No wonder the Brits voted Leave

October 24, 2022

This article first appeared in Politico Europe on October 24th, 2022. Click Here to read the original article.

By Ambassador John Bolton

John Bolton served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and as the 26th United States National Security Advisor from 2018 to 2019. 

Watching the United Kingdom’s ongoing political turmoil is hardly edifying, neither is it any measure of London’s long-term international standing.

All democracies experience periodical political unrest, especially under constitutional systems where executive authority depends on parliamentary majorities. In response to contemporary doomsayers, the British can rightly say their democracy did much better during the 20th century than those on the Continent.

Forecasting what now lies ahead for the U.K. requires starting with the broader international political environment. Earlier this year, the United States and its NATO allies failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine. Notwithstanding the West’s enormous efforts after February 24, the foundational historical reality is their collective failure to prevent Moscow’s attack ab initio. Nuclear deterrence, after all, brought us through to victory in the Cold War, yet the Alliance seemed clueless about how to establish deterrence against a conventional attack. 

Worrying about governmental instability is entirely proper, but if governments cannot fend off external threats, whether they are stable or unstable ultimately means very little. And the consequences of failing to deter Russia in Ukraine are small change compared to failing to deter future belligerent actions by China along its extensive Indo-Pacific periphery. 

When we look at the international threats now looming, it helps keep Britain’s political dustup in perspective.

Moreover, following the Kremlin’s attack, there’s a strong, indeed compelling, case that Great Britain has been the leading foreign power supporting Ukraine. Under the triumvirate of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, London was at the forefront of political resolve and leadership, and on a per capita basis — along with Poland and the Baltic republics — Kyiv’s largest supplier of military assistance. 

Of course, aggregate U.S. assistance, particularly including intelligence, has been much larger, but British political resolve and commitment have been consistently robust. There was no talk or uncertainty about a “minor incursion” by Russia, as from U.S. President Joe Biden in the perilous days before the invasion, and no hesitations afterward about what to provide to Ukraine, and how much, as in Washington and European capitals.  

That both Johnson and Truss fell from power without impairing the U.K.’s focus on its Ukraine objectives is a telling point regarding the underlying strength and resilience of Britain’s place in world affairs. 

More generally, there is no credible argument that any other European government is currently doing better in international matters. True, the British pound fell during the tumult and uncertainty of Truss’ government, but has anyone noticed the euro is still below parity with the dollar?

In France, President Emmanuel Macron had to ram his government’s budget through, using extraordinary constitutional provisions because parliament wouldn’t act, and his own legislative support may be cracking under the strain. (To be candid, of course, America’s federal budget process hasn’t worked for many years either.) 

In Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is struggling with the consequences of decades of misguided energy policy in a coalition government that often seems paralyzed. He has repeatedly faced questions as to whether Germany is up to leading Europe, or even keeping its economy vigorous and its citizens warm this winter.

Meanwhile, who knows what will happen with Italy’s new coalition government? And so on.

The real trouble in the U.K. is the unwillingness of many Brits to accept the verdict of the 2016 independence referendum. This ongoing internal political debate has been significantly exacerbated by the European Union and its members, seeking reprisals against Great Britain’s temerity in exiting the EU. The Inquisition must have inspired the determination of many European political leaders to punish London’s heresy, in large part to discourage others from even considering breaking free. The prevailing mood in Brussels seems to be that the more unpleasant it can be made for the U.K., such as turning the Irish border question into a crisis, the better.

No wonder the Brits voted Leave.

Within Britain, there’s now a kind of Donald Trump problem. The former U.S. president refused — and still refuses — to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election (notably, almost no other election outcomes, at any level, across the U.S. were contested). Similarly, many British Remainers simply will not acknowledge that they lost in 2016. In Parliament and in the courts, Remainers tried to sabotage legislation implementing the Brexit referendum’s result and will not abandon hope of another vote.

Even the many Remainers who publicly said that they accepted the results, didn’t really feel it in their hearts. For example, they continued adhering to the fiction that, before Britain’s formal exit occurred, EU treaties and regulations precluded London from negotiating bilateral trade agreements that could be brought into effect once full independence was achieved. But this was nonsense. The British people had announced, by their votes, that the U.K. was leaving. 

To accept being bound by requirements that were unenforceable and unreasonable in the circumstances tied Britain’s hands when it could have secured dozens of bilateral trade deals. Would Brussels have then behaved worse than it is now?

Similarly, the British, especially the Conservative Party, shouldn’t conclude that Truss’ tax proposals, however badly mishandled, are doomed forever. Currently, little is understood about what the Truss government did or did not do in its rollout strategy, but whatever is later revealed will simply detail the tactics and mechanics of how bad politics derailed good policies. It will say nothing about the merits of the plans themselves, other than the fascination that U.S. and European Establishments have with keeping taxes high and interest rates low. Perhaps they really do fear economic growth. The moral is to remember the courage that Margaret Thatcher (“The lady’s not for turning”) and Ronald Reagan showed in their tax-cutting days.

We shall soon know Britain’s next prime minister, and how they intend to proceed. For all the dire warnings about the Conservative Party’s imminent demise, remember who their opposition is: the Labour Party. That alone should lift their spirits.

“Land of hope and glory . . . God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet!”

Putin Must Go: Now Is The Time For Regime Change In Russia

October 04, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

This article was first published on October 4th, 2022, in 19fortyfive. Click Here to read the original.

“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” President Biden said of Vladimir Putin in March, a month after Russia’s second unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, in remarks the Washington Post called “the most defiant and aggressive speech about Russia by an American president since Ronald Reagan.”(https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/26/biden-ukraine-putin-speech/) Biden’s staff, however, immediately backpedaled, saying, “the president’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in Russia or regime change.” Later, Biden himself dutifully resiled from regime change.(https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.html)

Why the angst? There is no long-term prospect for peace and security in Europe without regime change in Russia. Russians are already discussing it, quietly, for obvious reasons. For the United States and others pretending that the issue is not before will do far more harm than good.

Notwithstanding recent Kyiv’s military advances, the West still lacks a shared definition of “victory” in Ukraine. Last week, Putin “annexed” four Ukrainian oblasts, joining Crimea, “annexed” in 2014. The war grinds on, producing high Russian casualties and economic pain. Opposition to Putin is rising, and young men are fleeing the country. Of course, Kyiv’s civilian and military casualties are also high, and its physical destruction is enormous. Hoping to intimidate NATO, Moscow is again rhetorically brandishing nuclear weapons, and has sabotaged the Nordstream pipelines. Europe worries about the coming winter, and everyone worries about the durability of Europe’s resolve. No one predicts a near-term cease-fire or substantive war-ending negotiations, or how to conduct “normal” relations with Putin’s regime thereafter.

To avoid the war simply grinding along indefinitely, we must alter today’s calculus. Carefully assisting Russian dissidents to pursue regime change might just be the answer. Russia is, obviously, a nuclear power, but that is no more an argument against seeking regime change than against assisting Ukrainian self-defense. White House virtue signaling already empowers the Kremlin, accusing us of “satanism,” to claim America is trying to overthrow Russia’s government even though Biden is doing no such thing. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/europe/putin-speech-ukraine-russia.html) Just to remind, the Kremlin has been doing this to us for many decades. Since we are already accused of subverting the Kremlin, why not return the favor?

Obstacles and uncertainties blocking Russian regime change are substantial, but not insuperable. Defining the “change” is critical, because it must involve far more than simply replacing Putin. Among his inner circle, several potential successors would be worse. The problem is not one man, but the collective leadership constructed over the last two decades. No civilian governmental structure exists to effect change, not even a Politburo like the one that retired Nikita Khrushchev after the Cuban missile crisis. The whole regime must go.

