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The following tweet, just sent out by the traditionally outspoken Russian Embassy in the UK, hardly needs commentary.
President Obama expels 35 ???????? diplomats in Cold War deja vu. As everybody, incl ???????? people, will be glad to see the last of this hapless Adm. http://pic.twitter.com/mleqA16H8D
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) December 29, 2016
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As part of the “evidence” meant to substantiate the unprecedented act of expelling 35 Russian diplomats and locking down two Russian compounds without a major concurrent political or diplomatic incident, or an act of war, and which simply provides an outlets for the Democrats to justify the loss of their candidate in the US presidential election (sorry, Putin did not tell the rust belt how to vote), the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI released a 13-page “report” on the Russian action done “to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election”, i.e., hack it.
As the DHS writes, “this document provides technical details regarding the tools and infrastructure used by the Russian civilian and military intelligence Services (RIS) to compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities. The U.S. Government is referring to this malicious cyber activity by RIS as GRIZZLY STEPPE.”
Where things get awkward, however, is at the very start of the report, which prefaced by a broad disclaimer, according to which nothing in the report is to be relied upon and that everything contained in it may be completely false.
No really: “this report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise.”
Which then begs the question who provides warranties of any kind to the allegation that Russia hacked the election, the 13-page report supposedly provides technical details regarding tools and infrastructure used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services to “compromise and exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election, as well as a range of U.S. Government, political, and private sector entities.”
So with that useful background in mind, we present some more notable excerpts from the report, where we get an introduction to the alleged Russian “parties” – APT and APT 28. and note that nowhere in the report is it actually confirmed that these are the two alleged hackers or that they were instructed to “hack” the DHS (or the election as Obama puts it) by the Kremlin.
The U.S. Government confirms that two different RIS actors participated in the intrusion into a U.S. political party. The first actor group, known as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) 29, entered into the party’s systems in summer 2015, while the second, known as APT28, entered in spring 2016.
Both groups have historically targeted government organizations, think tanks, universities, and corporations around the world. APT29 has been observed crafting targeted spearphishing campaigns leveraging web links to a malicious dropper; once executed, the code delivers Remote Access Tools (RATs) and evades detection using a range of techniques. APT28 is known for leveraging domains that closely mimic those of targeted organizations and tricking potential victims into entering legitimate credentials. APT28 actors relied heavily on shortened URLs in their spearphishing email campaigns. Once APT28 and APT29 have access to victims, both groups exfiltrate and analyze information to gain intelligence value. These groups use this information to craft highly targeted spearphishing campaigns. These actors set up operational infrastructure to obfuscate their source infrastructure, host domains and malware for targeting organizations, establish command and control nodes, and harvest credentials and other valuable information from their targets.
While there is more in the report below, essentailly what it does is blames several “known” Russian hacking organizations for what was simply a very unsophisticated phishing attack, one which could have been conducted by any 15-year-old in Cambodia or any other location around the globe.
The report comes as part of a slate of retaliatory measures against Russia issued Thursday by the Obama administration in response to the hacks. The Intelligence Community in October formally attributed the attacks to Russia, but provided no evidence to support its assessment. It is unclear if this report, for which the DHS “does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding” its contents is what is supposed to pass off as “proof” that Russia hacked the US election; if so, Putin will indeed be laughing all night.
via http://ift.tt/2hRBa2V Tyler Durden
Having already made it clear that any sanctions would be met with retaliation, IFX reports that Russian Commissioner Foreign Ministry on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, Konstantin Dolgov exclaimed that "any anti-Russian sanctions are futile and counter-productive."
Via IFX (Google Translate)
Keyed US anti-Russian sanctions in connection with the alleged cyber attacks from Moscow are counterproductive and are intended to cause damage including the future of the process of restoring bilateral relations, said Commissioner Foreign Ministry on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, Konstantin Dolgov, via "Interfax" .
"Any anti-Russian sanctions are futile and counter-productive," he said.
"I can only reconfirm that this hysteria demonstrates the complete lack of orientation by the outgoing US administration," said the Russian diplomat
"Such unilateral steps are pursuing the aim of damage relations and complicate their recovery in the future", – he said.
As a reminder, Russia had pre-emptively warned of retaliation…
The outgoing US administration still hopes to finally have time to do something else for bad relations with Russia, and so she brought down. With clearly inspired leaks in the American media have once again trying to scare the extension of anti-Russian sanctions measures "diplomatic" and even sabotage against our computer systems. And this last "Christmas greetings" from the Obama team, already preparing for eviction from the White House cynically want to present as a reaction to certain "cyber attack from Moscow."
