Friday News Roundup - April 12, 2024
This past week created three visuals revealing that the pillars of the U.S.-led, rules-based international order are shaking to their foundations. The first was a rare address to a joint session of Congress by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a close ally and only the second Japanese leader to ever address the body, warning U.S. lawmakers that abandoning Ukraine in its hour of existential need would send a shudder through America’s global alliance network, and embolden authoritarian regimes (read China) as far away as Asia.
“I want to address those Americans who feel the loneliness and exhaustion of being the country that has upheld the international order. The leadership of the United States is indispensable,” said Kishida. “Without U.S. support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow? Without the presence of the United States, how long before the Indo-Pacific would face even harsher realities?”
Juxtaposed against Kishida’s plea that the United States overcome “self-doubt” about its traditional role as the standard bearer for global democracy was the sight of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, traveling to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound to consult with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. After delaying for months a vote on a $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine passed by the Senate, Johnson had signaled his intent to finally bring it up this week. Yet a declaration of opposition from Trump, who has publicly opposed the aid package and called it “stupid,” could scuttle the deal or spell the end of Johnson’s speakership if he allows a vote.
The third revealing visual this week was officials and diplomats from 32 member nations celebrating the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Brussels, toasting alliance “unity” even as they looked over the shoulder nervously at Washington, D.C. European allies widely fear that a possible return to the presidency of Trump, who has repeatedly questioned the value of the alliance’s guarantee of collective defense, could truly signal a return to 1930s-style, “America First” isolationism. In February, Trump went as far as suggesting he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that failed to meet alliance defense spending guidelines.
To celebrate NATO’s 75th Anniversary, CSPC Senior Fellow James Kitfield begins this Friday News Roundup with a remembrance of the late Ambassador David Abshire, the Center’s former Chairman and President, and a former U.S. representative to NATO at the height of the Cold War. Senior Fellow Robert Gerber analyzes worrisome recent inflation news, while Senior Fellow Hidetoshi Azuma examines the address of Japanese Prime Minister Kashida’s rare address to a joint session of Congress.
Ambassador David Abshire (1926–2014): Lessons from NATO’s “Perfect Victory” in the Cold War
By James Kitfield
This week, on April 11, 2024, the late Ambassador David Abshire would have turned 88-years- old. Abshire was the former Chairman and President of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress (CSPC), co-founder of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of the preeminent think tanks in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Among his many government positions Abshire was also an adviser and confidant to multiple American presidents, and notably as the special counselor to President Ronald Reagan during the Iran-Contra crisis he helped save the Reagan presidency.
More than all that, Abshire was one of the true “wise men” of Washington, and his bedrock belief in America’s endless possibilities, his innate understanding of strategic leadership, and above all his faith in the importance of civility in both the public and private spheres stood out, and are buried deep in the DNA of CSPC. So influential was Abshire as a mentor to countless Washington officials that we at the Center often still joke about the sheer reach and breadth of the “Abshire Mafia.”
Perhaps noted historian and presidential biographer Evan Thomas described him best in his forward to Abshire’s memoirs, The Statesman.
“Dave Abshire had good manners. He was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to be genteel, and trained at West Point to hold himself correctly. He valued civility above all virtues (with the possible exception of courage, which he showed as a combat infantry officer in Korea). But what distinguished Dave, what made him memorable in a city of distinguished men and women, was that he was a generous man. He had the kind of patient confidence in the face of adversity that only comes from a truly decent and benevolent nature. He understood how to care for men in foxholes, and in a grander sense, for his country. He held people, but especially himself, to a high standard. But he was understanding and forgiving of human foible, as long as intentions were honorable. It is not surprising that both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan called on David Abshire when their presidencies were in crisis. It is also unsurprising that Dave said no to Nixon and yes to Reagan. He knew that Reagan was worthy of his trust.”