Actually effecting regime change is doubtless the hardest problem, but it does not require foreign military forces. The key is for Russians themselves to exacerbate divisions among those with real authority, the siloviki, the “men of power.” Disagreements and animosities already exist, as in all authoritarian regimes, exploitable as dissidents set their minds to it. Boris Yeltsin standing on a tank outside the Russian White House in 1991 evidenced the fracturing of the Soviet ruling class. Once regime coherence and solidarity shatter, change is possible.

Inside Russia’s military, intelligence and internal security ministries, there is almost certainly shock, anger, embarrassment, and despair about Moscow’s performance before and during the current invasion of Ukraine. As in many coups in third-world countries, the likely leadership for regime change will not come from the top flag officers and officials, who are too personally invested in the Putin regime, nor from the ranks of enlisted personnel or lower-level bureaucrats. It is from the colonels and one-star generals, and their civilian-agency equivalents, where the most-likely co-conspirators to take maters into their own hands. These are the decision-makers whom the dissidents must identify, persuade and support to facilitate regime change. Obviously, the desired interim outcome is not an outright military government, but a transitional authority that can hold the ring while a new constitution is formed. This stage alone is very risky business, but unavoidable given Russia’s current domestic political structures.

Outsiders can assist in many ways, including augmenting dissidents’ communications internally and with their diaspora, and significantly enhanced programs to transmit information into Russia (complicated by the long decline in US information-statecraft capabilities). Financial support, especially given Russian economic conditions, and not necessarily in large amounts, can also be critical. What Washington says publicly about regime-change should be concerted with the dissidents and other foreign allies. Keeping our actions covert may be impossible, but there is likely no need to ballyhoo them.

Some will object that foreign involvement would compromise the dissidents, affording Putin propaganda openings. The short answer is that he is already making this point, and will continue, whatever we say or do. Our metric should be whether the dissidents themselves value outside help. Most likely, their cost-benefit analysis will welcome the assistance more than they fear Putin’s anti-American rhetoric. Russians have heard it all before.

What follows the Putin regime is ultimately the most critical question. Russians are already considering their options, as they should, since it is primarily their task to form a successor government.(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/30/alexei-navalny-parliamentary-republic-russia-ukraine/) Enough mistakes were made after the Soviet Union dissolved that humility in future planning this round is fully warranted, and highlights why immediate research and planning is necessary.

Washington’s obvious strategic objective is having Russia aligned with the West, a fit candidate for NATO, as we hoped after the Soviet Union’s breakup. Others may be unhappy about such a new Russia. China can hardly welcome the collapse of a regime that is turning into Beijing’s junior partner, if not an outright satellite. Chinese efforts to support Putin, even militarily, cannot be ruled out.

While Russian regime change may be daunting, America’s goal of a peaceful and secure Europe, episodically pursued goal for over a century, remains central to our national interests. This is no time to be shy.

Ambassador John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald J. Trump. He is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” You can follow him on Twitter: @AmbJohnBolton.

South Korea Can Play a Vital Role in the Indo-Pacific

September 28, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

Taiwan may be Asia’s most imminent flashpoint, but the threats facing South Korea are no less perilous. North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs continue advancing amid constant rumors of another nuclear test, which would be North Korea’s seventh. Particularly significant for South Korea’s emerging strategy in response is the growing realization that threats across the Indo-Pacific aren’t discrete and unrelated but ultimately emanate from one actor: China.

In Seoul, speculation about Pyongyang’s next nuclear detonation centers on the days just before America’s elections. The Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress, expected to enshrine Xi Jinping as China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, begins on Oct. 16. Kim Jong Un won’t risk spoiling the Chinese congress during its session, but the ensuing weeks will offer a dramatic opportunity to flaunt his nuclear capabilities. Mr. Kim’s recent announcement of his first-strike nuclear policy, together with blunt warnings he won’t negotiate away the nuclear program, publicly codifies North Korea’s longstanding nuclear doctrine.

Seoul has always understandably concentrated on Pyongyang’s threat. Now, however, it sees Beijing’s belligerence toward Taiwan, interference in South Pacific Island states, and critical support for North Korea as interrelated parts of an overall Chinese Indo-Pacific strategy. This assessment points to what should be obvious: Beijing is ultimately responsible for Pyongyang’s nuclear threat. For too long, the U.S. has allowed the Chinese government to pretend (through the Six-Party Talks, for example) that it is genuinely committed to finding a solution on nuclear proliferation. This fantasy is increasingly difficult to sustain, since North Korea never threatens China. Instead it threatens South Korea, Japan and America.

More-comprehensive policies countering China’s Indo-Pacific threats, previously seen as unconnected, are slowly developing. President Biden enhanced the profile of the Quad (Japan, India, Australia and the U.S.) and approved the Aukus partnership to provide Australia nuclear-powered submarines. He also met with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a potential step to “trilateralize” Washington’s ties with Seoul and Tokyo. Nonetheless, the administration’s overall China policy remains fragmentary and opaque if it exists at all.

Significant U.S.-South Korea military exercises (canceled by Donald Trump as an unreturned favor to Kim Jong Un) are resuming, with the USS Ronald Reagan carrier-strike group arriving in Pusan for joint maneuvers. The Reagan’s deployment (the first carrier visit since 2018) sends Pyongyang a strategic signal, but it is unaccompanied by any evidence the White House is prepared to jettison the failed 30-year diplomatic minuet with North Korea. Repeated administration offers to engage the North have elicited no interest.

Mr. Yoon is working to improve relations with Japan, meeting informally with Mr. Kishida last week in New York, and their foreign ministers discussed problems blocking closer linkages. Improving ties with Japan is only a first step toward broader South Korean involvement in East Asia, but it is a critical one. Japanese opinion views a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan as tantamount to an attack on Japan, a view Seoul doesn’t share. Beijing’s menacing stance toward Taiwan, however, is inexorably bringing South Korean leaders a fuller understanding of China’s many interrelated efforts to control its periphery. Greater cooperation between Taiwan and South Korea is critical to thwarting China’s ambitions.

The Quad should become a “Quint” by making South Korea a full member. Seoul’s perspective and capabilities would measurably enhance the grouping’s potential to address Beijing’s use of North Korea as a surrogate, its threats in the South China Sea and to Taiwan, and its aggressive behavior in the South Pacific. Moreover, Seoul-Tokyo engagement in a Quint context could more easily encourage bilateral patterns of cooperation than if the two were limited to stewing in contentious bilateral issues.

A Quint would demonstrate broader resolve in the face of China’s attempts to keep the U.S. and its allies off balance through divide-and-conquer tactics. South Korean participation in wider regional structures would help eliminate strategic ambiguity about Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack. Biden staffers have apparently rebuffed suggestions to make South Korea part of the Quad. If so, this mistake needs prompt reversal.

The tempo of Indo-Pacific challenges is increasing, with threat levels rising. But as the U.S. confronts critical tactical decisions, such as how to arm Taiwan effectively to deter Chinese belligerence, it must be careful not to ignore larger strategic issues. South Korea and its new president are ready for regional defense cooperation beyond the existing hub-and-spoke bilateral alliance with the U.S. All the concerned countries in the Indo-Pacific would benefit. Let’s not miss this opportunity.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

 As China targets the South Pacific, the U.S. urgently needs to push back

September 13, 2022

This article first appeared in the Washington Post on September 12th, 2022. Click here to read the original article.

John R. Bolton served as national security adviser under President Donald Trump and is the author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.”

Few areas of the world seem more distant from the United States than the island states of the South Pacific. World War II reminiscences have faded, and the words “South Pacific” now resonate more as a Broadway musical title than a geographic locator. For U.S. national security, this needs to change, sooner rather than later.