Frankly, we are tired of the lies about the "Russian hackers", which continues to flow into the United States from the very top. The Obama administration has launched six months ago, this misinformation in an attempt to play up the desired for himself a candidate in the November presidential election, and not achieving the desired, looking for an excuse for their own failure, and with a vengeance is played on Russian-American relations.
But the truth of the provocation orchestrated by the White House, sooner or later will still come out. Yes, it's already happening. How else to December 8 reported the US media, the State of Georgia State Secretary Brian Kemp he said that the authorities in the region followed where came hacker attack on its electronic system of vote counting shortly after the election. Footprints led to the computer at the US Department of Homeland Security. This information quickly tried to cover up the stream of new anti-Russian charges that do not contain a single proof.
It only remains to add that if Washington really takes new hostile steps, it will get the answer. This also applies to any action against Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, which immediately ricocheted on US diplomats in Russia. Perhaps the Obama administration is quite indifferent to what will happen to the bilateral relations, but the story is unlikely to forgive her behavior on the principle of "after us the deluge."
In other words, Europe is about to get screwed again.
Sanctions certainly did not hurt before…
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Clearly unbothered by the lack of any evidence, and/or proof that Russia was indeed behind the “hacking” of the US elections as the government has alleged, outgoing president Obama who clears out of the White House in just over three weeks, issued the following statement in response to “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity and Harassment”
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office Of The Press Secretary
December 29, 2016
Statement by the President on Actions in Response to Russian Malicious Cyber Activity and Harassment
Today, I have ordered a number of actions in response to the Russian government’s aggressive harassment of U.S. officials and cyber operations aimed at the U.S. election. These actions follow repeated private and public warnings that we have issued to the Russian government, and are a necessary and appropriate response to efforts to harm U.S. interests in violation of established international norms of behavior.
All Americans should be alarmed by Russia’s actions. In October, my Administration publicized our assessment that Russia took actions intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government. Moreover, our diplomats have experienced an unacceptable level of harassment in Moscow by Russian security services and police over the last year. Such activities have consequences. Today, I have ordered a number of actions in response.
I have issued an executive order that provides additional authority for responding to certain cyber activity that seeks to interfere with or undermine our election processes and institutions, or those of our allies or partners. Using this new authority, I have sanctioned nine entities and individuals: the GRU and the FSB, two Russian intelligence services; four individual officers of the GRU; and three companies that provided material support to the GRU’s cyber operations. In addition, the Secretary of the Treasury is designating two Russian individuals for using cyber-enabled means to cause misappropriation of funds and personal identifying information. The State Department is also shutting down two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes, and is declaring “persona non grata” 35 Russian intelligence operatives. Finally, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are releasing declassified technical information on Russian civilian and military intelligence service cyber activity, to help network defenders in the United States and abroad identify, detect, and disrupt Russia’s global campaign of malicious cyber activities.
These actions are not the sum total of our response to Russia’s aggressive activities. We will continue to take a variety of actions at a time and place of our choosing, some of which will not be publicized. In addition to holding Russia accountable for what it has done, the United States and friends and allies around the world must work together to oppose Russia’s efforts to undermine established international norms of behavior, and interfere with democratic governance. To that end, my Administration will be providing a report to Congress in the coming days about Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election, as well as malicious cyber activity related to our election cycle in previous elections.
via http://ift.tt/2iJzHfi Tyler Durden
It looks like Eddie Lampert isn’t quite done with Sears yet. I remember when he was the genius that was going to turn around K-Mart, based solely on its real estate holdings. Then they merged with Sears and Eddie was going to change the retail landscape. After all, this is a man who negotiated his own release from gun-wielding kidnappers after 30hrs and turned Autozone into the powerhouse it is today.
Truth be told, as fun as it is to demonize Eddie for the failures at both Sears and Kmart, there was little he could do — as the Amazon juggernaut does not discriminate and destroys all in its path.
Today he announced he’d lend another $200m to the struggling retailer — which ups his loans to more than $800m over the past two years. Naturally, the debt is collateralized against somewhat lucrative real estate holdings and I’m sure Eddie will find a way to make it work for him. But, from a PR standpoint, as CEO of the company, this is an unmitigated, fucking, disaster.
These losses are caused by disastrous same store sales — which recently dropped by 7.4% (-10% at Sears and -4.4% at Kmart)
The majority of Sears’ debt is coming due in 2020, at which point the bedraggled retailers will likely be put to rest.
