Friday News Roundup — June 12, 2020
Rising to the Challenge We Face; Prague Spy Capers; Examining #DefundThePolice; The Benefits of Our Partnership with Germany; Plus News You May Have Missed
Greetings from Washington, D.C., and a good Friday morning to you. Another week in, we remain focused on the growing protest movement following the killing of George Floyd. Though we are also covering other stories in this week’s roundup, we recognize that there is no more important story in our city or our nation.
As spring turns over into summer, there are worrisome signs that the COVID crisis is still with us. In several states, case counts are growing where reopening may have been hasty. It remains to be seen how local authorities will react and whether the public is prepared for a reimposition of lockdown.
This week, Joshua reviewed “Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West,” in The Diplomatic Courier. We will welcome Ms. Belton for a virtual discussion on June 24th.
Next week, on Thursday, June 18th, we will also be hosting a virtual discussion with Ben Hubbard, the Beirut Bureau Chief for The New York Times, to discuss his book, “MBS & the Middle East Today.”
In this week’s roundup, Dan looks to the words and leadership of great presidents to challenge us to unify, but also tackle the challenges we face with new thinking. Joshua looks at the diplomatic and intelligence shenanigans at the Russian embassy in Prague. Chris looks at what policy debates actually fall under the slogan “Defund the Police.” Ethan and Michael each look at the U.S. relationship with Germany, but from different angles. As always, we close with some news you might have missed.
Shedding the “Dogmas of the Quiet Past”
Dan Mahaffee
It’s an understatement to say that 2020 has been a helluva year. Almost halfway through the year, we have seen tumult in our politics, our security, our public health, our economy, and now on our streets. In many respects, we find ourselves polarized, divided, and, frankly, tired.
At CSPC, where our policy approach reflects the leadership and inspiration of President Dwight Eisenhower, we have focused on the historical fulcrum upon which we now stand. Just as his presidency was a key point in setting the path for what would be the Cold War, we stand at a new era of great power competition. However, pick up any newspaper, turn on any TV channel, or log-on to any news site, and one cannot be blamed for thinking that the United States is neither great, nor powerful, nor competitive.
Our politics pushes us further and further apart, as polarization-for-profit attracts grifters to punditry and partisanship rather than policymaking. At the same time, decades of short-term thinking left us unprepared for crises — like the pandemic — that experts long called inevitable. Small scale conflicts around the world kept us distracted while major enemies studied and planned to defeat Americans on future battlefields abroad all the while exacerbating divisions at home. In seeing our fellow Americans as political enemies, we opened the door for real dangers. Historic injustices and inequalities — a debt that continued to compound — went unaddressed, if not worsened. Leaders who focused on stoking culture war, win-the-base politics, find their toolbox empty when it comes to uniting and healing a nation and embarking upon renewal.
As Abraham Lincoln warned in 1838, long before the treason of the Confederacy:
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! … At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
Our laws, institutions, and traditions — in a democracy — all rest on the shoulders of the people. If we are not willing to protect them from enemies within or abroad, they will not survive. At the same time, we cannot let them ossify, or use tradition as an excuse for oppression that denies our fellow citizens their prosperity and their lives.
America must find a way to reconcile, but it must also seek reform and renewal. Paradoxically, we must sacrifice some modicum of our self-interest for the sake of a common good that ultimately represents the best hope for freedom. Throughout our history, the ability of the United States to adapt and rise to challenges it faced guaranteed its survival. We face a laundry list of 21st century challenges that will not be overcome by 20th century reactionaries nor revolutionaries.
Decades after he had warned that our demise would only come from divisions within, Lincoln addressed Congress with the country divided, and a bloody stalemate on the battlefields. He exhorted not only Congress, but also the people who elected them with the challenge:
It is not “can any of us imagine better?” but, “can we all do better?” The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
A Spy Hoax, Office Politics, and a Statue in Prague
Joshua Huminski
In a story that now seems more Austin Powers than James Bond, the recent drama in Prague involving a statue, ricin, and an alleged assassination plot appears to have ended.
This saga began in early April with the removal of a contentious statue in a Prague district honoring Marshal Ivan Konev. Marshal Konev is a hero to Russians for his role leading the Soviet forces on the Eastern Front during World War Two. He is, however, a symbol for many Czech’s of decades of Communist rule. He is reviled for his role in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution in 1956 and involvement in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.