Get the maps out; Chinese leaders, diplomats and the military have theirs nearly memorized. Hemmed in by what it calls the “first island chain” (stretching from the Kuril Islands, through Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia), China has longed to break free into the broader Pacific Ocean. Beijing is interested in this wider horizon because its aspirations extend not merely to hegemony along its immediate Indo-Pacific periphery, but to far wider objectives, already reflected in its pursuit of economic interest in Africa and the Western Hemisphere.

Taiwan is thus important to China not just because of nationalistic fervor, but also because dominance over Taiwan would irretrievably pierce the first island chain. Another breakout strategy over the tyranny of geography is to leapfrog the close-in islands and stake out positions across the Pacific — which is precisely what Beijing appears now to be attempting.

The Pacific’s insular nations are small in land mass and lightly populated, although huge when their ocean territories are included. Xi Jinping has marked them as vulnerable, seemingly intent on going island-hopping, using intimidation, bribery or whatever it takes to achieve China’s ends.

The immediate crisis is in the Solomon Islands, where U.S. forces won a critical victory in 1942-1943 on Guadalcanal, a World War II turning point. In August, senior administration officials Wendy Sherman and Caroline Kennedy, whose fathers fought in the Solomon Islands, led a U.S. delegation to mark the 80th anniversary of the battle at Guadalcanal. Signifying growing Chinese hegemony, however, and perhaps issuing an insult at China’s behest, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare failed to attend the ceremonies near Honiara, the capital. Weeks later, a U.S. Coast Guard vessel was denied permission to make a port call, another apparently intentional discourtesy. Most recently, elections scheduled for next May were postponed until 2024, a move that opposition leaders consider an ominous sign of China’s influence.

A Chinese base in the Solomons would directly menace Australia (about 1,200 miles away), harking back to the Japanese threat during World War II. I was recently in Sydney, and found that Australians need no persuading about China’s rising regional threat. What they seek is a more visible, vigorous U.S. presence in the region, and rightly so. The Solomons are in jeopardy now, and while “domino theory” inevitability might not yet obtain, other island states are clearly vulnerable.

America has for too long paid insufficient attention to the South Pacific. In 1945, the United States assumed Japan’s former League of Nations mandate over the new United Nations’ Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. After plebiscites in 1983, one island chain became the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, thereby remaining part of the United States, adjacent to Guam, long a U.S. territory. Three other island groupings — Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia — chose independence. (American Samoa is a separate territory.)

These three new nations all signed “compacts of free association” with the United States, which provide that Washington supervises their foreign affairs (short of declaring war), including prohibiting the presence of foreign military forces without U.S. permission. The compacts have been extended once and are now up for renegotiation because they expire over the next two years.

This is not a moment to falter or for shortsightedness. Fortuitously timed as the renegotiation is, the White House should take full advantage of the opportunity to cement long-term strategic relations with this trio of nations to keep China out. The costs of enhanced U.S. involvement are trivial in the context of global aid budgets; and the sea and land expanses involved are only somewhat smaller than the continental United States itself.

When I briefed President Donald Trump just before his meeting with the three leaders of these freely associated states in 2019, he asked, “Why am I meeting these people?” His successors should not need to ask.

South Pacific responsibilities need not rest on the United States alone. Australia, New Zealand and Britain all have contemporary relationships and regional histories, dating back to naval coaling or whaling stations. France retains three extensive overseas territories (New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Fortuna), represented in France’s Parliament, and whose territory is deemed part of the European Union.

Countering Chinese aggressiveness in the South Pacific should be a matter of urgent bipartisan agreement and action, rare as they might be today. The faraway island of Bali Hai, celebrated in a certain musical, is closer than we thought.

Liz Truss May Be Just the Prime Minister America Needs

September 06, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal on September 6th, 2022. Click Here to read the original article.

When there’s a leadership vacuum in Washington, a resolute Britain is crucial to Western interests.

Frissons of disapproval shook the State Department last year when British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss first met Secretary of State Antony Blinken. She was “blunt” and “assertive” and took “maximalist positions,” anonymous U.S. sources asserted. The horror: a British official as plainspoken as an American!

As prime minister, an assertive Ms. Truss could be a force multiplier for the U.S. Boris Johnson, in his farewell to Parliament, advised colleagues to “stay close to the Americans.” These words are strange to American ears because we seldom hear them, even from our closest friends. But Mr. Johnson meant it, and there is no doubt Ms. Truss agrees. In the crises and conflicts ahead, her reward for pro-U.S. inclinations will be criticism that, like Tony Blair during the post 9/11 Iraq war, she is Washington’s “poodle.” Critics don’t grasp that Washington appreciates London’s unvarnished advice and candid criticism as proof of the alliance’s strength. Besides, I’ve never encountered a British poodle.

For America, bilaterally and globally, the transition from Mr. Johnson to Ms. Truss will likely be smooth. At a time when U.S. leadership is hesitant if not flatly wrong, such as in the tragic decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, British resolve is critical to sustain and advance Western interests.

Mr. Johnson bequeaths to Ms. Truss the essentially completed job of liberating the U.K. from the European Union, thus enabling her to focus on new priorities. As a former “Remainer,” Ms. Truss is, ironically, well-suited to the post-Brexit imperative of making a success of Britain’s new international reality. This requires abandoning a Eurocentric focus in economics, striving instead to expand British trade and commerce world-wide, and in politics advancing global British interests. While serving as Mr. Johnson’s trade secretary, seeking bilateral deals with the U.S. and other countries, Ms. Truss’s post-Brexit focus was marked by determination and perseverance. The philosophical direction of her policies seems clear.

The Ukraine war has proved that when it comes to defending continental peace and security, the U.K. can be a better “European” outside the EU than key EU members like France and Germany. While President Biden has stuttered in delineating clear objectives for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in delivering military assistance to Ukraine, Mr. Johnson’s government never wavered. Ms. Truss has spoken about ensuring that Vladimir Putin “loses in Ukraine” and suffers a “strategic defeat.” By contrast, Mr. Biden and his more timid advisers appear to be dragged along by Congress, more forward-leaning officials and events on the ground. Especially if Ms. Truss keeps Defense Secretary Ben Wallace in place, London is likely to remain resolute even if Washington continues to falter.

Finland’s and Sweden’s fortuitously timed moves to join NATO will make it easier to keep decision-making on defense and security within the alliance and resist France’s constant push to expand EU involvement in those realms. Ms. Truss will have no difficulty insisting that NATO is the epicenter of Western politico-military debates, rather than indulging the fanciful notion that the EU can or should be.

Because Ms. Truss is freed from EU parochialism, she appears up to confronting China’s aspirations for Indo-Pacific and then global hegemony. During the just-concluded Tory leadership campaign, she was reportedly ready to reopen Britain’s national-security strategy to declare China, like Russia, an “acute threat,” rather than merely a strategic competitor. As in America, bureaucratic resisters in key departments, such as Treasury and the Foreign Office, resist even acknowledging the struggle with China, but Ms. Truss has no illusions. Her leadership as foreign secretary in establishing the Aukus partnership to build nuclear submarines for Australia proves the point. During the campaign, Ms. Truss’s support from Sino- and Euro-realists like former party leader Iain Duncan Smith and Sir Bill Cash indicates that she is committed on the China issue.

Iran’s nuclear menace also remains a challenge to Britain and America. As a party to the 2015 nuclear deal, London has a key role, and there are signs Ms. Truss is more skeptical of the failed agreement than prior U.K. governments. Her vocal supporters certainly are. No longer part of the “EU-3” negotiating group with France and Germany, Britain can play a truly independent role. If Ms. Truss used the occasion of her first phone call as prime minister with Mr. Biden to urge that he scrap the deal and emphasize that all options are on the table, her government would be well-launched.

