Together with the Brookings Institution and the SWP think-tank from Berlin, the CER has just organised the Daimler Forum in Washington DC. Senior US officials, including National Security Adviser HC McMaster took part, as did two NSC senior directors, the State Department’s head of policy planning, a State Department assistant secretary, an official from the Vice President’s office and several of their European equivalents. I also had private meetings with officials in the NSC and the State Department, while my colleague Ian Bond met a range of think-tank experts and Congressional staffers. These notes, written for friends of the CER, will not be published and should not be cited.
Main points:
- The US and North Korea are closer to military conflict than many people realise. Some senior US officials believe that traditional deterrence may not work against North Korea, and that unless China is more helpful in squeezing the country economically, military action may be inevitable.
- The Trump administration is taking a very hard line on Russia and sees no prospect of a rapprochement. It is committed to maintaining Ukraine’s independence.
- Relations between the US and Turkey are very bad but the Trump administration is unsure what to do.
- The administration’s view of the Iranian regime is similar to its view of North Korea – a rogue state that sponsors terrorism, covets weapons of mass destruction and needs to be thwarted. However, partly in deference to European allies, Trump’s officials are not talking of scrapping the ‘JCPOA’ nuclear agreement with Iran – at least for now. There are tensions between the administration and the Europeans over the former’s apparently uncritical support for Saudi Arabia in its struggle with Iran.
- The new US National Security Strategy, when it emerges, is likely to emphasise economic nationalism and ‘reciprocity’ in America’s relations with the world. It will not please America’s allies, but it may not make much practical difference to US policy.
- Some key US officials think that a UK distracted by Brexit is a decreasingly useful international partner; Macon’s France, by contrast, is admired and respected.
North Korea
The US is much closer to taking military action over North Korea than many people realise. The test flight of a North Korean ICBM on November 29th strengthened the hand of hawks within the Trump administration. That flight suggested that North Korean ICBMs are capable of reaching many parts of the US. There are still questions about North Korea’s ability to put a nuclear warhead on a missile, and whether the payload could survive re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere. But President Trump has pledged not to allow Kim Jong-un to threaten US cities and those close to him say he means it.
Key US officials doubt that Kim Jong-un can be deterred from attacking the US or South Korea, and doubt that a serious negotiation with his government is viable. That leaves only two options. One is diplomatic and economic isolation, to force North Korea to change its behaviour. But that would require more help from China, notably in terms of cutting off oil supplies, than President Xi Jinping currently seems willing to give. The other is military action, to eliminate the DPRK’s nuclear programme or scare the regime into changing its behaviour. The US has developed serious plans for attacking the DPRK and is preparing the hardware. This week’s South Korean-US joint military exercises, though routine, are significantly larger than previous editions.
“Trump wants all options to be on the table, which may help the diplomacy; we have some time before we have to decide on military action, said one official. “The national security team understands the risks of war for South Korea. But we cannot go on trying the same things that have failed again and again, ie negotiating while Kim Jong-un builds nuclear weapons.”
Many American defence and foreign policy experts see no reason why deterrence should not work against North Korea, as it has done against China and Russia. But the narrative among some key Trump officials is different. Deterrence may not work, they say, because the regime may not respond to rational calculus; it may over-estimate its own capabilities and under-estimate US resolve. Kim Jong-un seeks to change the status quo. His aim, in the view of officials who are privy to the US’s back-channel talks with the DPRK, is to reunify the Korean peninsula and force US troops to leave South Korea. To achieve that end, Kim wants to be able to threaten US cities and thus force the US to the table, from a position of strength.
The back-channels have indicated that North Korea does not want a serious negotiation at the moment, even with the Chinese, apparently. The North Koreans will wait till they are stronger and can dictate terms.
US officials claim that the North Koreans don’t need nuclear weapons for defensive purposes – despite many provocations, spanning decades, the US has never attacked them in any sense of the word. These officials believe that Kim Jong-un thinks like Saddam Hussein, who apparently said in the 1980s that possessing nuclear weapons would allow him to use conventional weapons against neighbours with impunity.
