Author: Chris Catalano

In “American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump,” Hal Brands refers to how America serves as a sense of stability to the rest of the world. He states, “Since 1945, international security has rested heavily on the credibility of American commitments; U.S. officials have thus sought to demonstrate that Washington is a reliable and competent actor, one that can carry out complex tasks effectively and serve as a source of stability in a dangerous world.” Compared to that vision of American leadership, yesterday’s New York Times states, “the president barely shows up to work, ignoring the health and economic crises afflicting the nation and largely clearing his public schedule of meetings unrelated to his desperate bid to rewrite the election results. He has fixated on rewarding friends, purging the disloyal and punishing a growing list of perceived enemies that now includes Republican governors, his own attorney general and even Fox News.” This President has clearly shown the world that as long as he is in Washington, the United States is not a reliable or competent actor. 

As unstable as the U.S. has felt the last 4 years, Trump has still found a way to escalate the tension of his presidency in its waning weeks. Peter Baker of The New York Times reports, “With six weeks until he leaves office, Mr. Trump remains as unpredictable and erratic as ever. He may fire Mr. Barr or others, issue a raft of pardons to protect himself and his allies or incite a confrontation overseas. Like King Lear, he may fly into further rages and find new targets for his wrath.” That sense of stability in a dangerous world that Brands refers to has seemingly escaped our current White House. 

Many times during this administration I witnessed the President get right up to the line and I would tell myself ‘there’s no way he crosses that one.’ Time and time again the President gleefully proved me wrong. I will still try to remain positive, but Peter Baker reminds us, “We’re approaching the end of the play here and that’s where catastrophe always comes.”

 

Baker, P. (2020, December 05). Trump’s Final Days of Rage and Denial. Retrieved December 06, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/us/politics/trump-presidency-election-loss.html

Brands, Hal. “7. American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump.” America Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump. Brookings Institution, 2018, pp. 153-182.

Trump’s inability to concede is greatly affecting the transition team and putting our country at a national security risk. Trump had fired Christopher Krebs, who served as the first director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.  Mr. Krebs, had overseen election cybersecurity efforts, and had joined other officials in declaring the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.” This statement is obviously in direct contradiction to Trump’s unbacked claims that the election was based in fraud. Trump and his legal team has frequently claimed that the 2020 election has been “stolen from him through fraudulent ballots and software glitches that changed millions of votes.” Trump had turned to his appointee, Krebs, in hopes that he’d help confirm his allegations that there had been Russian interference and Trump votes had been changed to Biden votes and Krebs did the exact opposite, leading to his immediate firing. 

Senator Angus King of Maine has stated, “Of all the things this president has done, this is the worst…To strike at the heart of the democratic system is beyond anything we have seen from any politician.” Senator King believed that Christopher Krebs was one of the most independent and competent people working in the Trump administration, putting partisanship behind and solely focusing on the importance of protecting American democracy. Krebs was not surprised though because it is reported that as early as June he had started to tell his colleagues he expected to be fired as the president started talking about a potential “rigged” election.

As someone who happened to be following Krebs on Twitter, I was struck with a profound sense of patriotism when after his firing he tweeted “Honored to serve. We did it right. Defend Today, Secure Tomorrow. #Protect2020.” As we move forward as public servants and political leaders that’s the message we should all get behind. Do it right, Fight for today, Secure a future for future generations. 

 

Sanger, D., & Perlroth, N. (2020, November 18). Trump Fires Christopher Krebs, Official Who Disputed Election Fraud Claims. Retrieved November 23, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politics/trump-fires-christopher-krebs.html

This past Thursday Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, asked the world to put their collective foot down on any effort by Iran to continue to develop nuclear and ballistic missile programs. In a region rife with conflict, the king acknowledged Iran’s expansionism and proxy wars that they are conducting throughout the region. Saudi Arabia and Iran have been fighting in Yemen for over 5 years now. With this aggressive attitude Iran has been taking, the addition to nuclear capabilities provides a serious threat for Saudi Arabia and its allies. 

Now with the writing on the wall of the end of the Trump era, Saudi Arabia may be losing one of the biggest anti-Iran voices in the political sphere. Even though many believed Trump exiting the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration opened the door for Iran to acquire a nuclear warhead. A Biden administration has pledged to return to the 2015 nuclear pact made with Iran as a way to ensure we don’t allow them to create nuclear missiles. The fear of allowing a country to even create nuclear energy is because it may be difficult to ensure if they are also developing a ballistics program to eventually coincide with it.

