Diplomacy key in North Korea, but America needs to honor its multiple global commitments if it is to keep credibility. I spoke with John Vause at CNN International about rising tensions and current threats in the Trump-Kim standoff. View Video
SAN FRANCISCO
Brown soot-filled skies darken this San Francisco day as homes and fields burn a few miles north in Napa and beyond. It is the worst regional fire here in generations.
Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and now Northern California — tourist destinations all — are reeling from a death toll and economic hit brought by hurricanes, floods, and fires. Rebuilding everywhere will be expensive, and federal money will only go so far. America’s nearly $500 billion annual tourist industry would be expected to help fuel the revenue growth that will fund local economic resurgence.
But not this year.
An area resident evacuates his Silverado Trail home as flames from a wildfire approach Monday, Oct. 9, 2017, in Napa, Calif. Rich Pedroncelli AP
On the heels of the Donald Trump election, Las Vegas mass shooting, Muslim travel bans, an alt-right resurgence, and a palpable negative shift in how America is perceived globally, nations are issuing U.S. travel warnings and fanning fears of an America that no longer welcomes foreigners or succors its own citizens.
Take Mexicans, for example. President Trump actively denigrates them, so they increasingly have decided to stay home this year. That means the U.S. will lose over a billion tourist dollars from Mexico. Estimates for 2018 are even worse. Travel professionals see the dramatic drop in U.S. tourism as an international reaction to America’s new politics. They call it the “Trump Slump.”
Nuke deals are all the rage these days. The United Nations sees nuclear accords as a path to world peace. President Barack Obama worked toward a “global zero” nuclear-free future.
President Trump, on the other hand, is highly skeptical of deals with Iran and North Korea because he understands what Tehran and Pyongyang leaders already know: Nuclear disarmament deals are for suckers.
Countries generally balk at giving up their hard-won and expensive nuclear capabilities because nuclear weapons are a time-tested and reliable deterrent. Giving up these weapons requires faith that any agreement inked is rock solid and that the countries agreeing to unilateral nuclear disarmament are assured they will not wind up like Ukraine or Libya – invaded or overthrown.
Trump does not inspire this faith. Neither does he have faith that the other side will do as it’s told. READ MORE
Sandbox politics is hard to watch, but easy to interpret. One side hurls an insult, the other responds louder and more offensively. The exchange ends with thrown sand or thrown fists. Bloody noses and bruised egos follow.
Ask any parent. Or Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who just called the President Trump-Kim Jong-Un war of words a “kindergarten fight.” No one wants to be lectured by Russians about civility, but the man has a point. The childish Trump-Un verbal showdown is frightening. It could lead to war.
The world may be beyond shock or outrage given last year’s rude and raucous presidential election. But every once in a while it’s worth stopping to ask how we got here and what it means.
POTUS is name-calling, potentially making a bad situation with North Korea worse. Un deserves every epithet flung his way, of course, but what’s unprecedented is the loud, public invective coming from the leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of the world’s greatest military force. READ MORE
Kill the Muslims. That's how the latest version of the Muslim ban is shaping up. Started shortly after Donald Trump made it clear to the world that Muslims were not welcome in the United States, other countries started their own, more brutal and deadly effective ban.
Rohingya Muslims stretch out their arms to reach food being distributed near Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. With Rohingya refugees still flooding across the border from Myanmar, those packed into camps and makeshift settlements in Bangladesh are desperate for scant basic resources and fights erupt over food and water. Bernat Armangue AP
The Myanmar military maims and massacres Muslims as they run them out of their country. In Myanmar, it’s not enough to ban Muslims; they are being permanently banished. Army regulars are chasing Muslim Rohingya toward and over a recently beefed-up border wall that is a low-tech, high-risk strip of land made of land mines and barbed wire. There is no big, beautiful door in this border wall.
Without mincing words, the United Nations has now declared what is happening in Myanmar “ethnic cleansing.” Yale researchers and Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari agree that it looks like genocide.
Enter an expressly “America First” administration as ethnic cleansing returns to the world stage and hits the headlines. Not our problem, apparently. In this new world, Rohingya are as likely to see the American cavalry coming as Midwesterners are to experience Martians landing in Chippewa Falls. READ MORE
What a disastrous few weeks. Historic hurricanes, massive earthquakes, and large-scale wildfires have all simultaneously struck the Americas, grabbing headlines and inspiring telethons. The reporting has been extensive and the outpouring of generous homegrown support seems endless.
American society might be uniquely constituted to work together during crises, with national self-reliance a distinct part of this country’s character, heritage, and mythology. American leaders call attention to disasters and ask communities and their political representatives for help and money. A free, open and independent media report it all.
Elsewhere in the world, however, bad instincts or habits lead political and corporate leaders to mislead, hide, and deny disasters or impending doom. Russia and China are particularly susceptible to this trait, but it is generally true for less democratic and minimally accountable governments and institutions where disaster can translate into political crisis or even the threat of regime change.