Source: Bloomberg
In a statement on the loan, Sears CFO Jason Hollar said: “As Sears Holdings has consistently shown, we will take actions to adjust our capital structure, generate liquidity, and manage our business to enable us to execute on our transformation while meeting all of our financial obligations. This new standby letter of credit facility further demonstrates that Sears Holdings has numerous options to finance our business strategy.”
In addition to lending money to Sears, Eddie is also providing REIT spinoff, Seritage Growth Properties, with a $200 line of credit.
Anyone else want some money? Eddie is in a generous mood.
Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com
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It was the perfect ending to the strangest election in modern American history. Donald Trump was officially elected as the next president of these United States on December 19, winning by a wide margin in the Electoral College despite having lost the national popular vote six weeks earlier.
Trump’s unexpected victory and loss in the popular vote unleashed a torrent of hot takes from Democrats and liberals calling for the abolition of the Electoral College. Their frustration is somewhat understandable, even if their motivations are purely political—after all, Democratic candidates have now won the popular vote in four of the five presidential contests held this century, but have lost three times in the Electoral College.
The basic argument goes something like this: the Electoral College is a relic of an age when democracy was still developing—an age when senators weren’t even elected by popular vote—and that Article II, Clause II of the U.S. Constitution should be dumped into the rubbish bin of history. “Yes, Mr. Trump won under the rules, but the rules should change so that a presidential election reflects the will of Americans and promotes a more participatory democracy,” opined the New York Times editorial board.
In response, there’s been nearly as many Republicans and conservatives leaping to defend a system that has worked in their favor. The Electoral College was designed to prevent coastal elites from large states from getting to pick the president, they argue, and it is thus working perfectly well.
The Founding Fathers who designed the Electoral College were certainly skeptical of direct democracy and the mob-like factions that it could create. “The people, stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn,” warned James Madison in Federalist #63. I think they were right to be concerned. That’s not to say that they would look at the current state of affairs and conclude that everything is working exactly as it should.
Because, let’s be honest here, it’s not. This election—for reasons that go far beyond the Electoral College—brought out the worst of America. That’s at least in part because of the illusion of electoral agency. People cried over Clinton’s loss because they believed she should win, yes, but also because they believed they had helped her win—millions of people in California, New York, and other deep blue states wrongly believed their support would affect the outcome of the presidential race. It didn’t, and learning that fact is painful.
In response, many of those same people want more agency in the process—more “participatory democracy,” as the Times put it. That’s why there are calls for the popular vote to be the only thing that matters.
More democracy isn’t the cure for these problems. From Plato to John Stuart Mill to Bryan Caplan, there’s no shortage of political thinkers who have exposed the deep cracks in the idea. In a new book, “Against Democracy,” Georgetown University political philosopher Jason Brennan adds to the list. Voters are irrational, ignorant, and incompetent, he argues, and placing limits on democracy makes just as much sense as letting attorneys sort through a pool of jurors to dismiss those who are disqualified. Brennan envisions a system where only coolly rational and educated individuals, those least likely to be affected by the emotional and partisan elements of politics, vote—though he’s not clear on whether others would be excluded or whether he wishes they would just stay home.
I’m not sure it is possible to implement Brennan’s epistocracy in the United States in any broad way, but the existence of the Electoral College gives us an opportunity to see what less democracy in presidential races might look like. It’s hardly a bad thing.
With the prospect of Campaign 2020 kicking off before the headaches of Campaign 2016 have faded, allow me to suggest a better way forward. Keep the Electoral College, with some minor tweaks, and abolish the popular vote.
Yes, get rid of the popular vote. For all the money, time, and attention paid to the presidential race, the actual votes cast on Election Day are basically meaningless. In non-swing states, votes are literally meaningless. Even in states where a small number of votes could change the outcome of the election, your vote and mine are still so insignificant as to be practically worthless, as Reason editor in chief Katherine Mangu-Ward explained in detail in 2012.
The only reason to hold popular votes for president, as the system functions now, is to select the “electors” from each state who will participate in the Electoral College.
Here’s a better way. Hold a national lottery to determine the 538 electors (drawing an appropriate number from the voter rolls of each state) and then let those people choose the president.
“Undemocratic!” you might be tempted to cry out.
Well, yes, but not really much less democratic than the system we currently use and, arguably, more democratic than the original design of the Electoral College, in which Electors were not bound in any way to the results of the popular vote in their states. The Founders envisioned a system in which well-read elites would be responsible for choosing the president, in theory as a check against the masses. With a lottery-based system, we’d be returning to that original idea, but with a populist twist.
