovery still feels inadequate, and we face 30-year-high inflation.

Biden’s presidency did not start from a position of strength. His Electoral College win rested on narrow margins in key states, the Democrats’ House of Representatives majority shrank markedly, and a 50-50 Senate came only after Trump criticised the November election’s integrity, thereby dissuading Republicans from voting and costing two Senate seats in runoffs.

While 2020 was thus not a wave election, Democratic “progressives” persuaded Biden otherwise. These forces pushed through massive economic stimulants (even above Trump’s stimulus spending), thereby fueling inflation. But progressives pressed for more and went too far; their latest multitrillion spending ideas will end 2021 gridlocked in Congress. House Democrats in large numbers, even in safe seats, are not seeking re-election in 2022, indicating pessimism about retaining a majority.

Worse, Biden’s approval ratings have tanked, dropping precipitously from roughly 8-10 per cent net positive to 8-10 per cent net negative. Significantly, Biden’s numbers went off the cliff this summer as the world watched America’s national humiliation caused by his withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. The withdrawal’s bungled execution was later compounded by Administration admissions that IS-K and al-Qaeda could be ready to launch terrorist attacks against the United States from Afghanistan in six to 12 months.

Biden’s approval dropped because of Afghanistan and stayed low over economic and Covid discontent. More bad news emerged in November’s gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey, both believed safely Democratic. Voter dissatisfaction on law and order and education generated a Republican victory in Virginia and a near miss in New Jersey. Predictions of large 2022 GOP gains in the House and securing a Senate majority are now realistic.

Biden’s political prospects will undoubtedly impact his foreign policy. While he might prefer focusing on domestic affairs to fulfil his 2020 campaign pledges, the broader world will not be so obliging. The Afghan withdrawal’s catastrophic consequences continue to reverberate in foreign capitals. Moscow and Beijing almost certainly see US weakness and inattention, thereby encouraging their aggressive ambitions in places like Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively. Leaders in Kiev and Taipei are correspondingly concerned that further distractions in Washington will leave them in jeopardy.

The immediate risk is that Biden will seek to buy himself time at least until after November’s Congressional elections. That could spell bad news for Ukraine and other “grey zone” countries proximate to Russia but outside NATO, as Moscow and the alliance prepare for January “security” talks. Ukraine is worried that Biden will make significant but seemingly minor (and poorly understood) concessions to pacify Putin. Here, Britain could play a major role in checking any Biden giveaways, working with NATO’s Eastern and Central European members.

In the Indo-Pacific, Biden has prioritised making climate change deals with China, gravely concerning Taiwan and the wider Indo-Pacific, as do intimations that China and Russia are coordinating their actions. Diplomatic boycotts of Beijing’s Winter Olympics, as announced by Washington and other governments, hardly constitute a strong statement on human rights issues, let alone geostrategic threats. National security concessions now to avoid complicating Biden’s domestic problems may attract a hard-pressed White House, but the longer-term effects will endanger America and its friends.

A pivotal impending test of this proposition turns on the failing Perm-Five-plus-one minuet with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The deal has iconic significance for Biden and other Obama Administration alumni, who see it as their foreign-policy apotheosis. Perilously, they still don’t recognise that Iran’s key demand – allowing uranium enrichment to reactor-grade levels – is one concession too far, a key enabler for Tehran to develop nuclear weapons. Biden seems desperate to avoid “failure” in the talks. Britain, and even Germany and France, could help persuade the White House that this dangerous gambit has run its course.

Obviously, Britain’s Covid and economic problems resemble America’s, and parliamentary politics for Boris Johnson are far from serene. None the less, now liberated from the EU’s arduous and ineffective policy-making process, London can proceed boldly in its foreign policy, especially within NATO. If there is an acceptable solution for Ukraine, Belarus and the other “grey zone” countries, it will come from NATO, not the EU. And, as the Aukus partnership to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines proves, Britain’s role in the Indo-Pacific is also critical.

While America struggles along with Biden for three more years, the stage is set for a bigger UK role in safeguarding Western security.

