Don’t Knock Offshore Balancing Until You’ve Tried It

Whatever you want to call the Obama foreign policy, it has not been a calculated attempt to contain the rise of hegemonic threats.

by Stephen M. Walt for Foreign Policy

If one thing puts defenders of the failed policy of liberal hegemony in a lather and ultimately leads them to say careless things, it is any suggestion that the United States (or the world) might be better off if Washington adopted a more selective or restrained grand strategy, such as offshore balancing. Case in point: Peter Feaver’s recent claim here in Foreign Policy that President Barack Obama “shifted decisively toward an offshore balancing strategy in 2012” and that this shift was responsible for the rise of the Islamic State and all sorts of other bad things that have recently occurred in the Middle East. In short, he would like to convince readers that offshore balancing has been tried and found wanting, in order to persuade them that the United States should keep repeating the same misguided policies of earlier administrations.

For starters, Feaver doesn’t seem to understand the core logic of offshore balancing, which is actually straightforward and well-known in the strategic studies community. He appears to equate it with any policy that reduces the U.S. military footprint or liquidates a costly and losing commitment. Anything short of the sort of muscular U.S. “leadership” that Feaver has long favored is some kind of “offshore balancing” to him.

This is silly, and Feaver should know better since he recently responded in the pages of Foreign Affairs to an article John Mearsheimer and I wrote in that same journal explaining how offshore balancing works. It is a realist grand strategy par excellence, and its core logic is driven by concerns about the balance of power in key strategic areas. Offshore balancing recommends that the United States strive to be the only great power in the Western Hemisphere (i.e., maintain its current position as a “regional hegemon”), because this position maximizes U.S. security. The United States should also try to make sure no other power achieves hegemony in Europe, Asia, or the oil-rich Persian Gulf, because these regions contain large amounts of industrial power and key strategic resources.

If no potential hegemon is present or on the horizon in any of these areas, then the United States does not need to commit its own forces there and instead can pass the buck to local powers to uphold the balance of power themselves. If a potential hegemon emerges that the local powers cannot check, then Washington should step in and do what is necessary to tilt the balance against the hegemonic danger. Offshore balancing is clearly not isolationism, therefore, since it entails constant monitoring and deployment of resources — but the level of U.S. military involvement overseas becomes a function of the balance of power in three key strategic regions and is calibrated against the size and imminence of the threat.

Many labels could be put on Obama’s Middle East policy, but “offshore balancing” is not one of them. Why? Because there is at present no hegemonic threat to the balance of power in the region; indeed, the Middle East is more divided now than at any time in living memory. There is no good strategic reason for the United States to be militarily engaged there and certainly not at the levels of the recent past. I’ve never understood what Obama & Co. think they are trying to do in this part of the world — I’ve written many columns that were critical of their actions — but they have consistently done much more than an offshore balancer would have recommended.

To be more specific: It was not offshore balancing when Obama ordered a “surge” of additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan in 2009. This unhappy country was not a vital interest for the United States; it was easy to anticipate that this policy was not going to work (and it didn’t). Adding troops to the theater there just squandered resources and political capital in an area of marginal strategic importance.

Similarly, it was hardly offshore balancing when Obama decided to help topple Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, when he tilted against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, or when he demanded “[Bashar al-]Assad must go” at the very beginning of the Syrian uprising. And it was certainly not offshore balancing when the United States repeatedly interfered in Somali and Yemeni domestic politics as part of the “war on terror”; when it decided to organize a multinational coalition against the Islamic State; or when it provided various forms of covert support to Syrian rebel groups.

None of these actions was designed to prevent a powerful state from establishing hegemony in the Persian Gulf or greater Middle East. On the contrary, they were partly motivated by familiar counterterrorism concerns (usually exaggerated) but even more by the same familiar brand of overzealous liberal hegemony that Democrats and Republicans have been endorsing for years. Liberal hegemonists believe the United States should remain the “indispensable” nation, that its vast power should be used to spread democracy and other liberal values wherever possible. They also tend to think that it is a great strategic achievement whenever Washington gets stuck with the burden of solving some intractable international problem.