In 2018, the municipality rewrote the plaque accompanying the statue to reflect more accurate information, a move that prompted a sharp rebuttal from Moscow. In September 2019, the municipal council in Prague voted to take the statue down and move it to a new Museum of Memory of the 20th Century.
The removal triggered an attack against the Czech embassy in Moscow by unidentified masked men. The Russian embassy in Prague, for its part, issued a letter accusing the Czechs of “seeking to worsen the entire complex of Russian-Czech relations” warning that the “vandalism” would “not remain without an appropriate response”.
The story took on a more sister turn when a Czech news weekly, Respekt, published a report in late April that Czech intelligence was investigating a plot to poison the mayor, Zdenek Hrib, who supported renaming the square in front of the Russian embassy in honor of Boris Nemtsov, a murdered Russian opposition leader, and two other Czech officials — Ondrej Kolar, who spearheaded the removal and Pavel Novotny, a politician responsible for installing a memorial to Russian army defectors.
According to the report, a Russian intelligence officer traveled to Prague on a diplomatic passport, carrying ricin, a lethal toxin, with the goal of poisoning the mayor. The Russian embassy denied the report and a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, dismissed the report as fake.
In May, Czech media identified the suspected intelligence officer as Andrei Konchakov. Konchakov denied the allegations, telling a Czech news website that his suitcase only contained “disinfectant” and “candies”. The Russian embassy subsequently requested protection for Konchakov, saying he was receiving anonymous threats.
As if the story could not get any stranger, it now appears that the entire plot was a hoax. In early June Prime Minister Andrej Babis of the Czech Republic said that “one [Russian] embassy employee sent deliberately made-up information about a planned attack on Czech politicians”. The Prime Minister added “This whole affair was initiated as a consequence of an internal fight between employees of the Russian Embassy in Prague.” According to unconfirmed reports Konchakov and another employee, only identified as Ryabakov were rivals in the Russian embassy and Ryabakov fabricated the story to implicate his office nemesis.
Both employees were expelled by the Czech government. Unsurprisingly, the Russian embassy in Prague dismissed the allegations calling them a “provocation” adding “based on ungrounded accusations in the media from the beginning, this hostile step shows Prague is not interested in normalizing Russian-Czech relations, which have recently degraded, for which we cannot be blamed.”
The irony is that the entirety of the plot — the removal of a contentious statue through to the poisoning — touched on real world fears and historical events. In 2007, the removal of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn in Estonia triggered a cyberwar orchestrated against Moscow that essentially took the entire country offline. Russia also has a legacy of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 by Russian intelligence officers using Polonium-210. Sergei Skripal, his daughter, and two others (separately) were poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok — a deadly nerve agent. Skripal was a Russian military officer who was recruited by British intelligence and later swapped in exchange for 10 Russian “illegals” arrested in the United States.
While, perhaps, amusing, the office politics-inspired spy hoax illustrates the very real fears of Russian intelligence activity in the Czech Republic specifically, but regionally and globally more broadly. Russia has and continues to use intelligence operations as a way to leverage their comparative weakness and extend their foreign policy reach. If anything, for Prague, this hoax and the resources it consumed, likely adversely impacted real counterintelligence investigations of Russian officers and their agents that are certainly working in the country.
#DefundThePolice: What Does It Mean?
Chris Condon
With the protests over George Floyd’s murder continuing as the weeks roll on, the movement continues to evolve. While the protests in Washington, D.C. were originally haphazard and rage-fueled in large part, the movement in the capital has become a well-oiled, generously supplied machine. Protestors have ceased throwing water bottles at police and instead use this energy to make signs, cook food for their fellow protestors, and chant louder each day. What protestors chant and what protest groups have posted on social media has also changed. Originally many slogans were those that were already familiar to most, from “I can’t breathe” to “hands up, don’t shoot.” Recently, another slogan has taken root on social media: #DefundThePolice.