With the new and unexpected partnerships that Saudi Arabia has been developing, such as one with Israel, the pressure to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear capabilities has never been higher. As Saudi Arabia deals with endless human rights issues and the very public killing of Jamal Khashoggi- I would not expect many world leaders to jump at the opportunity to stand by their side and take a “decisive stance” against anyone.

 

Al Jazeera. (2020, November 12). Saudi king urges world to take ‘decisive stance’ against Iran. Retrieved November 16, 2020, from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/11/12/saudi-king-urges-world-to-take-decisive-stance-against-iran

The United States is about to enter an interesting era in nuclear decisions. Critical points of US relations with Russia, Iran, and North Korea are about to rear its head. U.S. and Russia appear to be on the edge toward extension of  their preexisting Nuclear Treaty that is about to expire. Iran has continued to amass nuclear fuel and Biden will have to decide whether he will be the one to step in and stop it. And in North Korea, Kim Jung-un rolled down the street last week their biggest atomic arsenal to date. Israel and Saudi Arabia, which shared President Trump’s deep antipathy toward Iran, may not be particularly thrilled with a Biden presidency. 

Joe Biden’s extensive experience as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as vice president in the Obama administration may give all these nuclear nations a different feel during negotiations. Diplomacy and decency seem to have escaped the White House over the past 4 years, and I think it will be welcomed back on the international stage. It’s difficult to use the word “decency” when talking about weapons of mass destruction with the power to kill billions and potentially annihilate the entire planet, but it is reassuring that the leader of the free world, who has the power to press the button, has proven time and time again to choose decency over destruction. 

While I may feel that way, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has said, “the United States is untrustworthy regardless who is in the White House.”  While Iran may still be interested in entering a deal that relaxes their sanctions, their tumultuous relationship with Trump will not be easily forgotten. 

While Trump has sported a friendly relationship with North Korean like no US President before, critics say, “Mr. Trump’s approach not only failed to persuade Mr. Kim to relinquish his arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, it bought Mr. Kim time to strengthen them.” We saw just last month North Korea unveiling its largest ever intercontinental ballistic missile. “On Trump’s watch, the North’s nuclear weapons program has grown apace, its missile capabilities have expanded, and Pyongyang can now target the United States with an ICBM,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department official and expert on North Korea. How President Biden decides to take action to halt this unwanted growth may be one of the most important decisions during his presidency. 

With the COVID pandemic clearly the number one priority of the new administration taking office January 20, 2021, resetting their relationships on the world stage has to be a close number two.

Gladstone, R. (2020, November 07). Biden to Face Long List of Foreign Challenges, With China No. 1. Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/world/americas/Biden-foreign-policy.html

 

Seventy years ago, this week, China entered the Korean War in order to aid a retreating North Korean army. President Xi Jinping didn’t mince words speaking at the ceremonies. He made it very clear that China, a young nation at the time, was not afraid of this imperial super power coming to their side of the planet to wage war. 

President Trump indiscriminately takes shots at President Ping seemingly every chance he gets, continually stoking the fiery tension between the two that has only been exasperated since COVID-19 has hit US soil. Almost like a rallying call, President Xi, appeals to the Chinese citizens differently than he had when giving a speech on the same subject matter 10 years ago as the vice president. There’s much more fervor in his language and he does not mince words when he states, in reference to the brave Chinese soldiers who gave their lives in the war, “They smashed the myth that the American military is invincible.”

State run propaganda has also seemed to be ramped up to depict America as these savage invaders, who needed to be stopped. As generations progress, wars like the Korean war can be seen as in eternity ago to a nation’s youth, and that is often forgotten that many players in these wars still exist in our world today. 

In order to continually educate their youth on the Korean War, a film titled, “The Sacrifice,” was released that depicts Chinese soldiers keeping a river crossing open against relentless American bombardment. The film depicts an American pilot marveling at the tenacity of the Chinese soldiers below and radios back to his commanders that their attacks have failed. In the film the American pilot eerily states, “There’s nothing we can do to stop them,” almost as if the Chinese states want to remind its people that they’ve staved off America before and they are prepared to do so again if necessary.  

Myers, S., & Buckley, C. (2020, October 23). In Xi’s Homage to Korean War, a Jab at the U.S. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/world/asia/china-us-korean-war.html?referringSource=articleShare

 

Improved relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates seem to have left Palestine on the outs. Palestinians have counted on Arab solidarity to deny normalized relations to Israel in order to keep the pressure of granting their statehood. In the last few months that solidarity is starting to flounder with Israel entering normalization agreements with the UAE, Sudan, and Bahrain. The Trump administration has recently assisted with brokering a deal between Sudan and Israel to normalize relations and set aside hostilities. 

