The Education of Donald Trump

Slowly but surely the presidency of Donald Trump is being normalized.  By normalized it is

meant that the Trump presidency is increasingly being captured and confined by the institutional powers and realities of American and world politics.  This is something that Steve Bannon feared, and which both Trump’s supporters and distractors should recognize.

There is an old political science and political adage that declares that presidents have more authority and freedom to act internationally than they do domestically.  This is because while the structures of the Constitution–such as checks and balances and separation of powers–limit the domestic power of presidents, they are more free to act internationally, especially with either congressional acquiescence or affirmative grants of power.  This recognition that presidents have more autonomy internationally is rooted in famous Justice Robert Jackson concurrence in the 1952 Supreme Court case Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer.  Yes, in many ways this dicta is correct constitutionally, but it misses something far more powerful when it comes to defining presidential authority; specifically the political and institutional constraints on presidents and how, as Stephen Skowronek argues in Presidential Leadership in Political Time, how history and context defines presidential power.

Back in 2008 during the US presidential elections when lecturing in Europe I was asked how the presidency of Barack Obama would differ from that of George Bush in the area of foreign policy.  I argued that the best predictor of a new president’s foreign policy was to look to his predecessor’s.  Presidents really have far less freedom to depart from the past than many think.  The foreign policy establishment is big and powerful in the US and it largely bipartisan.  Geo-political forces such as  the state of the world economy, the political interests of other nations, and the overall limits on US power and reach too further define what presidents can do.  Yes some may claim some presidents made major shifts–Nixon and China–but the changing geo-political role of China in the world made such a choice inevitable.

Obama proved that.  After making numerous promises, the Obama foreign policy was defined by choices made by Bush. The war on terror continued, troops remained in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gitmo was not closed, drone attacks persisted, and the US did not fundamentally change Middle East politics even after the Arab Spring opening because entrenched support for Israel did not change.  Even Obama’s effort to make an Asian pivot has had mixed results, and he was unsuccessful in making many changes in how to handle Syria and North Korea.  Yes Obama did make some marginal changes, but fundamentally more continuity with Bush than a break.

The same is now true with Trump.   Candidate Trump disagreed with almost all things Obama.  The Iran nuclear deal would be torn up.  Trump pledged a Mexican wall, declare China a currency manipulator and impose tariffs on their products.  NATO was obsolete, the Syrian policy wrong, Putin and Russia a friend,  and global engagement must be retracted to put America first.  Great rhetoric, but the reality is tht slowly the forces that constrained Obama are constraining Trump.  

One now sees a new Trump.  The bombing of Syria, while a departure perhaps from what Obama did, is something that Hillary Clinton and most Republicans and Democrats in Congress support.  It produced a rift with Russia that now leads Trump to muse that perhaps our relations with that country are the worst ever (they are not).    Moreover, despite tough talk, trump’s options with Syria are limited, as they are throughout the Middle East.  Expect no major change in politics toward Egypt and Israel, and do not expect any major break in addressing the Palestinian quest for a homeland.

NATO is good, and China will not be declared a currency manipulator, and, in fact, if they help Trump to contain North Korea’s nuclear program, he will give them a great trade deal.  This statement is recognition that despite the show of force the US is demonstrating in sending ships to North Korea, there is little he can do along to change the politics in that country.  Gitmo will not be closed, the policy toward Cuba not reversed, and even the dropping of MOAB–the mother of all bombs–on Afghanistan–it was a policy in the works under the Obama administration.    Trump’s enhanced deportation policy and extreme vetting looks more and more like a variation of what Obama did–partly courtesy of the federal courts–and there will be no shift in the drone war

Nearly 90 days into the Trump presidency one can already seen more continuity with Obama than breaks.  Yes there are still rough edges, yes there appears to be no Trump grand strategy, but that lives a void to be filled by the bureaucracy and foreign policy establishment.  All this is exacerbated by the fact that Trump has not filled many key State and foreign policy positions, but that only means that the weight of the status quois filling the void.

The real sign of Donald Trump’s education or normalizing was the removal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council.  Bannon saw the power of the bureaucracy and wanted to smash it.  Instead it smashed him and may soon lead to his ouster from the Trump administration in total.  That was a Trump presidency turning point.