In the former Soviet Union, the initial reaction and official denial of the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and crisis set in motion the conditions for the eventual downfall of the entire empire. In a new biography about Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, the Chernobyl cover-up was considered the turning point that put Gorbachev on the political reform path toward a greater openness that became unstoppable. READ MORE
Characterizing himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” Barack Obama tried to shift America’s focus, strategic commitments and resources to Southeast Asia. Hillary Clinton was all for it, too, authoring a 2011 vision for an Asia-focused foreign policy titled “America’s Pacific Century.”
President Trump – consciously or not – is now suddenly fast-tracking the Obama-Clinton policy goal with his new, crisis version of the “Asia Pivot”.
In this Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017, file photo, a man watches a television screen showing U.S. President Donald Trump, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea. North Korea has announced a detailed plan to launch a salvo of ballistic missiles toward the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, a major military hub and home to U.S. bombers. If carried out, it would be the North's most provocative missile launch to date. Ahn Young-joon AP
North Korean nuclear blasts and ICBM testing met by intransigent American rhetoric and military might have suddenly and intensively led to a rapid, if perhaps accidental, Asia Pivot 2.0. This new pivot is made up of more guns and less butter. If the Clinton-Obama policy led with trade, the Trump Pivot leads with tirade.
This quickly evolving Trump pivot is now in full swing, being implemented more by circumstance and reaction than design. A hydrogen bomb can focus the mind and crystallize a new policy. All the world’s eyes are watching to see how it plays out as miscalculation, mistake or failure could be catastrophic. READ MORE
Natural disasters know no political boundaries. And that’s why international humanitarian relief flows so quickly, and in such great and humbling quantities, when hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis strike.
But today, with Houston suffering as Mother Nature’s latest victim, will the world’s giving nations step-up and step-in to help American relief efforts?
Or are things in an America First world different?
Questioning the world’s appetite to help Trump’s America at this moment is a serious question.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the New Orleans tragedy that followed, the world was tripping over itself to help George W. Bush and Louisiana. The relief efforts ranged from offers of Afghan cash to deployment of Thai doctors and nurses. The Spanish sent crude oil, electric generators and food rations and Swedes airlifted over an emergency mobile phone network. The outpouring of help was overwhelming. Read more
Fighting his instincts, reneging on campaign promises, and disregarding his anti-globalist advisers, President Trump told America he changed his mind about Afghanistan. It is the kind of reversal he hates because it dilutes his brash brand.
An Afghan National army soldier stands guard a checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 21, 2017. On Monday, President Donald Trump delivered his first formal address to the nation since taking office as he revealed his strategy for the war in Afghanistan. Rahmat Gul AP
But true to his gut, he won't be nation building, constructing hospitals, or making sure girls can once again wear miniskirts to school. The Trump strategy instead is to make sure Afghanistan doesn't further devolve while he looks to hand off the problem to someone else.
Like a distressed property, Trump wants to offload the war and Afghan reconstruction at the right discounted price in a handshake deal.
His ideal buyer is not a mercenary band, though he was pitched and considered the idea. It’s not to a still incapable Afghan government or even to tired and distracted European allies. They aren’t buying. No, Trump figures that with a mini-surge of patching and fresh paint, he can sell this problem asset as an opportunity to someone in the neighborhood with interest in the location, location, location.
India tops the list.
Budapest’s Freedom Square hosts a prominent and controversial Soviet war memorial. Hungarians regularly argue for its removal, but it remains unmoved and guarded. It is an exception.
The bulk of Soviet-era statues in Budapest and in countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain have been removed, relocated, and reinterpreted. The idea is not to erase history, but to contextualize it. And now, as recent events and President Trump rekindle the debates surrounding Confederate statues and monuments, America should look to other countries’ tortured histories and controversial memorials to get a grip on how to handle its own.
The bronze statue of Lenin at Memento Park in Budapest, Hungary, a museum exhibiting dozens of Socialist-era statues and monuments removed from the streets of Budapest after the fall of the communist regime.
In Hungary, Freedom Square’s remaining Soviet monument is a fenced off, sometimes vandalized reminder of a WWII liberating army. Notably located, the Soviet obelisk stands next to the U.S. Embassy, just below the ambassador’s window. Unlike other U.S.S.R. monuments in Budapest, a treaty guarantees this one’s place and preservation.
Other Communist monuments, however, have been removed and relegated to a final resting place just outside of town in Memento Park. The park boasts “the biggest statues of the cold war” and is a lesson in how to reinterpret a nation’s painful past. Supersized statues of Communist-era commissars stand quietly in the elements, without interpretation. Nearby, however, a museum barracks full of educational material puts the era and objects into complete and nuanced context. School groups and tourists visit regularly. Read More
In the 1960s, John F. Kennedy was facing the threat of nuclear weapons within striking distance of the United States. The Soviet forward-deployment forced America to stop Russia’s advance, just 90 miles from the homeland. Brinksmanship brought Kennedy “eyeball to eyeball” with Nikita Khrushchev. It was the Soviet president who blinked.