It is hard to take seriously Feaver’s specific charge: that the decision to adopt “offshore balancing” and leave Iraq in 2011 is responsible for the rise of the Islamic State and thus has to be quickly reversed. Virtually every proponent of offshore balancing opposed the Iraq War, which was the key step that led to the creation of the Islamic State. Here’s an assertion impossible to refute: If the United States had not invaded Iraq in March 2003, there would be no Islamic State today. Did the removal of U.S. troops allow a vacuum for jihadis to exploit? Perhaps. But it is hard to see how the United States, having occupied Iraq and set up a new government, could have remained in that country once that new, post-Saddam Hussein government clearly wanted us out.

Feaver does not explain how that problem could have been overcome; nor does he tell us how a continued U.S. presence would have produced a stable long-term outcome there. The United States could not control Iraq’s political evolution when it had 150,000 troops in the country, and remaining there with smaller numbers after 2012 wouldn’t have produced Sunni-Shiite reconciliation, which was essential for any semblance of stability. If anything, staying in Iraq would have made Washington complicit in former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s anti-Sunni campaign — which made many Iraqi Sunnis initially welcome the Islamic State as a hedge against the government’s Shiite sectarianism. The real lesson, however, is that once the United States had broken Iraq and ignited a bitter sectarian struggle, no viable strategy would have allowed Washington to fix it.

The bottom line is clear: Offshore balancing has not failed in the Middle East because it hasn’t been U.S. strategy for almost a generation. The United States did act like an offshore balancer from 1945 to about 1990: It had vital interests in the region and wanted to prevent any state (including the Soviet Union) from controlling the Gulf. But it pursued this goal first by relying on Great Britain (until 1967) and then by turning to local allies like the shah of Iran. After the shah fell in 1979, the United States created the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF) so it could affect the balance of power swiftly and directly and thus deter a possible Soviet foray into the Gulf. But it didn’t park the RDF in the Gulf or elsewhere in the region; instead, it kept it offshore and over the horizon and didn’t use it until Iraq seized Kuwait in August 1990.

Unfortunately, Bill Clinton’s administration abandoned this smart strategy after the first Gulf War and unwisely adopted “dual containment.” Instead of letting Iraq and Iran check each other, the United States promised to check both at the same time. This policy required keeping forces permanently in the region, which became one of the reasons Osama bin Laden attacked the American homeland on 9/11. In response, George W. Bush’s administration adopted an even more ambitious (and delusional) approach: It decided to try to transform the region into a sea of pro-American democracies, beginning with the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (a decision Feaver enthusiastically supported).

We know how well that worked out! Obama was elected in part because he promised to end the Iraq War and reduce the U.S. military involvement in the region. And with some delays, he proceeded to implement the agreement to leave Iraq that Bush had negotiated and approved in 2008. The U.S. presence in the broader Middle East declined but hardly disappeared; indeed, American forces — including hundreds of drones and thousands of special operations troops — remain active in many countries in the region. As Andrew Bacevich has brilliantly recounted, the results of almost all these activities have been dismal.

Offshore balancing has not failed, for the simple reason that it hasn’t been tried. By contrast, Feaver’s prescription — more liberal hegemony — does have an abundant track record, and the results are not pretty. It is little wonder he mischaracterizes the strategy that underpins Obama’s failures and misrepresents the strategic alternatives. He is surely hoping Americans will forget all the trouble that has been caused by overzealous U.S. efforts to police the world and shape local politics in far-flung regions. After all, forgetting past failures is the first step toward repeating them.