The benefits of such a model, I’d argue, far outweigh the miniscule loss of casting a meaningless vote for president.
Consider: Almost everyone would get to ignore the election, if they want, because they don’t have to pretend to care about it as a form of signaling. The Electors would be the only ones whose votes matters—the lottery to pick them would have to be held a few months before Election Day, I suppose—and everyone else could get on with their lives (or try to influence the Electors, if they are so inclined).
For starters, there would be unmeasurable benefits in the form of freeing people of the mental and emotional anguish created by presidential campaigns like the one we just experienced.
This model would seriously alter presidential campaigning as we know it, but mostly in a positive direction. There would be no need for broad appeals to races or classes, no more vapid identity politics, no more absurdly expensive (and months-long) campaigns, no more endless dissection of polls and un-skewing of cross-tabs.
In return for getting rid of all that cable news talking head fodder, we’d get something better. Each candidate would know exactly who they had to convince to win—a single mother from Toledo, a retiree from Albuquerque, a CEO from Seattle, and so on—and the 538 Electors would have tremendous power to force a discussion on the issues they cared about. It would be a months-long town hall debate—a real one, not one made for television—with the Electors standing in for all Americans.
There are other benefits too. With the presidential race truly out of the average voter’s hands, those who want to be engaged in politics could (and would) focus on other races. More scrutiny of congressional, gubernatorial, and state legislative races would be welcome and would be possible only if we restore the presidential circus to its proper place.
Weighed against the questionable, miniscule, and illusory benefits of the presidential popular vote, the better choice seems clear. Let the Electoral College, with some tweaks, rule.
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Submitted by David Yager via OilPrice.com,
Even with oil barely over half of what it fetched in June of 2014 and the active drilling rig count doing better than (December 20, 2016 – 257, December 16, 2014 – 420; source JWN Rig Locator) compared to two years ago, it is obviously reckless to declare next year a success while it hasn’t even started yet.
However, it appears 2017 will provide significantly better times than the two previous years perhaps not by design but by exception. It won’t be as bad as 2016 because oil and gas prices are higher and it looks to be headed in an opposite direction from 2015 which was characterized by continuous contraction. Historically, most times this industry looks forward with even modest optimism it has been incorrect. The herd always seems to be going in the wrong direction. Super.
However, the recent OPEC and non-OPEC cooperation meetings have placed a floor under oil prices. Bloomberg News ran a headline December 18 declaring, “OPEC Deal Makes Oil Investors Most Bullish Since Slump Began”. It reported about the weekly data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission where speculators report trading positions. The last time this many traders were going “long” on crude was July of 2014. Meanwhile, the shorts continue to retreat. One New York hedge fund manager said, “There’s been a full embrace of the OPEC, non-OPEC deal. They are being given the benefit of the doubt. The consensus is supplies will tighten quickly and as a result investors are positioning for higher prices in the near term.”
Since oil prices began their freefall in late November of 2014 there has been mountains written about what crude will or won’t do. Every modest gyration in the U.S. rig count or storage levels has caused prices to move one way or another. In the end what causes prices to rise is when more commodity traders think it should go up than down. This is why the CFTC data is comforting, at least for this week. After all this has happened before.
The easiest explanation of why 2017 looks materially different than the past two years comes from the December mid-month report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Analyzing the news from the two supply management meetings, the IEA redrew its main chart through to mid-2017 which is reproduced below.
Although global oil production reached an all-time record 98.2 million b/d in November, this was not hugely above estimated demand of 96.95 million b/d in the fourth quarter of 2016. The excess of supply over demand was still just over 1 million b/d making a 1.2 million b/d OPEC cut plus another potential 0.5 million b/d from non-OPEC producers very meaningful. Demand growth for 2016 is now estimated at 1.4 million b/d which is above all prior IEA estimates for the year. This is an area where the IEA has often been criticized as being excessively pessimistic.
Source: International Energy Agency public report December 13, 2016
The result is a major change in global oil markets. The key data above is storage or stock change (blue bar), supply (green line) and demand (yellow line). For the past two years supply has materially exceeded demand resulting in continuous builds in global storage. This has included offshore tankers when the tanks on land reach capacity. For the first two quarters of 2017 – based on the assumption the announced production cuts will hold – demand will finally exceed supply and inventory levels will fall. The chart shows these three key data points have not been aligned this favorably since the first half of 2014, three years ago.
If this information is materially correct you can see why future traders have changed their positions. Commodity traders are often considered mercenary but never stupid. The more courageous oil price prognosticators are predicting WTI is more likely to see US$60 a barrel next year than US$40. Your writer falls into that camp.