Margaret Thatcher’s 1979 selection as prime minister foreshadowed Ronald Reagan’s election as president. We can only hope for a reprise, and the sooner the better.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

When will American businesses wake up to the threat of Chinese espionage?

July 26, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

In an unprecedented joint public appearance on July 6, FBI Director Christopher Wray and his British counterpart, MI-5 Director General Ken McCallum, warned a London audience of business leaders and academics that China posed a “massive, shared challenge.” Beijing, said Wray, was “set on stealing your technology—whatever it is that makes your industry tick—and using it to undercut your business and dominate your market.” McCallum was equally forceful, describing China’s “coordinated campaign on a grand scale,” representing “a strategic contest across decades.”

This is not the first time Wray has spoken out in unambiguous terms. On January 31 at the Reagan Presidential Library in California, he stressed that China’s threat to America’s economic security had “reached a new level—more brazen, more damaging than ever before.” This stress on foreign-government threats to America’s private sector may seem unusual for the FBI, but Wray has correctly focused on the incredibly broad scope of Beijing’s menacing behavior, well beyond intelligence gathering and clandestine actions against the U.S. and allied governments.

Wray’s public statements are complementary to Vice President Mike Pence’s 2018 warning about Beijing’s widespread efforts to influence U.S. public opinion. Unfortunately, we are, even now, only just awakening to the extraordinary scope of China’s whole-of government (which, in Beijing’s case, essentially means whole-of-society) operations against our economy and society, and that of our allies. This awakening must spread, and quickly.

In government, President Joe Biden’s performance is decidedly mixed. He deserves credit for the first in-person meeting of the “Quad” (Australia, India, Japan, and America), a constellation with enormous potential (but, so far, few practical achievements) for constraining China. The Pentagon agreed to the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (“AUKUS”) project to build nuclear-powered, hunter-killer submarines for Australia, a conceptual and operational breakthrough whose success or failure has major strategic implications across the Indo-Pacific. By contrast, Biden may have already rescinded Trump administration decision-making rules on offensive cyber efforts, thereby returning to Obama-era procedures that effectively strangled such measures, crippling our ability to strike pre-emptively against Chinese election-meddling efforts. Biden, seemingly intimidated by Chinese complaints about a projected Taiwan visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has urged her not to go.

AUKUS and the Quad represent initial steps in constructing a denser alliance framework, more akin to the North Atlantic pattern. Analysts have long worried that America’s bilateral Asian alliances are merely “hub-and-spoke” arrangements, but this picture is changing. Newly inaugurated South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, for example, is seeking to forge closer trilateral relations with Tokyo and Washington, symbolized by the three leaders’ recent meeting in Madrid. The “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing partnership (among Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and US) consists entirely of Pacific powers. The pieces are there for robust Indo-Pacific cooperation against the full range of Chinese threats.

Ironically, America’s sleeper problem, one spotlighted by Wray and McCallum, lies in the private sector. Despite two decades of increasing warning signs, American firms, led by financial and high-tech enterprises, invested and traded with China as if international political risk no longer warranted deep consideration in business decisions. Extensive capital investment in China exposed intellectual property to Beijing’s high-tech piracy. Forced-technology transfers as a condition to do business there, and the dangers to supply chains from political tensions, were ignored or minimized. Even today, as the political risks of doing business with China are skyrocketing, especially in sensitive national-security-related areas, many U.S. business leaders still do not appreciate the threats they face.

Assurances that China does not engage in commercial espionage or theft of intellectual property should carry no weight with Western businesses. In 2015, Xi Jinping and a gullible Barack Obama agreed that neither of their governments “will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property,” a commitment to which Beijing’s Ministry of State Security has paid no heed whatever.

Worse, too many business executives and politicians across the spectrum seem to believe that the proper response to Chinese threats is massive Federal expenditures to bolster U.S. competitiveness. This approach fundamentally misperceives the problem. America doesn’t suffer from a deficit of creativity and innovation. It suffers instead from decades of China stealing our creativity and innovation, as FBI Director Wray has forcefully explained, and in some cases benefitting from the gratuitous transfer of intellectual property by credulous Americans heedless of the consequences.

Beijing has weaponized what superficially appear to be commercial telecommunications firms like Huawei and ZTE, making them arms of the Chinese state. The Trump and Biden administrations have imposed increasingly strict sanctions on such firms, but enormous damage has already been done, including putting at risk communications involving America’s land-based, ballistic-missile forces. Beijing’s espionage deviousness is exemplified by its offer to build a Chinese garden at Washington’s National Arboretum, which would actually be a concealed listening post or accessing user data from the popular Tik-Tok app. We are still not adequately awake to the potential that virtually any Chinese “business” enterprise could be an agent of commercial infiltration and exploitation.

However, appropriate defensive measures should not be confused with massive subsidies to the U.S. information-technology industry. There is clearly a need for more Federal spending to counter Chinese espionage and piracy of intellectual property and other critical data, but that spending should be for military, and intelligence measures to enhance our defensive and offensive capabilities. Moreover, money to replace existing equipment sold by Huawei, ZTE, and others, largely in rural and sparsely populated areas, but which can affect the nationwide telecommunications grid, is well spent. Expenditures for “regional technology hubs” by contrast, will not enhance creativity, but will shrink the Federal dollars available for critically needed efforts at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community.

Chris Wray has more than enough to occupy his time at the FBI, so his public focus on the threat of Chinese espionage demonstrates just how serious he judges the threat to be. American businesses and government should pay more attention to what he is saying.

Let Pelosi Travel to Taiwan

July 25, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

This article first appeared in the Washington Examiner on July 24th. Click here to view the original article.

Whether or not Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) travels to Taiwan in August is a major foreign policy issue. Indeed, the answer will tell us a great deal about who actually controls American foreign policy: Washington or Beijing. We will see whether Xi Jinping’s “wolf warrior” diplomacy, which caught the Biden administration off guard at its inception, will work for Beijing regarding Pelosi.

China’s position on the status of Taiwan, not careful American calculations, has too long dominated U.S. diplomacy with Taipei. Too many in Washington have fretted about “damaging” relations with Beijing, with a few notable exceptions in recent administrations. Too few officials seem concerned either about America’s relations with Taiwan, an important Indo-Pacific ally, or about the damage that capitulating to Beijing would do to our credibility resisting its hegemonic aspirations worldwide.

Responding to Pelosi’s potential trip, China erupted, publicly and privately. “The United States is hollowing out and blurring up the ‘One China’ policy,” China’s U.S. ambassador complained. The White House responded that it still adheres to “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan, leaving the distinct impression Beijing’s intimidation was succeeding. Perhaps due to its overriding concern for climate change negotiations with China, the White House is working overtime to prevent (or at least postpone) Pelosi’s trip — if only it could figure out how.

Biden himself has not addressed the issue squarely, leaving concern about Pelosi’s trip to the Pentagon and worries about the speaker’s safety. Of course, China’s efforts to interfere in Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, its menacing approaches by “fishing fleets” to the Senkaku Islands, which are disputed with Japan, its militarized assertion that the South China Sea constitutes a province of China, and its persistent harassment of Indian forces along the disputed border all indicate that any travel near China — not to mention within China — is potentially dangerous.

Of course, the source of the danger is China itself. Beijing creates the problem and then warns against it as if discussing threatening weather. If we simply accept that Middle Kingdom ultimatums alone will dictate our behavior, Beijing gets its way cost-free. Obviously, we should be clear-eyed in evaluating hostile threats, but our policymakers must learn to distinguish “wolf warrior” diplomatic theater from military reality.

What about the risks to China if it uses force against a Pelosi visit? She is, most importantly, an American citizen. She is also speaker of the House, a position the Constitution created, and, by statute, in the line of presidential succession. Her visit would be no vacation jaunt, whether she travels on military or commercial aircraft. Are we more intimidated by Chinese fist-shaking than they are by the retaliation we would unleash if they endangered the speaker’s safety? If that is true, America has a real problem, a severe one.

