Trump Immigration Order and Indonesia

It is odd that Democrats and the media have interpreted Trump’s order restricting entry from seven counties as being a ban on all Muslims.  The most populous Muslim nation is Indonesia.  In all the press coverage, I haven’t heard anybody mention Indonesia.  Apparently the Democrats and the media are not interested in moderate, peaceful Muslims.  They are only interested in militant Muslims in countries where the women wear burkas or other extreme head covering.  

How can Trump be accused of imposing a Muslim ban, if his visa order does not affect the nation with the most Muslims, most of which are relatively moderate.  

Trump and Australia

From what I have read about Australian immigration policy, Trump’s telephone tantrum with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull makes no sense.  Trump should be mad with Obama, not Turnbull.  This USA Today article gives some background.  

Australia has been refusing to accept refugees in a way Trump should like.  Australian was being inundated with refugees arriving by boat, many of them from the Middle East.  Australia refused to accept the boats and sent the boat people to islands belonging to Papua New Guinea, where living conditions were poor.  Refugee activists criticized Australia harshly for this policy.  

The details are not clear to me, but it appears that Obama agreed to take some of the refugees that Australia refused to take.  Trump presumably thinks some of the refugees that the US agreed to take are bad people from the Middle East who were trying to escape to Australia.  

Another article that shed some light on the deal was an op-ed by Roger Cohen in the New York Times.  As a Jew writing for the Trump-hating New York Times, Cohen has to make fun of Trump for putting Rex Tillerson at State in such a bad position, but he at least describes it better than most reports about it.  Cohen says the deal was signed in September, but kept secret until after the election, because refugees were such a sensitive issue in the campaign.  He says the Australians told the American negotiators, “We really want to mothball these places,” the island camps, because they had become an acute embarrassment to Australia.  Cohen says he has visited one of the camps to see how bad they were.  

It looks as if Obama was just trying to do Australia a favor, to help Australia close the camps and get rid of some of the bad publicity that they created for Canberra.  Ironically, Australia had refused to take the same refugees that Trump was refusing to take.  The two men agreed on refugee policy, but Trump apparently thought he was getting stuck with the worst of the deal.  Presumably, Australia is still refusing to accept the refugees and is trying to get the US to carry out Obama’s promise to take some of them.  But now Trump doesn’t want them either.  

Sides in Syrian War

Obama has gotten a lot of criticism for failing to support the rebels against Assad, while Putin supported Assad, who had the Syrian military at his disposal.  Many of the rebels opposing Assad were affiliated with al-Qaeda or ISIS.  The few rebels not affiliated with them were very weak.  John McCain’s idea to support the more trustworthy rebels would clearly have benefited Al-Qaeda and ISIS to some extent.  Obama pretty much avoided doing that, to his credit.  But Obama’s potential allies were weak, while Putin’s allies in the Syrian government were stronger.  

People criticize Obama for failing to kill Assad after he crossed Obama’s red line on chemical weapons.  I think Obama did the right thing.  If Obama had killed Assad, or undertaken a massive invasion of Syria to unseat thim, it’s likely that the war would have become even more violent and even more chemical weapons would have been used.  By getting Assad to renounce chemical weapons, Obama significantly reduced their use in the civil war.  

In terms of who will win the civil war, Assad’s opponents have never been close to winning, even with foreign support.  Assad was not strong enough to win quickly, but he was the only participant who had a chance of winning with only a little outside support.  When Russia provided this support, the iide began to turn in Assad’s favor.  

It’s not clear whether the end of the war is near, and if so, what it means.  Hopefully it will mean less violence and death.  It’s possible that Assad will seek revenge against the rebels, continuing the violence and the refugee deluge, but ideally things will be better than they are currently.  

Obama could have lessened the destruction in Syria, by supporting Assad despite his unsavory human rights record.  Obama could not have led the rebels to victory unless he had sent in US troops for a full scale war.  Thus, the easy course of supporting Assad was open to Putin and he took it.  He did not expend much in terms of men and equipment, but it appears to have been enough to turn the tide.  He comes out looking like a strong man by supporting a human rights pariah.  

Fareed Zakaria and Bernard-Henri Levy

Fareed Zakaria has French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy on his Sunday morning program often, but he fails to point out that Levy fomented the European and American invasion of Libya that destroyed the country and left it in a state of chaos.  Gaddafi was a bad man, but the situation Levy created is even worse.  He is a philosopher with a lot of blood on his hands.  Fareed should mention this when he introduces Levy.  

Trump’s Foreign Policy and My Career

When Newt Gingrich and the Republicans took over the House, they made many changes in US foreign policy that affected me personally in an adverse way.  Of course, Clinton and his Democratic administration had to accept these changes, but the main responsibility lay with the Republican Congress.  First, the Republicans refused to continue to fund the joint science cooperation program that I oversaw as Science Counselor at Embassy Warsaw, the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Fund II.  The US signed a five year agreement to fund the program jointly with the Poles, but refused to pay after three years.  Second, on the day that I was scheduled to leave Warsaw for a new position at the American Embassy in Rome, the Republicans shut the government down in 1995.  While I was saying good-byes around 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon with the car packed with all of our belongings, including two dogs. Embassy Rome called and said not to travel because of the government shutdown.  Third, after I got to Rome, the US Congress refused to appropriate money to fund the US share of the US- North Korean agreement that limited North Korea’s nuclear program, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO).  Fourth, a US law barred issuing visas to children of employees of the Italian phone company.  When a phone company executive complained to me about it, I couldn’t believe it, but I confirmed with the head of the consular section that it was true.  