John Bolton is a former United States national security adviser

 

Now Is The Time For NATO To Stand Up To Russia

December 30, 2021
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This article appeared in 19FortyFive on December 28, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

Thirty years after the Soviet Union dissolved on December 31, 1991, events in its former space seem headed in the opposite direction. Despite initially remaining passive as the USSR split into fifteen independent states, Moscow has more recently steadily pursued a hegemonic agenda, increasingly bold and increasingly successful. It provoked hostilities (notably Ukraine) and exploited weaknesses (as in Belarus) possibly leading to outright re-annexation. Existing “frozen conflicts” (Armenia versus Azerbaijan, Moldova/Transnistria, and Georgia) remained frozen or became more severe. Less-visible Kremlin economic and political initiatives are afoot across Central Asia, and in Tajikistan, Moscow’s largest military base in the former USSR outside Russia itself, its border forces never left.

How and why the West misjudged what was brewing inside Russia following the USSR’s demise is already vigorously debated. After a widespread but sadly erroneous 1990’s optimism Russia would embrace Western institutions and values, hopes for constitutional, representative government are in retreat. Despite the collapse of Europe’s Communist regimes, communism and its ways persisted.  The Cold War’s winners could not impose anything comparable to post-World War II denazification, so authoritarian memories, habits, and methods endured even without their prior ideological veneer. Outsiders collectively failed to appreciate that profoundly deep Russian sentiments of revanchism and irredentism persisted below the surface, seeking opportunities to make Russia’s “near abroad” much less “abroad.” History had not ended, notwithstanding the “peace dividend” bled from the U.S. and other NATO militaries.

We can’t say, however, we weren’t put on notice. Vladimir Putin said in 2005, “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.  As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.” Just days ago, Putin called the breakup “a tragedy as for the vast majority of the country’s citizens. After all, what is the collapse of the USSR?  That’s the collapse of historical Russia called the Soviet Union.”

The West made two fundamental mistakes in the years since Russia’s new flag was first raised over the Kremlin. In an understandable rush to add to NATO states escaping the defunct Warsaw Pact and resuming their rightful places in the West, America, in particular, failed to delineate where the expansion would end. One can debate where that endpoint should be, but by failing to decide the question explicitly, we created a “grey zone,” an ambiguity Russia is now exploiting. Today, we and grey-zone nations like Ukraine, are paying the price.

Moreover, too many Europeans believe the continent’s relative post-1945 peace is due to the European Union rather than NATO. “This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos in 1991, as the EU presided over Yugoslavia’s catastrophic breakup and continuing Balkan instability. Intense EU navel-gazing, such as focusing on “deeper” rather than “broader” European integration, implicitly downgraded the concerns of “New European” members and aspirants. The EU’s bizarre apotheosis came in winning the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. But this is all fantasy. Europe was bound together for security purposes by NATO. Germany’s political readmission to the West came via NATO long before an EU superstate appealed to anyone but its theologians and altar boys.  There was no remilitarization, as after World War I, because from 1945 forward, not a sparrow has fallen in Europe’s military-industrial complex unknown to NATO. The EU did not win the Cold War, and its disproportionate role in dealing with Russia today hinders the West’s resolve.

Unfortunately, NATO’s inadequate end-state planning and EU delusions have hindered developing a coherent strategy against a resurgent Russia.  The Kremlin has suffered no such disability and now demands multiple security guarantees from NATO and the United States, embracing not just Eastern Europe, the current crisis epicenter, but also the Central Asian republics.  Moscow wants an agreement that NATO to not admit Ukraine or other non-members into the alliance; not deploy “offensive weapons” in countries (NATO members or not) adjacent to Russia; and not conduct military exercises near Russia’s borders above brigade levels. China has essentially endorsed Russia’s demand.

Despite a Putin-Biden virtual summit and threats of economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine, the Kremlin appears unimpressed.  That does not mean hostilities are imminent; Putin is likely doing a continuous, real-time, cost-benefit analysis to decide what he can get away with at what cost. Today’s crisis remains volatile and unlikely to recede meaningfully in the foreseeable future.  Yet again, Putin is outmaneuvering his Western counterparts.

So, as Lenin once asked, what is to be done?

Beyond doubt, NATO must finally decide which grey-zone countries it is prepared to admit, and which it isn’t. NATO should also reaffirm that all former republics, in Central Asia (since Russia has dragged them into the discussion) as well as Europe and the Caucasus, must be free to make their own decisions about their allegiances. While they decide, NATO should give Russia a general “hands-off” notice regarding them all.