Pelosi’s travel highlights why America needs a forthright debate on the fundamentals of our relationship with Taiwan. Biden himself said openly he supported U.S. military involvement in Taiwan’s defense (unlike in Ukraine), but, as so often, his advisers walked that comment back. But jettisoning “strategic ambiguity” is not simply a legitimate viewpoint — it is now quite likely a near-consensus among serious analysts of American interests in the region. Integrating Taiwan into larger frameworks to constrain China makes sense not just for Taiwan but for other concerned neighbors such as Japan and South Korea.

Ultimately, of course, Washington should extend full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan. Doing so would be entirely consistent with the 1933 Montevideo Convention’s conditions for “statehood,” all of which Taiwan meets: defined territory, stable population, functioning government, and the ability to carry out international affairs. The only reason not to act is that Beijing would be unhappy. Given China’s unacceptably belligerent conduct around its Indo-Pacific periphery for the last several decades, however, it is time to recognize reality: Taiwan is a legitimately independent state.

In 1971, then-U.N. Ambassador George H.W. Bush first proposed “dual recognition” (full diplomatic linkages with both China and Taiwan) as a way to stave off expulsion of the Republic of China from the U.N. and its replacement by the People’s Republic of China. Both Taipei and Beijing rejected the compromise, but President Nixon maintained recognition of Taipei. Jimmy Carter mistakenly abandoned that position in 1979 by recognizing Beijing and ditching Taipei. Had Carter not folded dishonorably, the mainland could have done little more than grumble.

In fact, that’s still Beijing’s only real option to this day. Doing anything more than blustering is far riskier to them than to us. I recommended full recognition for Taiwan back in 2000, and the arguments still apply today. Let Pelosi go to Taiwan. It’s a good warm-up for the real thing.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

How to Stiffen Europe’s Resolve After the Iran Nuclear Deal

July 21, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

This article first appeared in the Wall Street Journal on July 20th, 2022. Click here to view the original article.

President Biden admitted last week that his long-suffering efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were finally nearing their end: “We’re waiting for their response. When that will come, I’m not certain. But we’re not going to wait forever.” Of course, we’ve been hearing this since December 2021, even from the Europeans, the deal’s most devoted acolytes.

The cascade of White House concessions during the negotiations, Iran’s additional time to advance its nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, and the loosening enforcement of U.S. sanctions, have considerably emboldened Tehran’s ayatollahs. While the current ambiguity is far from their ideal, they may well accept living with it indefinitely.

That should not, however, satisfy Washington. Instead, the U.S. should fashion diplomatic strategies to align the original deal’s other Western parties (France, Germany and the U.K.) with Israel and the Arab states most threatened by Iran. For two decades, America’s Middle Eastern and European allies have taken opposing views on how best to prevent Iran from obtaining deliverable nuclear weapons. This divide has sometimes been public, sometimes not, and preferred policies have shifted, but the Europeans have generally stressed negotiation while the regional allies have taken a tougher approach. Unsurprisingly, with the two most concerned groupings of American allies in disagreement, Iran has been able to traverse the disarray, coming ever closer to producing deliverable nuclear weapons. Fixing this problem is a top priority.

Since negotiations have failed repeatedly, Mr. Biden’s main diplomatic goal must be cajoling Europeans into adopting a harder economic and political stance, and accepting that clandestine military actions [BY WHOM?] against Iran’s [YES?] nuclear program have already begun. Even harsher measures may be necessary. If the Europeans share America’s view that a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable, they should be prepared to act on that belief.

An initial diplomatic step would be to have those most immediately endangered by Iran, both from its nuclear aspirations and as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, take the lead with our European friends. One could imagine a delegation of, say, Israeli, Bahraini and Emirati foreign ministers visiting their European counterparts to urge a united front against Iran. What an impressive display that would make in Paris, Berlin and London. The tour could include Tallin and Warsaw to symbolize for other Europeans the dangers of living near hostile neighbors.

This joint Arab-Israeli flying squad would bring compelling arguments beyond the global threat of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The White House has revealed that Iran is near to selling several hundred “attack-capable” drones to Russia, almost certainly to use in Ukraine. Sending drones to Russia is in keeping with Iran’s policy of supplying Yemen’s Houthi rebels with drones and missiles, which are often used to target civilian Saudi and Emirati airports and oil infrastructure.

Iran’s oil sales to China, evading U.S. sanctions weakened under Mr. Biden, have also increased dramatically. By contrast, the Bahraini and Emirati foreign ministers, on behalf of the hydrocarbon-producing Gulf Arabs, can be part of Europe’s solution to its catastrophic mistake of becoming overly dependent on Russian exports.

The traveling foreign ministers could also emphasize that the original deal never delivered the increased visibility into Iran’s nuclear program the world was promised. Instead, Tehran has ignored both its 2015 commitments and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Europe’s leaders, strong U.N. adherents, should be deeply disturbed by International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi’s criticisms of Iranian obstructionism. The IAEA board of governors agreed overwhelmingly in June to censure Iran’s noncompliance, with only Russia and China voting against.

The diplomatic mission can also stress that Tehran’s intransigence over nonnuclear issues ultimately torpedoed revival of the 2015 agreement. Demanding that Washington de-list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization is completely unrelated to nuclear issues. Of course, the IRGC has threatened terrorism in Europe, such as the foiled 2018 attack on an opposition rally in Paris. Incredibly, Belgian legislators are now considering releasing the Iranian “diplomat” convicted of this bomb plot; perhaps Brussels should be the Middle Eastern flying squad’s first stop. Moreover, albeit under the flawed “universal jurisdiction” concept, Sweden recently convicted Iranian agents for prison murders shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution [WHAT’S THE CONNECTION??].

And, as for potentially using force against Iran’s nuclear efforts, who better than Israel’s current prime minister, Yair Lapid, to deliver the message? As he said during Mr. Biden’s visit: “The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.” The Europeans should hear that from Mr. Lapid directly, one-on-one, in their capitals.

America’s counter-proliferation diplomacy on Iran will need to be much more extensive, accompanied by far-tougher economic sanctions and assistance to legitimate opposition groups to overthrow the ayatollahs. A joint Israeli-Arab, foreign-minister traveling team would be a good start.

Mr. Bolton is author of “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir.” He served as the president’s national security adviser, 2018-19, and ambassador to the United Nations, 2005-06.

The Case For American Leadership

June 27, 2022

By Ambassador John Bolton

This article first appeared in the Washington Examiner on June 27th, 2022. Click here to see the original article.

This week, President Joe Biden attends the G-7 summit in Germany and a NATO summit in Spain.

These meetings of the free world’s major economic powers and its paramount political-military alliance are particularly significant. America and its allies, seeking recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, have spent their way into dangerous inflation and the face grim prospect of an imminent recession. NATO is engaged in proxy military hostilities with Russia in Ukraine as Europe’s worst land war since 1945 grinds on, producing death, destruction, and global economic consequences. Looming above all else is China, the existential threat for the West’s foreseeable future.

In Henry Luce’s “American Century” (his 1941 aphorism), these diverse, menacing circumstances evoked calls for U.S. leadership to solve the West’s problems. Such calls still ring out today, but few seem to know what they mean. In the United States, the low-grade infection of isolationism persists, questioning why events in the wider world should concern us so much. Ironically, this skepticism is reinforced by reflexive demands for “leadership” that prize heading the parade without actually knowing where the parade is going. It is, therefore, entirely appropriate to consider what “American leadership” means and why we have it.