I probably would not have quit in protest, but I was old enough and had enough years of service to retire.  So, I did.  

I sympathize with the Foreign Service officers who are unhappy with the new Trump policies, but I think that you can disagree with policies and yet carry them out.  So far, Trump’s edicts mainly affect consular officers who issue visas.  Other edicts on trade and national security will affect economic and political officers.  I don’t believe that any of Trump’s orders so far are so out of the mainstream that they risk asking diplomats to do anything unlawful.  No one who is not a citizen or permanent resident has any “right” to enter the US, constitutional or otherwise.  US immigration policy over the years has incorporated all kinds of discrimination.  It may be questionable on human rights grounds, but it is not illegal.  In fact, the US has probably engaged in more illegal conduct by not enforcing immigration laws on the books over the years, resulting in millions of “illegal” residents of the US.  Illegality has been the US policy towards immigration for decades.  

While I retired rather than enforce policies that I did not agree with, I don’t blame officers for whatever decision they make: to enforce policy they do not agree with, as long as they are not illegal, or to resign or retire rather than enforce them.  If they don’t leave the service, I don’t think they would criticize the policies publicly, although internal criticism is acceptable.  It is really a part of the normal policy-making process.  Almost every policy is the result of discussion among people who did not completely agree.  In my experience more decisions than most people would expect go to the President for decision, because the various agencies under him cannot agree on a course of action.  

Rating Obama

I’d give Obama a 6 or 7 out of 10.  I would give most of his predecessors a 5 or less.

Trump’s election showed that some of Obama’s greatest successes were his biggest failings.  He saved the US from a 2nd great depression, but failed to prosecute any of the guys who caused the recession.  He ripped off the middle class to help the super-poor and the super-rich.  The poor got welfare and the rich got no jail and low taxes.  Income inequality got worse on his watch, probably because it was the easiest course to keep the economy going, but he failed to help a lot of regular people as the rich got richer.  Unemployment is down, but many people have worse jobs than before 2008.

Obamacare expanded government health care, but it was a mess, purposely so to help the health insurance industry, hospital administrators, doctors, etc.  The real solution was single-payer Medicare of all, and Obama didn’t do it.  I would not be surprised to see him on the boards of some healthcare companies and banks soon or making speeches to them, ala Hillary and Bill.

He also failed to get any kind of gun control; his heart was in the right place, but the NRA beat him.

On foreign policy, he did great keeping us out of new wars.  He was right not to intervene in Ukraine or Syria, but he and the EU made a mess of Libya.  Iraq and Afghanistan are still a mess, and will probably collapse into some kind of chaos if we ever leave entirely.  That’s not all his fault, but he didn’t solve it.  The Iran deal was quite an accomplishment; I hope Trump doesn’t destroy it.  Israel hates Obama, bur should love him; he ended up pitting the Arab states against each other, Sunni v. Shiite, Iran v. Saudi, etc., which meant they couldn’t focus on Israel.  Except for the Palestinians (a problem Israel itself created) Israel is safer than it has been for years.  He was right to try to focus on Asia, but failed.  I think the Israeli lobby would not allow him to turn away from the Middle East.

One of Obama’s strengths was his honesty and decency, keeping corruption at bay.  Because he was such a decent person, he probably didn’t perceive how corrupt Hillary appeared to voters.  For Obama’s main failings it’s useful to look at Bernie’s campaign rather than Hillary’s or Trump’s – health care, inequality, guns….

I’m probably the wrong person to talk about race.  I would give Obama pretty good marks for being evenhanded, especially for being black himself.  But I can see that many blacks think he failed them.

He was a great speaker.  I will really miss that.  I think we have gone from a college level vocabulary to a third grade one.  But I speaking may be overrated.  Some of Obama’s most eloquent speeches were about gun violence, and they made no difference.

Obama’s presidency would have been much better, maybe even great, if the Republican Congress had not stonewalled everything he tried to do.

I like being tough on leakers.  When I was in Brasilia, I had several contacts who used to give me information on Brazil’s nuclear weapons program.  I used to report this pretty straight in secret cables, using their names.  CIA reports like that don’t use names; they have some super secret database that links reports to names.  Their reports say something like, “According to a reliable source with access.”  Only the CIA ops guys know who that really is.  If my old cables had been released, my old contacts would have been in big trouble.  So, I’m unhappy Chelsea/Bradley Manning got released.  

Also, when I worked in DC on missile proliferation, we relied on intelligence to to try to stop transfers to bad countries.  The intel agencies often did not want us to use their intel because it might give away their "sources and methods.”  We were forbidden to use their info until they cleared it, which sometimes took weeks or months.  Several times NYT reporter Michael Gordon called me at home around 10 pm to get me to comment on a story based on leaked intel information about something some bad country was doing.  State was always the dove, saying to wait, while the Pentagon wanted to act and beat up the bad guy.  The leak to Gordon was always correct, sometimes of top secret information, intended to pressure us to act.  I aways did the “refuse to confirm or deny” thing with Gordon, but the leak was clearly from the hawkish Republicans in the Pentagon under the G.H.W. Bush admin, probably from people who worked for then Asst. Sec. Steve Hadley, who went on to be G.W. Bush’s NSC Advisor.  