Like all slogans, #DefundThePolice is meant as a rallying cry rather than a concrete policy proposal. By their nature, slogans are not specific and are not nuanced, they are broad, blunt instruments used to convey a larger point. This one is no different, and is more of an umbrella term for a whole spectrum of solutions to reform policing in America. On the more reserved end of the spectrum are some moderate Democrats, who see the need for serious change but have reservations regarding the most radical proposals. Among solutions proposed by this group is the reallocation of limited funds from police departments to community organizations and public schools to better serve communities that police have failed. This proposal is framed by proponents as a measure to lower the crime rate at its source rather than responding to criminality with excessive, bloated police forces.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are radical protest groups who seek wholesale change to the justice system. Among these individuals, #DefundThePolice is often accompanied by the more revolutionary #AbolishThePolice. This group seeks to eliminate the need for large-scale police departments, opting instead for community policing and severely increased budgets for social services. For many, police departments have been a symbol of racial oppression, and many in the black community are afraid to even call the police when their lives are threatened. It is from this foundation that the most extreme proponents of defunding the police build their argument. In their estimation, police cannot be trusted with any level of power, and should no longer be viewed by society as a force that protects and serves.
Somewhere in the middle, there are a litany of other proposals that protest groups have considered. In Camden, New Jersey, the local government abolished the police union that had prevented local authorities from doing away with police officers that performed their duties inadequately. They then fired all of the police department’s officers, making any officer who wished to rejoin the force reapply and have their history on the force examined in totality. This enabled the local government to eliminate questionable officers while being able to institute important restrictions that had been opposed by the police union. While this proposal wouldn’t necessarily reduce the size of police departments or reduce their funding, it may be at home among #DefundThePolice groups. It is also a proposal that some conservatives may be able to get behind, as it eliminates a public sector union and allows police departments to continue operations.
Another important proposal that would fall somewhere near the middle of this spectrum is prohibiting police departments from purchasing surplus military-grade equipment from the U.S. armed forces. Since being instituted in 1997, the infamous federal 1033 program has allowed over 8,000 local police departments nationwide to purchase surplus equipment from the Department of Defense. This has spurred the use of military-grade weaponry in domestic law enforcement, including military aircraft and watercraft. While some conservatives have argued that such a program is necessary to allow officers to keep up in the “war on police,” many Americans now see the program as a dangerous allowance for police to become more aggressive using weapons of war. Groups from the Cato Institute to the ACLU and beyond have opposed the 1033 program for years.
Since the slogan has gained steam, conservatives have used it to argue that protesters are extremists who are advocating for anarchy. This is a strawman of course, as few among reform advocates want to see the complete elimination of any semblance of law enforcement. #DefundThePolice is a clumsy way of illustrating the need for systemic reform in policing, but to many of those who use it it is not a call for anarchy. The movement is a wide spectrum that is populated by all manner of political persuasions; there are libertarians who believe police departments must not be allowed to violate constitutional liberties with impunity but also believe the federal government’s role in change must be limited. There are anarchists who hope to see the system turned on its head. There are liberals who are fighting for racial equity in entitlement programs alongside policing. One thing these groups have in common is that they want change, and they want it now.
NATO Alliances: Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Ethan Brown
In a move that belies coherent foreign policy, the United States appears to be preparing for the withdrawal of some 9,500 military personnel from Germany. The White House directive to the Pentagon will reduce the overall U.S. forces in there by roughly one third, with additional mechanisms proposed that will force a cap on total troops permitted to enter the NATO ally’s borders- further constraining the flow of personnel who transit the European nation on their way to other theaters of military effort.
The reduction in forces appears to have taken place without any coordination amongst other NATO allies, and at face it seems to be a unilateral decision. The impetus of the decision remains unclear, although some conjecture asserts the reduction is due to the ongoing dispute regarding Germany’s defense budget and NATO spending.
The missive has drawn resounding backlash from a Republican-led house coalition, who voiced a desire to continue the deep ties between Germany and the United States. Led by House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), a letter sent to the White House cited the effects of capping military personnel numbers in Germany and across NATO would “significantly damage U.S. national security, undermine the NATO alliance, and strengthen the position of Russia to our detriment”. The administration has received bipartisan criticism for its disregard for the NATO alliance, and this missive by 22 House Republicans has been one of the most ardent party breaks in an attempt to re-vector the administration’s policies overseas.
