The Forest - The Week After The Election and The Future

There are numerous impacts and implications of the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States as of right now, the last few weeks of the Obama administration, in the intermediate term, the beginning of the Trump administration, and in the longer term. As this is a Foreign Policy related blog, I will not address impacts that are solely domestic in nature, including on a number of social issues, many of which are primarily because a Republican and not a Democrat was elected. Also of importance is understanding Nationalism and Nativism as well as Internationalism.

Internationalism:
A political principle which advocates a greater political or economic cooperation among nations and peoples, and whose ideological roots can be traced to both socialism and liberalism.

The Cold War was fought between Internationalist regimes, The West, led by America, and the USSR. The West was/is a Liberal Internationalist regime. The USSR was a Communist Socialist Internationalist regime. The Cold War was a battle for influence on other nations between the two.

Internationalism led to the creation of the League of Nations, the United Nations, and to other international organizations promoting cooperation, including defense organizations such as NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

American politics were primarily disputes between Liberal Internationalists.

The left stressed social issues and advocated for economic policies influenced by socialism. The right stressed capitalism based economic issues and advocated for more religiously conservative social policies. Both stressed the need to uphold liberty and to engage with the broader world to influence it.

Nationalists and Nativists, who oppose the general direction of Liberal Internationalists, periodically came on the scene to influence policies, usually working to limit immigration, but have never held the Presidency, until now.

A Nationalist is a person who advocates for the political independence of a country from other nations and for it to promote its interests. There are many subcategories. This is the umbrella definition.

White Nationalists and other Ethnic-Nationalists are Nationalists, but not all Nationalists are White Nationalists or other Ethnic-Nationalists. Those are more extreme versions of Nationalism.

A Nativist is a person who advocates protecting the interests of "native born" or "established" residents of a country against those of immigrants.

White Supremacists and other Ethnic-Supremacists are Nativists, but not all Nativists are White Supremacists or Ethnic-Supremacists. Those are extreme versions of Nativism.

There are some significant policy implications that come from the change from Internationalism to Nationalism. Consider these differences:

From an Internationalist perspective, NATO was essential to create because it helped to unite a group of allies against a group of enemies. The alliance was/is more important than any of its parts.
From a Nationalist perspective NATO is only essential if it benefits the United States against its enemies. The alliance is not more important than the interests of the United States.

It is notable that while the USSR was an Internationalist regime, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, is a Nationalist and Nativist regime. Where the USSR cared about Socialist and Communist countries, Russia cares for ethnic Russians and Russian interests. Putin has stated this quite clearly in regard to Crimea and the situation in Syria.

Back to the American election results and their implications.

Impact of the 2016 US Elections

As of right now, the following is true for the last few weeks of the Obama administration:

• There will be no expectation of the continuity of American foreign policy from this administration into the next as there was not between the Bush and Obama administrations. Previously, policy would be expected to shift somewhat when there is a change in administration within the same party and somewhat more when it is between parties. Now, there is an expectation of potentially significant policies changes even in regard to long established policy positions.
• It is now highly unlikely that President Obama would now consider allowing the United Nations Security Council to pass any proposals critical of Israel because the Trump administration is likely to be much less considerate of working within the United Nations framework going forward and providing an excuse for the new administration to disregard UNSC decisions or to act directly against them would harm the UN significantly, undermining its credibility and authority. In other words, while a UNSC resolution critical of Israel would be harmful to Israel, allowing such a resolution to pass could end up in serious long term damage being done to the United Nations as well.
• The US will not be able to engage more significantly in the conflicts in Syria or Iraq.
• Turkey, Russia, the Assad regime, the Sunni Rebels, the Kurds, the Iraqi government and Iran will all be lobbying the Trump administration hoping for continued support for their position, increased support, or a major shift in policy. None are certain of what will happen.