It seemed just a few weeks ago people were talking of a failed Trump presidency, impeachment, or a major international crisis.   Yet increasingly likely is that an incompetent Trump will create the space for the bureaucracy to take over in the realm of foreign policy, for good or bad, and to the fear of delight of his supporters and detractors.

The Lessons of Vietnam: Why Obama’s, McCain’s, and All the Other ISIS Plans will Fail

Listening to Obama’s speech Wednesday outlining his ISIS strategy was deja vu’ all over again.    It regurgitated the same failed strategy to deal with terrorism that Bush first gesticulated; but more importantly it uncomfortably demonstrated yet again the failed lessons of Vietnam that American leaders have yet to learn in the 40 years since that war ended.  His speech, along with the other plans proposed by the neo-cons and warmongers such as John McCain and Graham Lindsay, aptly confirmed one of the greatest lines by Karl Marx who stated once in his The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
    In a nutshell, Obama’s strategy is simple and simpleminded–America will drop tons of bombs on ISIS, expand the war to Syria, and rely upon ground troops provided by Iraq and other countries to replace Americans on the ground. It is a military strategy devoid of a political solution, emphasizing that it may take years (and into the next presidency) to succeed.  Obama inherited a failed war and is now passing it onto the next president.
    How much this reminds me of Vietnam, except not Obama is both Johnson and Nixon at the same time. President Johnson inherited a nascent war from Kennedy only to escalate it and then in  the waning year of his presidency to express remorse about its efficacy after the Tet Offense in 1968 where any confidence of US victory was destroyed by a massive North Vietnamese offense in January of that year.  The war cost Johnson a second term as president.  Nixon took over, again escalated it, including expanding the war illegally and secretly with bombings into Cambodia.  When  that did not work, Nixon’s peace plan was the “Vietnamization” of the war–replacing American ground troops with those of the South Vietnamese–hoping that the latter would be able to continue the war and delay America’s indignant and inevitable loss for a few years. 
    Obama’s expansion of the bombings and reliance upon Iraq or other ground troops is just Cambodia and Vietnamization warmed over.  But so was Bush’s response to 9-11, or to the invasion of Iraq in pursuit of the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.  In all these cases the assumption was that American military might will overwhelm the enemy, liberating the people to form their own democratic societies.  It worked really well in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
    Alone the factual parallels to Vietnam should be instructive to why the Obama, McCain, et al plans will fail.  But dig deeper, there are two major lessons or reasons why any of the plans currently proposed are farces.  First, consider Powell Doctrine.  General Colin Powell in 1990 stated that the use of US military force needs to answer several questions, including asking whether there is a vital US interest at stake?  Are there clear objectives for the use of force?  Is there a clear definition of success?  And is there an exit strategy?  On all accounts, what Obama described in his Wednesday speech missed the mark.  About the only real rationale for going back to war is that we failed before  and that now we need to do more of the same to postpone failure even longer.  It is not clear what the US interest is, and even if there is one, we have no benchmarks for success or a strategy for leaving.  Quagmire was the word once used to describe Vietnam–that is the new word now for Iraq.
    But even more profoundly, the failure of Obama’s strategy lies in perhaps the most important lesson of Vietnam–the limits of US military power.  The single greatest book on Vietnam remains  Frances FitzGerald’s Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.  In describing the failed war she describes of the US escalation into Vietnam:

    It was entering into a moral and ideological struggle over the form of the state and the goals of the society.  Its success with the chosen contender would depend not merely on US power but on the resources of both the United States and the Saigon government to solve Vietnamese domestic problems in a manner acceptable to the Vietnamese.  But what indeed were Vietnamese problems, and did they even exist in terms in which Americans conceived them?  The unknowns made the whole enterprise, from the most rational and tough-minded point of view, risky in the extreme.   (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1972), 6-7.