Which in the WCSB changes everything. According to the PSAC/GMP First Energy daily commodity price report, Synthetic Crude closed December 21 at C$69.34, nearly C$19 a barrel above the price a year ago. Edmonton Mixed Sweet fetched C$65.25, almost C$22 above the last year’s price. Even the perpetually discounted Western Canada Select (bitumen plus synthetic plus condensate) was posted at $C48.83, close to $C18 above the December 21, 2015 value.
These are big numbers if current prices hold for 2017. On December 13 ARC Financial’s weekly upstream oil and gas macro-economic synopsis reported Canada produces nearly 4.2 million b/d of synthetic crude, bitumen, conventional crude and natural gas liquids. At an average of C$20 a barrel more that’s nearly $31 billion in additional revenue from existing production.
This could be augmented by a meaningful increase in the price of natural gas if current prices hold. On December 21 AECO spot gas closed at C$3.27 per mcf, C$0.95 higher than the YTD average of only C$2.15. If that price was sustained for all of 2017 this would add several billion more to the pie.To put these numbers into perspective, for 2014 ARC reports total revenue from all the oil and gas produced in Canada reached a record C$150 billion. Two years later in 2016 this had fallen to only C$76 billion despite an increase in oil sands production volume. The current prices for oil and gas, if maintained through next year, could return something like half the missing revenue from 2014 back into the system in 2017.
In its December 20 report ARC made its first estimates for 2017 and forecasts total revenue next year to be C$32 billion higher than 2016. After tax cash flow is expected to jump from only C$20.4 billion in 2016 to over C$45 billion next year. Big money. Note to oilfield services (OFS); pay attention!
Considering many producers have already hedged their 2017 production at these prices or higher, it is okay for Canada’s battered OFS industry to remain at least somewhat optimistic. The light at the end of the tunnel is not only not an oncoming train but the sector may actually be emerging from the tunnel entirely.
Because the greatest source of capital for anything in this business is cash flow from existing production. Debt markets are likely closed for all but the most successful. Net debt will most likely decline as increased cash flow enables the overextended to repair their balance sheets. Equity markets are returning because investors are able to buy shares in solid companies at a fraction of what they sold for in 2014. There has been a lot of capital on the sidelines waiting for opportunity. This money is moving now because investors understand if they wait much longer they could miss the best deals in the recovery. For most companies they are already too late.
The vastly improved macro-economic outlook for 2017 is reflected in the capital programs for producers. You can’t make it in the exploration and production business by only doing the “P” in E&P. Reserves must be replaced. While land sales are at multi-year lows there is a significant inventory of drillable prospects. Most major operators have a significant backlog of opportunities. It just has to be economic to invest and that is vastly improved.
But at this stage the recovery is hardly evenly distributed. OFS is still for the most part working for food. Equipment overcapacity is rife. What the industry is short of is personnel. But as more operators become determined they must proceed with their capital programs they will accept higher service prices not because they are feeling magnanimous but because they must. Alberta’s carbon tax comes into effect January 1, 2017. Higher fuel prices loom. Higher labor prices are underway as skeptical former employees wonder why they should go back into the business from which they were recently dismissed. Unfortunately, too much of the extra revenue coming in the front door from price increases is going to immediately go out the back door to cover the big expenses that matter most; fuel, wages and direct cost of goods sold.
Nevertheless, having the phone ring from a client who wants to buy something – no matter how awful the terms – sure beats laying off your receptionist because the phone never rang at all.
Significant macro-economic problems remain. New Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and her NDP government and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals appear to exist in a parallel universe. Representing only 4/10 of 1% of the world’s population, they believe Canadian carbon taxes and one-off arbitrary decisions such as an oilsands emissions cap or the cancellation of Northern Gateway will somehow change the world’s climate.
What makes these policies unsettling is Canada is going in opposite direction of that of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. With the appointment of pro-oil, pro-industry people to key positions such as Secretary of State, department of energy and department of environment, Canada is looking completely out of step with its major customer for oil and gas and its major trading partner. Canadian politicians usually figure out when they are going in the wrong direction but it always takes longer and causes more damage than it should.
Federal approval of the expansions of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to the Pacific and Enbridge Line 3 to the Midwest U.S. appear promising, assuming you can stay in business until 2019. In politics pipeline approvals are big news. Lots of handshakes and photographs. But in the real world oilpatch, like the one described herein, what is required is pipe carrying oil and gas leading to higher volumes and netbacks creating increased cash flow for reinvestment. Today. Not only are the benefits from these pipelines not happening now but at least for Kinder Morgan they may never happen at all.