Some US officials draw comparisons between the DPRK and 1930s imperial Japan – a regime focused on racial purity, empire and militarism, and therefore hard to deal with on a rational basis. Nuclear weapons have become central to North Korea’s new militaristic and racially-focused identity. American foreign policy experts outside the administration worry that the US could enter into a pre-emptive war on the basis of flimsy intelligence. Meanwhile European officials were concerned to hear the comments of US officials on North Korea.
North Korea’s possession of R250 rocket motors has contributed to the recent rapid improvement of its missile technology. The question of how North Korea got hold of these motors, which are made only in Ukraine and Russia, is sensitive and officials are unwilling to say much. But one US official hinted at some Russian involvement. A European official said that the North Koreans may have reverse-engineered rather than imported the motors; he said it was unclear whether Ukrainian or Russian technicians were still helping the North Koreans with their missile programme.
Korean issues apart, the US-China relationship is increasingly strained, particularly on trade issues. Apparently Trump and Xi Jinping get on well, but at lower levels relations are fraught. In the South China Sea the US Navy is constantly engaged in ‘freedom of navigation’ missions, which annoy the Chinese. Nevertheless Trump’s officials generally see China as an economic threat, rather than as a security problem. Their priority is to rebalance the trade deficit. Said one official: “We assumed that when China joined the WTO it would become like us, but we were wrong. It doesn’t trade fairly or believe in a rules-based system.” One symptom of this attitude is the US’s refusal to grant China ‘market-economy status’.
Meanwhile the US-Japan relationship is the best it has been in living memory, say officials, partly because Trump and Abe hit it off so well. Because Trump wants Japan to contribute more to regional defence, he supports Abe’s efforts to break out of Japan’s pacifist post-WW2 constitution (something which neither China nor South Korea are comfortable with). Japan’s disappointment with America’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership does not seem to have soured the mood.
Russia
Whatever the president thinks about Russia, his senior officials take an uncompromisingly hard line, as right-wing Republicans traditionally do. This hard line extends even to some of the ‘true believers’ in the administration, who are reputed to be close to Steve Bannon. Said one top official: “The invasion of Ukraine marked the end of a holiday from history and the return of geopolitical competition. There can be no business as usual till Russia changes its behaviour in Syria and Ukraine.”
Officials believe that the sanctions imposed because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine and Syria – where officials say its involvement has allowed terrorism to take root – are a constraint on its behaviour. They are also annoyed about the cyber-attacks that, as they see it, threaten to undermine democracy, as well as Russia’s flouting of the INF treaty, which limits deployments of medium-range missiles. Some in Washington would actively support the US withdrawing from the INF treaty in retaliation, and would then like to see the US deploying more nuclear weapons in Europe; others see the INF treaty as tilted in America’s favour and therefore worth defending.
Officials noted the similarities between the Trump administration and those of Bush and Obama: they had all started out with positive attitudes towards Moscow but turned hostile because of Russian behaviour.
The administration sees itself as standing squarely behind Ukraine, and the appointment of Kurt Volker – known for his firm line on Russia – as the US special representative is regarded as a way of reinserting the US into the negotiations on the future of that country. The administration believes that by pressuring allies to spend more on defence, it is strengthening NATO against Russia.
US officials and most of their European counterparts were united in thinking that there was not much that could be done with Russia unless it wanted to engage, which it did not currently wish to do. The latest talks between Volker and his Russian counterpart, Vladislav Surkov, were if anything a step backwards with regard to the Russian idea for a UN peacekeeping operation in Ukraine; the Russians now oppose allowing UN troops to travel throughout the warzone, and want to restrict them to the de facto border between Ukraine and the occupied areas.
US and European officials think that the Russians do not trust the West and only want to engage on a transactional basis, and that Western governments should reciprocate. However, it might be possible to work with Russia on specific issues like counter-terrorism, Syria, North Korea or Iran.
A European official who had just taken part in a meeting between his boss and Putin said that the Russian president wanted the normalisation of relations with the West, and was not – in contrast to a few years ago – threatening a ‘Eurasian alternative’; but he was in no hurry to end Russia’s dysfunctional relationship with the EU. On Ukraine, Putin was emotional and delusional and did not push the Russian peacekeeping proposal, said the official. On Syria, he was confident of victory and wanted the West to pay for rebuilding the country.