The tragic failure of Vietnam was that it was really a battle for the hearts and minds of the people–not a war that could be one on the battlefield with bombs.  The US did understand that the problem of Vietnam was not a geopolitical one between communism and democracy, but a more indigenous cultural battle among the people there.  The same is true in Iraq and Syria.  This is not a global battle over terrorism and freedom but a problem that has to be solved by the people in that part of the world.  Dropping bombs does little to resolve the fight, especially if as in Vietnam it hurts  civilians and pushes them to the other side or continues to prevent people from solving their own problem.
    Missing from Obama’s and all the other plans is an asking of the question to why ISIS is so successful in recruiting supporters.  There is no plan to ascertaining why, for example, individuals from the Minnesota Somalian community are joining terrorist groups or why British citizens are becoming ISIS members who are beheading Americans.  Until such time as the focus shifts to asking these questions, to realizing that a strategy in place since Vietnam will not work, the current plans too will fail in farcical ways.

The Weltanschauungen of Obama and Dayton

    The German word “Weltanschauung” refers to a world view. The power of an Weltanschauung was on display last week in two events–one involving President Obama responding to critics of his presidency and specifically his foreign policy, the other in Minnesota Governor  Mark Dayton delivering his State of the State address.  While the media largely covered these stories as political or campaign speeches, they missed the deeper meaning or world views that both contained. 
    First, consider a New York Times article this week where President Obama responds to his critics, especially John McCain, who assail him for his reluctance to use military force to respond to political crises across the world.  McCain and others have criticized Obama for being indecisive in Syria, Iran (and nuclear weapons), the China-Japan dispute, and now again in Ukraine and Russia.  Obama declared: “Why is it that everybody is so eager to use military force,” Mr. Obama said, “after we’ve just gone through a decade of war at enormous cost to our troops and to our budget. And what is it exactly that these critics think would have been accomplished?”
    Obama and McCain, as I argued back in 2008 during their presidential contest, are generational politicians, affected by events that helped shape their generation’s view of foreign policy.  For McCain the image of him and his generation is that of 1938–It is British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning from Munich with an agreement to concede Czechoslovakia to Hitler.  Chamberlain’s speech is infamous, with him declaring “I believe it is peace for our time...”  Soon after this speech Hitler invaded Poland and WW II commenced.
    Chamberlain’s speech is mocked as naivete.  It is a message that many of McCain’s generation took as a message that we should never appease dictators since they cannot be trusted.  All that they understand is force and power.  The message of WW II is that American Military might  succeeded, the failure of Vietnam is that we did not use enough military might, and that the Cold War was won because of American military superiority.  This is the Weltanschauung of McCain.
    Conversely, there is a second video clip–that of US helicopters evacuating the US Embassy  in Saigon in 1975 after the fall of Vietnam.  It is a video about the limits and failures of US military power and about why war and force is not always the answer.  This is the video clip that affected many Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, including Obama.
    To Understand Obama and McCain one needs to understand how appeasement and Saigon  affect their thinking and that of their generation.  Both events are world views, paradigms that define how many people of each of their generations define and interpret the world.    McCain sees Assad  and Putin as Hitlers, negotiation is only appeasement and the only message either of them understand is force.  Obama is thus foolish to think that negotiation with them will solve anything.  Conversely, Obama reacts against war and force, especially unilateral action, seeing it potentially as backfiring.  Obama’s world view is reinforced by Afghanistan and Iraq.
    Both Obama and McCain are blinded by their Weltanschauungen.  Neither can see beyond  their video clips to see when and how negotiation and force (or at least its threat) combine together  to form an effective foreign policy.  Moreover, Obama’s faith in talks and not threats also defines his domestic policy of dealing with Congress–an infinite faith in negotiation and talk.  Obama bristles when negatively compared to Lyndon Johnson, the master president when it comes to strong arming both friends and foes into deals.  Obama is no LBJ and he cannot be one–that is just not his  Weltanschauung about how politics and the world operates.

