The Global Citizen

As COP26 opens in Scotland, the latest US National Intelligence Estimate on climate change reveals numerous international security challenges that will undermine chances of reaching the 2015 Paris Agreement goals. At bottom, national self-interest is highly likely, as usual, to have priority over the global community interest.

In this episode I return to the topic of Pentagon economics and the military-industrial complex. Wartime or peacetime, US military spending spirals upward, to the benefit of the weapons makers and pro-defense Congress members. It's a gravy train, and beneficial to all the parties. President Eisenhower's famous comment that excessive military spending is "a theft" from social programs is especially pertinent today.

North Korea's latest round of short- and long-range missile tests come at the same time that South Korea is also testing missiles and North and South Korean leaders are exchanging messages about peace talks. What to make of these seemingly contradictory developments? I argue for putting emphasis on prospects for diplomacy between North and South, and between North Korea and the US. The Biden administration should return to the 2005 agreement on "action for action," which in particular means gradually reducing sanctions on the North in exchange for a moratorium on missile testing.

Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to subvert the Constitution and democratic institutions go beyond ordinary political opposition. He is clearly intent on reinventing America as an authoritarian system in which the former Republican Party pledges loyalty to him. Undermining the right to vote and the sanctity of elections is just the first step. He is supporting followers who believe civil war and other violent acts are perfectly legitimate ways to reinstall him in the White House. I call Trump for what he is: a traitor.

As part of President Biden's disengagement policy toward China, he is continuing a justice department "China Initiative" that aims to prosecute Chinese and US citizens allegedly involved in economic espionage. The main effect of this dragnet is to limit educational and scientific exchanges with China, which once had strong bipartisan support. Approximately 370,000 students and scholars from China are in the US, nearly a third engaged in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) research. But now, as relations with China have deteriorated, Chinese graduate students and researchers, and Chinese American scientists, are being viewed with suspicion and even hostility. The China Initiative is doing real long-term harm to the US economy, its scientific research, and the US reputation for openness to international collaboration.

Richard Tanter, Senior Research Associate at the Nautilus Institute, and a leading Australian expert on nuclear weapons, discusses the TPNW, now signed by over 80 countries. He assesses the breakthrough character of the treaty and its legal, political, and ethical implications at a time when nuclear war is again a pressing international issue. Interviewed Sept. 1, 2021. A video of the interview is available at https://melgurtov.com.

Along the road of war in Afghanistan, the US missed an opportunity to negotiate with the Taliban in 2001 and negotiated Afghanistan away in 2020. This episode explores both events and what they tell us about the American experience in that country.

In this interview on August 26, 2021, I discuss the Afghanistan war and the return of Taliban rule with Benon Sevan, a longtime senior official with the UN and former personal representative of the secretary-general from 1988 to 1991. Mr. Sevan comments on the futility of nation building in Afghanistan, the American misadventure, and the prospects for international cooperation in working with the Taliban, among other issues.

In this episode I dispute the criticism that defeat in Afghanistan will constrain US military power. US bases overseas and other elements of power projection will not be affected, nor will US crediblity with allies suffer. As happened after the Vietnam War, doubts at home and abroad about US power will dissipate. Unfortunately, the most important lessons to be learned from Afghanistan, about the need for military restraint and the importance of introspection about American hubris, seem likely not to be learned.

The terrible denouement of the Afghan War was actually widely anticipated by military and civilian officials years earlier. The reasons, which boil down to American hubris and exceptionalism, are strikingly similar to those that led to defeat in Vietnam. As an author of the Pentagon Papers, I examine US policymaking with comparisons to what the Afghanistan Papers have uncovered. A fuller version of this podcast, with sources and charts, can be found on my blog site, https://melgurtov.com, Post #308.