After the Iraq War

March 16, 2023

No one lied us into invading, and what came later was its own set of decisions

This article was first published in National Review Plus Magazine on March 16, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam Hussein were accomplished rapidly, with consummate skill and professionalism, and with thankfully low U.S. casualties. This period of major combat operations (March 20 until May 1) was close to flawless. Saddam’s day was over, and Iraq’s potential acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was foreclosed, effectively in perpetuity. We achieved our goals.

These key facts are essentially indubitable. Instead, critics dispute whether deciding to invade, and American policy after toppling Saddam, were correct and justifiable. These are no small matters. But the critical point, typically ignored or misunderstood, is that the “Iraq War” is not one indivisible, 20-year-long block of granite that can be judged only all or nothing. Instead, the ongoing U.S. presence there embodies a long, complex history, some of which Washington got right and some it didn’t.

The reasons to invade were clear and compelling: Saddam directly threatened U.S. security by pursuing WMD and supporting terrorism. After the 1991 Gulf War, U.N. inspectors found Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program far more advanced than indicated by previous intelligence assessments. Despite the physical destruction of centrifuges and other assets by the U.N. and the International Atomic Energy Agency in the mid 1990s, Saddam retained the program’s core intellectual base: over 3,000 nuclear scientists and technicians, his “nuclear mujahideen,” to re-create it later. Under Security Council Resolution 687, Saddam also declared large supplies of chemical weapons and related assets. Pressed repeatedly by the U.N., Iraq claimed to have destroyed its chemical-weapons program but obstructed U.N. inspectors, refusing to supply any proof of its claims, leading essentially all observers to believe that it retained large chemical-weapons capabilities. Biological weapons, the easiest of the WMD to conceal or destroy, were suspected but not proven. Iraq’s ballistic-missile programs had continued.

All this WMD activity was undertaken against the day when U.N. economic sanctions were lifted and weapons inspectors departed. Indeed, sanctions were already collapsing when President George W. Bush was inaugurated. Proposals to “fix” the problem, such as “smart” (more-targeted) sanctions, were at best fig leaves, acknowledging the U.N.’s disarray (both politically and operationally) and its essentially inevitable failure. There are only two kinds of sanctions, but they are not “smart” versus “dumb.” The real dichotomy is between crushing sanctions, swiftly and massively imposed and then rigorously enforced, and all others. Most sanctions historically fail and become mere virtue-signaling. The lesson of twelve years of failed Iraq sanctions between 1991 and 2003 is that sanctions can help avoid war only if they are enforced cold-bloodedly. The U.N.’s Iraq efforts, especially the oil-for-food program, failed in every material respect.

No one lied about WMD. In the wake of 9/11 and the still-unresolved anthrax attacks, Saddam’s murderous history, domestically and abroad, made it entirely prudent to ensure that he could never again threaten America, the region, or the world with weapons of mass destruction. Melvyn Leffler’s recent book, Confronting Saddam Hussein, while not flawless, should be compulsory reading on President Bush’s pre-war decision-making. Post-war findings about the actual state of Iraq’s WMD do not invalidate the pre-war reasoning. Saddam’s real threat was not merely his intentions and capabilities in 2003 but what they could be in the future if he retained power. This was well understood and endorsed across America, which is why congressional and public support for the invasion was overwhelming. Indeed, in hindsight, Saddam should have been removed in 1991 after his unprovoked aggression against Kuwait.

In fact, the brunt of contemporary criticism focuses not on pre-war decision-making but on U.S. policies and what came after May 1, 2003. Certainly, the rapid, near-total collapse of Iraq’s government and the resulting disorder are facts. The real issue, however, is whether Washington should have moved immediately to turn governance functions over to Iraqis, or created, as it did, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which kept America intimately involved in Iraqi politics far longer than initially expected. Important decisions such as de-Baathification, the dissolution of Iraq’s army, and the broader efforts at nation-building and democracy promotion are also all debatable, especially with 20/20 hindsight. Nonetheless, despite the innumerable difficulties encountered and missteps U.S. authorities made, by embracing the 2007–08 “surge,” President Bush in fact reduced internal insurgency to a manageable, marginal level.

The key point, however, is not that these or other individual decisions were right or wrong but instead that they did not inevitably, inexorably, deterministically, and unalterably flow from the decision to invade and overthrow, and the rationale for it. Whatever Bush’s batting average in post-Saddam decisions (not perfect, but respectable, in my view), it is separable, conceptually and functionally, from the invasion decision. The subsequent history, for good or ill, cannot detract from the logic, fundamental necessity, and success of overthrowing Saddam, a threat to American national security since he invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The biggest “Iraq War” mistake was Barack Obama’s catastrophic 2011 military withdrawal, which even Obama recognized as an error, reinserting U.S. forces in 2014 to counter the rise of ISIS. Withdrawing, obviously, was precisely the opposite of Bush’s decision to attack, which makes it hard to see these polar opposites as parts of the same block of granite to be judged as a unity. Moreover, other unforeseen post-2003 events had significant negative impacts on the Middle East, such as the Arab Spring’s rise and especially its collapse, and the resurgence of radical Islamism. How can a 2003 decision be faulted because of subsequent events that completely surprised the world?

Equally wrong was the Bush administration’s failure to take advantage of its substantial presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to seek regime change in between, in Iran, before Tehran’s own WMD programs neared success. Those who say invading Iraq distracted from Afghanistan, or that attacking Iraq rather than Iran prioritized the wrong target, should still agree that we had a clear opportunity to empower Iran’s opposition to depose the ayatollahs. Unfortunately, however, as was the case after expelling Saddam from Kuwait in 1991, the United States stopped too soon.

In any case, Iran policy, like so much else, was not predetermined by the 2003 invasion decision. Lumping everything together as “Iraq War” critics do disserves careful analysis of what America accomplished, or didn’t.

‘Confronting Saddam Hussein’ Review: ‘Bush’s War,’ or America’s?

February 21, 2023

The president was not eager for war, but he and his advisers had to ponder the risks of leaving Saddam in power in a post-9/11 era.

This article was first published in The Wall Street Journal on February 21, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

‘I happen to be one that thinks that one way or another Saddam has got to go, and it is likely to be required to have U.S. force to have him go, and the question is how to do it, in my view, not if to do it.” Thus spake then-Sen. Joe Biden on Feb. 5, 2002. He was not alone. The 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, calling for America “to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein,” passed the Senate by unanimous consent and the House by 360-38. In October 2002, the Senate authorized force to overthrow Saddam by 77-23, and the House by 296-133. In March 2003, when the war began, 72% of Americans supported President George W. Bush’s decision; his approval-disapproval rating was 71%-25%.

Today, supporters of “Bush’s war” aren’t exactly thick on the ground. Opinions on his administration’s policies have so hardened that dispassionate discussion is nearly impossible. Melvyn Leffler’s “Confronting Saddam Hussein,” however, assesses the decision to attack, and its immediate aftermath, in a calm, reasoned and persuasive fashion.

One book cannot resolve the debate over a decadelong event involving so many decisions and phases: Mr. Bush’s 2003 invasion; Saddam Hussein’s overthrow; the long, painful transition to Iraqi rule; Mr. Bush’s 2007 troop surge; Barack Obama’s 2011 withdrawal; and Mr. Obama’s 2014 return. But Mr. Leffler’s account does refute several dishonest criticisms of Mr. Bush’s decisions, while also exposing mistakes that remain inexplicable 20 years later. This is no small feat.

Mr. Leffler, who teaches history at the University of Virginia, demonstrates that Mr. Bush was not eager for war. His advisers did not lead him by the nose. They were not obsessed with linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. They did not lie about Saddam having or seeking weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs. Their objectives did not include spreading democracy at the tip of a bayonet. To do real research, and then present the results evenhandedly amid the prevailing rancor of U.S. academic and political discourse, is an achievement for which Mr. Leffler will doubtless be rewarded with abuse.