Worse, major capital projects like the North West Refinery and Suncor Fort Hills are winding down. There’s not much of an order book behind them. There has been some interest in recent downstream/petrochemical incentives offered by the Alberta government leading to a couple of new projects. This will help. But even with the recovery in conventional oil and gas looking positive in 2017, the lack of major capital investment in oil sands that has become the norm in the past decade will be painful with no relief in sight.
Regardless, things look better for 2017 than they have in some time. Best wishes to you, your friends, colleagues and families over the Holiday Season. May my optimistic prognostications for a much improved oilpatch in the New Year actually come true.
via http://ift.tt/2icoyGL Tyler Durden
2016 is mercifully coming to an end this weekend, and the Obama presidency will end less than three weeks later. Despite Donald Trump’s insistence that he’ll do things differently, January 20, 2017 will be no more a clean break from the past than January 20, 2009, was, especially when it comes to the exercise of U.S. foreign policy abroad.
Both Barack Obama and Trump made a change in foreign policy part of their successful first presidential campaigns—for both, that promise of change was nebulous and uncertain. It allowed people with all different kinds of ideas about U.S. foreign policy to believe his vision would comport with their own. President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, just 10 months into office. He leaves office with a war in Afghanistan that’s gone on longer than the Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined, a war in Iraq (and Syria) that’s not quite the same as the one he inherited (the names and places have changed), and intervention-induced chaos in places like Libya and Yemen.
Trump, meanwhile, sent all sorts of mixed signals about how his administration might conduct, or frame, its foreign policy during the campaign—he was no non-interventionist but also challenged the Republican foreign policy establishment during the primaries. His freewheeling style so far has earned some dividends, while his cabinet picks, like Rex Tillerson at secretary of state and Gen. James Mattis at defense, will at their confirmations have to frame whatever the Trump administration’s actual foreign policy, or foreign policy narrative, might be.
Even a foreign policy left adrift is destructive, and like the Obama administration before it, the Trump administration, too, will inherit a number of conflict zones and hot spots in which the United States is engaged.
Afghanistan
In 2009, President Obama ordered a troop surge in Afghanistan, a war that at that point had entered its ninth year. “When the history of the Obama presidency is written,” The New York Times reported on December 5, 2009, about Obama’s decision to accelerate the troop surge and subsequent withdrawal as visualized in a bell curve chart, “that day with the chart may prove to be a turning point, the moment a young commander in chief set in motion a high-stakes gamble to turn around a losing war.”
Seven years later, the Afghanistan war continues. Most recently, the putative withdrawal was pushed into 2017, with at least 6,000 U.S. troops staying through next year. In 2009, the point of the surge was to create the space for Afghan security forces to operate on their own. A concomitant “civilian surge” from the State Department was supposed to strengthen Afghan national institutions. Bureaucratic infighting and incompetence instead wasted any opportunity that the surge might have created for a withdrawal. Last year, President Obama became the first Nobel Peace Prize winner to bomb another Nobel Peace Prize winner when an American gunship launched a strike on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan.
Today, U.S. forces are fighting not just the Taliban but ISIS fighters as well. Obama has slowed down the pull out in large part because Afghan forces are unprepared to fight alone. Trump, meanwhile, has argued against both nation-building in Afghanistan and setting withdrawal dates (that insurgents would know) yet in favor of a long-term military presence in Afghanistan to keep it from becoming a failed states.
Iraq
By the time President Obama took office, a status of forces agreement had been negotiated between the U.S. and Iraq that would see all U.S. troops withdrawn by 2011. While Obama tried to keep a residual U.S. force of 10,000 in Iraq past that date, the Iraqi government was unwilling to extend immunity to U.S. troops who stayed in the country longer. Nevertheless, Obama campaigned for re-election in 2012 on the idea that he had brought the Iraq war to an end anyway.
By 2014, the president had changed his tune. The rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq compelled Obama to insist he had tried to keep troops in Iraq to prevent just such an occurrence from happening. U.S. troops left Iraq in 2011 ceremoniously and started to return unceremoniously in 2014 as part of the campaign against ISIS, the terror group that was Al-Qaeda in Iraq before it moved into Syria and eventually returned to Iraq as the Islamic State.