David Abshire played a prominent role in the effort to make America a superpower with a higher purpose. In that sense his story mirrors the nation’s ascendance in what is now called “The American Century,” a decade’s long effort following World War II that included plenty of mistakes and defeats, but one that culminated in a strategic victory in the Cold War against Soviet tyranny.
As U.S. Ambassador to NATO beginning in 1983, at the height of the Cold War showdown, Abshire played a critical role in that drama. Soviet leaders were very near to splitting the alliance through coercion by stationing intermediate-range nuclear weapons targeting European allies from the soil of their East European neighbors in the Warsaw Pact. The Germans especially initially resisted matching that deployment by stationing U.S. intermediate-range missiles on their territory. All of the European allies were spending far too little on their collective defense, and spending it inefficiently.
Along with his close friend former Senator Sam Nunn, D-Ga., the powerful Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Abshire helped develop a “good cop”/“bad cop” strategy to nudge NATO allies into spending more on defense, reforming inefficient and redundant NATO structures and organizations, and accepting U.S. intermediate-range nuclear weapons to match the Soviets. As the “bad cop,” Nunn inserted a provision in the defense authorization bill that proposed removing 90,000 U.S. troops from Europe over the next three years unless our allies met defense funding benchmarks. As the “good cop,” Abshire got Nunn to agree to commit an additional $200 million to NATO that could only be used on collaborative weapons projects involving the U.S. and its European allies. The strategy was a smashing success.
“The resurgence of NATO reveals all of the major themes in my life’s narrative: the need for civility and trust as the brick and mortar of governance; the importance of a process of constant self-improvement and reform; and the critical role of visionary, strategic leadership,” Abshire wrote in his memoirs. “At the beginning of the crisis, there was little trust in the transatlantic security relationship writ large, and a tremendous divide across the Atlantic in terms of perceptions of the threats we all faced. Both sides needed to listen to the concerns of the other in a civil debate that eventually built a common understanding — the gateway to greater trust.”
With his clever carrot-and-stick approach, Nunn supplied the visionary leadership, Abshire wrote, characteristically deflecting credit from his own prominent role in the effort.
“The result of the NATO reforms played an important role in the West’s victory in the Cold War, which in turn freed 100 million people and reordered the known world,” wrote Abshire. “The bedrock Western security alliance was united and moving forward together as President Reagan moved into his crucial negotiations with [Soviet leader Mikhail] Gorbachev. The Soviet Union’s attempt to split the alliance, with its deployment of intermediate-range nuclear weapons targeting Europe and buildup of superior conventional forces, had failed. Reagan was able to negotiate with Gorbachev from a position of strength. Through honest dialogue, trust, strategic vision and leadership, the West prevailed in the seminal conflict of the era without ever firing a shot. I believe Sun Tzu would have recognized it as the epitome of ‘the perfect victory.’”
As an epitaph to this critical episode in the Cold War, Abshire points to its importance in understanding the value of NATO for the future of U.S. security.
“Though some have questioned NATO’s relevance, as I write this in 2014, I believe NATO’s role as the bedrock of the Western alliance remains indispensable.”
James Kitfield is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
Inflation Report Card: Worrisome
By Robert W. Gerber
Pre-Guacamole at Harris Teeter, Arlington, Virginia (Photo Credit: Author)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued its monthly Consumer Price Index report on April 10, and the news was not good if you are an incumbent running for reelection. The index measures prices across food, housing, energy, and petrol. Over the past 12 months, prices have risen 3.5%. Prices rose 0.4% during the month of March, as they did in February. The Dow Jones stock index dropped 500 points on April 10 on fears that the inflation report would inspire the U.S. Federal Reserve to maintain or raise interest rates. The year-on-year inflation rate is significantly above the Fed’s target of 2%, so investor fears of an impending rate hike are not unfounded.