I do disagree, however, with significant aspects of Mr. Leffler’s analysis. He concludes that Mr. Bush’s failures stemmed from “too much fear, too much power, too much hubris—and insufficient prudence.” Given the enormous public support for the war, Mr. Leffler says these errors “were the nation’s failures, the failures of the American people—not all, but many,” an assertion that will profoundly irritate Mr. Bush’s harshest critics, who assign him full culpability.

Thucydides wrote that Nicias, hoping to reverse the Athenians’ decision to attack Syracuse, warned at length about the burdens and risks of such a campaign. Instead, the Athenians, “far from having their enthusiasm for the voyage destroyed by the burdensomeness of the preparations, became more eager for it than ever.” If both Athenian and American democracies lack prudence, does Mr. Leffler agree with Bertolt Brecht’s sardonic suggestion that East Germany’s government, having lost its citizens’ confidence, should have “Dissolved the people and / Elected another”? If nearly everyone gets it wrong in a democracy, Mr. Leffler’s admonitions to decision-makers are essentially useless.

While Bush 43’s father would undoubtedly endorse calls for more “prudence,” is that really more than merely a talisman for national-security decision-makers? Academics should recall Dwight Eisenhower’s handwritten draft statement, hastily written for use if the D-Day invasion had failed. Eisenhower stood ready to take full responsibility for defeat. “My decision to attack at this time and place,” he wrote, “was based upon the best information available.” The same was true for Mr. Bush and his administration. What else could they, or anyone else, base their decisions on?

Data, correct or incorrect, do not dictate supreme command decisions. They emerge from weighing imponderables and uncertainties, upon which reasonable people can disagree. British and American officials weren’t the only people who believed prewar that Saddam had or intended to reacquire nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. David Kay and Charles Duelfer, leaders of the Iraq Survey Group, concurred after their postwar investigations that removing the dictator was a good thing, and that he intended, after sanctions were lifted, to resume pursuing WMDs, notwithstanding momentary, diversionary, tactical ploys. Tellingly, Mr. Duelfer wrote that “virtually” no senior Iraqi leader “believed that Saddam had forsaken WMDs forever.”
Mr. Leffler describes at length the administration’s deep apprehensions about Iraq or the terrorists it armed using WMDs against the U.S. and its allies, and about the accuracy of their own information and assumptions about that threat. He does not, however, adequately assess the varying propensities of political leaders to accept risk. Some critics, then believing the potential for such attacks to be low, displayed a higher tolerance for that risk. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and the anthrax scare weeks later (and unresolved to this day), Bush officials’ tolerance for such risk was close to zero.

Which of the two camps was the more prudent? What would be history’s judgment had America hesitated, and suffered another devastating terrorist attack? That no such attack occurred says more about the merits of overthrowing Saddam than anything else.

Mr. Leffler ends his analysis in the immediate postwar period, which he is entitled to do. He is mercilessly critical of failures in the weeks and months after Saddam’s overthrow, which demonstrated not inadequate planning (Mr. Leffler’s view) but the existence of too many plans that were never effectively reconciled. Nonetheless, Mr. Leffler echoes many of Mr. Bush’s critics by implicitly assuming that actions during that time flowed inexorably from the foundational decision to invade. He is wrong about that.

Even so, “Confronting Saddam Hussein” is an important work. It should inspire more scholarship and less rhetoric on America’s Second Persian Gulf War.

The West is in a world war in Ukraine and still lacks a strategy for winning it

February 20, 2023

One year on from the start of Putin’s invasion, this is no time for extolling Nato’s supposed successes

This article was first published by The Telegraph on February 20th, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

Since Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine last February, Nato members have spent considerable time patting themselves on the back, extolling their successes. Unfortunately, the West’s overall balance sheet is not nearly so rosy. One year in, consider the debits, not just the credits.

Most tellingly, the US and its Nato allies failed to deter Russia’s offensive in the first place. On several occasions, President Biden said he didn’t really believe deterrence was possible, merely that Russia could be punished for aggression after the fact. For example, a month after the invasion, Biden said: “Let’s get something straight. You remember, if you’ve covered me from the beginning, I did not say that in fact the sanctions would deter him. Sanctions never deter.”

Biden’s careless remarks may have encouraged Russia. At a January 2022 press conference, his first in 10 months, when asked about a possible Russian onslaught, he answered: “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. But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing … it is going to be a disaster for Russia if they further degrade and, invade Ukraine.”

But the failure to deter the Kremlin was a consequence of much more than Biden’s sloppy geostrategic thinking and loose lips. Nato’s utterly insouciant response to Russia’s first invasion in 2014 laid the foundation for the seemingly inevitable sequel.

The West stood idly by when Russian forces intervened in Donbas and seized Crimea; imposed only perfunctory sanctions thereafter; negotiated the embarrassing, Moscow-leaning Minsk Agreements; and for years did precious little to provide anything close to satisfactory levels of military assistance and training to Ukrainian forces. Biden’s catastrophic 2021 decision to withdraw from Afghanistan and his unimpressive meeting with Putin in Vienna in June of that year were also significant factors.

Was the West really helpless? Quite the opposite. Even as the risks of Russian invasion grew in late 2021, the US and its allies could have significantly expanded their weapons deliveries (and the accompanying flow of Nato forces into Ukraine to provide training) to show Western resolve. We could have imposed heavy economic sanctions on Russia both for its 2014 aggression (better late than never) and its continuing, menacing build-up along Ukraine’s border. This would have made clear that Nato was reversing its feckless handling of the first invasion and would not repeat it. Whether so late an effort to create deterrence could have succeeded is speculative, but at least Ukraine would have had larger stockpiles and been better prepared for Moscow’s aggression last February.

Biden’s reluctance to do little more than grouse about Moscow’s invasion preparations stemmed largely from intelligence failures paralysing Nato capitals. In closed briefings to Congress shortly after Russia struck, American intelligence experts predicted Kyiv would fall within days, and the country within weeks. If there was dissent among US agencies, that disagreement did not make its way into the press, which means there probably was none.

Instead of developing a strategy for victory – repelling and defeating the Russians – Nato settled on a strategy for aiding post-defeat guerrilla warfare, and spiriting Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials out of the country. Zelensky, heroically, was having none of it, replying to the offer of safe transit to Poland: “I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.”

When, contrary to expectations, the Russian forces underperformed stunningly, while Ukraine stood its ground, Nato had no plan B. It was not ready for success. Make no mistake, the intelligence failures regarding both Russian and Ukrainian combat-arms need to be corrected urgently, lest we are caught by surprise by China and others, perhaps because we have underestimated our enemy’s capabilities rather than overestimated them.

Almost one year later, Nato still has no strategy for victory. Saying that the war’s objectives and operational direction must be left to the Ukrainians is obviously insufficient. At least some Europeans, namely France and Germany, hoped early on that laying off responsibility on Ukraine might help force early Kyiv-Moscow negotiations to end the conflict. Today, this approach is simply a way for Western governments to avoid facing reality: we are in a world war in Ukraine, not directly with Nato forces, but with almost everything else on the line.

Russia is backed by its own entente with China and arms suppliers such as North Korea and Iran. The world is filled with “neutrals”. Nato members have long asserted, and still do, that Ukraine must be restored to full sovereignty and territorial integrity, meaning the boundaries that newly independent Ukraine assumed at midnight on December 21 1991.

Nonetheless, the West has been unable or unwilling to draw appropriate conclusions from its failures. We need a strategy that addresses Nato interests. Instead, for a year, we have had one dispute after another about what weapons systems to supply: Polish MiGs, Himars, longer-range artillery, tanks, F-16s. This is the wrong way to win a war, a war whose objectives Nato leaders fear to state. A list of weapons systems certainly is not a strategy, which emerges first by deciding on goals, then determining and marshalling the resources necessary to achieve them. If we fail to craft an articulable strategy, those who worry about Nato publics growing tired of yet another “endless war” will indeed have much to be concerned about.