The move to withdraw troops based on a lack of equitable contribution to the NATO mission is a toothless argument, especially when trying to justify fracturing a relationship as pivotal to the alliance as U.S.-Germany as core members. Under pressure from early years of the Trump administration, Germany had already agreed to a $36 Million increase to the overall NATO budget, offsetting a 5.75% reduced contribution by the United States; the result (beginning in 2021) ensures both parties foot approximately 16.35% of the NATO defense budget.
From the German side of the issue, the perception is one of ‘punishment’ doled out by Washington- largely related to the German cooperation with Russia on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline sitting at 96% completion. The pipeline bypasses all other EU states between the Russian Federation and Germany by way of the Baltic Sea; from there, natural gas not purchased by Germany (who is heavily dependent on exports for its energy security) will make its way to other EU states.
When boiled down to brass tacks, the threat of the drawdown is yet another violent swing in American foreign policy, when just more than a year ago the administration voiced staunch support of the NATO alliance and its key members. It’s a dangerous swing that plays into the narrative of last year’s errant remarks by France’s Emmanuel Macron on NATO’s “brain death”- that NATO is a dinosaur of a bygone bi-polar power era. While the world has become infinitely more complicated than liberal individualism (democracy) v. collectivist (communist) thought, NATO still has a modern role to play in keeping the rising powers of China and the old ones in Russia off balance.
The rhetoric by GOP-hawks should not cause alarm, however, nor be the rallying cry of those pining for the days before 2016’s sudden shift in foreign policy by the United States. The threat, even the execution of a withdrawal of U.S. forces is unlikely to push Germany into the waiting arms of Russia.
The German government recently expelled two Russian diplomats, as a result of the Kremlin refusing to acquiesce to calls for an investigation into the murder of a Georgian man named Zemlikhan Khangoshvili. The victim was murdered in August of last year, in Berlin, by a Russian expat with a history of contract killings. Khangoshvili was a former Chechen commander living in Berlin under Asylum who had been labeled by the Russian government as a terrorist. Violating a state-granted Asylum is unlikely to make a strong argument for increasing diplomatic and societal ties. Russia’s extensive history in clandestine and political savagery is extensive and speaks for itself.
One of the most influential dynamics at play here is that the Nord Stream 2 is intended as a means for Moscow to bypass Kiev and Warsaw (and the fees accrued in the process) as it attempts to increase its participation in the EU market. Throughout the project’s life cycle, Germany’s main reservation about engaging Russian on the pipeline was the effect its completion would have on Ukraine, although a recent energy agreement between Moscow and Kiev has largely assuaged those concerns. So, while the threat of U.S. sanctions remains the most fiscally damaging (potential) action against Germany, the removal of U.S. troops is more upsetting from a security standpoint.
Germany is caught in a difficult position, between the rock that is the United States’ difficult and often changing foreign policy (one that has seen slights dished to allies and irenics offered to authoritarians), and the hard place of enabling Russia to expand its energy security initiatives at the inevitable cost to the NATO alliance. Vladimir Putin has been feverishly working to expand those energy stakes abroad in an attempt to offset its still-flagging economy, and any means of undermining the United States influence abroad is undoubtedly within the scope of Russian efforts.
Withdrawing personnel, threatening increased sanctions, and other overt efforts to undermine our allies in security cooperation is playing right into the cards held by Moscow- made worse at a time when NATO’s stability is even more critical in unifying the liberal democratized world against the rising great power rivals.
Germany is a Major Hub of American Power
Michael Stecher
On a reconnaissance patrol in the Tigris River valley in Iraq in 2007, a shot rings out. A U.S. Army officer on the scene, First Lieutenant Brad Mellinger goes down with a bullet wound in his leg. His wound is serious and he is at risk of bleeding to death in the next few minutes. A soldier calls back to Balad Air Base, 60 miles outside Baghdad and, within minutes, a Blackhawk helicopter is in the air. The Blackhawk touches down feet from where 1LT Mellinger is laying; he is carried aboard and the helicopter lifts back off. These pilots show incalculable bravery in getting to wounded servicemembers, who are often under continued fire when they arrive.