We should dispense first with the myth that from independence, America had an almost entirely domestic focus, emerging only reluctantly into international affairs in World War I. Hardly. Transforming 13 weak colonies into a transcontinental giant was no mere domestic affair, marked as it was by foreign conflicts — starting with the undeclared 1798-1800 Quasi-War with France and against Barbary pirates in 1801-1805, as well as huge territorial expansion, culminating in 1900 with U.S. control over distant lands such as Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines.

This is not the history of an insular, inward-looking people but the most successful and enduring expansion since ancient Rome. The immeasurable economic capabilities resulting from territorial growth, the flood of immigrants to America, and our determination to maintain free, constitutional, representative government, along with soaring trade, travel, and communications, created the basis on which modern U.S. leadership rests. Three hot wars in Europe in less than a century, starting with the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War, followed by the Cold War, did the rest, decimating Europe and ending its global empires.

China’s empire is now the last one standing. Nostalgia for quieter times internationally has been out of date for at least a century. The issue today is whether to continue the way of life we now enjoy by acting in our own interests, together with friends and allies, to protect against common threats. It is a false choice to think we can turn away from the rest of the world and bear no consequences domestically for doing so. We exercise international leadership because we thereby better protect America’s interests, not because we feel charitable toward others. We can choose to abandon U.S. interests, as some advocate, but make no mistake: No one else will protect them for us. The absence of American global leadership produces not greater stability but either growing anarchy or the emergence of hostile powers seeking to advance their interests to our disadvantage.

President Biden should demonstrate this week that America is still capable of providing leadership to confront unprovoked aggression, whether from Russia or China; handle our economies responsibly, undistracted by fanciful economic theories and social ideologies; and strategize on global challenges ahead. Whether Biden is capable of so doing is entirely another question, and his record does not provide much confidence.

NATO is not as allied with Ukraine as the president’s rhetoric suggests; he apparently has no idea that heedless expansion of the money supply has created the inflation now endangering the global economy, and whether he understands the China threat remains to be seen. The real test of U.S. leadership lies not in international diplomatic theatrics, but in hard battles over seemingly mundane, often mind-numbing subjects like the federal budget. One such ongoing struggle is over the size of our defense budget, which has suffered for 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Lulled into spending the “peace dividend” in non-defense areas, the West’s ability to deter and resist growing global threats has not kept pace.

Even as domestic government spending needs drastic reductions to combat inflation, we also need a significant increase in defense capabilities across the full spectrum of military threats. The 2024 presidential contest has already begun. It is not too soon, during 2022’s congressional campaigns, to debate not just budget numbers but America’s place in the world and why our international leadership benefits us and our allies. Our greatest strength is not our political leaders but the people themselves. Treated like adults by politicians, we are fully capable of doing what is required to safeguard our way of life. Let’s see which candidates grasp that reality. There we will find the next president.

John Bolton was national security adviser to President Donald Trump between 2018 and 2019. Between 2005 and 2006, he was the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Jordan: Stumbling into an Abyss

June 13, 2022

Part II: Reactions to Jordan’s incitement

By David Wurmser

In part one of this essay, I described the harsh and increasingly hostile anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic rhetoric recently employed by Amman, but also its attempts to champion the Palestinian cause and wrest sovereignty from Israel on the Temple Mount, if not all holy sites in Jerusalem into a some sort of “Vatican-like” status. I also outlined the accompanying geopolitical shifts that echo Russian and Non-Aligned Movement narratives.

In this second installment, I will examine the reactions in the West and in Israel to this turn of events, which essentially break down into three types:

Those whose patience is stressed to the limit with Jordan at such a sensitive moment and who advocate ignoring Amman’s demands when they are perceived to come at such an expense of Israeli interests that they threaten the essence of Israeli continued control over either Jerusalem or critical areas of Judea and Samaria.

Those who argue that Jordan is acting over the top unjustifiably, but that the larger interests and continued cooperation between Israel and Jordan remain so important that very narrow Israeli interests save but a few truly vital ones should transcend the imperative of maintaining the peace treaty and trying to keep Israeli-Jordanian relations on an even keel.

Those who argue that Israel has only itself to blame and that Jordan is simply reacting to Israel’s failure to satiate Palestinian demands, thereby “weakening” the Palestinian Authority(PA) which puts Amman in an impossible position wherein they have no choice other than to champion the PA.

In other words, should the reaction be to reject, excuse (but not necessarily accept), or appease Jordan’s demands?

Reject Amman’s demands

In 1967, Shai Agnon, as he received the Nobel Prize for literature, ascended the podium in Oslo, Norway and spoke:

“I tell you who I am. From the midst of a historical catastrophe, when Titus the King of Rome put Jerusalem to the sword and exiled Israel from its land, born I was in one of the cities of the Diaspora. Mourning was every moment. But I imagined myself as one who himself was born in Jerusalem. In dreams, and in night visions, I saw myself standing with my Levite brothers in the Temple, as I sing with them songs of David, King of Israel. On account of Jerusalem, I have written everything that G-d has given me in my heart and in my pen to write.”¹

In this, the great writer was no innovator, but a link in a long chain, from singing on the rivers of Babylon in the Bible, to the haunting song (“Jerusalem of Gold”) of Naomi Shemer, sung by Shuli Nathan, on the terrifying eve of the Six Day War, when Israel’s rapid victory was still in the future and the very real prospect of another catastrophic destruction of the Jewish people was descending.

It was a tradition of hope, moored to the mystical attachment to Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount, the Western Wall or whatever other name it carried, that focused on that one place, the one site on the globe, that allowed every Jew personally to look beyond the moment of hopelessness to redemption.

As Rabbi Soloveichik has noted, the irreconcilable mourning over the loss of Jerusalem two millennia ago, mixed with the uncompromising, indeed unquestioned hope driven by the certainty of return (reinforced by the idea that the destruction and exile followed by redemption and return had happened once before 2500 years ago), animated each generation of Jews to not only push on and survive but to harbor an impossible sense of hope and optimism. As Soloveichik noted, this quite possibly could be seen by a modern psychiatrist as a form of insanity, but it was what drove every Jew in his darkest moments to persevere.²

The essence was perhaps best expressed not through the words of the lofty intellectual, but through the eyes of a simple 19-year old Jewish teenager who grew up in a community isolated for millennia in Ethiopia which had left Israel in the first exile and had not even heard yet of the destruction of the Temple by Titus and the Roman legions. For her, as she plodded her way with the rest of her community on foot over a thousand miles in a march through the desert which many never survived led by Israeli agents to a collection point where quietly at night they were spirited out to Israel, their desperate journey was not driven by some modern idea of self-determination, but by a primordial cry of the soul. As she said, translated and cited by Rabbi Soloveichik:

“Until the age of 19, I grew up in a world in which the Beit Hamiqdash – the Holy Temple in Jerusalem – actually existed. I grew up hearing about the Kohanim – Holy Priests – and how they worked in the Temple. I fell asleep listening to the stories about the halo hovering over Jerusalem…We prayed and performed customs that expressed our yearning for Zion. We struggle to keep going despite the terrible conditions…because of our goal to reach Jerusalem of Gold, and after so many generations to stand at the gates of the Holy Temple.”³

Although there are some Israelis, like Amos Oz, who scoff at this spiritual attachment, the vast majority of Israelis – indeed Jews — believe the idea of return to Jerusalem itself – and by that was meant the Temple Mount, not some modern suburb – both spiritual and concrete was the irrepressible force upholding the beleaguered soul of the Jewish people. The epicenter of Jewish existence and survival is, thus, the Temple Mount.

