Midterm Assessment the Trump Administration's Foreign And
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Midterm Assessment The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies Foreword by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster Edited by John Hannah & David Adesnik January 2019 Center on Military Center on Economic Center on Cyber and FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES FOUNDATION CMPP and Political Power CEFP and Financial Power CCTI Technology Innovation Midterm Assessment The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies Foreword by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster Edited by John Hannah & David Adesnik January 2019 Center on Military Center on Economic Center on Cyber and CMPP and Political Power CEFP and Financial Power CCTI Technology Innovation Midterm Assessment: The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies Table of Contents FOREWORD 6 Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster INTRODUCTION IRAN EUROPE 8 John Hannah 10 Mark Dubowitz 14 Benjamin Weinthal and David Adesnik NORTH KOREA CHINA RUSSIA 18 David Maxwell and 22 Mathew Ha and 26 Boris Zilberman Mathew Ha Eric Lorber TURKEY SYRIA HEZBOLLAH 30 Aykan Erdemir and 34 David Adesnik and 38 Emanuele Ottolenghi and Merve Tahiroglu Toby Dershowitz Tony Badran ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN EGYPT LIBYA 42 CONFLICT 46 Jonathan Schanzer and 50 Romany Shaker and Jonathan Schanzer and Romany Shaker Tzvi Kahn David May IRAQ SAUDI YEMEN 54 John Hannah 58 ARABIA 62 Varsha Koduvayur John Hannah and Varsha Koduvayur AFGHANISTAN SUNNI JIHADISM ARMS CONTROL & 66 Thomas Joscelyn and 70 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross 74 NONPROLIFERATION Bill Roggio Orde Kittrie and Behnam Ben Taleblu DEFENSE CYBER ECONOMIC SECURITY 78 Bradley Bowman 82 Annie Fixler and 86 Juan C. Zarate David Maxwell HUMAN RIGHTS CONCLUSION 90 Saeed Ghasseminejad and 94 Clifford D. May Tzvi Kahn | 5 FOREWORD Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster CMPP Chairman McMaster was the 26th assistant to the president for National Security Affairs. He served as a commissioned officer in the United States Army for 34 years before retiring as a Lieutenant General in June 2018. 6 | Midterm Assessment: The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies N THIS MIDTERM ASSESSMENT, FDD experts and scholars Ievaluate the Trump administration’s efforts to advance and protect U.S. vital interests. The assessment spans the broad range of threats and challenges to national security and prosperity that our nation faces. Those threats and challenges include revisionist powers, hostile states, and transnational terrorist organizations. And the essays also consider new domains in which these threats operate (such as cyberspace) as well as increasing dangers associated with the potential breakdown of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the prospect of hostile states and non-state actors gaining access to some of the most destructive weapons on earth. This assessment deserves wide attention because the stakes are high. And it deserves attention because the authors have transcended the vitriolic and shallow partisan discourse that dominates much of what passes for commentary on foreign policy and national security. The 2017 U.S. National Security Strategy emphasized the need to compete more effectively to protect our free and open societies from those who are promoting authoritarian and closed systems. Nations committed to democratic governance and free market economies must demonstrate a much higher degree of strategic competence, especially in cooperative efforts to improve security and grow prosperity. And overcoming challenges to national and international security will require confidence – confidence in democratic principles, institutions, and processes as well as confidence in our free market economies. At a time when those who know the least about issues seem to be those who hold the most strident opinions, FDD’s work as represented in this assessment is essential to generating the bipartisan understanding necessary to compete effectively and preserve America’s strategic advantages. | 7 Midterm Assessment: The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies INTRODUCTION John Hannah rying to make a fair assessment of President withdrawal might be executed to minimize risks. One day T Donald Trump’s foreign policy halfway through U.S. troops were staying and the next day they were leaving. his term is fraught with challenges – not least the extreme polarization afflicting the Trump era. For the Needless to say, when American national security president’s opponents, there is little merit in anything strategy becomes prone to overnight reversal based on that he has done. For his supporters, he can do almost little more than the unilateral whims of an erratic president, no wrong. An honest effort to weigh pros and cons, to any attempt to assess that strategy becomes particularly account for both the successes and the shortcomings, difficult. A strategy to secure U.S. interests in Syria