The EU needs to get serious about Russia’s renewed threat which, after all, is on their border, not America’s. Nord Stream II should be canceled, with no prospect of resurrection until Russia withdraws its troops behind its borders, absent specific requests by grey-zone countries. European NATO members should meet their Cardiff commitments to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2024. Additional allied weapons should immediately be surged into Ukraine, and nearby NATO members as Bill Schneider has suggested. U.S. and other NATO countries should increase troop rotations into Ukraine for joint training and exercising, not to engage in combat, but so Russian generals can contemplate the karma of being ordered to invade Ukraine in close proximity to new NATO deployments. Western ministers of defense and their joint staffs’ chairmen should be converging on Kyiv, Chisinau, Tbilisi, and even Minsk for consultations.

NATO has been history’s strongest defensive alliance. Neither the USSR nor Russia has ever dared confront it directly, which means its deterrent capabilities are as tested and proven as anyone could conceive. With this record and the enormous internal weaknesses of Russia in mind, this is no time for Washington, let alone the great capitals of Europe, to fear putting NATO front and center.

Ambassador John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald J. Trump. He is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” You can follow him on Twitter: @AmbJohnBolton.

John Bolton’s Guide for Containing Russia and China

December 20, 2021
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Drop the virtue signaling on democracy and put some boots on the ground in Ukraine. A Q&A with Trump’s former national security adviser.
By Tobin Harshaw

This article appeared in Bloomberg on December 18, 2021. Click here to view the original article.

Last month, I was in Honduras for its watershed presidential election. (OK, I was actually there to scuba dive, but it was during the watershed presidential election.) The result wasn’t a shock: The wife of a leftist former president with antidemocratic leanings beat the candidate of the right-wing ruling party with antidemocratic leanings. What was remarkable was how smoothly things went. The New York Times called it a “largely peaceful, orderly election” and reported that “the chief of the Organization of American States’s electoral observation mission, former President Luis Guillermo Solís of Costa Rica, called the vote ‘a beautiful example of citizen participation,’ noting the high turnout.”

Two weeks later, U.S. President Joe Biden held his Summit for Democracy, pledging “to set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal and to tackle the greatest threats faced by democracies today through collective action.” Guess who wasn’t invited: Honduras. And guess who was: Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq, all of which are rated “not free” in Freedom House’s annual democracy scorecard.

Political liberty, it seems, is in the eye of the beholder. To make sense of the contradictions, I talked with somebody who has beheld many of them: John Bolton. Before his tempestuous tenure as President Donald Trump’s national security adviser — details of which can be found in his memoir, “The Room Where It Happened” — Bolton spent four decades in public service, including as U.S. representative to the United Nations under President George W. Bush. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our discussion:

Tobin Harshaw: Let’s start with Biden’s democracy summit, which I assume you don’t think was a smash success. What about the administration’s stated effort to put democracy promotion back at the center of foreign policy?

John Bolton: I would start from a different conceptual perspective. What we should be fostering in the world is not the abstraction of democracy, we should be fostering freedom, and those two things are not the same. Democracy has come to mean all things bright and beautiful, and that just obscures the meaning of what we’re after. What we want are constitutional representative governments, and, by definition, all constitutional governments are limited governments, which means they’re not fully democratic. People can live in freedom with different kinds of governments.

TH: It’s hard to understand why some countries were invited — Congo and Pakistan — and others weren’t, like Hungary and Bangladesh.

JB: When you get to summits like this, you inevitably end up making distinctions that are somewhat arbitrary. What we really ought to focus on is the threats to free government in the world, and invite people who may not meet a standard of perfection.

One reason not to hold this particular summit was the fact that it was virtual. Anybody who has ever been to major international meetings — the general debate at the United Nations every September, G-20 summits — will tell you that what’s important is not the plenary meeting, the speeches that all the leaders read and that nobody listens to, but the bilaterals, the pull-asides, the informal meetings. That’s where you can get into real substance. So the whole thing strikes me as an exercise in symbolism. I don’t believe in virtue-signaling.

TH: I like your distinction between democracy and freedom. Isn’t it true that many if not most nations exist in some sort of gray area between being free and being unfree?