One US official saw Putin’s aim in Ukraine as being to prevent it becoming a successful country; he wanted a federal structure that would allow him to destabilise the country and ensure that it was Russia-friendly. “But Putin blew it, much of the country is now hostile to Russia. And the US is close to selling defensive weapons to Ukraine.” Another official suggested that the decision on supplying lethal weapons had been signed off by every senior figure in the administration except Trump himself; it was still unclear when or whether he would approve it. Interestingly, Trump has approved the sale of US anti-tank missiles to Georgia.
One person close to Trump said his personal relationship with Putin remained good, and that US-Russian military-to-military contacts were also effective, over the war in Syria.
Turkey
“The biggest geopolitical shift since the end of the Cold War is Turkey’s drift away from the West”, said a senior US official. The Americans are very worried about Turkey but admit they don’t know what to do about it. The ‘visa wars’ – which began when the US stopped issuing visas to Turks, because of the arrest of two of its embassy staff in Ankara – continue, though both sides are now issuing small numbers of visas. The current trial in New York of Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold-trader, has further poisoned the atmosphere; Zarrab has accused President Erdogan of (when prime minister) approving a money-laundering scheme involving Iranian banks, as a way of bypassing sanctions on Iran.
American officials claim that they criticise Turkey over human rights, during private meetings with Turkish ministers. They find Turkey’s behaviour intolerable but fret that if they are too critical they will drive it even further into a league with Russia and Iran; US support for the YPG Kurdish group in Syria (a PKK affiliate) has already pushed Turkey towards that pair. US officials are divided over whether American support for the YPG should continue, now that ISIS has been defeated in Syria.
The Middle East and Iran
US officials deny that they are lining up uncritically behind Saudi Arabia in its struggle against Iran, but that is how it looked to several European participants at the Daimler Forum. US officials speak of the DPRK and Iran in the same way and in the same sentence – both are viewed as rogue regimes that covet WMD, which support terrorism and must be stopped. Said one true believer: “We’ve been in a proxy war with Iran since 1979, they have killed a lot of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they only pull back if you confront them.”
On Saudi Arabia, US officials welcome Mohammad Bin Salman’s support for moderate Islam, anti-corruption measures and women’s rights. The downsides – including ill-thought through moves on Qatar and Yemen – are seen as regrettable but containable. US officials claim they are pressurising ‘MBS’ on the rule of law and due process. They also said they would be very critical of Iran on human rights, and would back the people against the Tehran regime; they seemed unaware that remaining silent in public about human rights abuse in Saudi Arabia and other US allies left America open to the charge of double standards.
A fundamental strategic objective of the Trump administration in the Middle East is to shift the balance of power in favour of the US’s friends and allies, who felt neglected by Obama. The US is focused on thwarting Iran’s plans to stretch its crescent of influence all the way to Lebanon and the Mediterranean. Officials say they are determined to constrain Iran’s ability to project power, by blocking flows of arms, money and logistical support to its allies.
The US is not planning to tear up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the ‘JCPOA’ Iran nuclear agreement). But it regards that agreement as deeply flawed, because of its sunset clauses, because there are restrictions on inspectors entering military bases and because Iran’s ballistic missile programme is not covered. Trumpians argue that rather than improve Iran’s behaviour – they point to Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria – the JCPOA has, rather, left Iran feeling empowered. Europe should pay attention to what Iran actually does, said US officials defending Trump’s refusal to certify that the JCPOA was in the US national interest.
The administration’s line is that the deal needs to be improved through annexes or supplements; it is willing to work with allies and Congress to achieve to that end. “We are testing the JCPOA’s durability”, said one official. But the reality, as European officials pointed out, is that the agreement is not going to be revised. So the long-term fate of the JCPOA is unclear. US officials seemed to want Congress to set metrics for judging the agreement’s success. For now they are seeking to reassure the Europeans that the JCPOA is not about to be killed off, at least any time soon. But one official warned: “I don’t know what the president will do if the flaws in the agreement are not fixed, but he could scrap it.”