Both the Trump and Biden administrations failed to deter Russia. Instead, Putin is deterring us from aiding Kyiv more effectively for fear that he will expand the war, trepidation reiterated just days ago regarding Crimea. We should ask ourselves: with what army? Putin’s nuclear threats have been hollow; he should learn that their use amounts to signing his death warrant. The West needs to call Putin’s bluff, decide what it wants, and then pursue it. Abraham Lincoln once complained that his generals had “a case of the slows”. He would recognise Nato’s problem today. We must break our conceptual chains, or next February will bring more retrospectives about the Ukraine war’s second year and what the third will bring.

The Foundation for American Security and Freedom

Biden’s blindness toward China’s threat could not be clearer

February 18, 2023

This article was first published in The Hill on February 18, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

President Biden addressed the nation Thursday to discuss the Chinese high-altitude balloon recently flying over the United States and three other objects in North American airspace, all ultimately shot down by the U.S. Air Force. Biden’s apparent aim was to inform the public and justify his decisions regarding the presence of these vehicles in our skies.

He failed. Obviously unwittingly, Biden simply reinforced the view that his administration had disclosed only partial, highly selective elements of what the government already knew, essentially all of which were, unsurprisingly, consistent with the White House’s political narrative. His remarks sought to present the most innocuous interpretations of these recent events. Biden may have told the truth on Thursday, but not the “whole truth” and most certainly not “nothing but the truth.”

Biden’s briefing came the day after three officials of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (“ODNI”) briefed me regarding the four recent overflights. The meeting, at DNI headquarters in Liberty Crossing, Va., lasted about an hour and was conducted in a cooperative, professional manner. During the briefing, I was shown pertinent documents, which ODNI retained, and I took no written notes.

A precondition for the briefing, reflected in standard government forms, was that I submit any materials intended for publication about the meeting to the National Security Council staff for prepublication review. That review’s purpose was to determine that my draft contained no classified information, and thereby receive assent to publish. I previously submitted my book “The Room Where it Happened” for clearance through this process which, in the regular order, it received, as has this article.

Prepublication review is a highly controversial practice, as I can attest; but critically, the review is confined to classification matters, not matters of policy, politics and opinion. Similarly, the ODNI briefing was on intelligence matters not the administration’s policy or its justification. There is a long-standing, entirely appropriate wall of separation between intelligence and policymaking, so it was right that the ODNI briefers did not (and should not) engage in policy advocacy.

Accordingly, responsibility for the failures, excuses and idle speculation about the four recent incidents lies with the White House’s political leadership. And Biden’s handling of the Chinese balloon was woefully inadequate, characterized by a far-too-benign view of Beijing’s intentions and capabilities. From the outset, the response was weak. The cognizant military official, Gen. Glen VanHerck, said on Feb. 6, “It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical or military threat to North America.”

That was manifestly incorrect, but Biden is sticking with it. His blindness toward Beijing’s threat could not be clearer. We certainly do not yet know everything about the Chinese balloon, but we do know through on-the-record administration statements, leaks from anonymous sources and congressional briefings that the balloon’s origin and approach to America were likely known long before the White House said it was first detected near the Aleutian Islands.

China lied, saying it was simply a weather balloon gone astray. Yet, no U.S. official has claimed Chinese authorities made any effort to contact Washington in advance to inform us or discuss how to handle the “wayward” balloon. Beijing either intended that it transit America or was at least willing to risk trying to get away with it.

For many years, U.S officials have worried about Chinese and other foreign intentions to destroy our communications and intelligence-gathering satellites in time of war or crisis.

If anti-satellite weapons could significantly impair our space-based capabilities, we would be severely disadvantaged. Could China’s high-altitude balloon program be a hedge against the destruction of its own satellites? Could this particular flight be a ploy to gain knowledge about our reaction to such overflights in time of peace? Should America consider having a comparable program, so we too have a hedge in a future crisis if our “eyes in the sky” are blinded?

Finally, Biden speculated about the other three objects shot down by the Air Force, stressing that there was no evidence these were of Chinese origin. Despite not yet having recovered the remains of any of those three targets, and lacking much evidence of any sort, Biden, following the path of his advisers and congressional supporters, was eager to say these objects were likely not dangerous.

Now, it may be that our Sidewinders destroyed a high school class’s missing science project. Or two or three. Or maybe not. Perhaps significantly, no business, academic institution or anyone else has come forward to say that their “object” is missing and that they are wondering whether their flying machine was one of the bogeys. Biden’s repeated efforts to de-emphasize the potentially dangerous implications of the incursions only risk confusion and embarrassment for himself and the country if the objects turn out to have more malign purposes. He should have stuck to “nothing but the truth.”

The ODNI briefing conclusively convinced me that we face a serious threat, from China at least, of lower-than-orbit surveillance above our territory. We once had an Open Skies Treaty with the Soviet Union to regulate overflights of our respective countries, which was routinely abused by Moscow. The U.S. withdrew from that treaty in 2020, after a process I helped launch before I resigned as national security advisor. We have never had such a treaty with Beijing, and there is no reason to negotiate an agreement they would undoubtedly violate.

Both the House and Senate have passed unanimous resolutions condemning the Chinese overflights, a rare display of bipartisanship in today’s Washington. Let’s get on with enhancing our national security against Beijing’s menace, not only from balloon flights but across the board.

From the Office of Ambassador John Bolton

February 15, 2023

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 15, 2023
CONTACT: Sarah Tinsley
202-306-0408
[email protected]

I met with intelligence-community officials at DNI headquarters at Liberty Crossing this afternoon for approximately an hour. They provided a briefing relating to the four recent balloon/”object” incidents in a cooperative and professional manner.

In light of today’s meeting, I remain profoundly troubled about the Biden Administration’s handling of these potential national-security threats over the last several weeks. For example, the Administration’s serious mishandling of the first balloon, and its continually changing story line, have only been heightened by press reports on Monday and Tuesday that the United States had been tracking the initial balloon form the time it left China’s Hainan Island, not that it was sighted for the first time north of the Aleutian Islands, the Administration’s initial tale.

Since I was meeting with IC representatives and given the long-standing and entirely appropriate wall of separation between intelligence and policy-making, it was no fault of these representatives that they could not (and should not) be engaged in policy discussions. At this point, responsibility for the failures, excuses, and idle speculation about the four recent incidents, lies with the Biden Administration’s political leadership.

Biden’s bonkers balloon bumbling: This national security expert has MAJOR questions

February 12, 2023

This article was first published in The New York Post on February 12, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

The Biden administration dangerously mishandled China’s now-famous, first recent high-flying “object” over America. Confronted Friday, again off Alaska, with a second unidentified object; Saturday with a third, over Canada; and Sunday a fourth, over landlocked Lake Huron, President Joe Biden reacted very differently, perhaps having learned his lesson.

Or maybe the last three shoot-downs merely underline his helter-skelter thinking. Not all the facts of these four incidents are yet available. The administration’s constantly changing excuses and storyline complicate understanding, let alone correcting, its mistakes.

The worst mistake came at the outset, Jan. 28, when NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) detected a balloon near the Aleutian Islands. NORAD’s commander, Gen. Glen VanHerck, said Feb. 6, “It was my assessment that this balloon did not present a physical or military threat to North America.”The latest balloon was shot off Alaska.

That assessment was wrong and uninformed. Could NORAD say indisputably the balloon’s payload — the size of three buses — contained no nuclear or radiological weapons? Could NORAD say indisputably it carried no biological pathogens or toxins it could release into US water supplies? Did NORAD contact foreign capitals to see who would own up to the balloon?

Two days after first contact, the administration reversed field, concluding the balloon was an intelligence threat. Then, Feb. 9, amid frantic political damage-control efforts, the State Department said the balloon was part of a global Chinese espionage program, covering some 40 countries, capable of intercepting electronic communications and self-steering.

Did the administration so conclude only after first contact Jan. 28, or did it know all this beforehand? And if aware of China’s program in advance, how could anyone conclude the newly sighted balloon, absent clear contrary evidence, was benign?

