Author: k.callinan

Much has been made over the hawkish tendencies of Hillary Clinton. She voted for the Iraq War in ’02, supported Obama’s Afghanistan surge in ’09, strongly advocated for intervention in Libya in ’11, and has called for a no fly zone in Syria on the campaign trail. The New York Times Magazine wrote this wonderful profile on how the junior senator from N.Y. who sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee became the hawk that she is today.

Her critics often lump her in with John McCain, the hawk to end all hawks, which I think is unfair but you can’t deny her trend to advocate for the use of military force. You’ll recall the term “smart power” that, as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was famous for employing. She focused on building coalitions and approving sanctions as a way to manipulate outcomes and using force only when necessary.

We’ll have to wait and see how she would use the military if she gets elected but I think some of the perceptions on her are a little exaggerated. Is she more likely than Obama to take more forceful position on issues like Syria? Probably. Is she some trigger happy stateswoman that is just waiting for the next conflict so she can send some troops? No.

We talked in class last week about the budget and how a small fraction of it is devoted to foreign aid. The U.S. and Israel recently agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for approximately $38 billion in military aid over the next 10 years. This $3.8 billion per year is budgeted into Obama’s $50.1 billion foreign aid budget for FY17. This Washington Post piece on foreign aid is a perfect introduction as to who gets what from the United States.

More depressing news out of Syria. A tense, two-week cease fire agreement was marked with violations on both sides, a US strike that killed 62 Syrian soldiers and a Russian airstrike that hit a U.N. aid convoy. The main goal of the agreement was to allow aid into Aleppo – as of now it appears that no aid ever made it to the people of Syria’s largest city.

With the agreement deteriorated, Assad wasted no time bombing his own citizens. An airstrike on Friday killed at least 27 citizens. Samantha Power has called Assad and his government’s actions “barbaric.”

I was at the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) last weekend and listened to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter give an update on our operations in Syria. The senators pressed him for a solution that would end the conflict and he provided a grim outlook. Essentially, he said that an agreement between Russia and U.S. that allows for a political transition is the only practical thing that could end the fighting. Given that Assad is in no position to relinquish power and we have not been able to reach any sort of stable agreement with Russia, we will be seeing carnage like this weekend for the foreseeable future.

I’m writing my memo on the state of affairs in Afghanistan and what decisions the next president will have to make. I checked out Trump’s and Hillary’s websites for their positions on Afghanistan and found nothing. This WSJ “on the issues” piece on foreign policy also mentions nothing about the conflict.  The longest war in American history is barely being discussed on the campaign trail.

If the lack of coverage on Afghanistan led you to believe that the situation is under control, you’d be wrong. The next president will have to decide what to do with the 9,800 U.S. troops there and will have to exercise extraordinary diplomacy to keep the fragile National Unity Government from collapsing. Divisions and corruption in the young democracy have created a vacuum that the Taliban has filled.

Pakistan has continued to aid the Taliban and promote instability in the country for it’s own benefit. Additionally, ISIS has emerged in the country adding an additional layer of complexity to the situation. The next president will have some difficult choices to make in Afghanistan but ISIS, Syria, and the activities of Russia and China has shifted much of the attention away our 15 year war in the country.

 

As world leaders convene at the U.N. this week, a deal was reached by officials to help bring relief to the millions of stranded refugees that have fled the middle east. The “New York Declaration”  calls for countries to reach a “global pact” on refugees…in 2018. I honestly do not know what the U.N. was trying to accomplish with this poor excuse for a “game-changing” agreement. I’m serious – the UNHCR issued a press release calling the declaration a “game changer”. What is so game-changing about an agreement to reach an agreement in two years? These refugees are in dire need of humanitarian assistance now – not two years from now. The whole situation has gotten more and more depressing by the day, but at least the U.N. can tell the refugees they tried.

 

The conflict in Syria is complicated to say the least. You can’t really call it a civil war because there’s about 40 different groups fighting each other. Combine that with Russia/Iran, and the U.S. all backing different parties, the conflict can be difficult to keep track of. The New York Times published this piece this weekend that breaks down the conflict and explains the war in layman’s terms.

“The core conflict is between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and the rebels who oppose him. Over time, both sides fractured into multiple militias, including local and foreign fighters, but their fundamental disagreement is over whether Mr. Assad’s government should stay in power.”

Germany was the primary destination for the millions of refugees that entered the EU over the past 18 months. The Washington Post took a look at the lives of six refugees that fled Syria in search of peace and prosperity. The revealing piece shows how difficult the transition for refugees can be.

I can’t help but have compassion for these people. I’ve been reading a lot about this topic for over a year now but stories like this really put things in perspective. These people left everything behind because it was no longer safe to stay in the towns and cities they grew up in.

The United States recently admitted it’s 10,000th Syrian refugee. With the wars in the Middle East showing no signs of ending, I think we can expect that number to increase (if Clinton is elected).

After the United States and Russia reached a Syrian ceasefire agreement last week, many held their breath to see if the agreement would hold. So far so good. Aside from some violations on both sides, the ceasefire as a whole appears to be holding. “The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Wednesday said no fatalities have occurred in Homs, Latakia, Hama, the Damascus suburbs, Idlib and the rest of the Syrian areas included in the deal that began Monday.”

One of the main reasons for the ceasefire was to help deliver humanitarian supplies to areas in need. The supplies have not been delivered yet but parties are hopeful that the deliveries can begin this week, “”The UN convoy from Turkey to eastern Aleppo is still in customs area on the border this morning because of lack of de facto assurances of safe passage by all parties.”

Gallup has tremendous polls on a variety of different topics. Their section on the Middle East is particularly comprehensive. You could spend hours on their site but one poll I found interesting was their US Global Leadership Poll. This poll, “presents U.S. leadership approval research from 132 countries and areas that Gallup surveyed in 2015. The report includes detailed data for all 132 countries, including approval differences from 2014 to 2015 and regional medians not available in Gallup Analytics or anywhere else.”

Some interesting finds:

45% of people globally approve of US leadership on the world stage (compared with just 34% in 2008).

In 2008, 58% of Europeans disapproved of US leadership while only 18% approved. In 2009, the numbers flipped, 47% approved while 22% disapproved. 46% approve today while 35% disapprove.

1% of Russians approve of US leadership (you read that right, 1%)

US approval ratings are low in Eastern Europe (28% in Latvia, 16% in Serbia, 34% in Estonia).

It’s clear that America’s perception on the world stage has improved dramatically under Obama, but I’d be curious to see these numbers next year with a new president in the Oval Office.

 

After months of negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State John Kerry have agreed to a cease fire in the Syrian war. The agreement goes into effect tomorrow with the, “the cessation of all air and ground attacks by all parties, including the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.” The agreement will bring a “pause” to fighting particularly in Aleppo, which will allow for humanitarian aid to reach civilians in need. The situation in Aleppo is dire with essentially no supplies reaching the city since early summer when it became encircled by Assad’s forces. The agreement looks promising and has the potential to bring about a more sustained peace. The next few weeks will be crucial, however, as a similar agreement was reached in February only to see the fighting resume a few weeks later.