I would like to think that leaks are a dishonest way to push a policy in Washington and should be punished.  

I also didn’t mention immigration.  My first State job was issuing visas in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I always felt bad denying a visa, because it probably meant that person would never get to the US, while if a Mexican was denied, they could just sneak across the border.  It was a racist policy favoring those who could walk across the border over those who had to fly.  Immigration laws have been like Prohibition, on the books but totally disregarded.  Now that I’m retired and shopping at a lot of discount stores, I often hear more Spanish spoken than English.  Denver has changed just in the years we’ve been out here.  Obama and the Democrats (and Reagan) refused to enforce the immigration laws.  I think that is dishonest and undermines respect for law in general.  Mexicans are inclined to regard American law as toothless, whether it’s about immigration or drugs.  It’s tough to be a law enforcement officer when your boss, the President, says, “Oh, violating this law is no big deal; let them all go.”  I know Obama deported a lot of people, but as in the financial crisis, he didn’t get the job done in a way that pleased the American public.  

I suppose I was never smart enough or tough enough to win a leak war; so, I didn’t like them.  And it is against the laws on the books.

On Mexican territory (California, Texas, etc.), my view is that we won it fair and square and it’s ours now.  Maybe it’s like Israel’s West Bank.  We’ve created even more than 2,500 settlements on it.  And what about the Indians?  Do they get the whole country back?

I have thought about Mexico and California in connection with Ukraine.  Ukraine used to be part of Russia, i.e., “the Ukraine,” like “the American Mid-West.”  Both have been breadbaskets of the country, and Kiev was really the first capital of what became Russia when Moscow was still a backwater, the 11th or 12th century.  The Russians established a naval base at Sevastopol in 1783.  California did not become part of the US until the 1800s and the San Diego Naval Base was not built until the 1920s.  Arguably, our forcing Russia to give up its base at Sevastopol is like Russia encouraging Mexico to take back San Diego and force the US to remove its naval base.  Not the same, but there are similarities.

On migration, I just worry that our country is changing.  The Hispanics have been in Colorado for hundreds of years.  Senator and Sec. of Interior Salazar was from one of those families.  But in general, Hispanics have no shared history with the British Europeans who founded the US on the East Coast.  Washington and Jefferson have no ancestral connection to them, as European immigrants have.  Plus they come here for economic reasons, not political ones; so, they don’t have any particular reverence for the American form of government.  It’s okay, but they are used to the corruption in Mexico, too.  Countries change, but we could have controlled how it did.  We passed laws on immigration, but they were ignored.  We had a preference, but we ignored it, and just let nature take its course.  It’s not unlike global warming; if you ignore it, the impact sneaks up on you.

So, who represents this historically elite East Coast establishment that I extolled?  Donald Trump, the Europeans’ answer to Barack Obama.  I am hopeful that he will do some good things by instinct, but intellectually he could hardly be farther from the founding fathers.  I don’t think Hillary was the real East Coast heir, because her appeal was to the newly powerful Americans -- Hispanics and blacks, (with the votes) and Jews (with the money).  She was to be the voice of the new America, not the old one.  Now we have the voice of the old one, and it speaks with a third grade vocabulary.  Oh well….

Obama and Inequality

In general Obama has been a good President; however at this moment there appear to be some significant failures.  History may change perceptions, but it appears one of the main reasons his designated successor, Hillary, failed was that Obama failed to deal with income inequality.  

Obama prevented the great recession from becoming a second great depression, but in doing so he rewarded the tycoons who caused the recession, rather than punishing them.  Obama threw his support behind the super wealthy, who will no doubt reward him in retirement, as they did the Clintons.  His decision has exacerbated income inequality to the point where it has become apparent to the population at large, which caused the backlash against him in the last election.  It was certainly one of the most important factors in Trump’s victory.  

The situation was not all Obama’s fault, since it started under Bush.  The Republicans in Congress were strongly in favor of protecting the wealthy.  The Democrats passed Dodd-Frank while they still could, but its limits were prospective, weak and did nothing to punish Wall Street for what it had done to create the 2008 mortgage crisis.  Obama tried to protect the poor, especially Hispanics and blacks by placing the burden of recovering from the recession on the white middle class.  I don’t think he targeted the middle class; it was just the course of least resistance to have them bail out both the lower classes and the super wealthy.  But it highlighted the fact that Democrats didn’t really care about the middle class, which became increasing evident during Hillary’s campaign.  

This is a bad part of Obama’s legacy that the Democrats will have to bear.  

Baltic Tripwire

I am worried that the membership in NATO of the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania - creates a tripwire that could lead to nuclear war with Russia.  

All three of these Baltic countries are legitimate nations with their own histories, ethnicities, languages, and so on.  Over the years, however, they have often been dominated or annexed by one of their more powerful neighbors, often by Russia, but also by Sweden, Poland, Germany and others.  

Poland’s national poem, Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, begins, “O Lithuania, my fatherland….”  Wikipedia says that Mickiewicz mean Lithuania to refer to a region and not a country.  In any case, when he wrote the poem, Poland-Lithuania had ceased to exist because it had been divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria.  This is typical of the history of the region.  For NATO to step in and say the borders of the Baltic countries are inviolable is potentially risky.  

We have already seen what happened when Ukraine tried to take away Russia’s Sevastopol seaport in Crimea.  If Ukraine had been a member of NATO, we might have been drawn toward a shooting war with Russia.  Of course a low intensity shooting war has continued in Ukraine, but with no direct participation by NATO.  