These questions alone demonstrate that Biden’s approach, following Chinese balloons’ multiple prior intrusions, was palpably inadequate. Was he gulled by Beijing’s claims of researching weather and climate change? Did no one consider the possibility such claims were simply a cover for malign purposes, as is often true in intelligence gathering? Why was Biden himself not briefed until three days after first contact?

In today’s threatening world, any unidentified object nearing US territory should be deemed intrinsically suspicious. NORAD apparently presumed exactly the opposite.

The balloon, moreover, was transmitting signals, assuredly back to China. If the balloon were innocent and merely astray, it is inherently incredible that Beijing, knowing its position in real time, did not immediately alert Washington. Of course, China may well have been lying even then, but by remaining silent, hoping the balloon ultimately traversed the United States without being detected, Beijing showed its true colors.

Days into the controversy, the Pentagon justified not shooting the first balloon down in the waters off Alaska because of the difficulty of recovering the payload for analysis. This rationale is either knowingly false or disingenuous — and constitutes yet another posterior-covering reversal, given Gen. VanHerck’s confession that he initially saw no threat.

Certainly, in intelligence affairs, there is often a tradeoff between acting to stop an adversary’s actions before they become harmful or allowing them to proceed to learn more about them. The Bering Sea is indeed cold and deep, but apparently not so cold and deep that the second “object” could escape being shot down Feb. 10, perhaps closer to Alaska’s shores, with recovery operations now underway.

Finally, the administration has said repeatedly it did not want to destroy the first balloon over land to avoid risks to innocent civilians. Yet it did just that over the weekend, over the Yukon and Lake Huron.

Obviously, no one disagrees with safeguarding civilians. Obviously, the initial balloon itself could have malfunctioned, or been programmed to malfunction, coming down over a densely populated city, causing considerable casualties “accidentally.” But the administration clearly had alternatives to allowing the balloon to transit the entire country, such as downing it over essentially unpopulated regions, as on Saturday.

And were there no other ways of bringing the balloon to ground in a more controlled fashion, thus further minimizing the risks to civilians?

We have barely scratched the surface on the Chinese balloons. The White House offered to brief senior Trump administration national-security officials about this issue — I have a long list of questions.

Germany must decide whether it is a ‘normal nation’

February 01, 2023

Germany’s very public agonizing over whether to provide its Leopard II tanks to Ukraine (or allow other states that had purchased Leopard II’s to send theirs) graphically exposed Berlin’s continued confusion about its status as a NATO member. Just days after his tank decision, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is already warning against a “competition” to supply Ukraine with needed weapons systems, and ruling out Germany supplying combat aircraft.

While there is momentary relief that, at last, Scholz has committed to provide the armor Ukraine requested, he did so only after President Joe Biden also agreed to send roughly a battalion of America’s Abrams tanks. While Biden’s decision was correct on its own merits, it was hardly a matter of strategy, and more a matter of horse-trading to persuade Berlin’s decidedly reluctant leadership.

Amid the illusory self-congratulation following the tank decision, a pattern that has characterized much of NATO’s response to Russia’s second invasion of Ukraine, a much larger issue lurks, one which only Germany’s citizens can resolve. Their reluctance to support a military capability appropriate to their country’s economic weight is uniformly expressed through the prism of the Nazi horror, and the death and destruction wreaked upon Europe and the world until Adolf Hitler’s monstrous tyranny was crushed in 1945.

Shame and penance are appropriate and necessary reactions for any country electing leaders such as Germany did. But there also comes a time when outsiders can legitimately ask that Germany behave as a responsible military ally, while continuing to carry those burdens. The real question is whether Germany wants to be a full NATO ally, or a doughnut hole in an otherwise strong alliance. Ukraine is as good an issue as any to leverage this decision.

Germany’s general unhelpfulness on Ukraine, often allied with France (which lacks Germany’s excuse), surfaced almost fifteen years ago by rejecting George W. Bush’s suggestion at the April 2008 NATO Summit to put Ukraine and Georgia on a fast track to join the alliance. Unfortunately, Bush’s key insight — NATO membership was the most effective deterrent to Russia — was ignored, even derided.

By torpedoing Bush’s proposal, Berlin and Paris almost certainly contributed to Moscow’s decision to invade Georgia four months later, and proclaim two provinces as “independent” countries, a classic manifestation of Moscow’s stratagem of creating “frozen conflicts” in former Soviet republics. When Russia then committed aggression against Ukraine in February, 2014, annexing Crimea and seizing the Donbass, NATO collectively responded with pathetic weakness, undoubtedly contributing to the Kremlin’s assessment that a second invasion in 2022 would evoke an equally limp NATO response.

The importance of NATO membership as a deterrent has now been graphically proven by the Swedish and Finnish decisions to join the alliance after Russia’s second Ukraine invasion. Abandoning the foundational neutrality premise of their post-1945 foreign policies, Stockholm and Helsinki concluded that the only guarantee of impunity against Kremlin aggression was to put a sheltering NATO border around their countries. Undoubtedly, what was happening in Ukraine reminded them of the consequences of NATO rejecting Bush’s 2008 initiative.

Since Russia’s February 24 invasion, there has been one disagreement after another within NATO on what weapons systems to provide Ukraine, with Germany almost always on the reluctant side, fearful of provoking a larger war, so its officials said. So doing, however, demonstrated that the Kremlin was effectively deterring NATO, and underlined NATO’s failure to deter Russia’s initial aggression. Germany’s first assistance to Ukraine was 5,000 military helmets.

Then-Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said, “The German government is agreed that we do not send lethal weapons to crisis areas because we don’t want to fuel the situation, we want to contribute in other ways.” Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko called the offer a “joke,” and it remains a paradigm of the doughnut-hole approach. Moreover, Germany’s 2022 defense spending was 1.44% of GDP, still well-below NATO’s 2% of GDP target.

Berlin has a new defense minister and Leopard II tanks are a step up, but Germany needs to make a broader conceptual decision. Japan shows a way forward. From the 1990’s, there was a quiet but profound debate among the Japanese on the question, “Is Japan a normal nation?” That debate’s outcome was reflected in now-deceased Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s effort to amend Japan’s post-1945 pacifist constitution, imposed by Washington, and his successor Fumio Kishida’s recent announcement that Tokyo would double defense spending from 1% to 2% of GDP over five years, giving Japan the world’s third-largest military, after America and China. Japan has clearly decided it is, indeed, a normal nation.

Germany should have the same debate. In 1961, Ronald Reagan said, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.” Totalitarianism isn’t transmitted through the bloodstream any more than freedom. Nobody should forget Germany’s past, certainly not its own citizens, but neither are they ruled by that past. Germany must decide whether it is “a normal nation,” and, if so, act like one.

John Bolton was the national security adviser to former President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Is Washington’s arms control theology finally on the verge of collapse?

February 01, 2023

Three freshly installed Republican House chairmen of key national security committees are raising potentially fatal issues for the New START arms-control treaty between the U.S. and Russia. In letters to Biden Cabinet officials, the chairmen ask whether Russia is in material breach of the agreement. Along with the administration’s failing, misguided effort to rejoin the flawed 2015 Iran nuclear deal, one could ask whether Washington’s arms control theology is finally verging on collapse.

The House chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees (Reps. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and Michael Turner (R-Ohio), respectively) are men to be reckoned with. Although the Senate has constitutional power to ratify treaties, for the next two years, House Republicans can require extensive scrutiny of Russia’s New START performance. 

One of President Biden’s first official acts (and a badly mistaken one) was extending the treaty until Feb. 4, 2026, after America’s 2024 presidential election. With no end in sight to Russia’s war in Ukraine, the odds Moscow and Washington can agree on a successor deal under Biden diminish every day, further reason to ensure the White House fully describes Russia’s potential treaty violations.

The House chairmen should also scrutinize White House efforts to make enough concessions to Tehran for Washington to revive the Iran nuclear deal. Despite administration assurances that Iran’s ongoing uprising against the ayatollahs has halted its diplomacy, the obsession to rejoin remains.