Trump has been critical of the way the U.S. has fought ISIS in Iraq, but has been vague about what he would do. The U.S.-led coalition began an offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second city, from ISIS a few months ago (reinforced Iraqi troops resumed the offensive this week). Trump mocked U.S. leaders for announcing the offensive, saying it gave ISIS leaders in Mosul the opportunity to escape ahead of it. Trump insists, as he does in other domains, on the element of surprise. Experts say a “sneak attack” on Mosul is unrealistic—the multinational coalition requires a lot of coordination and, on top of that, it’s not easy to conceal the forces amassing around Mosul. Throughout the campaign, Trump and other Republicans (and Hillary Clinton, for that matter) simultaneously criticized Obama for not doing enough on ISIS in Iraq while sketching out more or less the same approach (using a coalition of regional allies to destroy ISIS).
During the campaign, Trump expressed openness to the idea that Congress would pass an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) on ISIS. Obama complained about the lack of such an authorization and what it meant for excessive executive power, but not once did he appear to consider tempering his military engagement because of the lack of authorization. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) earlier this year said he was hopeful the prospect of a Trump presidency would induce Congress to reclaim its war powers. The incoming Republican Congress is poised to be pliant to Trump’s agenda, yet an AUMF would be the first step to defining the role of the U.S. in the campaign against ISIS, and thus to begin to define how the U.S. might disengage from the conflict.
Syria
Although the U.S. has spent years arming various factions in the Syrian civil war, even some that have fought each other, the evolution of the Syrian civil war and foreign interventionists therein suggest the U.S. need not be the “indispensable nation” its political class likes to think of it as.
In 2013, the Obama administration pushed for U.S. intervention in Syria over the Bashar Assad regime’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. Unscripted remarks by Secretary of State John Kerry challenging Syria to turn its chemical weapons over to the international community led to a Russian offer to facilitate that, averting U.S. intervention. On the campaign trail meanwhile, Hillary Clinton pushed for the imposition of a no-fly zone in Aleppo in order to force Russia to the negotiating table, admitting privately such a move would cost civilian lives.
The U.S. has continued to insist Assad must relinquish power in any peace deal. By the time Trump takes office, the crisis may be on its way to resolution. Syria and Russia announced a ceasefire earlier this week while peace talks in Kazakhstan continue. Trump’s complained about the U.S. not cooperating with Russia on fighting terrorists in Syria, but the ongoing peace talks demonstrate that such conflicts need not involve the United States. While the Syrian regime has by all accounts committed all kinds of war crimes and created a humanitarian crisis in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria, humanitarianism should not be a sufficient prerequisite for U.S. involvement, while arming rebels, which Trump has largely condemned, isn’t much better, contributing to instability without much in return vis a vis any identifiable U.S. interests.
Libya
In the last eight years, Libya is the most egregious example of the dangers of interventionism in the name of humanitarianism. In 2011 the Obama administration argued it had to intervene in Libya because of the “responsibility to protect,” an international relations doctrine favoring so-called “humanitarian” military interventions. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a major proponent of the intervention, insisted Col. Qaddafi, Libya’s long-time dictator, was slaughtering his own people and that meant the U.S. had to intervene, not for regime change, which the Obama administration strenuously denied, but to prevent civilian deaths. Col. Qaddafi ended up being captured, sodomized, and killed by rebels who received U.S. air support to pursue him. “We came, we saw, he died,” Clinton laughed before a 60 Minutes interview.
Five years later, U.S. troops are in Libya battling ISIS, which set up shop along with a variety of other extremist groups in the vacuum left behind by the U.S. intervention, while weapons and fighters from Libya flooded North Africa and the Middle East, contributing to instability there. The Obama administration has not said much about the U.S. strategy or goals in Libya. Obama admitted that “failing to plan for the day after” the Libya intervention was the greatest mistake of his presidency. On the campaign trail Clinton, meanwhile, defended her decision to push for intervention. Unfortunately, much of the campaign-related debate on Libya became about the initial decision to intervene in 2011 and not about what the U.S. military was doing there now nor for how long it would be doing it nor whether it should.
Yemen
The Obama administration spent years waging the war on terror in Yemen, most often by using drones to target alleged extremists, some of whom were identified by Yemen’s autocratic government. For a time, Obama pointed to Yemen as an example of the successful prosecution of the war on terror. Then rebels overthrew the government in Aden, and Saudi Arabia intervened to oust the rebels. The U.S. has, so far, at least as far as the public knows, kept its military out of the actual conflict in Yemen, although Saudi Arabia is largely armed by the United States. Efforts to block U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia had been unsuccessful in the Senate. Last week, the Obama administration announced it would be suspending arms shipments to Saudi Arabia because, it said, Saudi Arabia had hit too many civilian targets and caused too many civilian casualties.