Fast forward to 2017. President Trump will not be the one who blinks, but someone else might. If it is Kim Jong-un, then the game of chicken and nuclear confrontation has paid off for this U.S. administration. The real challenge in this crisis, however, faces not Kim but his patron in Beijing.
Indeed, the real question in 2017 is whether Chinese President Xi Jinping will blink.
Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered for a rally at Kim Il Sung Square carrying placards and propaganda slogans as a show of support for their rejection of the United Nations' latest round of sanctions on Wednesday Aug. 9, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Jon Chol Jin AP
Trump’s team won a remarkable unanimous-vote UN Security Council resolution to punish North Korea last week. It was a diplomatic coup that set the legal and multilateral stage for action against North Korea and any nation aiding and abetting the pariah state. Mainly, that means China. Read More
Americans may have lost sight of the Afghan war, but Donald Trump’s new chief of staff, General John F. Kelly, has not. He sacrificed his son to that war. He knows that what happens in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan. Now, if he can focus West Wing minds, he may bring Afghanistan back to the public consciousness, where it belongs.
Americans pay more attention to fantasy sports, Instagram feeds, and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” than they do to the longest war in America's history. If there is collective attention deficit disorder, it's understandable. The war is white noise.
John Kelly, then-Homeland Security secretary, talks to the media during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 2, 2017. Andrew Harnik AP
War reporters call kinetic action “boom-boom.” Exploding stuff makes good pictures and gets attention. But nearly 16 years of boom-boom has dulled Americans’ senses, and their outrage. Years of fighting to turn out the Taliban evolved into nation building, troop surges and active counterinsurgency and then morphed into rounds of presidentially-ordered redeployments and more training of Afghan forces before creeping, finally, into the supposedly narrow counterterrorism mission that falls short of the withdrawal politicians every election cycle say they support.
Clearly, something happened along the way. READ MORE
LESBOS, GREECE
Docked alongside Greek fish taverns and cafes, multi-flagged naval vessels unload their human cargo, and their crews’ depleted spirits, onto this postcard-perfect island. Muslim migrants and refugees flow onto Greece’s shores, fleeing troubles at home and looking for a better, European future.
It is the stuff of Steve Bannon’s nightmares.
Humanitarian images on Lesbos’ sunny beaches and camps likely look to President Donald Trump’s chief strategist like the geopolitical frontline in his perceived war on Western civilization. Bannon sees here the starting point for a great Muslim march across Europe — a condition he identifies as “civilizational jihad personified by this migrant crisis.” His boss has picked up on the theme. Read more...
Marketing to Americans, the Kremlin-sponsored global television network – Russia Today – challenges viewers to "Question More." That award-winning slogan is at the top of its website and appears on billboard ads in major markets, asserting that there is always more to uncover beneath the surface of every story.
In a world where “fake news” has become a powerful meme fueled by President Donald Trump’s charge against journalism he dislikes, questioning more is a good idea. After all, critical thought is a key to understanding the motivations of institutions and individuals. Everyone should question more.
Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, speaks to the press at the presentation of Russia Today and Russia al-Yaum English and Arabic news channels, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007 in New York. DIMA GAVRYSH AP
RT’s gambit, however, should be questioned a bit more too. Why does this Russian network put so much emphasis on its slogan?
In the American context, it wants its U.S. audience to question the American political system by playing to conspiracy theories and an underlying belief that corruption lies at the heart of all American politics. Unfortunately, this is fertile territory, from congressmen who stash cash in freezers to administrations ginning up intelligence to support a war. A 2015 Gallup poll showed three out of four Americans believe their government is corrupt.
RT’s approach intends to turn an already skeptical American electorate into a distrustful mob of political cynics. READ MORE
America’s abandonment of global leadership during the Trump administration does not mean that Americans are ready to give up the fight for a safe and peaceful future. In fact, President Trump’s retreat from challenges to the global commons brings more attention to Gov. Jerry Brown’s efforts to act on climate change.
California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks to journalists on board a high speed rail leaving from the Beijing South train station during his last trip to China in 2013. Ng Han Guan ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brown’s upcoming visit to Beijing will focus on keeping up the COP21 Paris accords momentum Trump wants to radically reverse. California’s aggressive stance on pollution controls and environmental standards will be highlighted. The governor wants to make a lasting difference in the world.
Some are critical of a state’s role in concluding agreements with sovereign nations like China, arguing that only the federal government has the right to enter accords. But Trump’s climate change denial and waning global influence creates an international opening for California to assert both its power and promise. READ MORE