Monthly Archives: May 2021

Look After You Leap.

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            After the 11 September 2001 attacks, American military forces invaded Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama bin Laden’s head.  This required toppling the Taliban government of Afghanistan, which had sheltered the Arab jihadi.  The Taliban fell and its survivors withdrew into Pakistan, but American and Afghan forces failed to capture Bin Laden.[1] 

            The American government then set about transforming Afghanistan.  Partly, this meant providing military security.  American forces remained in Afghanistan, although the numbers diminished after the attack on Iraq in Spring 2003.  Partly this meant economic and social modernization.  Roads and bridges were built to connect the countryside with the few big cities.  Schools and hospitals rose up.  Women saw many opportunities open before them.  Partly, it meant fostering democracy.  A parliament and a president re-emerged; there were elections. 

            Much went wrong in a pretty public way.  The “government” served as a device for corruption, much of it at the expense of American taxpayers.[2]  From their safe-haven in Pakistan’s border areas, the Taliban rebuilt its military power, then began attacks inside Afghanistan.  They targeted the government’s shoddy security forces.  They also attacked American outposts in the Northeastern part of the country.  These attacks couldn’t be called Taliban victories, but they did give the Americans a sense of the nature of their opponent.[3] 

            President Barack Obama inherited this mess, then tried to extricate America from Afghanistan.  First, he “surged” almost 100,000 American forces into Afghanistan in time for the Summer 2010 “fighting season.”  This did little to back-down the Taliban.  American generals began to express their belief that the war needed a diplomatic solution.  In May 2011, Special Forces finally killed Bin Laden in his Pakistan refuge.  In June 2011, President Obama announced that American forces would transition to a training and support mission. 

            President Donald Trump inherited this mess, then tried to extricate American forces from Afghanistan.  In 2018 it began negotiations with the Taliban, but without the Afghan government.  These negotiations concluded successfully from the point of view of the Americans and the Taliban.  In February 2020, an American-Taliban deal agreed that all American forces would be gone from Afghanistan by 1 May 2021.  Meanwhile, the Taliban agreed to cut ties with Islamic radical organizations, dial back its attacks on Afghan government forces, and negotiate with that government. 

            Relations between the Americans and the Afghan government went further down-hill after this deal.  The Taliban, which knew that they had won, proved unbending with the government, which knew that it had lost.  Nor did the Taliban check the violence very much.  Taliban forces have evicted government forces from much of the country and are taking control of local government and the roads 

            American security experts predict that the country will be under Taliban rule within two to three years after American forces depart.  President Biden then set the final departure date for 11 September 2021.  This is how endless wars end.  Better to ask how they start. 

[1] David Zucchino, “America’s War in Afghanistan: How It Started and How It Is Ending,” NYT, 23 April 2021. 

[2] OK, not actually taxpayers.  The US put the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the credit card. 

[3] See, for example, https://mwi.usma.edu/podcast-the-spear-combat-in-the-kunar-river-valley/ 

The Murder Spike.

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            As the Covid-19 pandemic tide ebbs, all sorts of things come into plain view.  One unsightly revelation is the sharp rise in homicides during 2020.  Overall, the number of murders in major cities rose by more than a third (37 percent) over 2019.[1]  The number of the slain rose by 40 percent in New York, 58 percent in Atlanta, 62 percent in New Orleans, 74 percent in Seattle, 78 percent in Louisville, and by 95 percent in Milwaukee.  Taking New York City as an example, in 2006 there were 596 homicides; in 2009, there were 471 homicides; and in 2017, there were 292 homicides.  During 2020 there were 447 homicides.[2]    

            The resulting sorrow is unevenly distributed.  The violence hit the borough of Brooklyn hard: homicides rose almost 70 percent.  More strikingly still, 10 of the city’s 77 police precincts, representing 13 percent of the city’s population, accounted for 34.2 percent of the homicides. 

