Friday News Roundup — December 21, 2018: Sudden Syria Withdrawal; Unrest in Eastern Europe; and Elevation of Space Command
It’s the Winter Solstice today, and for once we can say that it’s the darkest day of the year…and not be referring to politics! In this week’s Friday News Roundup, the last of 2018, we cover the sudden declaration that U.S. troops will be withdrawing from Syria; the unrest in Poland and Hungary reflecting some discontent with right-wing governments; and the elevation of U.S. Space Command and what that means for the organization of military space operations. As always, we close with some stories that you may have missed.
Before we get to the news, we want to wish you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons and health and prosperity in the new year. We thank you for your readership and support of CSPC, and we look forward to continuing in 2019.
Syria Withdrawal and Mattis Resignation: Is America’s Reputation on the line?
Dan Mahaffee
The week’s news was first punctuated by the announcement from the White House that the United States would begin an immediate withdrawal of the approximately 2,000 troops that are currently deployed in Syria. It has been no secret that President Trump had long considered ending the deployment of U.S. forces in that theater, but officials in the State and Defense Departments appear to have been planning for a longer commitment. Briefing reporters just over a week ago, the U.S. envoy to the region, Brett McGurk, stated, “we want to stay on the ground and make sure that stability can be maintained in these areas.”
The sudden move fed into a sense of an administration unraveling, as Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced his resignation on Thursday afternoon. His resignation letter—reflecting a growing divergence between the president and his defense chief—argued for the importance of strong relations with allies and greater weariness about China and Russia’s geopolitical aims. Secretary Mattis’s resignation will only raise further questions about U.S. security policy, but the president’s decision appeared to be the final straw.
Reports indicate that as President Trump finalized the decision to withdraw, a range of military commanders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Joe Dunford and Central Command Combatant Commander General Joseph Votel were left in the dark. Despite a momentous shift in U.S. policy, there appeared to be little interagency discussion. A succinct message from the Presidential Twitter account seemed to be all that was needed:
That announcement was followed by an almost surreal video announcement where the president stated his firm belief that fallen American servicemen and women would be in favor of his decision.
While the Islamic State’s geographic territory is a shadow of what it once was, it’s far from clear that the terrorist group is defeated. The physical “caliphate” has been largely destroyed, but questions remain about how many IS fighters melted back into the Syrian and Iraqi populations — perhaps up to 30,000 fighters — as well as their online presence that has inspired recruitment and lone-wolf attacks around the world. Even where IS has been defeated, many of the areas that they have held are in ruins. Throughout the region, the slow progress towards rebuilding those communities and replacing the governance structure of IS creates a fertile ground for a jihadist resurgence.
Beyond the IS presence, the U.S. troops in the region were supporting Kurdish forces that had borne the brunt of the fighting against IS, as well as countering the influence of the other players on the Middle Eastern chessboard. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a Defense One correspondent who has frequently traveled to the Syrian theater, simply said “there will be four winners: ISIS, the Syrian regime, Russia and Iran.”
All of this has shocked Capitol Hill, as Members of Congress have been taken aback by these development, even as they attempt to keep the government open. When asked if the Islamic State was defeated, Oklahoma Republican Senator Jim Inhofe only replied that there’d been “great strides.” The most direct response came from South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham:
While those in Congress criticizing the withdrawal are on target with their concerns about the timing and impact, they find themselves confronting a new war powers dynamic: If Congress has largely abrogated oversight of the expansion of recent conflicts, what powers can it invoke if it disagrees with the disengagement from one?
Allies in the region also required reassurance about this announcement and its effects, as both President Trump and Secretary of State Pompeo were reported to have briefed Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu about the decision. Netanyahu had long pushed for a U.S. presence to help counter Iranian influence.
On the other hand, the news was applauded in the Kremlin. Moscow’s seems to be enjoying a banner week, as this news was accompanied by the weakening of U.S. sanctions on oligarchs close to the Putin regime and a combination of political deadlock and civil unrest growing in Europe.
Putin wasn’t the only autocrat enjoying this week’s headlines. It was very telling that the first word of the Syria withdrawal, as reported on Morning Joe by Washington Post correspondent David Ignatius, came from sources in Turkey. President Trump and President Erdogan have dealt with a range of contentious issues in the U.S.-Turkish relationship; two burning issues have been U.S. support for the Kurds and Turkey’s planned purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missiles. With U.S. forces withdrawing from Syria, the Kurds will be losing much of the on-the-ground support that has rankled Turkey. On Tuesday night, before the withdrawal announcement, news broke that the State Department had signed off on a potential $3.5 billion sale of the Patriot missile system, which is what Ankara had desired before it turned to the Russians. Switching from the S-400 to the Patriot would also remove a barrier to the Turkish partnership in the F-35 program.