New START has always been a bad deal. Its warhead limits and “counting rules” for attributing nuclear devices to delivery vehicles, Cold War-era methodologies, are outdated and ineffective. Moreover, New START’s ceilings, even in their day, failed to reflect the different status of Russia and the United States, as President George W. Bush’s 2002 Treaty of Moscow did, namely that Washington needs different upper limits than Moscow because it faces more threats than just a bipolar face-off with Russia. 

Finally, New START’s verification provisions do not afford nearly the level of certainty necessary to satisfy U.S. concerns, given decades of cheating on similar agreements by Russia and other authoritarian states, which all have problems with the truth.

In today’s world, New START is even more dangerous, which is why Biden’s 2021 decision to extend its terms for five years without any modifications leaves America in an ever-more-precarious position.

Added to these pre-existing concerns, the questions raised by Chairmen McCaul, Rogers and Turner underscore legitimate concerns about the treaty even if Russia were fully compliant.

The State Department has reportedly sent Congress a report that finds that Russian violated the treaty’s verification and consultation provisions, which State says are repairable. Desperate to save New START, the more serious violations of concern to the three chairmen are not addressed. Congressional oversight is clearly warranted.

Even beyond the failures of New START itself and the prospect that Russia is violating it, the agreement is fatally outdated for additional reasons. Here, the three Republican chairmen and their Senate counterparts can do important work over the next two years to elaborate on these new issues and to prepare a successor administration to address the dangers ahead.

First, the days of meaningful bilateral U.S.-Russian strategic weapons treaties have ended. During the Cold War, we lived in essentially a bipolar nuclear world, the arsenals of other nuclear states, legitimate or illegitimate, being insignificant for our purposes. 

Today, however, China is rapidly manufacturing and deploying nuclear warheads in significant numbers, likely approaching the New START limits applicable to Russia and the U.S. imminently. The U.S. simply cannot accept bilateral limits on its nuclear stockpiles or delivery systems when it will soon face two peer or near-peer nuclear adversaries, a dramatically dangerous new environment.

Whether Moscow and Beijing combine against Washington, or we face one confrontation with the risk of another following, we are in a tri-polar nuclear world, and must plan and act accordingly. Thus far, China has flatly refused to engage in diplomacy, saying its current warhead stockpile is too low to join U.S.-Russia talks. Beijing is essentially asking for a pass until it comes close to our existing ceilings, and only then talk, an approach in which Russia has acquiesced. We should tell Moscow sooner rather than later that there will be no talks on extending or modifying New START until China sits at our negotiating table.

Second, a basic New START flaw is its failure to limit tactical nuclear weapons, which Moscow possesses in far greater numbers than Washington. With Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to use tactical strikes in Ukraine, there is no longer a serious argument to allow this issue to remain outside the overall nuclear-arms negotiations. If Russia disagrees, we should not resume talks, and should make our own plans at both the strategic and tactical levels accordingly. The potential for substantially broader coverage of nuclear warheads also raises new, difficult verification issues beyond the existing treaty’s failings.

Third, New START fails to deal satisfactorily with new technologies that have matured since 2010, especially advanced hypersonic capabilities. Biden’s failure to address these new developments before extending the treaty in 2021 was a grave mistake, and it would be diplomatic malpractice to repeat it in discussing a successor deal.

While we consider our post-New START options, we are also, hopefully, witnessing the last throes of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. For any number of compelling reasons, the White House should do far more to support the Iranian opposition and its struggle to overthrow the ayatollahs. 

One benefit of regime change in Tehran would likely be a new government that renounces the pursuit of nuclear weapons and opens the files of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and other actors in its nuclear-weapons program. We will undoubtedly learn far more about how the mullahs led western governments by the nose during the negotiation and implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal, and especially how Iran repeatedly violated it. This new information might even shake the faith of the arms-control priesthood, but at a minimum it would enlighten those determined to prevent nuclear proliferation.

These are all issues for the 2024 campaign. Chairmen McCaul, Rogers and Turner have done the country a great service by getting us started.

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.

Bolton says Trump’s 2024 campaign is “poison” for GOP and “will continue to go downhill”

January 27, 2023

Former national security adviser John Bolton told CBS News he is seriously considering a 2024 presidential bid and said that former President Donald Trump is a threat to U.S. national security who acted “very erratic” and “was not impressed by the gravity and the importance of the national security decisions he had to make.” Trump’s campaign, he added, is “going downhill and I think it will continue to go downhill.”

This interview was first aired on CBS News. Click here to watch the original.

America remains irreplaceable

January 26, 2023

The greatest threats to the world come from China and Russia. Only the U.S. guarantees global order and security.

This article was first published in Weltwoche, on January 26th, 2023. Click Here to read the original article.

Henry Luce, publisher of Time magazine, coined the term “American Century” in 1941, almost nine months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. He intended the phrase to describe what he saw in the decades ahead, which turned out to be largely correct. In the next six decades, the United States won two world wars, one hot against the Axis powers and one cold against the Soviet empire. Without necessarily so intending, and despite numerous imperfections, mistakes, and defeats, Washington created a kind of “world order,” which we basically still inhabit. This “order” has been and remains defensive and reactive in nature, not enforcing peace and stability affirmatively, but trying to deter or respond to threats when they arise, as they do so often.

Many countries, probably a majority at various times, resisted not just “Pax Americana,” but what it stood for: free peoples, under free governments, living freely. Soviet Communists obviously despised the American Century, and their Russian successors are waging war against it in Ukraine even now. China’s Communist Party retained power while the Soviet Union disintegrated, brutally repressed dissent in Tienanmen Square in 1989, and then followed for decades Deng Xiaoping’s policy of “hide and bide”: hide your capabilities and bide your time. Now, most immediately along China’s Indo-Pacific periphery, but also increasingly worldwide, China is no longer hiding and biding.

In addition, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, newly independent states, former colonies of collapsed European empires, tried repeatedly to create a “Third World, a “new world order,” a “new world information and communication order,” and more, all of which are now merely historical curiosities. Nonetheless, present today throughout the former Third World are continuing, grave problems of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Internal strife has produced the near-collapse or actual disintegration of several post-colonial states, and more may follow.

What exactly motivated the United States, from 1945 on, to fashion the partial, ad hoc, incomplete “order” we now see? Contrary to familiar anti-American propaganda, we were not motivated by imperial aspirations, certainly not compared to Europe’s conquests in preceding centuries or prior great empires. Secretary of State Colin Powell, paraphrasing World War II General Mark Clark, often said, “the only land we ever asked for was to bury our dead.”

Nor, also contrary to contemporary criticism, was America obsessed with spreading democracy. Instead of looking exclusively to Woodrow Wilson’s view that America’s World War I goal was “to make the world safe for democracy,” the more accurate, realistic view was that of former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, who said, “First and foremost, we are to make the world safe for ourselves. This is our primary interest. This is our war, America’s war.”(https://books.google.com/books?id=6uNJEAAAQBAJ&dq=Theodore+Roosevelt+“make+the+world+safe+for+ourselves”+&source=gbs_navlinks_s)

Stemming from a variety of causes, America’s complex, post-1945 role internationally, along with its Free World allies, launched multiple experiments in foreign affairs to help restore peace and stability. Some collective-security efforts, notably the United Nations, failed, and continue to fail in the world’s most important political conflicts, like the Cold War. By contrast, collective-defense efforts worked, notably NATO, the most successful politico-military alliance in history. Outside the North Atlantic area, Washington forged strong bilateral alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and others. In economic affairs, new financial and trade institutions were created, some successful, some not, and needing either reform or abolition.

Much of this effort was explicitly directed again Communism’s threat, and it was never designed to be comprehensive. All of it has evolved, some parts better than others, as the world changed.

Those dissatisfied with this American-led effort are free to suggest other, more-workable alternatives. But who, or what, can perform such a role? And, since anarchy is the world’s default position, if America were to retire to its shores, the central risk is that whoever rushed to fill the vacuum would not have the Free World’s best interests at heart.