While we were in Washington, the British, French and German political directors had meetings with NSC and State Dept. officials, to make the case for keeping the agreement. When US officials complain that the JCPOA has not stopped Iran behaving badly, Europeans respond that the agreement is supposed to be just about the nuclear programme, rather than everything Iran does. Europeans point out that tearing up the JCPOA would boost support for the Islamic regime within Iran. Some of them think Saudi Arabia was doing more to destabilise regional security than Iran. And they point to the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly stated that Iran is complying with the JCPOA.
US officials set great store by the UN-led Syrian peace process in Geneva. And they seem to think that Russia, Assad and some of the key rebel leaders will engage there. Now that ISIS has been beaten in Syria, officials seemed unsure what would happen next on the ground in the country. They think the US and the Europeans have leverage: they can refuse to pay for reconstruction while Assad is there, or until there is a political process, and they also control swathes of territory via the Syrian Democratic Forces (which are partly the same as the YPG). Some European officials worry that the Trump administration focuses far too much on military solutions to terrorism, and that it underplays efforts to thwart radicalisation.
New strategic documents
Trump’s instincts tell him that allies are out to cheat the US. This view is likely to be reflected in a number of forthcoming strategic documents, which are likely to stress ‘reciprocity’ in US relationships – a concept also reflected in a Wall Street Journal article earlier in the year by McMaster and National Economic Adviser Gary Cohn. European willingness to increase forces in Afghanistan is seen by the administration as a key test. Pro-NATO figures in the administration need some ‘quick wins’ to give Trump a positive view of the alliance before the July 2018 Summit in Brussels and a possible 70th anniversary Summit in Washington in 2019.
A new National Security Strategy is being drafted by NSC official Nadia Schadlow. This is likely to declare Asia the top priority region, with Europe second and the Middle East third (though Iran will be identified as one of the top threats, along with China, Russia, North Korea and terrorism). ‘Promoting American values’, which was a central element of both Bush’s and Obama’s strategies, will not feature. Trump does not see a link between strategy and values; Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis apparently does, but cannot persuade the president.
The Nuclear Posture Review is being drafted in parallel by Elbridge Colby, a Pentagon official. He believes that NATO may need to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory against Russian attack, and he has linked the coverage of the US nuclear umbrella to the willingness of those under it to spend more on their own defence.
But the practical impact of the new strategy documents may be limited: as the policy staff of the Pentagon is filled out by Mattis, he is appointing mainstream internationalist Republicans, not ‘true believers’.
A word on Brexit
Most US officials regard Brexit as a disaster, though some true believers share Trump’s enthusiasm for it. One official said the US would not want to start work on an FTA with the UK till it could see the shape of the future EU-UK agreement. Officials are working with the UK to find ways of replicating the 20-odd agreements between the EU and the US in areas like data privacy, aviation, nuclear safety and customs. On a recent visit to Washington, David Davis, the Brexit secretary, did not impress – he seemed uninterested in detail and adopted a bluff “everything will be fine” approach.
Discussions with Congressional staffers showed concerns about the impact of Brexit on US businesses in the UK and EU; on the role of the UK in shaping EU sanctions regimes post-Brexit; and on the peace process in Northern Ireland (to which the Clinton, George W Bush and Obama administrations all contributed, creating bipartisan anxiety about Brexit’s effect).
Of the EU’s ‘big three’, the French are currently the most popular in Washington. There is a lot of French-US cooperation over counter-terrorism, security and the Sahel. Trump and Macron get on quite well. US officials are relatively relaxed about the plans of Macron and Merkel for more European defence co-operation (though in the right-wing think-tanks there are worries that more EU defence could mean less energy for NATO). Germany is unpopular because of Merkel’s moralising vis-à-vis Trump, its insufficient defence budget and its large trade surplus. The UK is seen as too distracted by Brexit to be influential on global issues like the Russia sanctions or Afghanistan. Some worry that imminent defence cuts will hamper its ability to be a useful partner to the US’s armed forces.
Charles Grant, December 2017