The Trump administration is rehashing a common series of mistakes that the United States has committed in the region — withdrawing troops before the situation is stabilized (see Iraq, 2011) and abandoning key proxy allies on the ground. Even if this is the end result of the Obama administration’s dithering and failure in the region, that is no excuse for the current occupants of the White House. If the United States has now abandoned the Kurds to face potential ethnic cleansing at the hands of their Turkish and Arab neighbors, it will be a cloud that will forever hang over America’s moral standing on the global stage. Allies around the world will question how they can trust a U.S. president who gives up so much for so very little. It is the message now repeatedly hear from the White House — ranging from its approach to Chinese tech companies to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi — American foreign policy is thoroughly off-the-cuff, wholly transactional at best, completely for sale at worst.
Watch This Space: The Debate over National Security Architecture of the Space Domain Continues
Joshua Huminski
The final weeks of 2018 didn’t see a slowdown in space developments. On Tuesday, the President directed the establishment of U.S. Space Command as the 11th Unified Combatant Command (UCC) alongside Central Command and others. While Space Command did exist from 1985 until 2002, this proposed reestablishment is seen as the eventual formation of a “Space Force”, which is the president’s ultimate goal.
The possibility of a showdown between the President and Congress, or at least another one, appears to be in the offing. The most recent National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by Congress orders the establishment of U.S. Space Command as a sub-unit to U.S. Strategic Command, with the head former reporting to the commanding general of the latter, currently General John Hyten. Under President Trump’s proposal, U.S. Space Command as the 11th UCC would have at its head a four-star general reporting to the Secretary of Defense and the President.
Whatever version shakes out in the end, the mission will likely remain the same as will the personnel. In 2002 the previous version of U.S. Space Command folded into Strategic Command, which appears set to have the mission and personnel assigned to space reassigned to the new organization.
What about Air Force Space Command? For now, at least, the two would be fulfilling separate missions. According to Air Force Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, “The whole point behind a combatant command is to do our war fighting missions whereas the point behind Air Force Space Command is to provide the resources necessary to organize, train and equip, and provide forces to that combatant command.”[1]
What does this mean for the Space Force? In reality, not much. It is just the latest step in the White House’s push towards reorganizing national security space. Ultimately, Congress will need to act in order to establish the sixth branch of the armed forces, and it is unclear whether it will be inclined to do so. Reports suggest that the Pentagon is nearing final legislative proposals for the Space Force. According to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, the Pentagon is on “final approach” on the Space Force blueprint. It will need to go to the White House and the National Space Council before being submitted to Congress.
Separately, Dr. Fred Kennedy — the Director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office — was directed by Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin to begin a study on the implementation of the Space Development Agency, a new entity intended to take over all space acquisition. The interim report from Dr. Kennedy is due on 5 January.
The end of 2018 and beginning of 2019 are going to be very interesting to watch in national security space. Whether the space force launches (pardon the pun) or not and in what configuration will be the topics of holiday dinner conversations, for sure.
[1] https://spacenews.com/president-trump-issues-order-to-create-u-s-space-command/
Rumors of Democracy’s Decline in Europe Are Premature
Michael Stecher
The Law and Justice Party that leads the government in Poland is among the growing list of right-wing, populist, anti-EU parties that have made substantial political gains in recent years. Many observers argue that Poland under Law and Justice, like Hungary under the rule of Viktor Orbán, shows that the wave of liberal, democratic reforms in Europe that began in 1989 has crested and begun to recede. If liberalism cannot hold in Europe, they ask, what chance can it have in the rest of the world. Events in Poland this week, however, demonstrate that there remains in that country the most important condition for the continued exercise of liberty: a population dedicated to its preservation. We are seeing the flame of liberalism flicker all around the world, but it is encouraging to see that it has not gone out in Warsaw.
Last December, the Polish Parliament passed a bill lowering the mandatory retirement age for the country’s Supreme Court justices from 70 to 65. Law and Justice supporters claimed that this would allow them to sweep away remaining vestiges of Communist rule, but most impartial observers recognized that this was part of Law and Justice’s continuing effort to replace independent, impartial institutions with party apparatchiks. The European Union called this a “serious breach” of European values and began the process of sanctioning Poland for violating its commitment to the rule of law. When the law went into effect in July, the president of the Supreme Court refused to comply with her forced retirement, and most prominent jurists boycotted the selection process to fill the vacancies on the court. The European Court of Justice escalated the conflict with Warsaw in October by ordering Poland to halt implementation of the law and, over the next few weeks, Law and Justice blinked. Parliament passed an amendment undoing the purge in November and President Andrzej Duda signed it into law on Monday–in the last hours before his formal deadline when, as one opponent of the law put it to the New York Times, “he knew his voters had Christmas, and not the rule of law, on their minds.”