The United Nations is certainly not the answer. Russia and China, permanent Security Council members, have the veto power protecting them against any meaningful UN action. Because the veto applies to amendments to the UN Charter, Moscow and Beijing are totally secure within the UN.

Nor is the European Union the answer. One dangerous contemporary fantasy is the idea that the EU was principally responsible for preventing war on the Continent. Instead, allied occupation of the defeated Axis powers, followed by basing substantial NATO forces during the Cold War, meant that not a sparrow fell in Europe’s defense-industrial complex without Washington knowing. Unlike the post-1918 period, under an essentially permanent foreign troop presence, Europe’s defeated nations did not rise again to threaten world peace. And it was Ronald Reagan, not an EU leader, who publicly said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Since the virus of US isolationism has recently reappeared among both Republicans and Democrats (albeit for different reasons), it is critical that Americans and foreigners alike appreciate that Washington’s foreign policy does not, and never has, stem purely from altruism(https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2023/01/23/containing-isolationism/). This reality should not concern friends and allies, but reassure them; acting to support a country’s own interests is far firmer ground on which to form alliances and friendships than fickle ideological theorizing or emotional impulses. Admittedly, building even an incomplete, imperfect order was easier when America’s natural allies recognized both the need and their own initial inability to take the necessary steps until they recovered from World War II. Former Axis powers, of course, took no role until the Cold War’s dimensions became clear.

Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, despite the overwhelming, peaceful victory of the US-led anti-Communist bloc, the Cold War’s ending debilitated Western collective defense, and we are only now recovering. Some said the USSR’s collapse meant we had reached “the end of history.” They saw a “peace dividend” as the reward, resulting in massive cuts to NATO and other allied defense spending which did not even begin to recover until the 9/11 attacks woke the world to the threat of international terrorism and nuclear proliferation. George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty to build national missile defenses for the United States and for allies. Even so, memories were short. Military spending had decreased so dangerously that even Barack Obama sought to persuade NATO to increase defense spending, agreeing in 2014, to reach spending levels of 2% of GDP by 2024. Although Donald Trump gained notoriety by stressing the 2% target, he was actually just saying more loudly what other Americans, including Obama, had said for years: the allies should bear their fair share of the burden. Many are, unfortunately still nowhere near achieving the target.

In 2022, Emmanuel Macron famously said NATO was “brain dead.” Russia proved him wrong, although the West collectively failed to deter the invasion, and still doesn’t have an adequate strategy to defeat Moscow’s aggression. Nonetheless, NATO proved sufficiently

attractive, despite Macron’s view, for Finland and Sweden to seek membership. Perhaps the new arrivals will encourage existing NATO members to meet their budget commitments.

Thus, as with the founding of NATO and America’s other post-1945 alliances, it took visible threats to force the complacent, bourgeois West to see that international risks and dangers had not disappeared. And the threats came in many ways worldwide. Led in many respects by Australia and New Zealand, we began to understand the nature of China’s threat to international telecommunications, using “businesses” like ZTE and Huawei to gain control of fifth-generation systems so they could channel whatever data they desired back to Beijing. That in turn led to a better understanding of Beijing’s whole-of-society efforts — economic and social as well as political and military measures — to gain hegemony along its vast Indo-Pacific periphery, and ultimately worldwide. Beijing is threatening Taiwan and the East China Sea; claims to have annexed the South China Sea, menacing all the littoral nations; increased provocations and deployments along its southern borders, from Vietnam to India; and is using its Belt-and-Road Initiative to extend its influence across Africa and the Middle East, and over Europe as well.

Joseph Biden’s withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan, following Trump’s disastrously bad agreement with the Taliban, led to catastrophic consequences, opening Afghanistan once again to be a haven for international terrorists, creating a vacuum for China and Russia to fill, and oppressing the Afghan people. Iran continued progress toward deliverable nuclear weapons, as did North Korea, notwithstanding, in Iran, widespread protests that have imperiled the rule of the ayatollahs more seriously than at any point since the fall of the Shah in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And for Europe, of course, the threatening century ahead became clear last year on February 24 when Russia launched its unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. There was as well more evidence of instability and threats to peace in the former Third World.

These problems, starting with an increasingly apparent China-Russia entente, constitute global threats that require a united Western response. America must lead this response, most importantly because its vital national interests are endangered by each of these spreading threats. What our allies and friends in Asia and Europe must recognize, however, is that they too face a global struggle, and need to participate fully in the response. Chancellor Olaf Scholtz seemed to have recognized this imperative shortly after Russia’s aggression when he announced a zeitenwende in German security policy. Unfortunately, despite a few modest steps, the “sea change” has not occurred. That must change, as should Macron’s attitude toward NATO.

The January 13 Kishida-Biden summit was an historic opportunity. Just prior to the meeting, Japan’s leader Fumio Kishida announced a bigger policy shift even than Scholtz, amending de facto its pacifist Constitution, a long-time goal of his predecessor Shinzo Abe. Clearly responding to the massive threats posed by China and North Korea, Kishida pledged that Tokyo would double its defense spending to 2% of GDP (the NATO target) in five years. If Japan does so, it will have the world’s third biggest military after America and China. Kishida’s decision followed decades of quiet internal debate about whether Japan had become a “normal nation,” one that could be trusted to maintain its self-defense, together with the US, its closest ally. Germany needs to have the same debate, and come to the same conclusion.

Equally important, Russia’s attack on Ukraine, and the manifest political support provided by China, accelerated Japan’s decision, and is changing other Asian views in many important ways. Under Abe, Tokyo led efforts to energize the Asian “Quad” (Japan, India, Australia, and the US), and South Korea is now selling Poland weapons. Not having dense

alliance relationships like NATO means that Asia’s hub-and-spoke bilateral alliances with Washington have a long way to go before there could constitute East and South Asian collective-defense arrangements comparable to the North Atlantic, but events are moving fast.

Meanwhile, neither Europe nor America can afford more mistakes or timidity. The global threats we already know, and many we do not, are advancing, not receding. The next two years will therefore amount to a “window of vulnerability.” China and Russia (the world’s two greatest strategic threats), as well as terrorists, proliferators, and rogue states will seek to exploit the current environment before the West is prepared.

The outcome of America’s upcoming 2024 presidential elections could well shape Washington’s foreign policy for the rest of this century. In all probability, neither Trump nor Biden will be the candidates of their respective parties, and the contests for the Republican and Democratic nominations will be wide open. Given the breadth and dangers of the national-security threats, there is also every prospect that foreign and defense issues will be far more central to the 2024 than in other post-Cold War US elections. Although isolationists have recently gotten more than their share of press attention, they still represent a very small portion of the American electorate. The real question is whether the Republican Party has within it a new Ronald Reagan to forge and develop the security structures that will protect the Free World in yet another American Century. We shall see.