From: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/12/08/dont-knock-offshore-balancing-youve-tried-it-obama-middle-east-realism-liberal-hegemony/amp/

Turkey aims using local currencies in trade with China, Russia, Iran, President Erdoğan says

From Daily Sabah

Turkey is taking steps to allow commerce with China, Russia and Iran to be conducted in local currencies, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Sunday, the government's latest effort to shore up the tumbling lira.

In a speech during an inauguration ceremony in the central city of Kayseri, Erdoğan also said that Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım would bring up the issue with Moscow during a forthcoming trip to Russia.

"If we buy something from them [foreign countries], we will do that in their currency; if they buy something from us, they will do it in our currency."

Erdoğan noted that Turkey will "play its own game" in the economic arena against "all games" played against it.

Erdoğan has called on Turks to cash in their foreign exchange holdings and buy lira and gold to stem the Turkish currency's decline.

Following Erdoğan's call to support the declining Turkish currency against the US dollar, Turkey's stock exchange also decided the same day to convert all of its cash assets into Turkish lira.

All of the cash assets will be kept in lira accounts, Borsa Istanbul said in a statement.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate went up to stand at 3.5430 at 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Friday, compared to 3.4860 at Thursday's close.

Also making remarks at the ceremony in Kayseri, PM Yıldırım said Turkey continues its economic growth despite all recent developments in the world. "It is for sure that Turkish economy remains strong against all attacks and ruses."

The lira has lost a fifth of its value this year, hit by a resurgent dollar and widening concerns on Turkey's economy and political stability in the aftermath of the July 15 failed coup by Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ). The intensity of the clashes with the PKK terror group is at its highest during the 40-year-long armed insurgency, while Turkey also battles with Daesh terrorists in its south in Syria.

The ongoing talks between Turkish political parties regarding a possible referendum on switching to presidential system in spring also adds up to events pressuring Turkish lira.

From: http://www.dailysabah.com/economy/2016/12/04/turkey-aims-using-local-currencies-in-trade-with-china-russia-iran-president-erdogan-says

Turkey moves full throttle toward one-party state

By Ali Bayramoglu for AL Monitor

The political mercury in Turkey is expected to hit record highs in April, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to put a crucial constitutional amendment on a referendum. Given the current political and social trends, the electorate is highly likely to approve the amendment and mark Turkey’s transition to an executive presidency regime — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest dream.

To come true directly in parliament, this dream requires support from at least 367 deputies in the 550-member legislature. The AKP, however, holds only 317 seats, which brings up the referendum option. For that, too, the AKP needs support from the opposition since constitutional amendments require the approval of at least 330 lawmakers to be put on a referendum.

For years, the AKP had sought to forge a political alliance to advance the amendment plan. The opportunity finally came in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt in the form of rapprochement with the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). In October, the MHP pledged support for the presidential system provided that its political sensitivities were taken into account. The AKP moved fast to draw up a draft and in mid-November submitted the text to the MHP. The two parties are now expected to jointly finalize the draft.

If materialized, the transition from a parliamentary to presidential regime will have a profound impact, both politically and socially, in Turkey. First and foremost, the country would abandon a system that has meshed with its social structure and political traditions for decades.

Turkish democracy has long been a flawed one, with the state dominating society, tight government control of freedoms, personality cults around leaders and a long-lasting military tutelage. Nevertheless, the country has sustained some sort of representative democracy as a political tradition dating back to Ottoman times. Since 1876, the year the first constitution was proclaimed, this tradition has rested on the parliamentary system. Barring periods of military rule, when the constitution was suspended and parliament temporarily dissolved, the parliamentary system has remained the essential form of governance — and not as some fluke of history, but as a choice grounded on tangible reasons.

In the Ottoman era, the parliamentary system was the means of power-sharing between the Sublime Porte and other social and political powers, ensuring representation for a society of diverse ethnic and religious groups. In Republican times, it became the basis on which a relative balance was sought and partially achieved at the country’s major fault lines — between secular and devout, Alevis and Sunnis, and Turks and Kurds.