Mark Dayton’s Minnesota
    Mark Dayton’s State of the State address was widely reported as a campaign speech.  It described what he promised as candidate, what he has done, and what he hopes to do if re-elected.  But reporters missed a deeper meaning.  It was the Weltanschauung of Dayton, a view that defends the role of the state in improving the quality of life of Minnesotans.  To me the most important line in the whole speech came near the beginning.  After describing some of the policies of his administration and the role he sees that they had in job creation, Dayton declares: “
Some people believe there is no role for government in private sector expansion and job creation.  To see that they’re mistaken, just look around Minnesota.”
    Dayton’s speech presented the case for government.  It is the case for how government can make a positive impact in our lives.  It is an ideology that once brought us the Minnesota Miracle, the Good Life of the 1970s that put the state and Governor Anderson on the cover of Time magazine.  His view stands on contrast to his Republican rivals who have a different view.  Kurt Zellers stated his view well: So, that would be my vision, getting government out of the way, off the backs and out of the pockets of all Minnesotans.”  Government does not create jobs, the private sector does.
    Dayton’s speech set up not just a contrast between himself and his opponents but also a contrast between rival views of Minnesota and government.  He sees his Weltanschauung as having state government critical to Minnesota’s good life, while the opponent’s view will not produce the  quality of life Minnesota once knew and which it can have again.  It is a retrospective world view that takes us back in time before Reagan.  For the Republicans, their world view is also retrospective, echoing the spirit of Reagan while perhaps in reality taking us even further back to a pre New Deal era.  Dayton and his Republican opponents have world views that capture their generations, speaking to their visions and beliefs about the worlds they experienced and the one’s they would like to see.
    Weltanschauungen are powerful lenses that define our worlds.  In Obama and Dayton we see great examples of both and how they define their performances and views of the world and state.

Law, Ethics, and Syria: What Should We Do?

Law matters.  But the law is the not sum total of what matters when it comes to asking the question “What is the right thing to do?,” be that in our personal or professional lives.  Often obedience to the law–asking if doing something is legal–is the starting point for evaluating conduct.  But there is a long lineage of people from St. Augustine, Henry David Thoreau, to Martin Luther King, Jr. Who would point out that unjust laws are not morally binding and that in some cases disobeying them is the right thing to do.  Conversely, mere conformity to the letter of the law also does not necessarily mean one is acting ethically or that following the rule is the right thing to do. More is required.  This is also true when it come to the decision by President Obama to take military action against Syria.

            Syria’s use of chemical weapons raises problems for the United States.  Specifically, any use of force raises three questions: 1) presidential authority to act; 2) what is distinct about Syria; and 3) what is the end game for the US?   All three of the questions have to be answered satisfactorily before the United States takes any action.

           

Presidential Authority to Act

            Obama wants congressional approval to use force, but he still had not ruled out doing something absent their acquiescence. What constitutional authority does President Obama have to justify military action in Syria? This is not clear.  Domestically, the two sources of legal authority he can reference would be either the Commander-in-Chief clause of Article II of the Constitution, or the 1973 War Powers Act.

            It is not clear how the Commander-in-Chief clause supports this action. The constitutional framers intended for Congress to be the dominant branch when it came to military and perhaps foreign affairs. Article I textually commits to Congress the power to declare war along with a host of other powers related to the military. Here Congress has not declared war and it is unlike after 9-11 when Congress did enact the Authorization to Use Military Force that gave Bush the authority (arguably) to deploy troops in Afghanistan. At least Bush had some legal authority to wage a war on terrorism, no matter how tenuous.

            If Obama is relying on his Commander-in-Chief powers, it is hard to see how they come in. Syria  has not attacked the US, it is not threatening vital interests, and it is not otherwise doing something that directly conflicts with American national security. Instead, to contend that the Commander-in-Chief clause gives Obama unilateral authority to deploy these troops is no different or better than Bush era assertions by advisors such as John Yoo and others that the president had inherent constitutional authority to act. He does not.

            There is no extra-constitutional authority for presidents to act. This was supposedly another issue or lesson learned from Vietnam; presidents should not unilaterally drag the country into war.  LBJ and then Nixon abused their presidential powers when it came to Vietnam.  Disputes over presidential power to deploy troops were supposedly addressed by the War Powers Act in 1973. It placed limits on presidential power to deploy troops for limited purposes, subject to consultation with and notification to Congress that the Act was being invoked. Here again Obama is not invoking the Act in asking Congress to approve.  However, overall, there seems little authority for the president to act here absent congressional approval.