In the Intermediate Term:

• The perspective has shifted from Internationalism to Nationalism and Nativism.
• US Policy will shift in strong opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, including against its affiliates in the United States. The biggest losers here will be the Council of American-Islamic Relations CAIR and potentially the Islamic Society of North America ISNA.
• The US will more strongly enforce the nuclear agreement with Iran.
• Egypt, as a nationalist anti-Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State regime, will become a closer ally of the US.
• Saudi Arabia will be happy with US positions in regard to its enemies, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood, but will find itself under more criticism for financial support of Sunni based terrorism.
• Israel will see US pressure toward peace removed, but EU pressure increased, especially if internal coalition politics move policy toward the right.
• The US-Russia relationship will improve in relation to fighting the Islamic State and Sunni terrorists.
• America will likely more strongly enforce, rather than end, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA; a.k.a. The Iran Nuclear Deal.
• US relations with China will become more confrontational in the Pacific and over trade as the United States reasserts its interests.
• American relations with Mexico as well as other Central and South American nations will be strained over immigration and trade.
• US relations with Turkey will be strained over the administration's stance on the Muslim Brotherhood and may be worsened by stronger support of the Kurds.
• US policy in regard to climate change will become fully skeptical. That said, the bigger impact on climate change will come from the shift from Internationalism to Nationalism. Concerns that primarily impact other nations or which have solutions that significantly harm Americans will no longer receive priority. The primary concern will be jobs in West Virginia, not sea level rise in Pacific Island nations.
• Conservation and local environmental issues will get a boost. Nationalists may not be concerned with sea level rise across the world, but they are relatively more concerned about the preservation of and quality of their local environment. So local water quality advocates for example may not only maintain importance but even find new allies and increased attention.
• Stronger border security will be developed between the US and Mexico. This may not be a "wall" but include fencing and other security measures to both deter illegal immigration and smuggling. Longer term solutions will include increased immigration enforcement and likely substantial growth of the Immigration and Naturalization Service INS.

The Longer Term:

• We can expect to have challenges to Liberal Internationalism on both sides of the political spectrum in elections in over the next decade. On the left, Liberal Internationalism will face increasing challenge from Socialist Internationalists led by Bernie Sanders and his followers. On the right, Liberal Internationalism will face continued challenges from Nationalists and Nativists in future elections just as in this one.
• Military alliances will become less stable because governments involved in Europe or the United States may not share the common values that underpinned Liberal Internationalism, whether progressive or conservative.
• The nature of the Republican and Democratic parties could change substantially and challenges within either party could now come from the political center as each moves further away from it. Either party moving toward the center in the next election could potentially capture a significant majority of the vote.
• The United States must now be considered a potentially short term ally, only able to make strategic alliance commitments for the remaining term of any sitting President due to the extent of foreign policy swings between administrations.
• Should a combination of fiscal conservatism and support for the military continue, the US military will be better prepared for operations.
• The United Nations will be weakened with neither Russia, nor the United States led by internationalists.
• The overall political sphere will become more chaotic as pressure from internationalist superpowers continues to lessen and individual nations and ethnic groups take up their own causes.

Dramatic Change in the Middle East- Turkey, Russia, and Israel

Coup and Purge in Turkey - On July 15, segments of the Turkish military engaged in behavior some of which resembled those that one might see in a coup. Much of the behavior of the military also resembled those that one might see from a military exercise and many soldiers who were arrested for having taken part in the coup were under the impression that they were taking part in such an exercise.

There are many reasons to question whether or not this really was a "coup," though none individually is conclusive evidence that it was not a legitimate coup. Here is a non-exhaustive list of some of them:

• 1. In any coup, the leader of the nation must be killed, arrested, or at least forced into exile. That didn't happen. There was an opportunity for those engaged in the "coup" to shoot down President Erdogan's plane while the coup was in progress, but they did not.
• 2. Firing on the President's house makes some sense in a coup, attacking the symbol of the authority you seek to remove. Instead, coup participants fired on the People's house, parliament. That action can do nothing but anger the people as a whole and strengthen the President. Makes no sense.
• 3. For any coup to be successful, the army, the ground forces of the nation, must be under the control of the coup plotters. Soldiers, not tanks or planes, are necessary to control the population. If anything is a potential smoking gun, this is it. No sane coup plotter would even consider trying to take over a country without control over a substantial portion, if not overwhelming portion, of the Army. Tanks and planes can't enter buildings.
• 4. Failed coups generally result in the deaths of coup participants. Firing on hostile civilians, much less military forces would be normative. In a large nation like Turkey, one could have expected hundreds of dead and thousands of injured across the country at a minimum. Inexperienced soldiers being threatened by hostile civilians could have easily killed dozens just protecting themselves.
• 5. In any coup, control of messaging is essential and preventing the leader to be ousted from rallying support from the populace, even more so. This didn't happen effectively at all.
• 6. A coup requires effective timing and coordination in addition to an extreme level of trust. There is no chance at all that the leader of a coup attempt in Turkey could possibly deny involvement, because the leader of a coup would have to personally recruit and coordinate efforts. On the other hand, a military exercise or fake "coup" could easily involve authority figures manipulating lesser officials into action.
• 7. After a failed coup, leaders usually flee to another nation in order to save themselves.
• 8. You don't launch a coup having lost the last election 52-48. You wait for the next election.
• 9. Any "pro-democracy" coup in which the military doesn't expect to slaughter significant numbers of civilians in order to obtain and maintain control, necessarily requires support from a large percentage of civilian leaders.
• 10. The response to a failed coup is an investigation that begins with soldiers and might spread slowly beyond the military. Turkey's immediate and extensive purge of many thousands of Gulenist leaders, including judges at all levels of the judiciary, deans of schools, huge numbers of teachers and even soccer referees, is the best argument that this "coup" was orchestrated in order to enact the purge that has followed, rather than the purge being a response to a real coup.

The question is "What is the long term intent of the purge?" That we will address in the weeks ahead.
Meanwhile there have been other dramatic changes in Turkish policy in recent weeks, some even before the coup.

Turkey and Israel agreed on rapprochement. Israel sent Turkey a relatively small cash sum in exchange for a renewal of trade and full diplomatic relations. Those are the public terms, but behind the scenes developments seem to have been much more substantial judging by changes in behavior.

The day after it agreed to rapprochement with Israel (June 27), President Erdogan sent a letter to President Putin offering regrets for the November downing of a Russian aircraft and seeking to reestablish relations with Russia. In the intervening weeks, it appears that Turkey has practically abandoned Hamas, after being one of its primary advocates for years. That was almost certainly a concession in negotiations between Israel and Turkey, which brings up what Israel actually offered.

Israel likely offered to aid in reconciliation with Russia. That would explain the immediate and rapid development of that reconciliation in late June. Turkey not only needed help to avoid that relationship worsening, but it needed to seek a major concession from Russia, namely, as we found out today, the ability to launch a ground offensive within Syrian borders against Islamic State forces and Syrian Kurdish forces.

If you had said that Turkey would invade Syrian territory at any point before now, it would have seemed insane. The Assad regime is a Russian ally and having NATO forces operating on the soil of a close Russian ally would have been difficult to conceive. But not at this point because relations between Russia, Turkey, the US and the Kurds are now different. Israel and the US must have agreed to not support the Kurds in Syria against Turkey. Today, Vice President Biden announced that "Washington made clear to pro-Kurdish forces in Syria that they must not cross west of the Euphrates River" or lose US support. It is likely that Israel is also part of that agreement.

Meanwhile, Israel and Egypt have reached out to Vladimir Putin in response to an overture that Russia might help to moderate Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israeli relations with Russia are now substantially strong with Putin and Netanyahu pledging to continue "intensive" contacts. Russia not only gets Israeli intelligence help and cooperation in combating Islamist elements in Syria, Chechnya,  and in Russia proper, but also in regard to strengthening relations with Former Soviet Union FSU nations. Beginning with the Russian aliyah of the 1990s, Israel now has over one million citizens who were born in the Soviet Union, a high percentage of whom are from Russia as such, and extensive economic and social ties with Russia and other FSU nations.