The deal with the UAE takes it many steps further by establishing trade relations, allowing each other citizens to travel between countries without needing visas, and future plans of establishing embassies in each other’s capitals. To fully grasp how big of a deal it is to be able for Emiratis to be able to visit Israel and Jerusalem without a visa, Salem Barahmeh, the leader of the Palestinian Institute for Public Diplomacy states, “I need a permit issued by the Israeli military to visit Jerusalem. The city I was born in. But now an Emirati can go visa-free because two warmongering, human rights abusing regimes made a deal together for weapons. Does this sound just to you?”

The catalyst behind this unlikely partnership is the same as most unlikely diplomatic ties, weapons and oil. The first project would be the revival of the “Med-Red” pipeline which had been built to carry Iranian oil to Europe before the Islamic revolution in Iran. With Iran’s consequential adversarial stance on Israel, this pipeline would now be used to carry Emirati oil. 

Another project these enhanced relations lead to is a fund to upgrade and modernize checkpoints in the West Bank. Emirati money is now being used directly to enforce and legitimize Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the 2.7 million Palestinians living there. It has become quite clear that Palestine can no longer lean on the other Arab nations in the region for support. 

Halbfinger, D. M., & Ragson, A. (2020, October 20). Emiratis Land in Israel, Firming New Ties and Angering Palestinians. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/world/middleeast/israel-uae-travel-checkpoints.html

Jakes, L., Walsh, D., & David. (2020, October 23). Trump Announces Sudan Will Move to Normalize Relations With Israel. Retrieved October 25, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/world/middleeast/sudan-israel-trump-terrorism.html

 

When I was 2 weeks old, Operation Desert Shield began. The largest coalition of nations formed the largest military alliance since World War II in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Thirty five nations stepped up to assist in this U.S. led operation with George H.W Bush as the Commander-in-Chief. Within 6 months the coalition showed up, asserted their vast military power, and expelled the Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Ten years later, it seemed like George W. Bush was ready for round 2.

Since I was a child of 11 years old, all I have known is a country at war. This war however has been vastly different from the swift resounding victory of the Gulf War. Now here we are in 2020, 19 years later and no resounding victory has been had. Instead we have a generation of Americans so numb to the thought of war in a region many Americans presumably couldn’t properly identify on a map. President Trump has vowed to conclude what he calls the United States’ “endless wars” across the Middle East, and tweeting that all American troops stationed in Afghanistan may be home for Christmas. Trump’s 2016 campaign appealed to many because these were the same promises made. We have been told for nearly 2 decades that it’s “Mission Accomplished,” yet many observers are still unsure of what the mission is and was in the first place. While there is hope for those in Afghanistan, Trump has deployed thousands of additional soldiers to the Persian Gulf in response to growing tensions with Iran.

Philip H. Gordon, the coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf region in the Obama administration and the author of a new book about failed American efforts to achieve “regime change” in the Middle East, said that the president’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran was unlikely to topple the country’s government or force it to abandon its nuclear program. So while his strategy according to Twitter has the U.S. on the path to clean exits from all of their conflicts in the Persian Gulf, his actual strategy has put us in a position where the response to Iranian aggressions may have to be a lethal response. With Iran on the verge of being a nuclear power, an aggressive U.S. response in the region could lead to a world altering disaster. As Mr. Gordon puts it, “And that would be the end of the end of the ‘forever wars.’”

Crowley, M. (2020, October 11). Trump’s Campaign Talk of Troop Withdrawals Doesn’t Match Military Reality. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/us/politics/trump-troop-withdrawals-war.html

A good friend of mine spent this weekend marching the streets of New York and Boston in hopes of bringing attention to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Being Armenian himself, the emotion of his stories of the struggle of his family escaping to Syria during the Armenian genocide was heavy. His bias against Turkey was clear, and with myself being uneducated on the subject I wanted to further research who the actors in this newly arisen conflict were. The first thing I discovered was, this is nowhere near a newly arisen conflict- yet instead the culmination of decades of hostility following a 1994 ceasefire. The second issue I was surprised by is the land they are fighting for is a land-locked enclave. Generally when I imagine a fight for land between two countries, I imagine a border war- two sides pushing back and forth in order to establish cartographical lines. 