Inflation does not just hurt at the grocery store. It also has several other effects. When the Fed maintains high interest rates or raises them in an attempt to cool inflation, it is much harder to buy a home unless you are a wealthy cash buyer. Higher interest rates also cool business investment: companies that want to finance new machinery find it significantly more difficult to afford what they need to grow their business. There are also startling impacts on the federal budget. The Peterson Institute explains, “America’s fiscal outlook is on an unsustainable path — increasingly driven by higher interest costs.” Interest payments cost the United States government $870 billion in 2024, up 32% over last year and exceeding spending on medicaid and children. These growing interest payments crowd out productive investment spending. High interest rates also hurt the balance sheets of highly indebted developing countries, which can have worrisome implications for a variety of U.S. foreign policy interests.
The Administration has — understandably — tried to emphasize rising job numbers, strong GDP growth, and wage growth. These are facts that defy last year’s “expert” predictions of a coming recession. But inflation is largely canceling out wage growth, meaning that voters do not feel better off despite more take-home pay. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine that voters will be satisfied by the Administration’s argument that the reduction in the rate of inflation since its peak is evidence that inflation is under control. These realities mean that inflation is a significant political liability for the current Administration and an easy target for Republicans to hit in their effort to win elections.
President Biden has said that fighting inflation remains his top economic priority. Certain White House policy announcements, however, undermine the fight against inflation. For example, a new student loan forgiveness program, announced by the White House April 8, would cost $84 billion on top of $475 billion anticipated under the previous “SAVE” plan, according to a Penn Wharton Budget Model estimate. The President has also proposed a new $20 billion grant program to support construction of affordable housing. While these programs would benefit certain target audiences, the macro effect of these programs would be inflationary and their outlays would add to the federal debt. Furthermore, a large portion of the spending authorized in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation has yet to come on line, making the problem of inflation control even more challenging. The President’s 2025 budget proposal fact sheet does not mention inflation. It does, however, propose a deficit reduction effort (centered on rollbacks of some of the Trump-era tax breaks on large corporations and wealthy individuals and reducing prescription drug costs) that would over time have a deflationary effect.
There is a low probability that the two political parties would agree to a bipartisan, long-term effort to curb federal spending growth and close the fiscal deficit. That means there is a high probability that we will have to rely on the Federal Reserve to do the hard work of curbing inflation, i.e., maintaining high interest rates well into the future. What to watch between now and the election: crude oil prices. With oil and gas futures rising, RBC Capital Markets analyst Helma Croft predicted there will be a White House “energy diplomacy effort” in June to persuade OPEC to increase production. This could be accompanied by releasing some barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserves. We shall have to wait and see whether these steps can convince a skeptical public that inflation is under control.
Robert Gerber is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
Fumio Kishida’s Realism
By Hidetoshi Azuma
The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addresses to the joint session of Congress on April 11, 2024 (photo credit: The Office of Prime Minister of Japan)
The Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s state visit to the U.S. this week marked a watershed moment in the evolution of the US-Japan alliance. Forged in 1951 and upgraded in 1960, Washington’s military alliance with Japan has guided the resurrection of the war-torn nation into Asia’s economic bulwark against communism during the Cold War and into America’s key regional ally in the age of great power competition in the 21st century. Beyond pomp and circumstance across Washington this week, the real significance of Kishida’s historic US trip was Japan’s newfound role of leading the task of burden-sharing enshrined in the bilateral alliance. In other words, the US-Japan alliance now stands on its head, leading Japan, not the US, to join the driver’s seat in implementing the security pact. Kishida has therefore proven himself to be Japan’s foremost realist by fulfilling the seemingly impossible agenda of emancipating Japan from the yoke of post-WWII pacifism while simultaneously preserving domestic support and even receiving Washington’s lavish accolade.