While the Baltic states may not have the strategic importance for Russia of the seaport in Crimea, which has been a Russian naval base since 1783, the Baltics have traditionally been influenced by their biggest neighbor, Russia, and if Russia perceived that they constituted a threat, it might react in a similar manner to the Crimean crisis.  

Of course, the West wants the thriving, friendly Baltic states to continue to be independent and free.  However, there is is the military question of whether they are defensible, situated as they are between the Baltic Sea and Russia, only about 100 miles wide.  All of the borders are somewhat artificial, a result of World War II and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  Poland, which is the next easternmost extension of NATO, is much more defensible.  It is larger and is separated from Russia by non-NATO nations Ukraine and Belarus, except for the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad on its border.  

Because the Baltic countries are so small and bounded by the sea, there is little room for military maneuver.  There is even limited territory to accommodate NATO troops and weapons for a war with a large country like Russia.  The Russians defeated both Napoleon and Hitler.  The population of the three Baltic states is only about six million (Estonia - 1,300,000), Latvia - 2,000,000, Lithuania - 2,900,000), less than the population of New York City.  Should we be willing to risk the existence of New York City, and perhaps the United States,  to protect six million people who throughout history have been under the sway of the Russian empire?  Of course, a crisis does not have to lead to nuclear war, but it might.  Was it wise for NATO to take on this obligation?  Of course, when it did, NATO and the US were in the ascendency, and Russia was falling on hard times.  At the moment the US is becoming much more fearful of Russia, except for Donald Trump.  Is the Cold War returning?  Are we returning to the old strategy of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)?  Will we go mad over the Baltics?  

I don’t think so.  But it is a pressure point where NATO might be vulnerable.  

Poland and NATO

When I was assigned to the US embassy in Warsaw, Poland, in the mid-1990s, there was nothing that Poland wanted more than to be a member of NATO.  

As the Science Counselor at Embassy Warsaw, my main job was to oversee the Maria Sladowski Curie II fund, which was set up by the US and Poland after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Communist government of Poland in order to help Polish scientists who were facing financial hardship after the huge  changes in Polish funding for science under the new, poorer government.  Under the Communist government, almost all funding for science and technology had come from the the government.  Under the new, democratic government most scientists had to find funding from the private sector.  The MSC II fund was supposed to help ease the transition for the scientists and engineers for five years from its signature.  

When I arrived in Poland, both the US and Poland were contributing about two million dollars per year to the fund.  But after a year, the Republicans under Newt Gingrich took over the US House and cut off funding for the fund, although the US was obligated to fund it for another three years, at least.  The Science Committee of the US House of Representatives called then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher to testify and several members (perhaps Democrats) raked him over the coals for cutting off the Polish funding; so, he found funding for one more year in funds in the existing State Department budget.  The following year, he did not, and what little money there was in the State Department science budget went to Chinese scientists because the State Department felt that the Chinese needed help more than the Polish scientists.  

As a result, I was called in several times to see the Polish diplomat at the Foreign Ministry who was in charge of relations with the Western Hemisphere.  He was so senior that I would not normally talk to him, but he wanted to express his displeasure at the US failing to meet its obligations under the MSC II cooperation agreement.  He said we were obligated to continue our contributions, which we were, despite the fact that the US House of Representatives refused to approve the payment.  I told him that if he was really upset he should talk to the US Ambassador instead of me, or should tell the Polish Ambassador to complain to an undersecretary in Washington, or even to the Secretary, since had gotten personally involved the previous year.  But the Pole was unwilling to protest to anyone higher ranking, because Poland was not yet a member of NATO, and he did not want to do anything that might injure their chance to join NATO, which was much more important to Poland than the MSC II.  Meanwhile, he said the Poles, whose government was much poorer than America’s, were willing and able to fund their part of the joint agreement.  

I was personally very upset at being accused correctly by the Poles of an American failure to honor its commitments.  I believe that American should be true to its word.  I agree with Gen. Mattas, who recently said regarding the Iran agreement in testimony for his appointment as Defense Secretary, “But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.” I wish Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues had been as honorable as Gen. Mattas is.  

Intelligence Doves vs. Hawks

All the commotion between the Trump team and the intelligence community reminds me of the incoming Reagan administration while I was working on NIE 11-12 on Russian military technology.  I started under the dovish administration led by Jimmy Carter, with Adm. Stansfield Turner.  Under Carter, the military services led by the Defense Intelligence Agency (most recently led by Gen. Flynn) were hawkish, claiming the Soviets had many dangerous new military high tech weapons.  I, joined by the CIA, argued that the intelligence did not support such conclusions; they were working on new weapons, but there was so far no indication they would work well enough to deploy in the field.  I gradually got some language inserted that downplayed the danger to the US. (I think the last 30 or 40 years have proved me right.)  

When Reagan came in with his new CIA chief, Bill Casey, the threat from the Soviet Union (Reagan’s evil empire) got raised again. Turner and his deputy, Adm. Inman, left the CIA.  I would like to think that I got the threat watered down a little bit, but who knows?  