            What brought down the number of homicides?  What caused them to surge upward once more?  The truth is that no one is sure.  In some minds, the murder spike resulted from “frustration, anger,…trauma and mental health challenges” inflicted by the pandemic and its attendant lock-downs.[3]  In some minds, two decades of aggressive and targeted policing brought down murder rates; while the progressive reforms of recent years handcuffed the police.  The 1994 Crime Bill added 100,000 police to American forces, while greatly increasing prison space.  Policies like “stop and frisk” in high-crime areas, high cash bail and long periods awaiting trial, and mass incarceration, it is argued, cut down the freedom of action allowed to criminals.  These policies may—or may not—have driven down crime levels.  They undoubtedly spawned a political backlash that decried mass incarceration and disparate effects of policing. 

            New York City embraced the new attitude.  In 2014, the city stopped appealing a court verdict against “stop and frisk” policing; the police then greatly reduced their use of the practice.  In 2019, the city announced a plan the close the gigantic Riker’s Island jail and to limit the city’s jail population to a much lower total of 3,300 inmates.  In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the City Council passed further reforms.  These included a $1 billion cut in the police department’s budget, and explicit restrictions on the use of things like choke-holds.[4]  The budget cut led the NYPD to skip recruiting an entire class of new officers.  The state did its part as well.  In 2017, it raised the age of criminal responsibility, making it more difficult to charge 16- and 17-year olds as adults.  In 2020, it passed bail reform to reduce cash bail. 

In short, say conservatives, the reformers shifted the balance of forces on the streets of crime-plagued areas between the police and the criminals.  One result, they say, is that many police have backed off from pro-actively enforcing the laws, while others have retired. 

For the last decade, Blacks and Hispanics have born the burden of gun violence (95 percent) and that trend continued through 2020.  If Black Lives Matter, then do all Black lives matter or just those taken by the police?  It’s a choice facing progressives.  

[1] Heather MacDonald, “Taking Stock of a Most Violent Year,” WSJ, 25 January 2021. 

[2] Rafael A. Mangual, “The Homicide Spike Is Real,” NYT, 20 January 2021. 

[3] Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot, quoted in MacDonald, “Taking Stock.” 

[4] For what it’s worth, see Joseph Wambaugh, The Onion Field, where the opinion is offered that it is really hard to subdue those resisting arrest without using choke-holds. 

The Asian Century 19.

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            The Trump Administration decided to deal with the puzzle of how to manage the ascent of the Peoples Republic of China by hammering the living daylights out of China.[1]  China runs a big trade surplus with the United States, so Trump slammed on heavy tariffs.  The payment asymmetry meant that the Chinese could never hurt the United States as much by reciprocating. 

China has long-standing claims on Taiwan, now a more or less democratic and economically successful country of its own.  The Trump Administration diverged from long-standing American policy on Taiwan by warming up to it. 

China has been extending claims over the South China Sea, notably by turning reefs into fortified islands, then claiming the airspace overhead.  The Trump Administration challenged these claims, but also pressed Congress to build up the Navy. 

China has engaged in a long-running struggle for American hearts and minds.  The Trump Administration turned the FBI and Department of Justice loose on Chinese theft of intellectual property; then did the same on China’s efforts to cultivate agents of influence in academia and media. 

            However, the most effective Chinese agents of influence, during the Trump Administration and long before, were American businessmen who profited from the China trade.  They have always argued for “moderation” and “dialogue” in China policy.  Sometimes, President Trump listened to them, as did many of his predecessors.  At times, he seemed to be seeking a “Grand Bargain” with China in which China would mend its ways in return for the United States easing up its pressure.  Any such hopes crashed on the rocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and Trump’s re-election campaign.  The “Kung Flu” line allowed him to blame China for the pandemic without acknowledging his own lackluster response.[2]  American policy on China got tougher during 2016. 