In his historic address to the joint session of Congress on April 11, Kishida proudly declared himself to be “an idealist, but a realist, too.” He went on to pronounce that the defense of liberal values would be the national interest of Japan rather than mere idealism. Provocatively, he even called out America’s growing “undercurrent of self-doubt” about its role in the world, alluding to the rise of isolationism in the US in recent years. He then defined Japan’s new role of picking up the slack left by America’s perceived global retrenchment by standing shoulder-to-shoulder around the world beyond Asia. In other words, he presented Japan as America’s global force multiplier, a consequential departure from the country’s historical geopolitical status as Washington’s key regional logistical hub for the US military’s forward presence. Echoing the former prime minister Shinzo Abe’s “Alliance of Hope” unveiled in his 2015 speech to the joint session of Congress, Kishida envisioned the US and Japan to be “Global Partners for the Future”, underscoring the growing unity between the two allies in the years ahead.
Beyond rhetoric, Kishida has indeed sought to be Japan’s foremost realist in both theory and practice. In fact, he has frequently demonstrated personal obsession with realism, leading him to declare “The Realism Diplomacy for a New Era” in 2022 consisting of 1) the defense of the rules-based international order, including the Free and Open Indo-Pacific; 2) enhanced security bolstered by the strengthening of the US-Japan alliance; 3) efforts toward a world without nuclear weapons; 4) the strengthening of the United Nations; and 5) expanded international cooperation in addressing new security challenges, such as economic security. While these elaborations themselves hardly resemble a realist worldview, he has repeatedly attempted to craft his image as a realist. His passion for realism was palpable when he invited the late Henry Kissinger in 2022 to seek wisdom from the world’s leading realist.
In fact, Kishida has proven himself to be realism’s purist in practice. Indeed, despite his lofty rhetoric, he has achieved little success in remedying the global nuclear proliferation and democracy’s beleaguered fate worldwide, including in Ukraine. By contrast, he has found his own niche, not to say success, in accelerating Japan’s security normalization. On his watch, Japan has suddenly emerged as Asia’s foremost rising military power now capable of even launching first strikes backed by a growing defense budget set to exceed 2% of the country’s GDP. In this sense, the series of defense agreements signed in Washington this week were the culmination of Kishida’s realism.
Therefore, Kishida’s realism reached its zenith while in Washington as he successfully consolidated Japan’s security normalization. Remarkably, he executed with seeming blithe disregard for the growing political crisis at home. Indeed, Kishida’s own support rate has been steadily declining, renewing its record lows almost every passing week. Moreover, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been in its existential crisis rocked by the ongoing political funds-related scandals, even leading to the recent mass lauree of senior lawmakers, such as the ex-prime minister hopeful, the Upper House member Hiroshige Seko. The truth is that Kishida himself has been orchestrating the LDP’s purge masquerading as a special investigation. Ironically, Kishida himself has emerged more powerful than ever as a key beneficiary of the ongoing political crisis, further consolidating his reputation as a realist.
On his way home to Tokyo, Kishida must be rightly reveling in his unrivaled feat in Washington and feel assured of his political longevity. Yet, the reality is that little has changed to his fate inherently dependent on the LDP’s powerful kingmakers, such as the former prime minister Taro Aso. In this sense, Kishida’s realism is in fact his brand of Machiavellianism honed by his years of power struggle within the LDP’s party structure. In this sense, he is more a survivalist than a realist in the scholarly sense. Indeed, Kishida has unveiled no vision for Japan beyond uttering hackneyed platitudes. While many in the US welcomed Kishida’s realism resoundingly declared on the Capitol Hill, it must not be misunderstood to be his personal feat. There is no guarantee that Kishida’s successor would prove to be equally ruthless in pursuit of Japan’s geopolitical imperatives. Thinking beyond Kishida therefore requires a renewed focus on impersonal, institutional engagement with Japan lest its domestic politics undermine his unmistakable legacy.