What is distinct about Syria?

            But even if Congress does approve, the second problem is what is distinct about Syria? Assume for now that Obama has the constitutional authority to act. Why Syria and why not Kim Jong-Il in North Korea, Iran, Sudan, or Zimbabwe?  In all of these countries we have repressive dictators or regimes abusing the rights of their people.  Should the US use force in all of these countries to oust dictators?  If mere oppression were the justification for action the US would be busy around the world acting.  Moreover, if mere oppression were enough justification, the US should have ousted Assad years ago.  Something more is required.

            First at the international level is the authority to act.  Article II, section 7 of the United Nations Charter declares: “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction.”  Is not what is happening in Syria a domestic matter and none of our business?  Maybe, but the legal case for it has to be made.  The UN allows for this under international law through resolutions and Security Council action.  With a Russian veto, chances for this type of authorization are nil.  Obama appears to want to justify intervention under international law that bans the use of chemical weapons or by invoking some other principles of humanitarianism, but again the justification is not obvious.

            But even if the United States can find justification under international law to act, there is still another question:  Why should the US act, potentially alone?  Again, Syria is less of a threat to the US than Iran and Korea. From a strategic point of view it is hard to justify intervention. Korea and Zimbabwe are equally as brutal regimes. Why not them? Perhaps the difference here is that there is a popular movement to oust him and that is the reason why we are acting? Maybe the issue is about prospects of success in ousting him? All of these are possible answers yet it is difficult to see a reason or argument that principally distinguishes Syria from acting in the other countries, unless of course it is the use of chemical weapons.  Similar reasons about weapons of mass destruction led Bush into Iraq and why the US is viewed as a hypocrite when it comes to the country supporting or placating some repressive regimes.

What is the End game?

            The final troubling issue is the end game for Obama. What are our goals and what are we really trying to accomplish? Is it  simply to punish Assad for using chemical weapons?  Is it because he has killed 50,000 of his people?  Do we hope that military action will oust him and if so, what are we prepared to do next?   What is the definition of success and what plans does the country have to exit from intervention?  These are all important questions that need to be asked.  Even if the US merely does drone strikes or other limited action, the US needs to be clear regarding what it hopes to accomplish and prepared for what might be the result?

            During the first Gulf War General Powell espoused a doctrine that has been named after him.  The Powell doctrine, supposedly based on what we learned from Vietnam, said that US military action needed to be evaluated by asking questions regarding clearly defining what national interests are at stake, whether the goals of intervention are clear, is there international support for action, what are the alternatives and risks to military action, and then determining what the end game and exit strategies are.  Using the Powell Doctrine to evaluate the comments by Secretary of State Kerry and Obama recently, it is not clear that they have adequately answered this question.

            What to do with Syria is a difficult question.  But it is a terrific case study in decision making and in demonstrating how questions about legality are only the starting point in determining what is the right thing to do.

The Presidency and Foreign Policy (plus a note on Polls and Wisconsin)

The 2012 presidential race was supposed to be about the economy.  At least that is what Mitt Romney wanted.  His goal was to emphasize this experience as a businessman in contrast to Obama’s failed leadership in an economy with still high unemployment.  If his first message was to steal a page from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign–“It’s the economy stupid”–his convention speech shifted it to the Reaganesque “Are you better off now than four years ago.”  Run on the economy, as the conventional wisdom would have suggested, and it should be a path to the White House since presidential re-elections are generally referenda on the economy.

Yet things have just not worked out for Romney.  First it was Obama picking up where Newt Gingrich left off, turning Romney’s Bain Capital experience into a liability and symbol of vulture capitalism.  Despite the persistence of a weak jobs economy, Romney has lost his advantage on this issue as the NY Times reports that polls now give Obama a slight nod on this issue.

The it was Paul Ryan.  Ryan diverts attention away from the economy and to budget cuts and Medicare.  Or Atkins in Missouri has pushed the agenda to abortion and social issues.  Or Obama  and the Democrats have made the campaign about gay rights.  Whatever the diversion, though, Romney has not been able to score on the issue that should have been his strength–the economy.