The tradition is well rooted, and, in earlier years, the charismatic leaders of the center-right, Suleyman Demirel and Turgut Ozal, who also floated the idea of a presidential system to sustain their power, faced serious resistance and failed to forge ahead.

Today, however, the situation is dıfferent. The combined seats of the AKP and the MHP are enough to take the presidential system to a referendum. Erdogan seems confident that any proposal to that effect will win popular approval, which, given his steady popular support, is very much possible.

Obviously, abandoning the parliamentary system would amount to the burial of a relatively pluralist political tradition in favor of a relatively majoritarian system. This, in turn, is likely to accelerate the authoritarian shift that has been under way in Turkey for some time. In other words, the three main problems plaguing the country today — Erdogan’s personalization of power, tendencies of power concentration and quest to build an authoritarian democracy model — are likely to deepen fast.

The constitutional amendment draft the AKP submitted to the MHP contains ample evidence to that effect. Unlike presidential systems in democratic countries, which are based on the principle of a strict separation of powers, the AKP’s draft rests on the idea of the unity of power, embodied in the president. The president, for instance, is entitled to appoint half of the judges of the Constitutional Court, the Council of State and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors as well as the chief prosecutor of the Appeals Court. Given Turkey’s partisan traditions and the skewed relationship between judiciary and politics, this means that the top echelons of the judiciary would be shaped under the president’s tutelage.

Under the draft, executive power is naturally transferred to the president. The president, however, is not only entitled to run domestic and foreign politics and approve laws, but is equipped with some super powers that transcend into the legislative realm. The president can issue legislative decrees and even has the authority to dissolve parliament.

Yet, the most critical element that paves the way for a subordinate legislature is the one that allows the president to remain at the helm of a political party, an issue that Erdogan has insistently highlighted and even held as a top priority. Under Turkey’s existing electoral laws, the electorate votes for party tickets with multiple parliamentary candidates in broad electoral districts. The candidate lists are drawn up at party headquarters, mostly by the party leader. So, a president-party leader who has drawn up the list of candidates will inevitably become the political boss of the parliamentary group that emerges from the elections. In other words, the president will be the leader of the majority or at least the biggest party group in parliament and, thus, the de facto leader of the legislature.

All those draft provisions point to a system in which the governing party controls the state, or rather, a political party and the state become one. Back in 1935, Turkey experienced the most rigid version of this model — the legal one-party system — and knows very well what it means.

In sum, the presidential system proposal offers a prospect in which popular approval is seen as the sole source of legitimacy, universal values are played down and the concentration of power in a single hand is embraced as the ideal order. And all this comes as an institutionalized and permanent new structure and not any transient and reversible situation. Ankara’s mounting tensions with the European Union, controversial appeals to reinstate the death penalty and talk of joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization should be all seen in the same context.

From:http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/11/turkey-moves-full-throttle-toward-party-state.html#ixzz4Rn4nQrKQ

The 'Saudi Nukes' Saga

Media attention to the matter has been waxing and waning for a numbers of years now, but only in a rather submissive and off the cuff way. Could something really be cooking in this regard? Let's see.

At the beginning of November 2013, early reports surfaced that the Saudis might be trying to develop  nuclear capabilities. Hence, on Nov 6/7 The Guardian, the BBC and the Daily Mail carried articles raising a number of flags suggesting alleged Saudi efforts could be receiving assistance from Pakistan, whose nuclear program, the Sauds reportedly financed. However, two weeks later, Zachary Keck responded that there was no way the Pakis would sell the Saudis the bomb.

A little less than two years later, March 26, 2015, the Saudi Ambassador to the United States went on air on CNN to deny any allegation of capability and even intent:

On June 11, just as the Saudi Ambassador to the United Kingdom was telling The Telegraph that "all options are on the table", no less than Fareed Zakaria penned an Op-ed for the Washington Post debunking the rumours, and arguing that Saudi could never even dream of getting nukes, because just too primitive. Zakaria followed up with a GPS take on CNN to reinforce those points. However, asked to comment on these views, John Burgess, a former US Foreign Service Officer with experience of the Middle East, underscored the aforementioned Saud-Pak connection (June 20, 2015). In June 2015, Zachary Keck even evoked a potential North Korea connection??