against seems guaranteed to antagonize nearly everyone, save Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State that appeared challenging for the shrinking minority that still clings to the political but sound to many analysts on December 18 was suddenly center and puts a premium on old-fashioned – but upended by an impulsive tweet on December 19, yielding critical – notions of bipartisanship. an irresponsible, dangerous, and chaotic mess. Worryingly, what is true for Syria today could apply A second difficulty for anyone taking stock of Trump’s to other issues tomorrow. Within days of his withdrawal foreign policy is the president’s own unpredictability. announcement from Syria, Trump also ordered that Nothing ever seems settled – even when it seems settled. U.S. troops in Afghanistan be cut in half – catching not Trump’s Syria policy is the starkest example to date. In only America’s Afghan allies by surprise, but also U.S. March 2018, Trump took his national security team by negotiators who were struggling to initiate peace talks surprise when he announced at a political rally that he would with the Taliban. Who can predict with any confidence be bringing U.S. troops back from Syria “very soon.” After from one week or month to the next that Trump will not being advised that the Islamic State still posed a significant suddenly and radically alter the U.S. force presence in Iraq, threat, Trump relented. Senior U.S. officials then spent South Korea, or Japan? He has certainly complained about several months reassuring audiences that the president all these deployments in the past, questioning their cost, had decided to remain in Syria until the Islamic State their value to America, and why the U.S. was doing what had suffered an enduring defeat, all Iranian-commanded local partners should be doing for themselves. For that troops had left the country, and an irreversible political matter, he has also done this repeatedly with respect to process was underway. But within the span of a few days the U.S. role in NATO. in December 2018, Trump yet again upended the policy, deciding to withdraw all U.S. troops on the spur of the All this suggests that the half-life of any particular moment during a phone call with Turkish President Recep Trump policy could be decidedly short. Indeed, in just the Tayyip Erdogan. few weeks since his Syria announcement, the president and his advisors issued a flurry of statements indicating No prior discussion with his top foreign policy and that the withdrawal might actually end up being more military advisers. No notice to Congress. No consultation deliberate and conditioned than Trump’s initial tweets with allies – even those fighting alongside their American suggested. Trying to produce an edited volume that gives counterparts. And no advance planning on how a 8 | Midterm Assessment: The Trump Administration’s Foreign and National Security Policies readers an up-to-date rendering of the administration’s To make the collection as user-friendly as possible, efforts across a wide range of issues certainly runs the risk each essay is of similar length and follows an identical that at least some of the assessments could be overtaken three-part structure in addressing its topic: 1) a review by events – or, more accurately, tweets – in the week or of the administration’s policy to date; 2) an assessment two between the time when authors complete their final of the policy’s achievements and shortcomings; and 3) a revisions and publication occurs. With Trump, the standard set of recommendations to strengthen the policy over the warning label seems more apt than usual: While these next two years. essays have sought to provide an accurate snapshot of the administration’s policies at the time of writing, the authors While by no means a comprehensive treatment of are not responsible for any sudden disruptions that the every key area of U.S. foreign policy – climate change, president’s social media account may subsequently beget. sub-Saharan Africa, and Venezuela are absent, for example – the breadth and depth of knowledge on display is a Despite the unique occupational hazards of policy testament to the extraordinary range of expertise that analysis in the age of Trump, the Foundation for Defense of FDD’s researchers possess and the breadth of issues in Democracies nevertheless felt there was real utility in this which we are engaged as an organization. Along those lines, effort to collect in one place the considered judgments of it is worth mentioning that, consistent with FDD’s internal our experts on Trump’s policies at midterm. The flood of ethos of welcoming spirited debate among its experts, events since the president entered office, not to mention the views expressed reflect the professional judgments of the heat of the rhetoric, have often done more to obscure each essay’s author(s), and are not intended to constitute than illuminate reality. It is hard enough at times to recall any “official” institutional position. and make sense of what happened last week, much less last month or last year. By definition, midterm assessments consist of works in progress.