And now the agenda has shifted again–to foreign policy. Until now the presidential race was about domestic policy.  Yes Romney tried in his RNC speech to talk about Afghanistan and the war there, but generally the polls suggested that this is not what is driving the public or the race.  But how recent and potential events are placing foreign policy back perhaps to the center of the race, again taking the presidential contest further away from the economy.

Two events this past week were particularly important.  There is the killing of the US ambassador in Libya along with the anti-American uprisings across the Arab world, and then the demand by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for the US to draw a red line for Iran regarding nuclear weapons.  Both of these events thrust foreign policy and events into the middle of the presidential race.

At first blush, Obama is coming our a winner.  He does so because of Romney’s ham-handed criticism of the president regarding Libya that was factually wrong and ill-timed, criticized even by fellow Republicans.  This is not Romney’s first mistake.  He crudely criticized the UK regarding the Olympics and also while visiting Israel his comments about Palestinians was criticized.    His views on Russia too seem antiquated.  The point here is that Romney’s lack of foreign policy experience is showing, and it creates an opportunity for Obama to look presidential and qualified.  Romney’s problem is not unusual for presidential challengers when running against incumbents–the latter always look more experienced and qualified–the big exception being Jimmy Carter and the hostage crisis in 1980.

Generally foreign policy crises work to a president’s political advantage.  It gives them the chance to look, while presidential and in control.  People rally around the flag, especially if presidents act decisively.  So far Romney has damaged himself and Obama has not hurt himself.  But that could change.

Think of worst case scenarios–all October surprises.  Israel bombs Iran.  What does the USA do?  Obama cannot ignore supporting our ally and with the Jewish vote critical to a Florida victory, he may have no choice but to intervene.  How such a war will affect the presidential election overall is unclear.  Conventional wisdom generally says the president should be helped with something like this, but America is war-weary.

A second October surprise-American hostages are taken at some other US embassy or another ambassador is killed.  Images of Carter, Iran, and 1980 are invoked here.  Carter’s impotence with the hostages–and a botched rescue mission–were not good for his image.  Obama probably now needs to take some major foreign policy action to address Libya but what?  In theory it and Egypt are our allies.  Kind of hard to bomb them.

Other October surprises are a continued erosion of stability and civil war in Syria and financial solvency of the Europe.  Overall, these foreign policy events are largely beyond control of Obama and all could dramatically change the presidential race.  They also have domestic implications–look at the price of gas.

Overall foreign policy and international events run risks for both Romney and Obama.  How these events play out are yet to be seen but they have placed foreign policy in the center of the race.  For Obama it also shifts the race again off the economy and that might be good.  For Romney, this may not be good.

Two Final Thoughts: Swing States and Labor Rights Wisconsin

Two other thoughts are in order.

Both the Financial Times and the New York Times have noted critical changes in the presidential race since the DNC.  Obama and the Democrats got a convention bounce that the GOP and Romney did not.  Obama picked up a couple of points in the polls but more importantly, he picked up some approval ratings.  This may be the “sugar high” that Romney speaks of, but it is still significant. 

But the bigger problem for Romney is that two swing states–Pennsylvania and Michigan–are no longer swing.  Romney has effectively given up on them, reducing the number of swing states to eight or nine.  The Financial Times reports nine swing states with Obama leading in eight, including a solid margin in Ohio.  Romney may be close in the national polls but he is not doing well in the critical swing states-although he has a shot in Wisconsin

Finally, on Friday a Dane County circuit judge invalidated the law that abrogated public employee rights in Wisconsin.  He did so on federal constitutional grounds (First Amendment freedom of association and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection grounds) along with state constitutional claims.  Were the decision upheld on appeal it would be a real repudiation of the Walker and perhaps more significant that had he ben recalled.

However hold on with this case.  It was not the best drafted opinion and the chances of it being upheld are iffy at best.  Moreover, Walker will move for the decision to be stayed on appeal.  It is not clear after reading it whether it restores collective bargaining rights and if so, when.  In short, lots of questions remain regarding what the decision really means.