Im Jahr 1942, fast neun Monate nach dem japanischen Überfall auf Pearl Harbor, prägte
Henry Luce, der Herausgeber der Zeitschrift
Time, den Begriff «amerikanisches Jahrhundert».
Damit wollte er beschreiben, wie er sich die
nächsten Jahrzehnte vorstellte, und seine Einschätzung erwies sich als weitgehend korrekt.
In den folgenden sechs Jahrzehnten gewannen
die Vereinigten Staaten zwei Weltkriege, den
gegen die Achsenmächte und den Kalten Krieg
gegen die Sowjetunion. Unbeabsichtigt und
trotz zahlreicher Schwierigkeiten, Irrtümer und
Niederlagen schuf Washington eine Art «Weltordnung», in der wir heute im Grunde immer
noch leben. Diese Ordnung, von ihrem Wesen
her defensiv und reaktiv, erzwingt nirgendwo
Frieden und Stabilität, sondern ist bemüht, Bedrohungen entgegenzuwirken und überall dort
zu reagieren, wo sie sich zeigen.
Viele Länder, zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten
wahrscheinlich eine Mehrheit, lehnten nicht
nur die Pax Americana ab, sondern alles, wofür
sie stand – freie Völker, die unter freien Regierungen in Freiheit leben. Die sowjetischen
Kommunisten verachteten das amerikanische
Jahrhundert natürlich, und der Krieg ihrer russischen Nachfolger in der Ukraine richtet sich
auch gegen Amerika. Die chinesische Kommunistische Partei blieb an der Macht, während die
Sowjetunion zerfiel. 1989 ging die Pekinger Führung brutal gegen die Demonstranten auf dem
Tiananmen-Platz vor, und dann folgten lange
Jahre unter Deng Xiaoping, dessen Motto lautete: «Stärke verbergen und auf den richtigen
Augenblick warten». Heutzutage verbirgt China
seine Stärke nicht mehr, wie im Indopazifik und
in wachsendem Mass weltweit deutlich wird.
Junge, unabhängig gewordene Staaten, einstige Kolonien europäischer Kolonialmächte,
versuchten in den 1950ern und 1960ern, eine
«Dritte Welt» zu schaffen, eine «neue Weltordnung», eine «neue internationale Informations- und Kommunikationsordnung» und
so weiter – heute nicht mehr als historische
Kuriositäten. Gleichwohl sind überall in der
ehemaligen Dritten Welt schwerwiegende Probleme des internationalen Terrorismus und der
Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen zu
beobachten. Interne Konflikte haben in mehreren postkolonialen Staaten für Auflösungs- und
Zerfallserscheinungen gesorgt, und das wird
auch in Zukunft so sein.
«Das ist unser Krieg, Amerikas Krieg»
Was genau bewog die Vereinigten Staaten, nach
1945 die unvollständige «Ordnung» zu schaffen,
die wir heute haben? Entgegen der üblichen antiamerikanischen Propaganda liessen wir uns nicht
von imperialistischen Ambitionen leiten, schon
gar nicht, wenn man es mit den europäischen Eroberungen in vorangegangenen Jahrhunderten
oder den alten Grossreichen vergleicht. Aussenminister Colin Powell hat, Weltkriegsgeneral
Mark Clark paraphrasierend, oft gesagt: «Das
Land, das wir haben wollten, sollte nur dazu dienen, unsere Toten zu begraben.»

Amerika war auch nicht darauf aus, Demokratie zu verbreiten, wie heutzutage oft behauptet wird. Statt sich an Woodrow Wilson
zu orientieren, der es als Ziel Amerikas im Ersten Weltkrieg bezeichnet hatte, die Welt «sicher
für die Demokratie» zu machen, vertrat Präsident Theodore Roosevelt, ein Republikaner,
die sehr viel realistischere Ansicht: «Wir müssen die Welt in erster Linie für uns selbst sicher
machen. Das ist unser Hauptinteresse. Das ist
unser Krieg, Amerikas Krieg.»
Nach 1945 unternahm Amerika aus diversen
Gründen gemeinsam mit den Verbündeten der
freien Welt verschiedene aussenpolitische Versuche zur Wiederherstellung von Frieden und
Stabilität. Einige Sicherheitsorganisationen,
namentlich die Vereinten Nationen, sind
bei den wichtigsten politischen Konflikten
der Welt, wie etwa dem Kalten Krieg, erfolglos gewesen und sind es weiterhin. Dagegen
funktionierten Verteidigungsbündnisse, insbesondere die Nato, die erfolgreichste politischmilitärische Allianz der Geschichte. Neben dem
nordatlantischen Bündnis schmiedete Amerika starke bilaterale Bündnisse mit Japan,
Südkorea, Australien und anderen Staaten.
Auf wirtschaftlichem Gebiet wurden unterschiedlich erfolgreiche Finanz- und Handelsinstitutionen gegründet, die weder reformbedürftig noch überflüssig sind. Viele dieser
Organisationen richteten sich ausdrücklich
gegen die kommunistische Bedrohung. Sie
alle haben sich in einer sich wandelnden Welt
weiterentwickelt, einige besser als andere.
Virus des Isolationismus
Kritikern dieser von Amerika angeführten Bestrebungen steht es frei, bessere Alternativen
vorzuschlagen. Aber wer oder was könnte eine
solche Aufgabe wahrnehmen? Ein Rückzug
Amerikas aus der Welt ginge jedenfalls mit dem
Risiko einher, dass derjenige, der über kurz
oder lang die Leerstelle füllen würde, nicht die
Interessen der freien Welt im Sinn hätte.
Die Vereinten Nationen sind gewiss nicht
die Antwort. Russland und China, ständige
Mitglieder des Sicherheitsrats, können durch
ihr Veto jede bedeutsame Aktion der Uno verhindern. Weil das Vetorecht auch für eventuelle
Änderungen der Uno-Charta gilt, können Moskau und Peking sich innerhalb der Vereinten Nationen völlig sicher fühlen.
Ebenso wenig kann die Europäische Union
die Antwort sein. Die Vorstellung, die EU habe
dafür gesorgt, dass es auf dem Kontinent keinen
Krieg mehr gegeben habe, ist ein gefährlicher
Irrglaube. Vielmehr bedeutete die alliierte Besatzung der geschlagenen Achsenmächte, auf
welche die Stationierung starker Nato-Verbände
während des Kalten Kriegs folgte, dass Washington bestens über die Verhältnisse im militärischindustriellen Komplex Europas Bescheid wusste. Dank der Präsenz von Besatzungstruppen in
den besiegten europäischen Ländern ging von
ihnen, anders als in der Zeit nach 1918, auch
keine Gefahr für den Weltfrieden aus. Und
es war nicht irgendein EU-Politiker, sondern
Ronald Reagan, der in Berlin ausrief: «Mr Gorbatschow, reissen Sie diese Mauer ein.»
Seit in jüngster Zeit der Virus eines Isolationismus unter Republikanern wie Demokraten
(wenn auch aus unterschiedlichen Gründen)
wieder umgeht, sollte in Amerika und im Ausland erkannt werden, dass die amerikanische
Aussenpolitik noch nie von reinem Altruismus
getrieben war. Diese Realität sollte Freunde und
Verbündete nicht beunruhigen, sondern ihnen
Sicherheit geben. Eine Politik, die den eigenen staatlichen Interessen dient, ist eine weitaus zuverlässigere Grundlage für Bündnisse
und Freundschaften als beliebige Ideologien
oder emotionale Impulse. Gewiss, der Aufbau
selbst einer unvollständigen, unvollkommenen
Ordnung war leichter in einer Zeit, in der die
natürlichen Verbündeten Amerikas eingedenk
ihrer eigenen Schwäche die Notwendigkeit erkannten, die erforderlichen Schritte zu unternehmen, bis sie sich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg
wieder erholt hatten. Ehemalige Achsenmächte
übernahmen erst dann eine Rolle, als die Dimensionen des Kalten Kriegs klarwurden.
Trotz des überwältigenden, friedlichen
Siegs des von den USA geführten antikommunistischen Blocks schwächte der Ausgang des Kalten Krieges bedauerlicherweise
das westliche Verteidigungsbündnis. Davon
erholen wir uns erst jetzt. Manche sprachen
nach dem Zusammenbruch der Sowjetunion
von einem «Ende der Geschichte». Sie sahen
eine «Friedensdividende» als Belohnung, was
zu massiven Kürzungen bei den Verteidigungsausgaben von Nato-Staaten führte, die erst
dann aufwachten, als die Welt nach den Anschlägen vom 11.September 2001 mit internationalem Terrorismus und atomarer Aufrüstung konfrontiert war. Präsident George
W.Bush kündigte den ABM-Vertrag von 1972,
um das Raketenabwehrsystem NMD für die
Vereinigten Staaten und für Verbündete aufbauen zu können. Dennoch hatten viele Leute
ein kurzes Gedächtnis. Die Militärausgaben
waren so drastisch gekürzt worden, dass selbst
Barack Obama der Nato empfahl, die Verteidigungsausgaben zu erhöhen. 2014 wurde
vereinbart, die Ausgaben bis 2024 auf zwei
Prozent des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP) zu
erhöhen. Obwohl Donald Trump auf der Einhaltung dieses Ziels bestand und sich damit
unbeliebt machte, sagte er nur ein wenig lauter, was andere Amerikaner, einschliesslich