Fast-forward to 2016: in an interview with The Independent in January, the Saudi foreign minister is evasive and ambivalent regarding Saudi intentions to acquire nuclear weapons, and on the 20th day of February, Duane Clarridge a former Senior CIA officer drops the bombshell: The Saudis already HAVE SEVERAL nukes:

Six days later, the confirmation: SAUDI ARABIA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and they've had them for about two years. Approximatively, this would mean they obtained them around February 2014. Comparing timelines, it is likely, therefore, that the November 2013 early reports had picked up on something serious. 

For further reading, Norman Cigar of the Strategic Studies Institute published an interesting book: Saudi Arabia and Nuclear Weapons: How Do Countries Think about the Bomb?  was released in March 2016.

Turkey's EU Accession bid unwinding?

The Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern probably used the right words when he called Turkey’s EU accession talks a diplomatic fiction. The clamour stoked by that declaration is only indicative of how thick that delusion had become.  It was however obvious that, as mentioned in our July 17 post, besides not belonging to Europe in any reasonably way- whether geographical, historical, cultural, or political- Turkey had also been drifting steadily away  from European values. With the country now on the fast track to an authoritarian metamorphosis disguised as state of emergency, it seems clear that accession is a no-go. Following the events of Incirlik, will the next step be a withdrawal or expulsion from NATO?  

Regardless, now that EU accession is finally increasingly off the table, Turkey will have to set its own path- hopefully refraining from blackmail and extortion as it has attempted to do (not without some success) with the EU. As we have observed, Turkey is the heir to a great culture and civilization. Its future course must be inspired by that cultural legacy; it must identify a plausible geographical context to unfold- the most natural being the Middle East; it must rediscover, but obviously reinterpret its history (given the disastrous epilogue of the Ottoman Empire); it must find its own sources and foundations of political legitimacy and good governance, and possibly ones that it can share with its neighbourhood, which could -and perhaps should- include Israel. 

In fact, if these two important states, plus, perhaps, Iran and Egypt, could cooperate to give birth to a Community of the Middle East that would certainly be seen as a positive development. The Europeans should obviously be at the window, hopefully supportive of Turkey's new course, as good and respectful neighbours. 

Collateral damage?

An unfortunate byproduct of regime change in Ukraine: Ukrainian Holocaust Perpetrators Are Being Honored in Place of Their Victims.

Post-Brexit Foreign Policy: A Resurgent Great Britain?

With a resounding majority, (472 yay to 117 nay), the House of Commons voted to approve  £31bn plan to revamp the Trident nuclear submarine program with new weapons systems. The next day, UK Foreign Secretary met the US Secretary of State and outlined the main pillars of a post-Brexit foreign policy. Much emphasis on shared values, shared language, shared history, a special relationship and a shared role in the world. 

At a time when the international order is increasingly under stress, challenged by rising powers, an almost perpetual European crisis, Middle East crisis, etc, the leaders of an "extricated Britain" feel they have a window of opportunity to play a role in restoring and regenerating that much weakened international order. The way the UK realigns and redefines its place in the world and its foreign policy mission will be a fundamental development to watch in future months. What we are likely to see though is the renewal of the Anglosphere, an alliance of destiny, heir to the once British Empire, as the main stage for UK initiatives, and coalitional platform. For now, let's watch what Britain does to weather the recession it is forecasted to undergo first.

Access Denied: Turkey in Europe does not belong

Recent developments in Europe-Turkey relations call for an articulate and thorough reflection on the current nature of the relationships and the prospects for its future evolution. This is especially the case as a result of the Brexit, which may suggest the idea to some that admitting Turkey could make up for the loss of Britain. This reflection must take place outside of politically correct clichés or dominant frames.