            Tougher didn’t mean more effective.  The Peoples Republic of China continues on the same path as before.  That leaves the Biden Administration with an array of important decisions.  Is “Get Tough With China” the wrong policy?  In that case, one could expect an abandonment of coercion in favor of a return to older policies.  Is “Get Tough With China” the right policy, but it hasn’t had enough time to work yet to change the behavior of such a formidable rival?  In that case, one could expect a continuation of the path we’re on, dressed up with rhetorical distancing from the Trump Administration.  Is “Get Tough With China” the right policy, but the Trump Administration didn’t go far enough?  In that case, one could expect the addition of tight controls on further American investment in China, ugly quarrels in various international organizations, and port-calls by the U.S. Navy all over the region. 

            Other questions naturally follow.  How much stress can either country take?  Does Zi Jinping represent a consensus of Chinese leaders?  If not, how solid is his grip on power? 

[1] Josh Rogin, Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century (2021), reviewed by Dan Blumenthal, WSJ, 12 May 2021. 

[2] Yet uncertainty remains whether Trump was entirely wrong about the origins of the pandemic.  See: Michael Gordon, Warren P. Strobel, and Drew Hinshaw, “Report on Wuhan Lab Fuels Covid-19 Debate,” WSJ, 24 May 2021; Jeremy Page, Betsy McKay, and Drew Hinshaw, “The Wuhan Lab Leak Debate: Disused Mine at Center Stage,” WSJ, 25 May 2021. 

Israel and America.

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            The long-standing orthodoxy: the tiny, embattled democracy of Israel is encircled by hostile dictatorships; American support for Israel allows the country to survive, while giving the United States the influence to prevent Israel acting within safe bounds.[1] 

            The context for the orthodoxy: the Soviet-American Cold War made the Middle East, with its oil and important place in communications, a key area for American security; the Arab Cold War between revolutionary and monarchical dictatorships made for de-stabilizing meddling; Arab military incompetence allowed Israel to expand its borders, so a solution to the Palestinian problem would reduce the dangers of war in the entire region; and Middle Eastern oil underpinned a prosperous world economy. 

            The new heresy: The Cold War has ended, so Americans can view international affairs in a different way; Israel has made peace with most of its neighbors; Israel never intended to accept a Palestinian state, and the Arab states have abandoned the Palestinians to their fate; the great division in the Middle East runs between Shi’ites and Sunni; a nuclear-armed Israel is a valuable ally against an Iran striving for nuclear weapons of its own. 

The trigger for Israel’s drive for greater autonomy may have come during the First Gulf War.  The Americans couldn’t prevent Saddam Hussain’s Iraq from launching Scud missiles at Israel in an effort to broaden the war and undermine Arab support.  President George H. W. Bush did arm-twist Israel into not responding.  This may have suggested that post-Cold War Americans had begun to think of Israel as just another chess piece.  Israel began preparing against the day. 

            The Israelis have managed to reconfigure their “occupation” of the West Bank into something that they—and the world—find tolerable.  To accept a Palestinian state would be to endow their worst enemy with the benefits of sovereign statehood.  That state would much more easily provide a base from which Hamas or the next version of the Islamic State could rain down death on the heart of Israel.  Intervention and defensive response would both be much more difficult.  Moreover, security barriers and check points have hived-off Israelis from Palestinians.  The Israeli : Palestinian death toll has fallen from three-to-one to twenty-to-one.  Palestinians may be miserable, humiliated, and enraged, but they are largely forgotten by the world. 

            The fear of Iran and of other forms of Islamic radicalism is bringing about a diplomatic realignment.  Relationships have been “normalized” with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Morocco.  All this will be crowned—sooner or later—with warm relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.  Moreover, Israel is in search of new friends.  It’s hard to claim that your country is a democracy when it is holding several million Palestinians in a colonial status.  Illiberal democracies like Hungary and India seem to be targets of Israel’s diplomacy. 

            Benjamin Netanyahu, at least, has been demonstrating his contempt for the United States since the Obama administration.  Fair enough.  Some future historians will write a book about our recent and current politics and diplomacy called America in a Dark Hour.  But the United States has been through bad patches before and recovered.  Betting on permanent decline seems like a game for the overly-clever. 

[1] Inspired by Max Fisher, “Israel Grows Less Reliant on U.S. Aid,” NYT, 25 May 2021.