Trump has had a far less amenable disposition to Saudi Arabia than Clinton so far. The globally unpopular war in Yemen offers the U.S. a good opportunity to disconnect from Saudi Arabia and stop subsidizing a war in which the U.S. has no interest. The way the U.S. war on terror in Yemen played out ought to also cause U.S. policymakers pause about pursing the same strategy in Somalia, where the U.S. has been involved for years and where an internationally-recognized government was established recently after a nearly two decade absence.
Europe
Europe has been rocked by a number of terror attacks in the last two years, most of which were claimed by ISIS, Al-Qaeda, or their supporters. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine, eventually annexing Crimea, a historically Russian region of Ukraine, leading Europe and the U.S. to impose sanctions. Worryingly, Europe is used to turning to the U.S. for military support in such situations. Despite having no discernable national interest in Ukraine, the U.S. inserted itself into the dispute on behalf of its European allies. Similarly, while France has been more active than other Western countries in the Syrian civil war, Europeans turn to U.S. troops to guarantee their safety. European powers that pressed for intervention in Libya knew they needed the U.S. to be involved as well.
Trump, for his part, has questioned the role of NATO in the world order during the campaign. His post-election commitment to NATO doesn’t preclude a long-overdue rethinking of the alliance and the U.S. role in it. More than 70 years after the end of World War II, a Europe that has not seen a war on its continent in this century ought to take more responsibility for its own security. For decades, Europe’s political classes have taken up the project of political integration via the European Union. Perhaps the rise of Trump, a presidential candidate many European leaders expressed open distaste for (though they were quick to reach out after he’d won) will motivate Europeans to move away from being reliant on American military power and toward security independence.
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As promised (or threatened), the Obama administration has just unveiled – via US Treasury – new sanctions against Russia over election hacking allegations (that as yet have not been supported by any actual evidence). Despite president-elect Trump’s comments that “we ought to get on with our lives,” the sanctions apply to five entities and six individuals. In addition, US officials are expelling 35 Russian diplomats.
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Additionally:
Now we await Putin’s promised retaliation.
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We’ve known for 5,000 years that mass spying on one’s own people is usually aimed at grabbing power and crushing dissent, not protecting us from bad guys.
We’ve known for 4,000 years that debts need to be periodically written down, or the entire economy will collapse. And see this.
We’ve known for 2,500 years that prolonged war bankrupts an economy.
We’ve known for 2,000 years that wars are based on lies.
We’ve known for 1,900 years that runaway inequality destroys societies. … and leads to revolution.
We’ve known for 1,700 years that torture is a form of terrorism.
We’ve known for thousands of years that debasing currencies leads to economic collapse.
We’ve known for millenia that – when criminals are not punished – crime spreads.
We’ve known for thousands of years that the rich and powerful try to censor their critics under the guise of heresy.
We’ve known for hundreds of years that the failure to punish financial fraud destroys economies, as it destroys all trust in the financial system.
We’ve known for centuries that monopolies and the political influence which accompanies too much power in too few hands are dangerous for free markets.
We’ve known for hundreds of years that companies will try to pawn their debts off on governments, and that it is a huge mistake for governments to allow corporate debt to be backstopped by government.
We’ve known for centuries that powerful people – unless held to account – will get together and steal from everyone else.
We’ve known for hundreds of years that standing armies and warmongering harm Western civilization.
We’ve known for over 300 years that going into debt to pay for war ruins any nation.
We’ve known for 200 years that allowing private banks to control credit creation eventually destroys the nation’s prosperity.
We’ve known for two centuries that a fiat money system – where the money supply is not pegged to anything real – is harmful in the long-run.
We’ve known for 200 years that a two-party system quickly becomes corrupted.
We’ve known for over a century that torture produces false and useless information.
We’ve known since the 1930s Great Depression that separating depository banking from speculative investment banking is key to economic stability. See this, this, this and this.
We’ve known for 80 years that inflation is a hidden tax.
We’ve known for 79 years that war is a racket that benefits the elites but harms everyone else.
We’ve known since 1988 that quantitative easing doesn’t work to rescue an ailing economy.
We’ve known since 1993 that derivatives such as credit default swaps – if not reined in – could take down the economy. And see this.
We’ve known since 1998 that crony capitalism destroys even the strongest economies, and that economies that are capitalist in name only need major reforms to create accountability and competitive markets.
We’ve known since 2007 or earlier that lax oversight of hedge funds could blow up the economy.
And we knew before the 2008 financial crash and subsequent bailouts that:
Postscript: Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it … and we’ve known that for a long time.
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