In this context, Jordan’s statements in recent crises denigrating the right of the Jewish people to have any presence or standing on the Temple Mount, obliterating verbally any connection of the Jewish people to that site, strikes not only an emotive and painful chord among many Jews, but is deeply offensive and deserves an angry response. To many, thus, no modern power, monarch or idea or even superpower stands strongly enough to compete with four thousand years of Jewish history, belief, survival, hope, imagination, attachment – and ultimately essence — to the place because compromise on this is a betrayal of the legacy of about two hundred generations and an action tantamount to suicide. As poet Uri Zvi Greenberg (1896-1981) wrote: “Whoever rules the Temple Mount, rules the Land of Israel.”

Indeed, even the annual flag march through Jerusalem and its gates, while described almost universally in the Western press as a modern, indeed very recent jingoist provocation, is in fact an evolution of a ritual of longing conducted for perhaps a thousand years. As Talmudic scholar, Jeffrey Woolf of Bar Ilan University noted:

“There is a very long-standing tradition for hundreds of years, perhaps for millennia, of walking around and encountering the various gates of Jerusalem and expressing one’s love for Jerusalem. People would come from all over the world on pilgrimage, walk and say prayers at every single gate. And they would [similarly] walk around the gates of the Temple Mount.”⁴

And thus, if forced to choose between continued peace with Jordan and the convenience – or even survival — of King Abdallah, many, indeed most Israelis see it as obvious that they, as the roughly two hundred generations before, really can only choose their attachment to Jerusalem over their own or the Jordanian King’s convenience.

The answer of Prime Minister Bennett — though leading a left-leaning coalition with an Arab party in it (led by Mansour Abbas) and another Arab Party (Ayman Oudeh) outside it providing the buffer votes to allow it to continue – can only be understood in this context. Accusing Jordan of “backing those who resort to violence,”⁵ Bennett said also:

“There is no change or new evolution in the status on the Temple Mount – Israel’s sovereignty is preserved. All decisions on the Temple Mount will be made by the government of Israel from the context of our sovereignty, freedom of religion and security, and not as a result of pressures from foreign powers or political forces.”⁶

The last phrase is a direct rebuke of Jordan’s demands. Nor was this just PM Bennett. Even Israel’s left-leaning foreign minister, Yair Lapid, was reportedly so angered by the fact that the Jordanian government was seen as fueling rather than calming the tensions, that he considered a much sharper response and course of action against Jordan during the heat of the unrest in April.⁷

In essence, as one political commentator epitomized, the thought is growing in Israel that:

“Beware King Abdullah’s scheming in and around Jerusalem. The Hashemite Kingdom may be an important partner for Israel in maintaining stability along Israel’s longest border, and an ally in the fight against Iranian hegemonic ambitions…But Abdullah today is proving to be a foe in the struggle over Jerusalem, willing to employ historical falsifications, radical rhetoric, and shameless diplomatic guile to undermine Israeli rights at the holiest place on earth to the Jewish people. And he takes on this task with hands that are not at all clean.”⁸

In other words, the more Jordan sides with the Palestinians against Israel, especially on the issue of the Temple Mount, the less use, and thus tolerance, there is among many Israelis of the King’s demands.

Excusing and indulging Jordan

There are many analysts, unrivaled in their understanding of Jordan, who countenance patience with Amman, especially in the context of these internal threats. This line of thinking is perhaps closest to the traditional way in which Israeli-Jordanian relations have been understood since the 1960s, or possible even earlier.

At its core is the belief that Jordan serves several critical strategic functions:

It helps Israel manage the Palestinian population and helps obstruct the rise of radical militia that could challenge both Israel and the Hashemite King.

It provides a stable eastern border.
It prevents the dangerous politics of the Persian Gulf access to Israel’s center (as for example Syria has failed to do regarding Israel’s north).
It provides a cooperative structure to Israel to manage and administer sensitive Islamic sites and assets in Jerusalem.

The difficulty of Jordan’s position, its inability to digest instability emerging from the Palestinian issue and its serving as a buffer against other very aggressive and dangerous regional forces and nations, is both well understood and considered. As such, there is quite a bit of elasticity in understanding, indeed tolerance, in this camp that Amman is unwillingly forced to take actions and make statements at Israel’s expense. While such statements may grate many Israelis, they argue, one must consider the cause and the alternative. Indulging Amman’s rhetoric is a small price to pay for a continued, stable and highly strategic partner across the Jordan River.

The best formulation of this argument came from Robert Satloff, whose long years of refining his expertise on Jordan demand serious consideration:

“…Despite – or perhaps because of – the much more open royal embrace of Israel than in years past, …popular opinion – such as it is – was looking for an excuse to lash out. This is manifested in the 82 out of 109 MPs chomping at the bit to score a political point by urging [the] government to expel the Israeli ambassador, an act which could have triggered terrible downward spiral in this vital relationship. In this moment came the provocative comments by the Jordanian PM … not unreasonably interpreted as celebrating those actions of the Palestinians bent on stroking tensions and promoting confrontation. Problematic as his words may have been, my assessment is counter-intuitive – i.e., that his remarks were designed to get ahead of the parliamentary mob in an effort to defuse that explosive moment and ultimately protect the fundamentals of the Jordan-Israel relationship.”⁹

This is probably the most astute and accurate analysis of what is motivating the Jordanian leadership, none of whom have ever shown any particular penchant for wanton Israel-bashing. In the context of this outlook, one is hard pressed not to feel some sympathy for the Jordanian leadership in navigating its despair.

The security and diplomatic establishments in Israel, as well as some Jewish journals also advocate such a response, which is indeed very close to the traditional half-century paradigm of Israeli-Jordanian relations (long predating the codification in the 1994 peace treaty) and the spirit behind the strategic and security cooperation clauses of the peace treaty.

So, it was little surprise that just before the violence during Ramadan broke out, but after the wave of terror against Israel began, a series of high-level Israeli leaders traveled in a concentrated effort to Amman to enlist Jordan’s help in calming the situation, as has always been done to good effect until recently. One Israeli paper on March 30 noted the bewildering pace of Israeli travel to Amman in this context:

“Israel has pushed closer to Jordan in a massive effort to prevent an outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence next month that could destabilize both countries. President Isaac Herzog is set to make the first-ever “public and official” visit to Jordan, either by himself or by any of his predecessors since the country’s founding in 1948, …[to] discuss “deepening Israeli-Jordanian relations, maintaining regional stability with an emphasis on the upcoming holiday period, strengthening peace and normalization, and the many latent opportunities in relations between Israel, Jordan and the wider region … Herzog will meet with Abdullah in his palace, just one day after Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited and a week after Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev was in Jordan to meet with the country’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi. Both countries understand that should security ties fail, not only will the king face instability at home, but the Jordanian street violence could spill over the border to Israel.”¹⁰

So as to put emphasis on this point, the Russian withdrawal from Syria resulting from Russia’s redirecting its efforts as a result of the Ukraine war has left a vacuum which is being filled by Iran, placing the IRGC and other Iranian terrorists not only closer to Israel’s border, but also along Jordan’s border. In the last weeks, this presence has begun to turn into terrorist operations against Jordan, about which King Abdallah said:

“We want everybody to be part of a new Middle East and to move forward, but we do have security challenges. We’re seeing border attacks on a regular basis and we know who’s behind that… Unfortunately we’re looking at maybe an escalation of problems on our borders,”¹¹

The King later was more specific:

 “That vacuum [left by the Russians] will be filled by the Iranians and their proxies..”¹²

Jordan’s role as a buffer to the Persian Gulf state system remains a vital Israeli as well as Saudi and US concern.

