James Davis2013-05-24T08:12:53-04:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=james-davisCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for James DavisGood old fashioned elbow grease.Coercing North Koreatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30901432013-04-16T19:00:00-04:002013-04-16T12:43:16-04:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
When Kim Jong Un began his sabre rattling last February Washington feared that a weak response would only tempt the boy king down the dangerous course of nuclear brinksmanship and further unsettle its partner in the South. In a textbook display of allied solidarity, US and South Korean troops conducted a massive joint military exercises to signal their capability and demonstrate America's enduring commitment to South Korea's security. In March tensions escalated. Responding to new threats of nuclear strikes Washington sent two nuclear-capable B-2 bombers on a training mission in South Korea.
The problem is that such moves often provoke the very conflict they seek to deter. Although weakness tempts aggression, so too does fear. Credible threats might induce restraint in an opportunist or adventurer, but they are more likely to provoke the weak or wounded to lash out. Hence, the biggest challenge for Washington and its regional allies is accurately assessing the motivations behind Pyongyang's provocations, a difficult task given that the opaqueness of the North Korean regime. But to the degree to which North Korea's nuclear programme is driven by a desire to deter an American attack; U.S. threats are likely to increase the sense of danger and thus the determination to acquire an operational nuclear capability.
Of course most American's would find it odd that Pyongyang fears an unprovoked attack. But that is precisely the point. Given the nature of the North Korean regime and its international isolation, the likelihood is quite high that it interprets American behaviour in ways that we would find puzzling if not completely bizarre.
If deterring the North is fraught with dangers, the situation is not much better when it comes to reassuring the South. During the Cold War, Washington was afraid that widespread fears of abandonment could demoralise allied populations in Europe and Asia, weakening their willingness to resist communist extortion. Although the nightmare of monolithic communism is long gone, Washington retains an interest in projecting the image of a reliable ally in Asia--not only to deter a North Korean attack on the South, but also to contain the political influence of a rising China.
But in reassuring Seoul, Washington might embolden its ally to undertake riskier policies than it otherwise might. In international relations as in private affairs, a blank check can turn a saver into a spendthrift. Given the strength of the American commitment it is not surprising, though no less unsettling, that South Korean President Park Geun-hye this month authorised her military to deliver a strong and immediate response to any North Korean provocation "without any political consideration". While this is a textbook effort to increase the credibility of deterrence, it risks drawing the United States into a war based on the judgments made by a South Korean field commander.
The example points to a more general paradox: to succeed in deterring an adversary requires one to make threats that one may not wish to carry out if deterrence fails. The lesson was not lost on President John F. Kennedy. Upon learning that the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear weapons to Cuba he was reminded of his previous commitment to prevent such an eventuality and quipped, "Last month I should have said we don't care."
Luckily deterrence sometimes succeeds and the earlier judgment of an American diplomat may still hold: "The North Koreans do not respond to pressure. But without pressure they do not respond." Moreover, the standoff on the North Korean peninsula is surely being watched carefully by the Mullah's in Tehran. As with missiles in Cuba, indifference, alas, is not an option.]]>All the President's Mentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24934842013-01-17T05:05:59-05:002013-03-18T05:12:01-04:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
The president will have the first of two important opportunities to provide some answers at his inauguration this Sunday. The second will be the State of the Union Address scheduled for 12 February. Could it be that he's already tipped his hand? A string of cabinet nominations provides a pretty good indication of how he plans to resolve the predicaments created by his pre-election promises. Let's take a look at the list.
Foreign policy junkies no doubt are most interested in the nomination of Senator John Kerry for secretary of state. The long-serving member and current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee certainly is well prepared for the job. He not only knows his way around Washington but is also at home abroad. But he wasn't Obama's first choice for filling Hillary Clinton's shoes. That honour was reserved for Susan Rice (no relation to Condoleezza). The combative American ambassador to the United Nations and a favourite of the president took herself out of the running once it became clear that a series of conflicting and ultimately inaccurate statements about the terrorist attacks on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya would likely derail a nomination during Senate confirmation hearings. Should the president have fought harder for his first choice? State Department insiders are happy he didn't. It seems that just about everybody but the president prefers the straight shooting John Kerry to Susan Rice and her 'shoot from the hip' style of diplomacy.
On the big issues of the day, Kerry and Rice are probably closer to each other and to Obama than was Hillary Clinton. Whereas Clinton was an early and consistent supporter of the surge of US and allied troops in Afghanistan, Kerry has been a consistent skeptic. Not that he is opposed to the use of force. In Libya and Syria he has been ahead of the administration in advocating the arming of opposition fighters, the establishment of safe havens and the imposition of no-fly-zones.
In nominating the former Republican senator, Chuck Hagel, for the position of secretary of defense, Obama lifted a play from Bill Clinton's book. A month after his reelection in November 2006, Clinton reached across the aisle and picked a Republican Senator, William S. Cohen, to be his new defense secretary. It fell on Cohen to navigate the domestic politics of a massive defense restructuring while trying to extricate US forces from the Bosnian conflict. Given the early and fierce opposition of many Republicans to the Hagel nomination - largely resulting from his vocal criticism of US strategy during the Iraq War and his support for dialogue with the Iranians and the anti-Israeli Hamas - a repeat of Cohen's successes is far from certain.
Does it matter? Maybe not. For the real key to Obama's foreign policy lies not in the State Department and Pentagon but within the White House and the Treasury Department next door. From his first days in office, Obama has understood that the real challenge facing the United States is bringing foreign commitments into balance with the demands of domestic economic growth. And while Kerry and Hagel may be the public face of American foreign and defense policy, the limits to American leadership in the world will be determined by the budget. If treasury secretary Timothy Geithner's tenure was marked by herculean efforts to stabilise the international finance sector and forestall a global economic meltdown, it will fall to his likely successor, Jack Lew, to figure out how to pay the outstanding bill.
Of course paying off your credit card is easier when incomes are rising. So expect the foreign policy agenda of the second Obama administration to focus on measures likely to spur global growth.
A Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement? Sounds like a good topic for a presidential address.]]>The Day Aftertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20880702012-11-07T10:14:41-05:002013-01-07T05:12:01-05:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
My guess is that he is wondering how he is going to govern and make good on the promise of a better future. After all, from now on it's all about his legacy. And although the president came out on top last night, the mountain in front of him remains as high and the path to the summit as steep as it was just a few days ago.
As I've said in the past, this election was all about the fears of an American middle class facing an uncertain future. The candidates presented two competing visions for that future, each drawing on different strands of American political culture. By proposing tax cuts and a reduction in the size of government, Mitt Romney appealed to a long tradition of American individual liberty, self-reliance and freedom from the shackles of the nanny-state. Free Americans from over-regulation and unnecessary taxation and they will take care of the future on their own, thank you.
President Obama drew on a different, but equally American, current and championed the role of the state in American society. Individual liberty is indeed key to the American experience, but Obama rejected the proposition that it is always guaranteed by a small and unobtrusive state. Quite the contrary: we need the state to provide an equal playing field so that everyone, regardless of background, can exercise their liberties. And while the Republicans feared the president might conjure up an 'October Surprise' to rescue a flailing campaign, it was Mother Nature herself who threw him a lifeline. Hurricane Sandy became a metaphor and provided the president a perfect opportunity to demonstrate what the federal government can do for individuals in need.
In the end, Americans voted for the security promised by the welfare state. But on the day after the election, nobody knows how we're going to pay for it. Asking the wealthiest Americans to pick up more of the bill proved popular with the middle class, but if we are going to make the investments in infrastructure, education and clean energy that are necessary to restore American competitiveness in a global economy, the middle class is going to have to share the burden. The domestic challenge for the next four years? Reassuring the middle class about its future while simultaneously asking it do to with less. It's a task the president hasn't even begun to confront.
Of course in order to move a progressive agenda forward the president will need to forge coalitions in a divided Congress. So perhaps the most important question the president is asking the day after his reelection is what lessons the Republicans will draw from Governor Romney's defeat. At least two narratives are already in play. The first suggests Romney lost because he made too many concessions to far right elements in the Republican Party. Whether on issues of health care for senior citizens ("Turn Medicare into a voucher program!"), government assistance to distressed industries ("Let Detroit go bankrupt!"), or abortion ("The Supreme Court should overturn Roe-v-Wade!") Romney was forced to adopt extreme positions during the Republican primaries and as a result lost the median voter. The competing narrative suggests that Romney's post-nomination race to the middle left him looking too much like the president. Why vote for Obama light when you can have the real thing?
The biggest challenge confronting the Republicans is that America itself looks increasingly like the president. The coalition that returned Barack Obama to the White House is a majority of minorities. Until and unless the Republican Party can appeal to people who look quite different from Mitt Romney, their future prospects for winning the presidency look bleak indeed.]]>'Me Too' Mitttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.20047172012-10-23T07:45:29-04:002012-12-23T05:12:01-05:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
With his "me too" refrain in last night's last debate, the guy who reminds us of an America bygone, the one where teenagers collected 45s of their favorite songs, sounded like a broken record. You might have thought the man running to become the 45th president of the United States would have come to Boca Raton with a song of his own, but Romney's 45 was playing music recorded by President 44. Over and over the challenger tried to reassure us, humming the night away with the melody of Barack Obama's foreign policy.
Like presidential campaigns, foreign policy is all about strategy. Watching the debate last night you had to wonder what strategy Romney was pursuing. Most Americans give the president pretty strong marks on his foreign policy. And when Romney tried during the second debate to target the president's handling of the terrorist attacks on the American Consulate in Benghazi he ended up shooting himself in the foot. So maybe he decided there just wasn't much to be gained in attacking the president on specifics? The goal behind "me too" was probably limited to placing Mitt in the foreign policy mainstream.
Mainstream Mitt? Without a record of his own, we just don't know. But if you are looking for the foreign policy mainstream, don't visit the Romney website. At least 17 of the "special advisors" he lists come from the same group of neoconservatives who got us into Iraq (and wish we were still there), support torture in the global war on terror, and regularly call on the United States to pack its bags and leave the United Nations.
I'm not one to think in terms of nightmares, but the thought of former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton returning to the State Department has no doubt led to an increase in the sales of sleep medication in Foggy Bottom. After all, only a few months ago Bolton defended Representative Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) call for the U.S. government to investigate government employees -- including a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- who she alleges are affiliated with a Muslim Brotherhood plot to infiltrate the U.S. government. Did I hear somebody say "crack pot?"
Even scarier is the thought of Cofer Black whispering into Romney's ear. Unknown to most Americans, Black was one of the most important figures in the Bush administration's use of shoddy social science to back up the use of torture as a means of detainee interrogation. He was also a central figure in the murky practice of rendition; turning over undocumented prisoners to foreign governments that were willing to administer torture even more extreme than what the Bush administration allowed in US run prisons in Guantanamo and Afghanistan.
Barack Obama was of course right to set the record straight and to point out that Mitt Romney has been on almost every side of every issue. But we already knew that. And the president scored a direct hit during the exchange over size of the US Navy: "You mention the Navy, for example, and the fact that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets." But does the American electorate really care what the candidates think about foreign policy? Does it matter what they think?
For the future of the United States and the world the answer is clear enough. For the outcome of this election, I have my doubts.]]>'Trust Me' - It's About Feartag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19732422012-10-17T08:58:42-04:002012-12-17T05:12:02-05:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
We can ask who won or lost at Hofstra University, but the more important question going into the town hall style debate was whether Mitt Romney would continue to surge in the polls or whether a strong performance by the president would stop his opponent's momentum and solidify the numbers. The president delivered, so don't expect to see much movement in the numbers.
Where are they? As of this morning, 47% of Americans support President Obama. The same number favours Governor Romney.
Of course 47% is an especially interesting number this year. After all, in a talk before wealthy donors last month Mitt Romney argued that 47% of Americans will vote for President Obama "no matter what." The same 47% of Americans who Romney claimed believe themselves to be victims, pay no income taxes, and refuse to take "personal responsibility or care for their lives." In the meantime, he has been busy assuring voters that in fact his first concern is for the middle class. Given the fact that 9 in 10 Americans believe themselves to belong to the middle class, his focus makes sense. Obama understands the math as well as anyone, which is why he too directed his remarks last night to the middle class.
In reality, the middle class is much smaller than we think and ultimately the election will turn on the votes of two groups: those who have slipped out of the middle class and those who fear their fate. These are the swing voters the candidates need to win. So if you want to understand how the debate might have affected the election, you need to zero in on that fear. Who did a better job last night of addressing the fears of a battered middle class?
Romney was at his most effective when he highlighted the economic facts of the past four years. Too many Americans are out of work, the recovery has been slow and uneven, gas prices are high, and Washington continues to accumulate debt that will saddle future taxpayers. The facts of the past four years scare the middle class. But when it came to explaining what he would do differently, Romney returned to a familiar line: "I know what it takes to get an economy moving." Maybe, but once again, he was short on specifics. Upon closer inspection, Romney's "five point plan" for recovery is little more than a list of goals. How does he plan to achieve them?
Obama played to the fears of the middle class by repeatedly questioning his opponent's sincerity. Romney, the president charged, "doesn't have a five-point plan. He has a one-point plan. That plan is to make sure that folks at the top play by a different set of rules. That's been his philosophy in the private sector. That's been his philosophy as governor. That's been his philosophy as a presidential candidate."
What scares voters more? The prospect that the next four years will look like the last four, or that Romney stands for a philosophy that holds the country does best when the rich get richer?
This was the essence of what was probably the most important question of the night from the standpoint of the outcome on 6 November: "Governor Romney, I am an undecided voter, because I'm disappointed with the lack of progress I've seen in the last four years. However, I do attribute much of America's economic and international problems to the failings and missteps of the Bush administration. Since both you and President Bush are Republicans, I fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election. What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?"
Romney's answer? "My priority is jobs. I know how to make that happen." Or to put it another way: I know you're scared, but trust me.]]>Mainstream Mitt and the Race for the Middletag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.19388552012-10-04T08:51:22-04:002012-12-04T05:12:01-05:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
Since televised presidential debates are just that - televised - let's start with the visuals. The point has been made before, but is worth repeating. By merely stepping onto the stage with a sitting President, the challenger, any challenger, immediately gains in stature. In the Denver auditorium Mitt Romney rose to the occasion and appeared every inch the President. And his Republican red tie stood in stark contrast to Barack Obama's cool blue. With his poll numbers inching steadily upward, it's hard to imagine the President feeling blue, but at least during the first half of the debate he seemed a little tired, even diminished by the weight of four difficult years in office. His opponent, by contrast, looked well rested, at ease, and ready to go.
Let's be fair. From the get go, the format favoured the challenger. Having lost a coin toss earlier in the evening, the President got the first question and had no time to think about his answer. But when asked about how he planned to create jobs, Barack Obama seized the moment to congratulate his wife on their 20th wedding anniversary. Really now, what is this election about? Who would make the best husband-in-chief?
The sad thing is that some Americans probably will vote for the family man, and given all the talk about Monica Lewinsky's forthcoming tell-all memoir, there actually may be some small benefit in drawing a distinction between Barack and the last Democratic President to run for re-election, big Bill Clinton.
More significant is the fact that a debate between a sitting President and his opponent is always going to be about the President's record. Mitt Romney clearly came prepared to challenge that record and link it to the country's on-going economic troubles. And he seized the many opportunities presented by a befuddled moderator to keep the debate focused on the past four years. Obama effectively defended his record, but he rarely succeeded at turning the tables.
Why didn't Romney have to defend his dismissal of those 47 % of Americans who he claimed won't take "personal responsibility or care for their lives?" Why didn't he have to explain why it is ok for multimillionaires to pay lower taxes on capital gains than their secretaries pay on the equivalent amount of earned income? And why don't we know the extent of Romney's off-shore tax-saving arrangements?
I raise these issues not because Mitt Romney is a rich man, but because Mitt Romney used his first debate with the President to run to the centre and huddle with the middle class. Gone was the Romney of the Republican primaries and most of the right-wing red meat rhetoric too. Instead we saw a kinder and gentler man who wants us to believe that he passionately cares for the plight of average Americans. This was Massachusetts Mitt, the one who passed universal health care and once supported abortion rights; the very same Mitt mistrusted by the Tea Party and the religious right.
True, Obama missed more than one opportunity to go on the offensive and force his opponent to reveal the details of any of those unseen "plans" he kept referring to (I counted at least four). But I'm not so sure that Romney will emerge the ultimate winner of this debate. By showing how quickly he is willing to throw off the cloak of the Republican right in order to appeal to mainstream Americans, he may have served to alienate both groups. After last night more than one American will be asking, "Just who is this man, Mitt Romney?"]]>A New Progressive Era?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.18645372012-09-07T10:45:24-04:002012-11-07T05:12:01-05:00James Davishttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-davis/
On the defensive? Not in Charlotte. Instead of apologising for the country's slow economic recovery, Obama embraced his record and recast the achievements of the past three and half years as the first stage of a grand offensive; an offensive to secure a prosperous future for the American middle class. For the first time, he tied the various pieces of his political agenda into a coherent whole.
Health insurance reform was not some new government hand out; it is an indispensable component of a strategy for reigning in health care costs and saving the government's ability to pay for medical services for America's senior citizens and most needy while cutting the federal deficit. Restricting the ability of banks to provide mortgage loans to families who are unlikely to ever be able to repay them is not about regulating the financial services industry; it is all about preventing a future collapse of the housing market and protecting the savings of ordinary citizens. Doubling automobile fuel efficiency standards is not a burden on industry; rather it spurs technological innovation, reduces dependence on foreign oil, and cuts the country's carbon emissions. Climate change, the President argued, "is not a hoax" but "a threat to our children's future."
Whereas the Republicans used their convention to offer a misty-eyed call for a return to a mythical, Norman Rockwell, American past, Obama used his speech to draw a clear-eyed path toward a new progressive era. True, both candidates draw on American values as a guide to policy, but where Romney sees American values as set for all time, Obama sees them as providing enduring guidance in a changing society. Thus Romney promised to honour the institution of marriage as the union of "one man and one woman." Obama championed expanding that institution to American's who just happen to love someone of the same gender.
In a subtle but powerful response to the widespread suspicion that this President is just a little too much in love with himself, Obama returned to his election in 2008 and infused it with a new meaning. "The election four years ago wasn't about me. It was about you. My fellow citizens--you were the change!" And how better to prepare for the presidential debates and Romney's inevitable repeating of Obama's gaff--"If you've got a business--you didn't build that!"--than by listing the accomplishments of his first administration only to tell Americans, "you did that"?
Even as Tea Party Republicans act as if they had cornered the market on patriotism, Obama offered up more than his share of red, white and blue. He twice paid tribute to the sacrifices of America's soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, a curious omission from Governor Romney's acceptance speech, and if anyone had forgotten, he reminded the nation that Osama bin Laden is indeed dead. Democrats were once the party of protectionism, yet Obama proudly pointed to the free trade agreements he has signed and the millions new exports stamped "Made in America."
In Charlotte we saw an Obama obviously at ease with himself and his party. It was a picture that stood in stark contrast to the one we saw in Tampa. There Mitt Romney embraced and was embraced by a party to which he no longer really belongs. The heart of the modern Republican Party, if it has one at all, beats in the chest of his libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, Paul Ryan.
If the Obama speech is remembered for anything, I suspect it will be for the full-throated call to a new progressive era. Bill Clinton certainly fired-up the delegates with his point by point rebuttal of the Republicans' charge that Americans are no better off today than they were four years ago, but Obama's agenda has little in common with the Third Way of the Clinton and Blair years. The goal is not to find common ground between the proponents of the welfare state and deregulation. No, this President is reasserting the importance of the state to Western capitalism, and that is a message the Republicans, with Ryan at the fore, do not accept.