This change of administrations highlights the animosity permeating the intelligence community during this change of administration.  Back then, the Republicans were the hawks worried about the Soviet evil empire.  Today, it’s the Democrats who are worried about the Soviets, joined by some Republicans like John McCain and Marco Rubio.  In general, though, the sides have changed.  The Democrats are afraid of Russia, and the majority of the incoming Republicans are not.  Despite Trump’s views, there are still many old Cold Warriors in the Republican Party; so, it is less likely that the Trump administration will be as dovish toward Russia as Carter was, even with Tillerson at State.     

Foreign Involvement in Reagan’s Election

The most egregious example of foreign involvement in elections was the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini's support for Reagan’s election over Carter.  

According to The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

… American journalists. Bob Woodward and Walter Pincus have reported in the Washington Post and Alfonso Chardy in the Miami Herald that three Reagan campaign aides met in a Washington DC hotel in early October, 1980, with a self-described "Iranian exile" who offered, on behalf of the Iranian government, to release the hostages to Reagan, not Carter, in order to ensure Carter's defeat in the November 4, 1980 election.  

… 'We don't have to worry about an October surprise' a jubilant staffer at the [Reagan] campaign's operations center (told Honegger). 'Dick's cut a deal.'"

"Dick" was Richard Allen, and the deal apparently was a promise of arms in return for a delay by Tehran in releasing the hostages. A few days after the conversation Honegger describes, another Reagan campaign official, future CIA director William Casey, was sufficiently confident to tell journalist Roland Perry on October 30 that if something happened to give Carter the election, "it won't be the hostages."

In return for the hostage release after his inauguration, Reagan reportedly promised Iran arms that would be provided by Israel, which also wanted to curry favor with the new Reagan administration, and of course Reagan also rewarded Iran with the infamous Iran-Contra deal, providing Iran with missiles it should not have gotten legally.  

In Reagan’s case there are many allegations that his campaign conspired with the Iranian government not to release the hostages before the election so as to increase the chances of Reagan’s election.  In Trump’s case there is so far no indication that Trump conspired with Putin to defeat Hillary.  Whatever Putin did, he seems to have done it for his own reasons, not because he was requested to do so by Trump, making Putin’s actions much less egregious than Iran’s on behalf of Reagan.  Carter was too decent to put the US through the acrimonious sparring of the legality of the election like Obama and Hillary have done.  Gore also accepted his questionable defeat from the Supreme Court without throwing the country into a constitutional crisis.  Today’s Democrats are seeking a constitutional crisis by trying to use the intelligence community to invalidate Trump’s election.  

Russian Intercepts

I am disappointed that the intelligence community has publicly stated that it is intercepting messages from high ranking Russian government officials, as reported by the Washington Post.  I am surprised that the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of NSA would publicly disclose such sensitive sources.  They must be very motivated to destroy Donald Trump if they are willing to give away the crown jewels of their intelligence in order to do so.  These are men with an extreme political agenda, presumably  motivated by their devotion to Barack Obama, rather than to the United States.  If Trump is able to take office, he would fire them immediately for disloyalty to their country and disgracing their military uniform.  

Politicizing the Intelligence Community

The idea that the American intelligence community is not political is unrealistic.  Senior officials are appointed by the sitting President and owe him some kind of allegiance, although how much depends on the individuals involved.  They are probably chosen because their political beliefs or inclinations are similar to those of other senior administration officials, particularly the President’s.  

I saw this first hand when I was the State Department representative on a National Intelligence Estimate about the Soviet Union’s military technology (NIE 11-12)  that began under the Carter administration and ended under the Reagan administration.  Carter’s CIA chief, Adm. Stansfield Turner, was probably somewhat dovish, like Carter.  Reagan replaced him with Bill Casey, an old hawkish OSS officer, who had been Reagan's campaign.manager.  

As work on the estimate began, the military representatives were very hawkish, wanting to include language that made the Soviets look like technological supermen who were developing high tech weapons that the US would be unable to counter.  Although I was not a very senior participant, I began to push back against this, because I did not think the intelligence supported it.  The Soviets were indeed working on high tech things that the US was not working on and that we did not understand completely, but that did not justify the conclusion that this research was going to result in weapons that would change the balance of forces between the US and the Soviet Union.  As I began to push back, I found I had support from some of the CIA representatives, who were perhaps unwilling to lead the charge against the military reps.  But around the time of the election, things changed.  The Deputy Director of the CIA, Adm. Bobby Inman, abruptly quit, and of course, Casey replaced Turner.  Under Casey, the hawkish views began to be a stronger theme in the NIE.  Casey was famous for mumbling, and when I attended the final review of the NIE, chaired by Casey, I was never sure what he said.  I would like to think that the NIE came out slightly less hawkish than it would have without my participation, but it’s hard to tell.  I think my viewpoint has been supported by what has happened in the 35 years since the NIE.  The Soviets or the Russians have still not defeated the US with some kind of high tech doomsday machine.    

In any case, the fact that Reagan’s campaign manager took over the CIA illustrates that the CIA is not an apolitical organization.  Like the Supreme Court, the CIA reads the newspapers (and a lot of other stuff).  Brennan and Clapper are not that political, but as such senior officials they are part of the intense political machinations that make Washington what it is.  