This is the second time this year when international pressure has caused Law and Justice to backtrack on a major policy in the face of international pressure. Earlier this year, the Polish government passed a law that would have made it illegal to accuse the “Polish nation” of complicity in the Holocaust or describe Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz or Treblinka as “Polish death camps.” Critics (including your humble correspondent) argued that the law made little sense on its face (e.g. how can a incorporeal entity, the “Polish nation,” be exonerated of complicity in physical acts of killing Jews?) and could criminalize the study of acts of violence against Jews by Poles during the Nazi occupation. A major element in the reversal of this policy was disapprobation from Israel, with whom Poland has close ties, and the revelation that President Trump and Vice President Pence were strongly opposed to the measure and would not meet with senior Polish officials as long as the law was in effect.
It is tempting to see both climb-downs as examples of Law and Justice’s unwillingness to stand up to international pressure, but that is probably the wrong frame. Poland’s relationship with the United States is essential to its national security strategy because, as a NATO member, the US military is prepared to defend Poland from its former oppressor, Russia, and because Warsaw sees Washington as a counterweight to the European Union. When the Trump administration held that relationship at risk, Law and Justice folded. In the case of the courts, however, it was not Brussels that brought Law and Justice off the ledge; it was the Polish people.
In local elections earlier this month, Law and Justice performed well in rural areas, but failed to win in any of the major cities. Opinion polls suggest that, nationally, Law and Justice’s support is 5 percentage points lower than in the last national election and that the party’s flirtation with the far-right and anti-EU politics have caused centrist voters to look elsewhere. EU integration has been incredibly valuable for the Polish people. From 1994–2014, Polish GDP per capita grew at an average rate of 4.2% a year and its poverty rate fell by almost half between 2004 and 2014. Polish voters have strong, positive opinions about the European Union, with 84% of Poles saying that they want to remain in the EU, 7 percentage points more than voted to join the EU in 2003. The Polish political center is seeing the negative effects of irresponsible, anti-EU politics in the form of Brexit, authoritarianism in Hungary, and populist dysfunction in Italy, and making their opinions felt by Law and Justice. While the deputy prime minister had once said that pushback against the court law would be “the first step towards the self-destruction of the EU,” , after the election setbacks, Law and Justice backed down from this fight and held a party convention that tried to burnish their European bona fides.
Poland remains at risk of sliding into authoritarianism. Nothing about recent events changes the fundamental polarization in the country that was described in Anne Applebaum’s piece from The Atlantic in October. On my last visit to Poland, young, college-educated Poles I spoke to had nothing but loathing for a ruling party that they thought was trying to undermine their liberal democracy a build a one-party state. They were afraid that Hungary was their future. For now, at least, there is some reason for optimism. And, for that matter, recent protests in Budapest suggest that the Hungarian people are also more committed to liberal democracy than many had feared…
Author’s note: I participated in a study trip to Poland that was sponsored by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs earlier this year during the Holocaust Law controversy.
News You May Have Missed
North Korea Defines “Denuclearization” … Broadly
In a statement to the Korean Central News Agency, the official propaganda outlet of the North Korean regime, North Korea declared that “denuclearization” meant the end of the nuclear threat to the Hermit Kingdom. This poses a problem for President Trump, who agreed to work towards denuclearization with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un at the Singapore Summit in June. The United States withdrew its nuclear arsenal from South Korea in the 1990s, but still protects South Korea and Japan with nuclear-armed weapons systems. Dismantling the North Korean nuclear program while the United States could still threaten them would be “putting ourselves in a defenseless state,” the statement added.
Swedish Professor Hires Mercenaries to Rescue Student
In 2014, a doctoral student at Sweden’s Lund University was hiding in an abandoned bleach factory with his family, while ISIS fighters committed atrocities in nearby villages. This enraged this student’s doctoral advisor, Dr. Charlotta Turner, who contracted a group of heavily armed mercenaries to launch a rescue mission. Truly, an uncommon commitment to teaching and mentorship.
Turkey briefly detains U.S. soldier
On Thursday, Stars and Stripes reported that a U.S. Army Specialist, Yahya Ozer, stationed at Incirlik Air Base, was detained along with some members of his family, who are Turkish. The reason given for the brief detention was that Specialist Ozer and his family had ties to the movement led by exiled cleric Fetullah Gulen, which the Erdogan government holds responsible for the failed Turkish coup attempt in 2016.
To avoid 2020 Primary Challenge to Trump, South Carolina GOP could cancel 2020 primary
While many states jealously guard their first-in-the-nation status during Presidential Primaries, the South Carolina GOP leadership won’t rule out not having a primary in the event that another GOP candidate challenged President Trump for the 2020 nomination. The first primary in a southern state, the South Carolina Presidential Primary has long been a key point in any path to the GOP nomination.