The bottom line is that while Association or even Enhanced Partnership Agreements are more that welcome, the European Union must under no circumstance admit Turkey as a full member. It simply does not belong in Europe geographically, culturally, historically, and politically. And here is why:

1) Geographically, Turkey is and always has been an Asian country. Its territory, comprising primarily the Anatolian peninsula, lies squarely in Asia, and its borders with Armenia, Iran, Iraq, and Syria simply underscore and reinforce this notion. Even its largest city, Istanbul, the former Constantinople, is really an Asian city. The roughly 5% of Turkish territory lying in Europe (it borders Bulgaria and Greece) is really a non-starter for a discussion on the topic.

2) Culturally, Turkey belongs to an altogether different civilization. Like its Ottoman predecessor, is a Muslim country, steeped in traditionally satrapic political institutions. Europe is and always has been a continent rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and institutionally rooted in Greco-Roman democracy. Europeans should have no concern declaring Turkey's foreignness to both fundamental constitutive elements of European identity. Turkey is the heir of a great and thriving civilization that has always defined itself in antithesis to the European one. To acknowledge this is in no way diminutive or demeaning of Turkey, it merely states the obvious fact that Turkey is 'Other' from Europe. Just as Turks are proud of their civilizational heritage, Europeans should be proud of their.

3) Historically, European empires and kingdoms have had to fight to repel Turkish invasions starting in the 13th Century: the Byzantines, the Bulgars, the Serbs, and the Habsburgs. In fact, the Ottoman threat has been a driver of early European collaboration when the continent's great powers formed the Holy League, in the 17th Century, to reverse territorial gains that the Ottomans had made. In short, Europe and Turkey have always been at odds, with the latter ever attempting to gain access to its more advanced neighbours.

4) Politically, European democracies have evolved to become a model of transnational integration building that highly successful institutional architecture known as the European Union, whose shared values are embodied in the concept of "Aquis communautaire" from which Turkey has been drifting -ever more distant. Ankara is expected to drift ever more toward authoritarianism in the aftermath of the so-called "phony coup" of July 2016.
-The secular and constitutional legacy of Republican reformer Ataturk has been squandered, and the democratic advances the country had achieved between the 1990's and early 2000's have been reversed. The country is now in a process fore-islamization, as the AKP party is transforming itself from centrist religiously-inspired party (roughly equivalent to European Christian-democratic parties) to a more openly Islamic party whose reinvigorated values are being institutionalized in the state.
-National and religious minorities are regularly targeted and repressed.
-Ankara still continues to refuse to acknowledge responsibility in the genocide of the Armenians.
- It is engaging in a shameless racketeering practices by weaponizing refugee flows from the Middle East and beyond to extort economic and political favours from the EU. A practice that is utterly unacceptable and that European leaders like Angela Merkel, should not have even allowed Turkey to entertain.
-Erdogan's ever more pronounced cult of personality has led him, after introducing tight censorship and free speech limitations at home, to de facto export it to Europe itself- consider the episode of the German comedian and other critical commentaries addressed to Erdogan in European countries.
-Turkey is playing an ambiguous if not abetting role in the context of the latest wave of terrorism and radicalism surrounding ISIS and spreading from there.

All this being said, Turkey has its own path to take. This however, knowing that Turkey is different historically and culturally, and even politically, it has chosen a different path. Europe and Turkey must not be enemies, but they are not brothers. They can be business partners respecting one another and acknowledging their respective differences.

Europe has demonized Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia partly in light of developments taking place in Russia, or undertaken by Russia. However, there are surprisingly few nuances distinguishing Erdogan's Turkey from Putin's Russia- whether in its domestic or foreign policy. It would be scarcely justifiable should Bruxelles admit Ankara to the EU club, not to mention the fact that Ankara is increasingly out of place even in the NATO alliance.