Trump and the Intelligence Community

The media commentariat thinks it is terrible that Trump has criticized the intelligence community judgement that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and other hacks related to the election.  On the other hand, it is not surprising that Trump would resist the conclusion that Russia influenced the election in his favor.  It makes it appear that he is a candidate elected by Russia against the wishes of the American people.  The intelligence community is saying that Trump is a disloyal American who has been planted by Russia to help Russia dominate the US.  He is a real “Manchurian Candidate,” life imitating the movie.  When James Clapper implies that Trump is a Russian agent, he is laying the groundwork for a coup by the intelligence agencies.  Clapper and Brennan would be happy to get rid of Trump, maybe lock him up in Guantanamo, and the mainstream press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NBC, CNN, and all the rest would be glad to see him go.  They could then stage a new election to elect Hillary Clinton, who they all believe is Obama’s rightful heir.  

I don't really believe this will happen, but I understand why Trump might believe that he is being attacked by the intelligence community, and if they don’t remove him from office, they will try to diminish his power as President.  Of course, Clapper and Brennan will be gone when Trump takes office, unless they actually try to prevent him from taking office.  But if they leave, the intelligence community will still contain many lower level agents who oppose Trump, including some operations guys, who are basically hired killers working for the government.  Fortunately, the Secret Service is not a significant part of the intelligence community, and I believe they take their duty to protect him very seriously.  So, even if Hillary, Clapper, Brennan, Schumer, Pelosi, McCain, and company try to stage a coup, I think it is likely to fail.  But it would create political chaos in the country, because many of the political and financial elites on the two coasts would support it.  

But it’s sad even to think that senior officials of the US might lead a coup against the elected President.  If guys at the FBI, NSA or CIA are reading this, remember that you took an oath to defend the Constitution, not the political and financial elites of the East and West Coasts.  If you want to get rid of Trump, impeach him or amend the Constitution.  

Obama Started Interfering in Elections

Nobody talks about it, but the US played a role in the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.  If Putin interfered in the US election, he may have seen it as a response to Obama’s interference in Ukrainian politics, which would have cost Russia its only warm water port, Sevastople, a strategic loss to Russia.  Putin could not accept that loss, and subsequented invaded and reannexed Crimea.  

I don’t know how involved the US was in the ouster of Yanukovych.  Certainly the US pubicly supported the protesters against Yanukovych and chered his ouster.  If the CIA or other Americans were more involved, Putin probably knows that, and wants to retaliate for it.  

I don’t know whether Putin was actually involved in the hacking and leaks of election emails.  I don’t know what involvement the US may have had in Ukrainian politics.  Clearly there is a link between Ukraine and Trump in the person of Paul Manafort.  

On Charlie Rose, David Sanger of the NYT just said that Putin may have been responding to US criticism of Putin’s victory in the last Russian election.

Obama, Hillary, Ecuador and Assange

I wonder how much pressure the Obama administration brought on the Ecuadorian government to cut off Juilian Assange’s access to the Internet in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.  I don’t particularly like Assange or the fact that the Russians are meddling in the American election, but it also indicates that the US Government is putting its finger on the scales of the election.  Of course, Obama  campaigns for Hillary, but in theory he does that as a leader of the Democratic party, not as President of the United States.  Obama’s use of the US foreign policy apparatus to support Hillary reinforces the view that the government is corrupt and that the electoral system is corrupt.  

Should the US or China Stop North Korea?

I was pleased to see a New York Times op-ed by Joel Wit on North Korea.  Sometimes he is the PBS News Hour expert, but this time, PBS turned to some other other experts.  I worked with Joel Wit off and on for several years.  In my previous blog about the North Korean nuclear test, I complained that the US government would not fund its obligations under the Korean Peninsula Development Organization (KEDO).  As I result, as the embassy science officer in Rome I had to ask the Italy and the EU if they would provide the funds that the US Congress would not.  If the US did not fund its obligations, it gave North Korea a perfect excuse to withdraw from KEDO and resume its nuclear weapons program.  Joel was back in Washington, and was at the other end of these instruction cables to ask the Europeans for money. 

It was not Joel’s fault that the US Congress would not appropriate the money for KEDO.  He was left scrambling to find the money.  I think I heard him say at least once that the US had never defaulted on its obligations.  Apparently he and his associates found the money after I retired, since KEDO continued on for years, but even if they did, it was an indication of bad faith on America’s part. 

In his op-ed, Joel says that the US cannot count on China to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program; only the US can.  To do this the US will have to escalate sanctions and keep the door open for negotiations.  He thinks that there may be something that North Korea wants enough to resume talks. 

I am not optimistic.  Looking at the past history, North Korea swings back and forth so much it’s hard to tell if they are serious about any negotiations.  They have actually entered into agreements that actually restricted their activities like any normal country that was giving up a military nuclear program.  But then they suddenly change their mind and withdraw.  Nevertheless, it’s better to try to rein in the program than just let them do anything they want. 

After KEDO, six-party talks produced various attempts at agreements to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, but they all failed in the end.  Off and on the North Koreans agree to certain restrictions on their programs, which they ultimately renounced. 

The Arms Control Association website provides a timeline.  North Korea first undertook to restrain its nuclear program in 1985, when it signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but it did not implement the safeguards agreement required by the NPT.  In 1992 it finally signed a safeguards agreement under the NPT with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  Agreement on KEDO is reached in 1994, under which the US, South Korea and Japan promise two commercial light water reactors in return for North Korea’s dismantling of its plutonium production reactors.  In 1996 talks the US suggested that North Korea joining the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which I played a role in creating.  (North Korea did not join.)  In 1998 Japan suspended its participation in KEDO.  In 1999 KEDO signed a contract to build the two power reactors.  In August 2002 KEDO poured the first concrete for the power reactor construction.  During an American visit in October 2002, North Korea admitted that had a clandestine nuclear enrichment program in violation of its agreements.  In November 2002 KEDO announced that it was suspending its delivery of heavy fuel oil under the agreement.  The US provided funding in 2003 to wind down the organization, which announced that it was suspending reactor construction.  In 2006 the KEDO board announced the formal termination of its power reactor construction project.