Hidetoshi Azuma is a Senior Fellow at CSPC
American Gerrymandering Part I: A Brief History
By Greyson Hunziker
Representative Wiley Nickel (D-NC) introduced the Fair and Impartial Redistricting for Meaningful and Accountable Political Systems (FAIR MAPS) Act on Tuesday. The bill would create 15-person independent commissions in each state to draw congressional election maps following the census each decade. This policy would target gerrymandering, the practice of legislators and their parties drawing districts to advantage themselves. The party in power typically either packs the opposing party’s voters into just a few districts to create many wasted votes or spreads the opposition vote across many districts to dilute it. Sometimes, incumbents will work across the aisle to ensure they retain their seats. Rep. Nickel’s bill comes after he announced in December that he would not seek re-election because his district was gerrymandered into a safe Republican seat.
This phenomenon, known as gerrymandering, is not a recent development. In fact, it got its name over 200 years ago. On March 26, 1812, the Boston Gazette ran the headline “The Gerry-mander” above a political cartoon of a Massachusetts Senate district captioned “A new species of Monster, which appeared in Essex South District in January last.” The cartoonist, Elkana Tisdale, gave the district wings, claws, and a head with teeth. The term ‘gerrymander’ comes from the district’s shape resembling a salamander, and the name of Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who signed the redistricting plan into law the previous month. The term caught on quickly, with 80 uses in newspapers in the remainder of 1812, 35 percent of which were outside of Massachusetts.
Fashioning election districts to benefit certain politicians was not new, but the example that led to the coining of “gerrymander” was particularly egregious for its time, and it worked. The Democratic-Republicans’ plan secured them 29 seats in the 1812 Senate elections with only 49 percent of the vote compared to the Federalists’ 11 seats with 50 percent of the vote. Gerrymanders thus continued apace, and in 1852, Democrats won only 53 percent of the Indiana popular vote but 10 out of 11 congressional districts.
After the passage of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted black men the right to vote, gerrymandering took on a new form. Southern states drew districts aimed at minimizing the election of Republican and black candidates. In 1874, South Carolina even introduced a non-contiguous district, but the U.S. House forced them to redraw it for the 1876 election. The 1882 “boa constrictor” district in South Carolina is another notable example. White Democrats controlling the legislature concentrated as many black voters as possible into one meandering district. Although most of the state’s population was black, only the boa constrictor district elected a black congressman. Southern states did not rely on racial gerrymandering alone, however, employing literacy tests and poll taxes as well to suppress black voters. In 1964, the Voting Rights Act eliminated literacy tests and provided provisions to ban racial gerrymandering.
Additionally, some states would go long periods of time without redistricting, leading to unequal representation. For instance, Alabama left districts drawn in 1901 unchanged for over 60 years. At one point in the 1960s, a rural Alabama district had 15,000 people compared to the Birmingham district, with over 600,000. However, this changed with a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases, starting with Baker v. Carr in 1962 and ending with Reynolds v. Sims in 1964. These cases applied a one-person, one-vote standard in congressional and state districts, requiring redistricting after each decennial census.
While these court cases helped resolve egregiously unequal representation, gerrymandering only became more complex. With the advancement of computer technologies since the late 20th century, highly precise gerrymandering can be achieved with maximum efficiency. Oftentimes, the districts are extreme, such as these from the 115th Congress. Wisconsin has even used non-contiguous districts. In December 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that the state must redraw districts for the 2024 elections because “At least 50 of 99 Assembly districts and at least 20 of 33 Senate districts include separate, detached territory.”
Federal courts have had little to say on the practice, at least compared to the landmark cases from the 1960s. In Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that partisan gerrymandering is constitutional and a congressional rather than judicial issue, although the courts still adjudicate racial gerrymandering. As recently as Wednesday, a federal court ruled that the City of Miami unconstitutionally gerrymandered voting districts by race and ethnicity.
States have taken some actions on gerrymandering, however, primarily by establishing independent districting commissions to take the power away from legislators. Washington and Idaho passed independent commissions in 1983 and 1994, respectively, but most gerrymandering reforms have occurred in the 2010s. Today, only ten states have independent commissions, some of which are political, limiting their effectiveness or leading to gridlock. Gerrymandering is thus still alive and well, and reforms have come very slowly.
Greyson Hunziker is a student intern at CSPC