20 minutes after he was hit, 1LT Mellinger is in the emergency room receiving treatment for a shattered femur. As soon as he is in less risk of imminent death, he is put on a plane under the care of the Air Force Critical Care Air Transport Team and flown to Germany for more emergency surgery. Roughly 18 hours after his was wounded, he is in one of the most advanced, sophisticated trauma departments in the world.
As recently as the Vietnam War, roughly ¼ of servicemembers whose wounds required hospitalization died. Medical evacuation to trauma centers could take hours. Field medics generally did not want to use tourniquets because, in the intervening hours a soldier might develop gangrene or infection. As a result, many more people bled to death. If 1LT Mellinger had received the same wound in Vietnam, he would have been 33% more likely to die of his wounds.
Discussions of the costs and benefits of the United States’s close relationship with NATO and Germany often tend towards the philosophical — and I cannot fault Ethan’s overview of it above — but this is the most important part of it: the American way of war would not be possible without the transportation, logistics, and medical hub that is currently located in Germany. 20 years ago, there were roughly twice as many troops in Germany as there are now, as changes in priorities have reallocated forces towards the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. What remains is substantially the support personnel that serve as the central node of American power for a significant portion of the globe.
There has been some discussion about the prospect of moving more combat units from Germany to Poland as a way to show favor to an ally that feels more “on side” to the Trump administration. Despite several years of work on the subject, no real progress has been made, since the Polish government has balked at providing some of the same benefits the U.S. receives in Germany, so it is not clear that repositioning forces to other European countries would be easy. In short, if the United States did not have its current hub in Germany, it would need to build it elsewhere — without the real estate provided at no cost by Germany or the benefit of the beneficial placement of U.S. bases beside major road and rail infrastructure.
The Trump administration has not provided a policy rationale for its recent decision to withdraw approximately ⅓ of U.S. forces in Germany, so we cannot assess this choice in terms of its ability to affect administration priorities like preparing for great power competition or encouraging European countries to provide more funding for their own militaries. It is true that Germany is among the worst offenders in terms of NATO burden-sharing. Germany currently has a plan to meet its spending commitments … by 2031. Nor are its funds currently very well spent, as they tend to prioritize personnel costs as opposed to procurement or development, which is why their army sometimes trains with broomsticks instead of rifles.
It is not likely, however, that the response to this decision will be additional defense spending. The German electorate is split on whether U.S. presence in the country enhances their national security, and the parties in Germany who are happiest about the prospect of U.S. forces leaving also favor a more independent foreign policy, including greater accommodation with Russia. That the administration has made this choice without consulting the German government, NATO, or other allies has struck many as irresponsible and detrimental to allied unity.
After almost 20 years of war, there should be a reckoning about what the U.S. military is and does. Choices were made in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union that made it possible for U.S. foreign policy to become increasingly militarized and primed to undertake missions that cost blood and treasure for marginal strategic ends. An increasing acceptance of violence as a constant tool of statecraft has bled into other parts of our lives, to our collective detriment. Haphazardly abandoning a constructive American role in Europe is not the first step in that process. It just makes our most important foreign policy goals harder, for almost no determinable benefit.
News You May Have Missed
China’s COVID Aid Plan: Less than Meets the Eye
As part of global efforts to reduce the burden on the world’s poorest countries from the economic impact of COVID-19, China has announced a new two-part relief plan. Along with the other members of the G-20, China will suspend all interest and principal payments from 77 countries through the end of the year. In addition, China has announced a $2 billion fund to help countries with COVID-19 response and economic development in affected countries. Closer inspection, however, suggests that number may include previously announced funds as well as things like WHO payments. In addition, the threat of selective debt relief may be another attempt to leverage previous loans to create “debt trap diplomacy.”
Insiders See New Weakness for Syria’s Assad
The Syrian Civil War has lasted for 9 long, terrible years. Despite an international consensus that the regime has “won” by gassing, bombing, and displacing enough civilians that there is no one left to fight, President Bashar al-Assad’s position remains weak and may be getting weaker. The regime has outsourced much of its security to Russian mercenaries, Iranian proxies, and local warlords, and its economy is a catastrophe. Regional observers have begun to fear that President Assad could fall, leading to another round of civil war or that the state could essentially fracture altogether. The world’s greatest tragedy still has room to get worse.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.