Barack Obama, seit Jahren gesagt hatten: Die
Verbündeten sollten sich angemessen an den
Verteidigungsausgaben beteiligen. Leider sind
viele noch immer weit von diesem Ziel entfernt.
Selbstzufriedener Westen
2019 bezeichnete Emmanuel Macron die Nato
als «hirntot». Russland widerlegte ihn, auch
wenn der Westen die Invasion nicht verhindert
und nach wie vor keine adäquate Strategie im
Kampf gegen die russische Aggression hat.
Dennoch erwies sich die Nato als so attraktiv, dass Finnland und Schweden einen Aufnahmeantrag stellten – trotz Macron. Vielleicht
werden die Neuen die übrigen Nato-Staaten
ermutigen, ihren Rüstungsverpflichtungen
nachzukommen.
Wie bei der Gründung der Nato und anderer westlicher Bündnisse nach 1945 bedurfte
es unübersehbarer Gefahren, die den selbstzufriedenen, bürgerlichen Westen zu der Erkenntnis brachten, dass internationale Risiken und Bedrohungen nicht verschwunden
waren. Die Gefahren zeigten sich weltweit
in vielerlei Gestalt. Australien und Neuseeland wiesen uns auf die Bedrohung der internationalen Telekommunikation durch China
hin, das sich anschickte, mit Unternehmen wie ZTE und Huawei die Kontrolle über Telekommunikationsnetze der fünften Generation zu erlangen, um an interessante Daten zu
kommen. Daraus ergab sich ein tieferer Einblick in die wirtschaftlichen, sozialen, politischen und militärischen Interessen Chinas, das
entschlossen ist, sich im indopazifischen Raum
und weltweit als Hegemonialmacht zu etablieren. China geht auf Konfrontationskurs mit Taiwan, erhebt Ansprüche auf das Südchinesische
Meer und bedroht die Anliegerstaaten. Man provoziert die südlichen Nachbarn, von Vietnam
bis Indien. Mit Hilfe der Neuen Seidenstrasse
will China seinen Einfluss in Afrika, Nahost und
auch in Europa ausweiten.
Präsident Bidens Abzug der westlichen Streitkräfte aus Afghanistan, dem Trumps desaströses Abkommen mit den Taliban vorangegangen
war, hatte katastrophale Konsequenzen. Afghanistan wurde abermals ein Rückzugsort
für internationale Terroristen, das entstandene
Vakuum wird von China und Russland ausgefüllt, und die Bevölkerung wird unterdrückt.
Der Iran schreitet auf dem Weg zur Produktion
einsatzfähiger Atomwaffen immer weiter voran
(genau wie Nordkorea), obwohl das Mullah-Regime durch massive, landesweite Proteste ernsthafter gefährdet ist als zu irgendeinem Zeitpunkt seit dem Sturz des Schahs 1979 durch die
Islamische Revolution. Für Europa zeigte sich
die Jahrhundertbedrohung am 24.Februar vergangenen Jahres, als Russland unprovoziert die
Ukraine angriff. Auch in der ehemaligen Dritten
Welt kam es zu Instabilität und Gefahren für
den Weltfrieden.
Diese Probleme, angefangen mit der chinesisch-russischen Entente, stellen globale Bedrohungen dar, die eine vereinte Reaktion des
Westens erfordern. Amerika muss diese Reaktion anführen, weil seine nationalen Interessen durch jede dieser Gefahren bedroht sind.
Unsere Verbündeten und Freunde in Asien und
Europa müssen jedoch erkennen, dass auch
sie mit einem globalen Konflikt konfrontiert
sind, und sich vorbehaltlos an der Reaktion beteiligen. Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz hat dies
offenbar erkannt, als er kurz nach der russischen Invasion von einer «Zeitenwende» in der
deutschen Sicherheitspolitik sprach. Leider ist,
abgesehen von einigen bescheidenen Schritten,
bislang wenig passiert. Das muss sich ändern,
und das gilt auch für Macrons Haltung zur Nato.
Das Gipfeltreffen von Joe Biden und dem japanischen Ministerpräsidenten Fumio Kishida
am 13.Januar war eine historische Gelegenheit.
Kurz zuvor hatte Kishida eine noch grössere
Wende als Scholz angekündigt, als er bekanntgab, dass die faktisch pazifistische Verfassung
abgeändert werden solle – ein altes Projekt seines Vorgängers Shinzo Abe. Offenkundig als Reaktion auf die massiven Drohungen von China
und Nordkorea versprach Kishida, dass Japan
seine Rüstungsausgaben binnen fünf Jahren auf
zwei Prozent des BIP (das Nato-Ziel) erhöhen
werde. Japan wird dann, nach Amerika und
China, das drittstärkste Militär der Welt haben.
Kishidas Entscheidung waren jahrzehntelange
Debatten vorausgegangen, ob Japan eine «normale Nation» geworden sei, die – in enger Kooperation mit den USA – für seine Verteidigung
einstehen könne. Die Deutschen müssen die
gleiche Debatte führen und zu dem gleichen
Ergebnis kommen.
«Fenster der Verwundbarkeit»
Der russische Angriff auf die Ukraine und die
Unterstützung durch China beschleunigte
natürlich die japanische Entscheidung und
wird auch in anderen Teilen Asiens zu einem
Stimmungsumschwung führen. Unter Abe gab
Tokio wichtige Impulse, um die Quad-Gruppe (Japan, Indien, Australien, USA) zu stärken,
die das Ziel verfolgt, einen «freien und offenen Indopazifik» zu garantieren, und Südkorea liefert mittlerweile Waffen nach Polen.
Da viele asiatische Länder nur bilaterale Verträge mit Washington geschlossen haben,
wird es noch lange dauern, bis es ost- und südasiatische Militärbündnisse gibt, die mit der
Nato vergleichbar wären. Aber die Dinge entwickeln sich schnell.
Weder Europa noch Amerika können sich
weitere Fehler oder Ängstlichkeiten leisten. Die
globalen Bedrohungen, bekannte und noch unbekannte, nehmen zu, nicht ab. Die nächsten
zwei Jahre werden daher ein «Fenster der Verwundbarkeit» sein. China und Russland (die beiden grössten weltweiten Bedrohungen), Terroristen, Waffenhändler und Schurkenstaaten
werden bestrebt sein, die aktuelle Situation auszunutzen, bevor der Westen bereit ist.
Der Ausgang der nächsten Präsidentschaftswahl in Amerika könnte die amerikanische
Aussenpolitik für den Rest des Jahrhunderts
prägen. Höchstwahrscheinlich werden weder
Trump noch Biden kandidieren, und wer von
den beiden Parteien ins Rennen geschickt wird,
ist völlig offen. Angesichts der Bedrohungen
für die nationale Sicherheit dürften aussenpolitische und militärische Themen eine
wichtigere Rolle spielen als bei jeder anderen
Präsidentschaftswahl seit dem Ende des Kalten Kriegs. Zwar haben Isolationisten in der
jüngsten Zeit unverhältnismässig viel Medienaufmerksamkeit bekommen, aber sie repräsentieren nur einen sehr geringen Anteil der Bevölkerung. Die eigentliche Frage lautet, ob es in
der Republikanischen Partei einen neuen Ronald Reagan gibt, der die Sicherheitsstrukturen
schaffen und stärken kann, welche die freie Welt
in einem zweiten amerikanischen Jahrhundert
schützen werden. Wir werden sehen.
Weder Europa noch Amerika
können sich weitere Fehler oder
Ängstlichkeiten leisten.
«Unsere Verbündeten müssen erkennen, dass wir mit einem globalen Konflikt konfrontiert
sind»: Biden (l.) und Putin bei Guy Parmelin in Genf, 16. Juni 2021.
John Bolton war nationaler Sicherheitsberater
des ehemaligen US-Präsidenten Donald Trump.
Aus dem Englischen von Matthias Fienbork