While the Nagorno-Karabakh region is located inside Azerbaijan and occupied by ethnic Armenians, Turkey is using its power and influence to support Azerbaijan. Turkey being a member of NATO, whose core value is to support peace, brings the question of why they are instead instigating a war? The fact that the Nagorno-Karabakh region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan complicates Armenia’s claim of unwarranted hostility. Now that a NATO member is clearly involved, there is a potential for this local conflict to evolve into a powder-keg when all the regional powers want to establish who truly has the final say in issues in this region. 

The cease-fire that is currently being loosely-observed was brokered by Russia. Russia has their own mutual-defense treaty with Armenia, but still holds close ties with Azerbaijan. Iran has also reached out to Russia to discuss the conflict. If Russia and Iran decide to back Armenia’s claims and Turkey vows to stand side by side with Azerbaijan, the rest of the NATO members get put in a very precarious position. Do they step up to defend their Turkish ally or are the risks simply too large? 

 

Kramer, A. (2020, October 03). ​Why Is Conflict Erupting Again Between Armenia and Azerbaijan? Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/article/armenian-azerbaijan-conflict.html

Troianovski, A. (2020, October 10). Fighting Eases, Briefly, After Cease-Fire Between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/10/world/europe/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh.html

In a May 2020 New York Times article, Maria Abi-Habib and Keith Bradsher break down the financial implications of China’s debt scattered across the globe due to its Belt and Road Initiative. While trying to create a new Silk Road, China has found itself in a precarious position. Over the last 2 decades, China has loaned out hundreds of billions of dollars to countries. Now with many of those countries facing an unprecedented economic decline, China is in a position to look very weak if they do not collect on their debts. While requests to restructure or forgive loans come pouring in from indebted countries, China too is facing its own economic hardships. COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the world economy and China did not manage to fully sidestep it. With the Chinese people suffering themselves, how would they feel seeing foreign countries renege on their deals to pay? If China aggressively pursues repayment or calls for collateral, would it make them look like a bad loan shark shaking someone down in broad daylight?

As many of us heard this week, owing large sums of money to foreign entities is a national security risk. China has the ability to neither collect or forgive the debts and simply remind those countries of their debts. When China needs an ally or a voice, I’m sure they will turn to one of those countries and give a simple “hey, remember who you owe billions of dollars too.” The Trump administration has referred to these tactics as ‘debt trap diplomacy.’ While putting themselves in a highly diplomatic position, they’ve also put themselves in a uniquely strategic one. If many of the projects that aren’t paid for are the collateral owed, China has the ability to seize the ports, roads, and railways for themselves to be the sole owner/operators of the grand new Silk Road they imagined. While I believe the task of seizing foreign assets on foreign soil is a particularly dangerous chess move, China can use it whenever they need to make sure they can’t be checkmated.

 

Abi-habib, M., & Bradsher, K. (2020, May 18). Poor Countries Borrowed Billions from China. They Can’t Pay It Back. Retrieved October 05, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/18/business/china-loans-coronavirus-belt-road.html

 

Last week Microsoft issued a warning that the same Russian military intelligence unit that had attacked the Democratic National Committee in 2016 is once again back at it and hacking campaign staff members on both sides of the aisle. The fact that a company, Microsoft Corporation, is the one to make this information public and not our own federal intelligence agencies also brings the question- do they not know, or do they simply don’t want it to be public knowledge? Brian Murphy, the former head of the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence division who is now considered a whistleblower, has stated the White House and the Department of Homeland Security withheld information of Russia’s continual interference because it “made the president look bad.”

Judging by the cyber attacks by China and Russia the reports seem to conclude Chinese leaders prefer Biden over Trump. If it is in the best interest for China for Joe Biden to be the next president of the United States, they may not understand how our current president operates. Simply by China trying to assist in somehow disrupting Trump’s campaign lobs a softball over the middle for Trump to attend all his rallies and shout from his soapbox ‘Look how badly China wants me gone.’ Over the past 4 years as Trump oddly touts his friendships with dictators like Putin and Kim Jong-Un, he continually used his rectotic to paint a picture of China as against the American people. 

While Russia’s motivations were not made clear by Microsoft, they said it is the role of U.S. intelligence officials to figure out what information may have been stolen, and for what reason. It certainly feels like no matter what information may have been stolen, nothing will be able to deter Trump supporters from voting for him on November 3rd, but for those still on the fence Russia and/or China may be setting Biden up for the 2020 version of Hilary’s “but her emails” situation. 

 

Sanger, D., & Perlroth, N. (2020, September 10). Russian Intelligence Hackers Are Back, Microsoft Warns, Aiming at Officials of Both Parties. Retrieved September 21, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/us/politics/russian-hacking-microsoft-biden-trump.html