The violence in Jerusalem, and Jordan’s apparent encouragement of it, in the weeks following the rapid succession of visits by President Herzog, Defense Minister Gantz and Internal Security Minister Bar-Lev have placed the paradigm informing this effort under great stress. And to be sure, those who argue that Jordan should be indulged do not deny that Jordan is behaving inappropriately and provocatively, nor do they necessarily embrace the idea of Israel’s conceding to Jordan on Israel’s sovereignty over the Temple Mount. They simply argue that Israel must not give in to frustration and should instead keep its eye on the larger picture. Is the assertion of Israeli pique and the insistence on the application of its rights fully, they ask, worth jeopardizing the peace treaty, if not even Jordan’s survival, in the larger geo-strategic context? And is not Israel’s power and societal strength so solid that it can digest this indulgence?

As such, the conclusion is to counsel Israel to exercise strategic patience and work through the “noise,” to just digest the rhetoric or react moderately with measured response, and to some extent tred lightly in engaging in any further actions that could enflame the circumstance.

This argument is essentially an appeal to uphold the paradigm of Israeli-Jordanian relations reigning for the last six decades at least.

Appeasing and leveraging Jordan’s demands

Those far less sympathetic to Israel seek to exploit Jordan’s weakness and despair, and the threat of collapse, as leverage to further pressure Israel into concessions on the Palestinian track. Sadly, at this point, it is likely the US government under the Biden administration falls into this category.

In contrast to the argument made by those who are sympathetic to Israel who believe it is precisely Israeli strength that unlocks the potential for peace and allows Israel latitude of action,¹³ the Obama administration and indeed President Obama himself – the intellectual forerunner of the current administration – appears to have reversed that concept into policy a decade ago (August 2014) and argued that the central obstacle to peace is Israel’s failure to be more flexible, which is in essence a result of Israel’s immense power and consolidation which tempers its eagerness for peace.¹⁴ In other words, Israel is too strong to want peace.

Thus, the path to peace would necessitate some weakening of Israel not as a consequence of, but as a prerequisite for, achieving peace.

For this community of policymakers and opinion-setters, the exploitation of Jordan’s despair and the benefits provided by Israel’s central seven-decade long interest in maintaining Jordan’s survival and in a state of peace are highly useful assets into which to tap and to leverage to force Jerusalem to concede.

As such, the answer of this latter crowd is to demand rather than suggest Israel’s indulgence of Jordan’s hostility, as well as to cede sovereignty in part or in whole. In fact, Jordan’s hostility ultimately is understood as being a result of Israel’s failure to advance an attainable peace because of its intransigence and ultimately lack of interest in peace. In other words the message to Israel is: “It’s your fault anyway, so deal with it.” Leveraging Amman’s despair to weaken Israel both advances peace, and through that, shores up the Jordanian regime.

In this context, it was no surprise that the White House issued a statement on April 25, 2022, that essentially sided entirely with Jordan and abandoned any pretense of support or sympathy with Israel’s situation regarding its frustration with Jordan, let alone the issue of the Temple Mount. Issued after the harshest volleys of statements from Jordan by Prime Minister Kasawneh and Foreign Minister Safadi, the White House issued the following formal communique:

“Jordan is a critical ally and force for stability in the Middle East, and the President confirmed unwavering U.S. support for Jordan and His Majesty’s leadership… The President affirmed his strong support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and cited the need to preserve the historic status quo at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount. The President also recognized the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’s crucial role as the custodian of Muslim holy places in Jerusalem. The leaders discussed the political and economic benefits of further regional integration in infrastructure, energy, water, and climate projects, with Jordan a critical hub for such cooperation and investment.”¹⁵

Apart from completely ignoring Jordan’s role in fanning the flames of tension in the preceding weeks, the communique represents a shift in policy in many aspects and is a loaded statement full of coded language:

It recognizes Jordan as the custodian of the Muslim Holy places in Jerusalem.  Jordan was never “the custodian” of the holy places under any agreement.  Under the peace agreement, Israel is committed to giving preferential consideration to Jordanian — as opposed to other nations’ – concerns, and in this context, gives Jordan a special status in helping Israel administer the sites, but no more. Israel never agreed with Jordan in any document to cede its ultimate sovereign control over the Temple Mount.
The US now recognizes the Temple Mount as a whole as a Muslim Holy site, not just the al-Aqsa mosque.  While Israel has allowed the Waqf a role there until now, the whole area was formally never was considered a Muslim holy site other than the al-Aqsa mosque itself.
The “historic status quo” to which the President says the US now supports was never a term or concept until now.  Indeed, the term status quo refers to the situation as it was between 1967 to now, although that has constantly evolved, mostly to the detriment of Jews and Christians. Jordan has seized on this term “historic status quo” and then proceeds to define it in its recent policy paper in the context of the deterioration of Muslim rights since the 1852 circumstance, namely full Muslim sovereignty and control over ALL holy sites.  This concept was reinforced at the end of April by the foreign minister of Jordan, when he called Israel’s presence there illegal and ownership over the Temple Mount as being exclusively Palestinian.
The White House called Jordan helpful in calming rhetoric and preventing provocations. This is an outright inversion of truth. Jordan has not been helpful at all, and in fact, it has been one of the lead inciters over the last months. Indeed, its prime minister praised rioters, condemned Israeli Arabs who work with Israeli authorities, and encouraged more rioting attacks on Israelis in Jerusalem.  One does not need to humiliate Jordan in such a communique by criticizing King Abdallah during his visit, but praising Jordan as a partner in fighting and calming the raging rhetoric is inverted and — since the situation is highly charged (in good part because of Jordan’s rhetoric) and such incitement has led to dozens of dead Israelis thus far — itself incendiary.

And finally, in a completely new jab at Israel, Jordan has for several years been insisting that the resources of the entire Palestinian-Israeli-Jordanian area — including the water of the Sea of Galilee — be shared as a moral obligation. As such when Israel gives Israeli resources to Jordan under an agreement (such as sending large amounts of its precious water from the Sea of Galilee), Jordan regards it more as a payment of an owed debt or obligation by Israel rather than a willing concession. Since Jordan’s new policy sees itself now as the champion of the Palestinians and their advocate and strategic partner against Israel, Jordan also sees itself at the center of authority to properly manage the allocation of Cis-Jordanian (Israel and the Palestinian Authority) and Trans-Jordanian (Jordan) resources, and has thus arrogated to itself the controlling role of being the central hub, rather than Israel (which isn’t mentioned in this capacity), for distributing all of the resources of the area. Astonishingly, the US signed off on this concept in the last sentences of this communique.

On each point, the US echoed Jordan’s positions and distanced from Israel, ignored Israel’s interests and even showed little if any concession to Israel’s sovereignty.

Beyond these three basic outlooks, there are several other lines of thought emerging on Jordan. In particular, one should take note of an idea appearing in one of the leading periodicals published in the United States identified with the left side of the Democratic party, which outright called on Jordan to reoccupy the West Bank and make it part of Jordan.¹⁶ It is rather surprising that this argument is being made by some closely identified with Jordan since ultimately, it opens the Pandora’s box of the identity of Jordan, which is not only a Hashemite monarchy, but a state anchored to the tribal structures of the Hejaz (more on this in part III). And while those advocating this reversion to the pre-1967 situation look nostalgically on King Abdallah I’s embracing such a policy in 1950, the author conveniently ignores that Abdallah I’s moves cost him his life and nearly cost his son his throne a few years later.

At any rate, the basic question behind all these types of responses boil down to one core question: should Israel stand firm on its rights and accept come what may in Jordan, or should it defer its rights and stomach these provocations for the greater good of Jordan’s internal stability and external peacefulness?

Parts three and four of this essay will examine what the nature of the Hashemite Kingdom is in its essence, what stresses it faces to survive, and how understanding those dynamics could lead to a different, “fourth option” — or perhaps better described as a “scenario” since both the power and propriety of Israel’s or the US’s assuming they can shape Jordan’s future is far more limited than what is often assumed in Jerusalem or Washington at this point.

Securing America’s Interests In a Challenging World

Category: JRB_UN

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