JB: Trying to make this into a contest between democracies and non-democracies misses the point. The biggest threats we face are authoritarian governments, and you’re going to have governments that can be important allies but don’t live up to the standards that we live by. That may be unpleasant, but it’s the reality we live in.

TH: That was certainly a reality that we lived in during the Cold War.

JB: As Winston Churchill put it: If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. That’s not to say we don’t hope that these friendly nations will become better representative governments, and in some respects that has happened. We had Spain as a member of NATO while Franco was still the authoritarian leader, and yet now we have a functioning representative government in Spain and in Portugal. I think that shows progress.

TH: If we are in a new Cold War with China, what are the countries we should be looking for as allies, even if they don’t measure up to our highest ideals?

JB: I don’t think it’s a Cold War with China. Because it’s not ideological like it was during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It’s two different systems for sure, but the authoritarian party that runs China now is not communist, except in name. It’s classic authoritarian, domestically and internationally.

The point we tried to make during the Trump administration was that we wanted a free and open Indo-Pacific, and we’re happy to band together with anybody who opposes countries that try to make it less than free and open. Vietnam is hardly a free democratic society, but it’s on the border with China and has longstanding historical concerns about Chinese hegemonic ambitions. I have no hesitation whatever to work with the government of Vietnam; one day they may decide to adopt a more representative government, and that would be great.

TH: There are people who feel that Chinese authoritarianism is an ideology — and that Beijing is trying to promote similar authoritarian states in its image through the Belt and Road Initiative and other things.

JB: I think the Chinese are less concerned about transforming foreign regimes than about dominating their own people. It’s a powerful argument against their system when you have social credit scores, where they judge the performance of their own citizens. That’s something a free society should reject. But I hardly put it in the category of communism or fascism or the more identifiable 20th-century ideologies.

TH: Weaker countries are finding themselves more and more dependent on Chinese investment and economic help through Belt and Road and other things. Do you think that they are in danger of becoming a string of vassal states, or do you think they will react against efforts by China to bring them into the net?

JB: In many cases they are already reacting against the circumstances they find themselves in. Because their previous governments did not scrutinize the terms of Belt and Road projects, they didn’t see the debt trap that they were walking into. That’s one thing that we ought to try to work with like-minded countries globally to help prevent. The West believes in free and open economic transactions, and the Chinese have a completely different model that they have worked with enormous success, in part by subverting and undercutting things like the World Trade Organization.

TH: Many people feel that one of those opportunities was tTrans-Pacific Partnership, yet the Trump administration pulled out before it was finalized, and the Biden administration doesn’t seem any warmer to it. Do you think that’s a mistake?

JB: The trouble with TPP was not its concept — to use an economic organization to help combat Chinese hegemonic aspirations. The problem with TPP was it didn’t do very much; it just wasn’t a very impressive deal. Now we should re-look at how you take a notion that’s correct conceptually and make it more effective. The whole Indo-Pacific today is more receptive to doing something than it was before.

TH: How can you have another project with these friends and allies who feel that the U.S. snubbed them in the end?

JB: They are very concerned about an American retreat from the region as a whole, and would welcome other initiatives. I think this is true really on a global basis. Part of the problem, starting with Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” and now Biden doing the same thing, is that every other region thinks we’re lessening our attention to them. We’re a global power, and the idea that pulling out of Afghanistan or the Middle East is somehow necessary to better deal with China is a completely fallacious argument. As we pull out of these regions, the Chinese move in.

TH: The question of the moment: Is Vladimir Putin about to start the largest land war in Europe since World War II, by invading Ukraine?

JB: I think Putin is doing cost-benefit analysis in real time, 24/7, and his objective is to get more and more hegemony in the space of the former Soviet Union — which may or may not include more annexation, a la Crimea — and to do it at a minimal cost.

Our threatened sanctions aren’t enough to deter him, and I think the U.S. and Europe have both suffered from a lack of strategic thinking. It’s not just a Ukraine question, it’s a question of what you do with the gray-zone countries: Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova in one clump, and then Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the other. NATO expanded east but it didn’t think through the logical end point: How much more are we going to expand and who are we consciously going to leave in a gray zone? So now Putin is forcing us to answer that question.

TH: The cliche is that he plays a weak hand well.

JB: I say that all the time.