 KEDO was succeeded by another agreement based on a 2005 joint statement at six-party talks including North Korea, the US, South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.  In November 2007 a US team travelled to North Korea to begin disablement of Yongbyon nuclear facilities under an October agreement reached in the six-arty talks.  During 2008 Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill meets with North Koreas on compliance with the agreement.  By December 2008 the US has delivered 550,000 tons of heavy fuel oil under the agreement.  In April 2009, North Korea says it will no longer be bound by the six-party talks agreement and ejects IAEA and US monitors.  In May North Korea conducted its second underground nuclear test. 

In December 2011 Kim Jong Il dies and is replaced by Kim Jong Un.  In December 2012, North Korea successfully launches a satellite.  In February 2013, North Korea conducts another underground nuclear test.  In January 2016, North Korea announces a fourth nuclear test.  It conducted its fifth nuclear test on September 9, 2016.  

North Korea and the MTCR

North Korea’s test of a nuclear device has prompted discussion of its missile program.  When I was at the State Department, I spent years working on the creation of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR).  I am disappointed that I have not seen it mentioned in connection with North Korea’s development of missiles.  Before the North Korean test, the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” published several articles dealing with missile proliferation and the MTCR: “Missile proliferation: Treat the disease,” and “Too late for missile proliferation?” as well as several other articles that were part of a debate about how to deal with missile proliferation. 

The MTCR is basically an export control agreement for nations capable of supplying missile hardware and technology.  By joining the MTCR they agree not to supply items or knowledge to proliferating countries that could be used to build nuclear capable missiles.  It is not an arms control agreement that prohibits the proliferation of missile technology.  It is more like the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) than the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). 

As proliferating countries become more capable of producing missiles on their own, the export restrictions of the MTCR have less effect.  The MTCR probably did slow down North Korea’s development of missiles, but now it is less effective.  However, building missiles is “rocket science,” and there are some very difficult technologies involved.  Therefore, the MTCR may still play a role in limiting or slowing down the ability of North Korea to build more powerful and more accurate missiles, but at this point, slowing down is about the best it could do.  Press articles seem to agree that North Korea could build strategic nuclear missiles that could reach the US by 2020, e.g. a New York Times article says, “Military experts say that by 2020, Pyongyang will most likely have the skills to make a reliable intercontinental ballistic missile topped by a nuclear warhead.”  However, the MTCR might still help restrict the accuracy and the size of the warhead for such a missile by 2020.  It might mean that North Korea could be able to hit somewhere in the greater Washington metropolitan area with a bomb the size of the one the US used on Hiroshima, rather than one that could reliably hit Pennsylvania Avenue and destroy both the White House and the Capitol, as well as most of the city.  Neither of these outcomes is acceptable, but the greater the chances that a missile might misfire, go off course or fail to detonate, the better. 

Of course it would be better to have in place a strong treaty that prohibits missile proliferation like the NPT does for bombs, but that is unlikely.  One reason the MTCR is so weak is that it is all that even the friendliest countries, like the UK, France, or Japan, would agree to.  Furthermore the NPT has not been successful in limiting nuclear proliferation by the most threatening countries, such as North Korea.  As in most areas of life, laws constrain decent people, but criminals commit crimes despite the laws against it. 

One advantage of the NPT is that it has its own police force, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has performed its job well in a number of cases, discovering and reporting prohibited activities by member parties.  However, the IAEA has no authority in countries that are not parties to the NPT, which includes most of the worrisome countries, such as North Korea.  There are countries that have joined the NPT, but then have gotten off the track, perhaps after a change of government.  This happened in Iran.  The IAEA has worked successfully in Iran and is a key component of the US-Iran deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program. 

North Korean Nuclear Test

North Korea’s nuclear test reminds me of my last days in the Foreign Service around 1996-97.  I was the American Embassy’s science officer in Rome, working on nuclear non-proliferation issues, as well as a number of other matters, such as the environment. 

At that time, Italy held the rotating presidency of the European Union, so that I dealt with the Italian government both on bilateral issues and on issues for the whole European Union.  The first agreement intended to rein in North Korean nuclear proliferation was in effect, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, under which the US, Japan and South Korea were to provide North Korea with certain things in return for North Korean nuclear restraint.  In the short term we were to provide North Korea with fuel oil to keep its conventional electric power plants running, and in the future with nuclear electric power plants that did not use or produce materials that could be used in a bomb. 

I don’t remember all the details, but the US was obligated to pay several million dollars for the fuel oil to be supplied to North Korea.  The US Congress refused to appropriate those funds, which meant that we could not meet our obligation under the KEDO agreement.  It became my job to go to the Italians and the EU and ask them to provide funding for the fuel oil that the US Congress would provide. 

I found this very unpleasant, although the Italians were very polite and listened patiently.  I thought that the US should meet its obligations under the agreement, and not provide North Korea with an excuse, US noncompliance, to renounce the agreement and resume its nuclear bomb program.  This was probably the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I retired from the Foreign Service and returned to the US.