To put this into perspective, there are about the same number of Russians in the Crimea, which Russia considers to be part of its territory, roughly 1.2 million, as there are today in Israel with about 900,000 Israeli Jews of Russian origin and 300,000 more Israelis of Russian origin who are not Jewish. Israel now even has a Russian born, Russian speaking, Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman. This all enables a level of economic, social, and security relationships between Israel and Russia that could not have existed in previous decades. Add in common concerns about political Islamist terrorism and instability in the Muslim world, especially in Syria, for both of which Israel is an essential strategic ally, and you have a Russia desirous of a stronger relationship with Israel than ever before. And this comes at a time when the United States has shown a desire to be much less present and directly influential in regional affairs.

Nothing like a situation in which Russia seeks a good resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the Israeli side because doing so furthers Russian interests. It is also the case that Russia is Israel's best friend in keeping Iran in check.

There is dramatic change happening. Few seem to be taking note. It is a new world out there.

The Forest - June 12, 2016 - Terrorism and Uncertainty

Terrorism in Tel Aviv - The cousins who perpetrated the teror attack at Sarona Market in Tel Aviv came from Yatta, just south of Hebron in the the West Bank. The two passed through a gap in the Israel's Security Barrier near the Israeli settlement of Meitar. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack which killed four and wounded many others. Primary attention has focused on the heinous nature of the crime. The two men ordered dessert before opening fire on patrons at Max Brenner. Ignored by most media outlets is the fact that the attack was celebrated among Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank.

The Saudis condemned the attack more strongly than the Palestinian Authority - As a further demonstration of the changing face of the region, the Saudi Arabian government strongly condemned the attack. The JPost article stated that:

Reporting about the shooting on its Facebook page, the well-known Saudi TV channel al-Arabiya referred to the people injured in the attack as "victims," and not as "settlers" as most of the Arab outlets usually refer to Israelis. 

Security Barrier- It is likely that the fact that the terrorists exploited a gap in the security barrier will spur action to complete the entire route of the barrier separating the areas of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinians and those areas in which Israelis live. This will continue to establish the parameters of a possible two state solution as Jewish settlers will almost certainly not make any attempts to settle areas on the Palestinian side of the barrier, while they will also feel more secure in doing so on the Israeli side.

Israeli-Russian Relations- As I noted in the previous edition of The Forest in May, Israeli-Russian relations are strong and improving. The relationship between the US and Israel remains strong, but uncertainty due to American elections, what appears to be a desire for the US to be less involved in the broader politics of the world by leaders in both political parties, and US efforts to both appease Iran and take a more neutral position in relation to Israel and America's traditional Sunni nationalist allies, has driven Israel to improve its relationship with Russia further. The Russo-Israeli relationship is now so strong that Netanyahu felt a need to mention that Israel's relationship with America remains essential, but also noted that Israel needed "other partnerships."

Orlando Terrorist Attack on Pulse nightclub- The shooting carried out by Omar Mateen, who claimed allegiance to ISIS, demonstrates several points. 1. America's gun laws allow potential terrorists to legally and openly acquire guns and ammunition sufficient to do extreme harm. 2. The FBI's screening procedures utterly failed. Mateen was interviewed twice on suspicions of terrorism. Law enforcement is crippled by a combination of political correctness and the application of civil laws in fighting against those at war with America within America. 3. The LGBT community, alongside the Jewish community, is a primary target for terrorists motivated by jihadi ideas. 4. Again we see that American citizens can and will involve themselves with the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations while attacking Americans.

Uncertainty in the Presidential elections with the Democratic party struggling to define its foreign policy, especially in relation to involvement in the Middle East and the strength of support for allies, and with the Republican party nominee both having no track record of behavior in relation to foreign policy and having made conflicting and problematic statements about allies will make it more difficult for America to respond appropriately to terrorist acts and threats in the interim.