TH: Like most cliches, it’s true. So how does the West play its stronger hand more effectively? Should NATO expansion be seriously on the table?

JB: Sure. President George W. Bush put it seriously on the table in April 2008, with respect to Georgia and Ukraine, and the Germans and the French said no. And four months later, the Russians invaded Georgia. You don’t get many laboratory experiments in foreign affairs, but there’s one of them right there, and I’m afraid we’re seeing another one here.

I would put more American and other NATO forces into Ukraine, exercising and training with the Ukrainians. Not because I expect them to fight, but because I want every Russian commander looking at that border to think, good grief, if I’m ordered to go across, there are going to be Americans a few miles away. I would send Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to Kyiv right now to talk about greater cooperation. I would airlift more weapons into Ukraine, and into NATO countries that border on it, to say to Putin: Your cost-benefit analysis is changing right in front of you.

TH: Finally, let’s talk nonproliferation. You had an op-ed column the other day that did a good job of highlighting all the flaws in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Pact, but I don’t see much progress from arguing about the past. Biden and Trump both promised that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Is that even possible?

JB: Sure it is, but the problem is for 25 years we’ve had politicians of both parties who say it’s unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons, it’s unacceptable for North Korea to have nuclear weapons. I always took it to mean that if something is unacceptable, we wouldn’t accept it. And that means you have to take steps to stop it, including military force.

On Iran, I’m not sure the U.S. is going to have to do that, because Israel is prepared to act. North Korea remains a problem that successive American governments have failed on, and there’s nobody else in the world to blame for the success of the proliferators. We were the only ones who could stop them.

TH: What does success look like?

JB: You’ve got options for regime change in both North Korea and Iran. The idea that if we just negotiate a little bit harder, we’ll find a way to solve the problem, has been wrong for 20 years. It’s not just the threat that they might use the weapons, it’s that they would sell them or give them to others: to terrorist groups in the case of Iran, to anybody with hard currency in the case of North Korea.

TH: China, which long had a small and not particularly fearsome nuclear arsenal, has been expanding it like crazy. It’s building underground silos, it’s tested out this wacky space missile, and so forth: What happens if China really achieves nuclear parity with the U.S.?

JB: Then we’ve got a three-way nuclear standoff. During the Cold War, we were really in a bipolar nuclear environment with the Soviets, even if the U.K. and France and later China and other countries had some weapons. I think we’re past that bipolar point already, whatever China’s capability, because there’s no doubt they could scale up to the levels that Russia and the U.S. have under the New Start treaty. One of the things I said in the Trump administration was that any negotiation over New Start extension or replacement must include China.

TH: But there were good reasons that the USSR came to the table with President Ronald Reagan, and later Russia as well: The U.S. held all sorts of advantages. What reason would the Chinese have to come to the three-way table today?

JB: They feel they don’t have to, because the U.S. government through successive presidencies has failed to recognize the nature of the threat. We have far too long believed that the consequence of Deng Xiaoping moving toward more market-oriented domestic policies would mean a more democratic China internally, and a more responsible China externally. Those hypotheses have been proven completely wrong. I don’t think the Chinese fear us, and I don’t think they believe there will be any consequences for them becoming the third major nuclear power.

TH: So what is the strategy to bring them into talks?

JB: People have to wake up to the issue of how you want to deal with China overall. I think we’ve got to start imposing some economic costs. I’m not suggesting any military action, but because China’s approach is a whole of government, whole of society approach, we’ve got to respond in part the same way. It’s going to be economic retaliation with things we should have done already anyway — for example, penalize China for the theft of our intellectual property for the last three or four decades.

TH: Finally, you had a second op-ed piece this week on some of China’s other bad behavior — decrying its influence on international organizations such as the UN Human Rights Council. You were the American representative to the UN: Is there any chance of making it a useful tool in spreading the freedom you described earlier?

JB: No, I don’t think so. But it’s a place where you have to conduct the battle, to make the case. What happened with respect to the World Health Organization and coronavirus, what China has done to keep Taiwan outside the international system, what it has done to pervert the whole concept of human rights in the Human Rights Council, shows how it pretends to participate constructively in the international system. You have to expose that kind of behavior. It is part of the persuasion war that we are losing all around the world today.

 

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.