In addition to the KEDO fiasco, a number of other things had gone badly for the issues for which I was responsible.  Almost the day after I arrived, the State Department was sued by four environmental groups for failing to force Italy to implement UN resolutions regarding the use of driftnets to catch swordfish in the Mediterranean.  As I recall the groups were the legal arms of Greenpeace, the Humane Society, the Sierra Club, and one or two other groups.  The State Department lost the case, and in effect a Federal judge assumed control of US policy regarding Italian use of driftnets.  What would happen if some policy issue arose was that the judge would consult the environmental groups, and they would consult with a Greenpeace activist, who was really the only person on the spot.  He would visit fishing boats, inspect their nets and their catch and report back to his colleagues in the US, who would report back to the judge, who in turn would approve (or not) whatever policy proposal was on the table.  This meant that in effect my office worked for the Greenpeace representative on this issue.  One of my last acts was to accompany the Ambassador to meet with the Italian Agriculture Minister on this issue because Sicilian fishermen had hired Mafia hit men to kill fisheries enforcement personnel if they harassed the fishermen.  Supporters of the fishermen were also blocking streets in downtown Rome.  The main message I had for Ambassador was that he could not agree definitively to any proposal from the Minister, because it would have to be approved by the Federal judge back in the US.  The Ambassador was not happy about that. 

In addition, the Space Shuttle had flown an Italian tethered satellite, the TSS-1R, which was to be extended on the tether about 20 km from the Shuttle and reeled back in.  The tether broke and the satellite drifted off into space.  The crew of the Columbia’s STS-75 mission came to Italy to meet with the Italians about the mission.  Unfortunately, because of the loss of the satellite, the visit became something of an apology tour, which I was responsible for organizing. 

Another somewhat unfortunate, space-related incident occurred at a cocktail party given to celebrate the launch by the US of an Italian telecommunications satellite.  At the party, I met a man who worked for the telecommunications company whose satellite was being launched.  He said something like, “You Americans must really hate me, since you won’t let my daughter go to Disney World.”  I was taken aback.  He said his daughter had applied for a visa to go to Disney World, but the Embassy had refused to give her one because her father worked for the telecommunications company.  Apparently the company had some tenuous connection with Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act prohibited us from issuing visas to employees or their families.  I went to see the Consul General, who is in charge of visas, the next day.  She told me that what he said was correct and there was nothing she could do about it.  At some point, I had read Herman Wouk’s Winds of War books.  In them, the heroine, a Jewish mother, wants to leave Italy to go to Israel.  She is told that she can go, but her child cannot; they will not give the child a visa.  It seemed too similar.  It was Rome; it was a child’s visa.  Why should the US punish children for the sins of their parents?  Even the Bible Old Testament says, “In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.”

There were probably some other things that led to my retirement, but a diplomat is to some extent a salesman for his country.  As an Army Vietnam veteran, the son of a veteran of World War II and Korea, the grandson of a veteran of the Spanish-American War and World War I, and the great-grandson of a veteran of the Civil War, I loved my country, but I felt that it was not living up to its reputation and was not upholding its honor.  I was old enough and had served long enough to retire; so, I did.  I didn’t have to explain any more why it looked like North Korea was honoring the KEDO agreement and the US was not, giving them a perfect excuse to resume their nuclear program.  I did not have to explain how we lost Italy’s satellite.  I did not have to explain why the US punished children for the sins of their fathers. 

Good diplomats do a lot of things that they may not like doing.  I often lied to protect intelligence or to protect negotiating positions.  If I had not been eligible for retirement, I probably would not have fallen on my sword and resigned.  I wish I had left under better circumstances, but I have many good memories of my career.  It seemed, however, that no matter how high you rose, you always could end up responsible for policies that you disagreed with.  Even the Secretary of State has to do what the President wants.  Ask Hillary about Syria or Libya.  

Think Tank Corruption

I was disturbed by the long article that ran on the front page of the NYT on August 8 regarding the transfromation of the Brookings Institution from a think tank to a lobbying organziation.  It seemed like the icing on the cake of corruption in Washington.  In the old days, when a congressman, senator, or high ranking career government bureaucrat resigned, they often went into academia or to a think tank like Brookings.  But starting a generation or longer ago, they started going into lobbying, usually using their influence in the very areas that they deal with while they were in government.  The revolving door has been spinning faster and faster, and now Brookings has joined in.  Washington has sold its integrity for money.  Men and women who should be concerned about the fate of their country now sell themselves to the highest bidder, and Brookings has put on its hot pants and joined the other hookers on the street corner.  If what it is doing is not be illegal, ir is certainly unethical.  It has sullied its reputation.  

I was initailly concerned that Jews had taken over Brookings and had brought low class ethincs with them.  The photographs on the inside pages of the story were of Martin Indyk, Henry Kravis, and Marek Goodman, all Jews.  The article focussed on what Brookings was doing to promote the business of Lennar Homes.   The main Lennar contact in the article is Kofi Bonner, who is Ghanan, not Jewish.  

The other think tank mentioned at length in the article is the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  The article raises questions about its connections with and possible lobbying for General Atomic and Huntington Ingalls.  General Atomic builds drones, and Huntington Ingalls builds ships for the Navy.  I didn’t see any Jewish connection there.  It just seemed like more of the old-boy, revolving door network of former regulators or purchasers now on the other side, helping sell to their old colleagues.