Country Living (August 3, 2023)
Welcome (one day earlier than usual this week) to Home & Away. And welcome to August. A lot of history happens in August, from the outbreak of World War I (the “Guns of August”) to the conclusion of World War II, from the start of the 1990 Gulf War to the 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon.
Man & Country
Speaking of which, August 2023 is likely to be remembered most for Tuesday, August 1, for the unveiling of the latest criminal charges against the 45th president of the United States. I strongly recommend that you read the entire 45-page indictment if you have not already done so. You need not be a lawyer to follow it as it reads more like history than a legal document.
What emerges from the text is a relentless effort or series of efforts by Donald Trump and a cabal of others to ignore and overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election. The focus is much less on the events of January 6 (there is no charge of incitement or sedition) and more on the conspiracy to block the electoral college from performing its assigned function and overturn the election result. Special Counsel Jack Smith is explicit that what is at issue is not Trump’s first amendment rights to voice his views on the election (even knowing as he did they were false) but his efforts to conspire to act on them.
As serious as the previous indictments of Donald Trump were and are, this one (and the associated potential case to be brought in Georgia) strike me as the most pertinent, as they directly involve the then-president’s effort to undermine this country’s democracy. More than any of his predecessors, he violates what I would describe as the fundamental obligation of the occupant of the Oval Office and indeed any American, to put country before party or person.
Vice President Pence emerges well from the retelling, time and again resisting Trump’s efforts to get him to thwart the electoral college proceedings. My favorite moment took place on January 1, when Trump complained to Pence that “You’re too honest.”
Last, whatever the legal outcome here, there can be little doubt that Donald Trump was and is unfit to be president of the United States. Sadly, there is considerable doubt as to what extent any of this will affect Trump’s political prospects in 2024. He is raising a good deal of money, although he is spending it as fast as it comes in on his legal fees. He is far ahead in the polls against his Republican challengers, who for the most part continue to avoid taking him on directly despite the political evidence that their unprincipled strategy is failing. He is neck and neck with Joe Biden in a projected two-way race. What is unclear is how the legal and political calendars relate going forward. All of which is to say that fifteen months before the next presidential election, American democracy remains very much at risk. We comfort ourselves by saying we are a country of laws not men. We are about to find out.
Down Country
It is worth noting that Fitch downgraded the United States this week, citing “the expected fiscal deterioration over the next three years, a high and growing general government debt burden, and the erosion of governance relative to [its] peers over the last two decades that has manifested in repeated debt limit standoffs and last-minute resolutions.” A thread runs through a lot of the news here, namely, that it is not just the threat posed by Donald Trump to American democracy, but also the threat posed to the ability of the United States to function at home and abroad owing to its profound political polarization.
Man & Company
I also want to write about an article that appeared in the New York Times that discussed the role of Starlink, one dimension of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. It turns out Musk has played a major role in the Ukraine war, both in terms of his help for Ukraine (Starlink has provided critical assistance) but also on those occasions he has set limits on Starlink’s availability. I expect a good many people and governments will focus on the wisdom of relying on someone such as Musk given his odd mix of political views as well as economic entanglements. (It is revealing that Taiwan is looking for alternatives to Starlink as it doesn’t trust Musk not to prioritize his business interests in China at Taiwan’s expense.)
But let me make a larger point. There is something wrong with allowing any individual or company to accumulate so much power. A privately-held company, even more than a public company, is at its core unaccountable and lacking in transparency, something that ought to be unacceptable in a democracy.
Think about it. We place limits on how much any firm can dominate its sector lest it engage in monopolistic behavior that would give it unfair economic advantages. We also have gone to great lengths to reduce our vulnerability to foreign control of critical technologies; hence the chip production effort in this country.
I don’t like what Musk has done to and with Twitter, but there are any number of social media alternatives. Similarly, one can buy all sort of cars, electric and non-electric alike, if you don’t want to own a Tesla. But SpaceX is different in two areas, in space launch and satellites, as viable alternatives do not exist. I would think as a matter of national policy the federal government ought to consider subsidizing or otherwise encouraging the emergence of competitors in both domains.
Men & Countries
Away, the Biden administration is focused on negotiating a grand bargain among the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia – a three-way package deal in which each side would need to do its part. The Crown Prince of the Kingdom (Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS) wants a NATO-like U.S. security guarantee against Iran, access to the most advanced U.S. weaponry, and U.S. approval for an indigenous uranium enrichment capacity, ostensibly for nuclear energy but which in reality would over time give Saudi Arabia one of the critical prerequisites of a nuclear bomb. MBS also seeks to get out from under (once and for all) his pariah status incurred by his association with the Jamal Khashoggi killing. He is willing to normalize relations with Israel in return. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu for his part appears to be willing to hold his nose and allow the Saudis to get advanced weaponry and a U.S.-supervised nuclear fuel cycle in exchange for the Kingdom formally accepting and recognizing Israel. This would be a major development given Saudi Arabia’s standing and influence in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The Biden administration, however, in exchange for footing much of the bill, wants to add two other elements to the mix: a distancing of Saudi Arabia away from China (the largest customer for its oil, which also recently brokered normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran) and something meaningful for the Palestinians. Biden’s motive is to take advantage of the moment to advance an Israeli-Saudi peace as well as two other long-term U.S. foreign policy aims: reducing China’s influence in the Middle East and advancing a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The former would help garner Republican support for the deal; the latter would help satisfy those Democrats in Congress who otherwise would have a real problem signing on to a deal with Saudi Arabia absent such a component.
While Saudi Arabia might be willing to downgrade its ties with China, the problem is that neither the current government of Israel nor the leadership of Saudi Arabia cares much about the Palestinians. There is thus a big difference with the UAE, which conditioned its entry into the Abraham Accords on pausing Israeli annexation of West Bank territory occupied since the 1967 war.
Not a lot can be done to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace in the current context given the weak Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and the reality of Hamas in Gaza – not to mention the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, many of whose members insist on long-term Israeli control of “Judea and Samaria” and reject a Palestinian state.
What could be done, though, is to add to the mix steps to preserve the option of a two-state solution before it completely disappears. This would require a prohibition on new settlements and could involve extending the area of Palestinian self-governance, concessions that if accepted could threaten the survival of this Israeli government. With so many moving parts one would have to judge this peace deal to be a long shot. But, as we are seeing, it is worth exploring. Much of this grand bargain was first developed in an article in Foreign Affairs by my CFR colleagues Martin Indyk and Steven Cook.
Countries at Risk
I was struck this past week by the news of a total breakdown of authority in Haiti, a coup in Niger, and renewed violence in Pakistan. It is a reminder that we live in a world threatened not just by strong countries but also by weak ones. Doing something about the latter can turn out to be even more daunting as it involves nation-building, an enterprise that is difficult, costly, and time-consuming. It could also involve violating the sovereignty of the countries in question on the premise that their weakness could create security threats not just to their own people but to others.
It is this combination of international security challenges, alongside global issues such as climate change, that makes this era as dangerous as it is. That all this is unfolding against the backdrop of American political disarray, disarray that affects this country’s ability to play a leading and much-needed role in the world, ought to worry anyone and everyone. It is why Home and Away are inextricably linked.
Please share your reactions, both to what is there and what else you’d like covered. And feel free to forward Home & Away to others.
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens.