The Perils Of A Post-Trump World

Ding, dong, the witch is dead!

Much of the world, not just the blue part of the US, is celebrating the exit of the obnoxious Donald Trump. This was a man who managed to offend practically everyone, while appealing only to the insecurities and base emotions of his supporters.

But now that he's gone, what can we expect from his successor?

I think it would be a good idea for those who wanted to see Trump gone to step back a bit from the polemical view of Trump as the devil incarnate and Biden as an angel in white. The situation is far more nuanced, especially for those of us in the rest of the world outside the US.

What I wish for is a geopolitical stalemate where the US and China keep each other honest, and the rest of the world stays safe as a consequence. What I fear most is a cosy backroom deal between Biden and Xi that carves the rest of the world up between two rapacious superpowers.

For a start, Trump was a refreshingly different president from all of his predecessors, because the ugliness and naked self-interest in US foreign policy was laid bare for all to see. There was no pretence that the US stood for anything higher than its own self-interest. In being so famously transactional, Trump reduced the image of the US from its historical projection of exceptionalism to one where it was just another country with its own axe to grind. It was a bit of unwitting honesty from an American president not seen since the days of "Honest Abe".

That image may not altogether vanish, since the world cannot unsee what it has once seen.

Biden and his team will of course do their best to show that the US is back in the hands of the adults in the room, and the old, familiar lectures on freedom, democracy and human rights will once again be selectively heard whenever the US wants to effect a regime change to its advantage.

Even as things return to the old normal, disquieting aspects to the Biden administration are already beginning to be seen.

The first few appointees of Biden's team have been lobbyists and insiders of the Pentagon and the arms industry. His secretary of state is a known hawk. 

Watch the easy camaraderie between Antony Blinken (Democrat), and his interrogator Sen Lindsey Graham (Republican) during the former's confirmation hearing as incoming Secretary of State. US foreign policy stays constant, with bipartisan consensus.

For those with hopes of a more peaceful world, this is bad news. The arms industry thrives when there are conflagrations around the world, and so it is unlikely that President Biden is going to wind back the wars.

Right on cue, there have been bomb blasts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Yemen and Syria. If an American president ever wanted an excuse not to draw down overseas troops, he will not want for options.

That's not the only piece of bad news.

One of the things that Trump should be given credit for was his recent approach to China. After some leniency in the earlier part of his term, Trump swung around to suspicion and hostility towards China, especially after Covid. He began to push back on China in every sphere. He did not blink on trade, and he began to unabashedly cultivate "the Quad" (consisting of the US, Japan, India and Australia) to signal his willingness to confront China militarily. His accompanying rhetoric was harsh and aggressive too.

China under Xi has been a bully, and in the manner expected of bullies faced with credible threats, the dragon blinked. Surprisingly meek and conciliatory statements issued from Beijing. The wolf warrior diplomats went into retreat.

China has no intention to pick a fight with the US
-- Wang Yi, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister - Dec 18, 2020

It remains to be seen whether Biden will keep up that pressure. As a realist, I try to follow the money. The US arms industry gains from the forever war in the Middle East. China wants the freedom to expand its tentacles throughout Asia and up to the doors of Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative. It's not so much "free trade" as the ability for China to sell to every corner of the globe. The trade war between the US and China is hurtful to both.

A new administration in Washington is an opportunity for both countries to reset their relationship to mutual advantage. What I fear most is a backroom deal to avoid the trap of a new Cold War and to instead establish a cosy duopoly. The US keeps its existing backyards of the Americas and Europe, and gets to play its deadly war games in the Middle East. China gets untrammeled overlordship over all of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent. A new agreement is signed between the two superpowers of the East and the West that ends their bruising trade war.

[For countries like India, this would be unqualified bad news. The US has been an unreliable ally to India even at the best of times. (At the worst of times, it has been a vicious and vindictive enemy, as Nixon and Kissinger demonstrated during the 1971 Bangladesh war.) Abandonment of India by the US following a duopoly deal would mean that any putative hyphenation between India and China would disappear at a stroke. With the role of the US abruptly switched from security guarantor to the ally of an adversary, India's strategic options would narrow precipitously, and its fate would be left to the tender mercies of China. India would have to make significant territorial amends for its recent show of resistance to China's border incursions, and would have to very publicly accept China's suzerainty over all of Asia, including its own neighbourhood. It would be an unprecedented cultural humiliation in addition to being a permanent economic impost on future growth.

Australia, as part of the Anglosphere's "Five Eyes" alliance, will probably continue to receive US protection, but India will be jettisoned without a second thought. The fate of Taiwan and Japan is uncertain.]

Not all aspects of the US-China duopoly deal are likely to be settled quickly and amicably. The most interesting item on the negotiating table would be Africa, I imagine. There is no clear early winner between the US and China in terms of influence over Africa, and the continent could turn into a battleground. I see Africa as the new Poland for two schemers to pretend to agree on, before one of them betrays the other.

To sum up, it may be too early to go, "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" The main peril of the post-Trump era is the possible start to the new joint reign of the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East. The rest of the world should hunker down for a long and harsh winter.

Iron Man - Rusty Premise

I saw Iron Man during a recent flight and was more than just disappointed. I don't know if the "political context" appealed to American audiences or not, but it put me off completely.

Don't get me wrong. I can handle hours of mindless violence and destruction. I'm not so high-brow. It's the pseudo-moralism I can't stand.

So the hero decides to stop making weapons because he realised that American weapons are being turned against American soldiers? So that's what's wrong with the war in Afghanistan! Riiiight....

On the other hand, news reports of American soldiers killing Afghan civilians are nothing to be concerned about, I guess. Nor is it a big deal that the US has been cozying up to the real bad guys for years. Oh no, it's the use of captured American arms against Americans that's outrageous.

As a person born in India, arguably the biggest target of terrorism in the world today, I should have been rooting for the forces of democracy. Unfortunately, Iron Man is such a sickeningly righteous, racist movie that I found myself almost cheering for the other guys...

If America is to win over its enemies, Americans must first learn to look at themselves through foreign eyes. They may not like what they see.

Barack Obama and "Change" - Does He Really Lack Detail?

There's been a lot of newsprint devoted lately to how Barack Obama lacks detail when talking about the "change" that he will bring about. A lot of that criticism comes from the campaign office of Hillary Clinton, of whom I've written before (Hi, Mom!). Mom, of course, has all the details required to make change happen, right at her fingertips.

But she, and all the analysts, are missing a very important part of why Barack Obama does not need to spell out how he's going to bring about change. Barack Obama is the change. People everywhere see it, and people everywhere will treat him differently, setting aside their own prejudices of what an American president is, giving him a fresh hearing, being willing to listen to what he says and even doing what he requests them to do. That's significant.

I'm approaching this very personally and viscerally, just as with my earlier analysis of Hillary Clinton. I can put Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, George Bush (both father and son), and any number of previous US presidents in the same mental box, regardless of party affiliation. But I cannot put Barack Obama in the same box. He doesn't belong! I never realised that ethnicity could play such an important part in perception. Much as I want to be colour-blind, I find I cannot.

Barack Obama is clearly not part of the US political establishment traditionally dominated by middle-aged white men. As any brand consultant will tell you, that positions him differently. The brand equity of the US political establishment is entirely negative (remember Truman's "If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog"?) Obama's involuntary positioning benefits him a great deal, not only in the US, but more importantly, in the rest of the world.

I'm aware of my thought processes, and I can't be alone in this:

Barack Obama => not middle-aged white man
Not middle-aged white man => not part of traditional US political establishment
Not part of traditional US political establishment => good guy

Barack Obama is a good guy. Whoever I am, my defenses are down. I am disarmed.

So now if a President Barack Hussein Obama sits down with leaders in the Middle East and puts together a peace treaty, there's likely to be far greater buy-in than if another middle-aged white man in that role does the same thing. His appearance, and his name, promise a far greater chance at peace than the details of the accord.

Another area where I predict he would have immense influence is in India-Pakistan relations. Indian leaders don't trust the US because of its past (and continuing) history as an ally of Pakistan. Paradoxically, Pakistanis don't seem to trust the US either, because it hasn't been a reliable ally (Example: Ignoring India's protests, the US sold F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. Then they took payment but refused to deliver the jets because of nuclear concerns. They didn't refund the money either. Some ally. The Indians chuckled but somehow didn't see this as reason to start trusting the US.)

The current US ability to broker a peace deal between India and Pakistan is virtually zero, and it has everything to do with credibility. But enter a president with none of that historical baggage, and everything changes.

The solution to the India-Pakistan logjam is simple and stares everyone in the face, but has no chance of implementation in the current political climate. It's about accepting the status quo in Kashmir and then moving on with development, trade and all-round progress. India will never give up the part of Kashmir that it controls, and neither will Pakistan give up the other. This situation has remained static for decades. For a solution to the impasse, no real exchange of territory need actually take place. All that is required is for each party to admit publicly that they are not going to get "back" any territory from the other.

I will wager that if a certain President Barack Obama drops by in 2009 and gets the leaders of India and Pakistan to sign an accord that recognises this reality, the people of both countries will accept it. I'm not talking about the lunatic or fanatic fringe on either side. They can never be won over. It's the common people who will accept the bona fides and huge perceived moral authority of this different US President and do what he asks.

Once again, the clincher will not be in the details. It will be the person.

Hillary Clinton cannot pull this off. A white woman will not command any more authority than a white man, and in the subcontinent, may even command less, sad to say. No amount of mastery of detail will help when it comes to influencing people.

It's not what you know, it's who you are.

Barack Obama is The Man.