Friday News Roundup — May 3, 2019: A New Day Dawns in Japan; The U.S. Military’s Expensive Toys; Phase II of the Democratic Primary; Plus News You May Have Missed
Happy Friday from Washington, DC. Since March 1, there has been rain in the nation’s capital every Friday but one, a streak that may continue with a chance rain in the forecast today. Nothing can dampen the mood of the policy team, however, not even hours of rancorous testimony from Attorney General William Barr who tried to convince the Senate of his good faith in managing the Mueller investigation. This week also featured another tragic shooting at a university campus, a statement from the CDC that measles cases are at the highest level since 2000, and several prominent Democrats passed on opportunities to challenge incumbent Republican senators next year.
In this week’s roundup, Dan takes the opportunity presented by the ascension of a new Japanese Emperor to look back on the astounding changes that country has undergone in the reign of the last 5 very long-lived emperors; Michael worries that expensive military platforms are too expensive not to use, even when they are not right for the job; Chris catches us up on the Democratic primary now that the field is (mostly) set; and we end with some news you may have missed.
A New Era Begins for Japan
Dan Mahaffee
This week, across the Pacific, the people of Japan have been witnessing the transition of eras as Emperor Akihito abdicated, and his son, Emperor Naruhito took the Chrysanthemum Throne.
In many ways, the Japanese emperor can seem to be a purely ceremonial vestige. Redefined by the post-war constitution created under Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s proconsular powers, despite its connections to Japanese militarism, the Chrysanthemum Throne remained to serve as an embodiment of the Japanese nation. While stripped of its political role as Head of State to be merely “the symbol of the State and the unity of the people,” the Emperor of Japan and perceptions of the era in which he reigns define the epochs of Japanese history. The names of the eras are used to describe the changes in culture and the overall zeitgeist, a longer version of how Westerners often use decades as shorthand for cultural touchstones.
Modern Japan as we know it grew out of the reign of Emperor Meiji. Faced with a fragmented kingdom ruled by the Shogun and the feudal lord known as Daimyo, the arrival of the American fleet under Commodore Perry shocked Japan out of an era of self-imposed isolation into breakneck modernization. Centralizing power and empowering reformers and modernizers, Japan turned to experts from the West to quickly modernize its economy, society, politics, and military. When Emperor Meiji passed away in 1912, Japan had gone from a near-medieval feudal society to a modern global power in the span of just under six decades.
The Meiji era marked the emergence of modern Japan, and the following Taisho (1912–1926) era and the first third of the Showa era under Emperor Hirohito (1926–1945) were defined by the continued economic and technological development in Japan, tumultuous domestic politics leading to totalitarianism, and expansionism that led to Japan’s defeat at the hands of the allies in 1945.
When MacArthur chose to keep Emperor Hirohito on the throne, it was as much to ease the transition to occupation as it was to keep the concept of the Japanese nation alive. While the Emperor would no longer be a deity, his role as the key symbol of the Japanese nation would endure. With Japan demilitarized, save for self-defense forces, the remainder of the Showa era was dominated by Japan’s economic resurgence, where, at the end, headlines in the 1980s crowed about the renewed rivalry between the United States and Japan. Japan’s asset bubble popped in the 1980s, leading to the lost decades that marked the reign of Emperor Akihito. Throughout that time, however, Emperor Akihito would humanize the Imperial family, as he and Empress Michiko would sit with disaster victims, drinking tea, consoling the affected, and connecting with the people of Japan far unlike one would expect the descendant of a sun goddess.
For the people of Japan, the transition to Emperor Naruhito is accompanied by the new era. Reiwa, meaning “beautiful harmony,” was determined to be the name of the new era by a coalition of Japanese business, cultural, and political luminaries in advance of Emperor Akihito’s abdication. Notably, while the names of eras were often taken from historical Chinese poetry, this era is derived from a Japanese text.
Beyond the transition on the Chrysanthemum Throne, Japan is looking to its future to distinguish from the past decades of economic stagnation and natural calamity. The government of Prime Minister Abe seeks to change Japan’s constitution away from strict self defense towards a more muscular role on the global stage. With ascendant threats from China and North Korea, and increasingly unpredictable policies in Washington, Japan seeks to bolster its own capabilities, both in military hardware and advanced technology cooperation with its allies.
At the January World Economic Forum, PM Abe also announced that the “defeatism about Japan is defeated.” At a time when nations are turning away from free trade, and many developed democracies are beset with populist or nationalist movements, Japan is championing the global order, building trade partnerships with the EU and remaining members of the Trans Pacific Partnership, and planning to welcome the 2019 G20 and G7 summits, as well as the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The Emperor of Japan may no longer hold the political power that propelled Japan from the era of the Shogun to the ranks of major world powers, but the transition into the Reiwa era serves to turn the page on Japan’s history as it seeks to reshape and reinvigorate its global leadership. For the United States, this represents an opportunity to continue to engage and support a partner that shares our values and seeks to build its capacity as a partner. U.S. and Japanese history are closely intertwined from the depths of conflict to close partnership. With Japan looking towards its future, the United States must not take this partnership for granted, as “beautiful harmony” is needed on both sides of the Pacific.
The Military’s Albatross Contract Problem
Michael Stecher
Norman Augustine is a member of CSPC’s Board of Counselors and the former Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin. He wrote a satirical book entitled Augustine’s Laws — a set of humorous aphorisms and observations about national security and the defense industry. Augustine’s XVI Law stated, “Defense budgets grow linearly, but the cost of military aircraft grows exponentially.” His conclusion was that, “By 2054, the entire U.S. defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and the Navy 3½ days each per week, except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marine Corps for the extra day.”
While they can still afford multiple aircraft at this point, this week both the Air Force and the Navy demonstrated a problem that is growing within the national security community: the military’s stuff is extremely expensive and the most costly assets may not be ideal for the missions they are assigned. As the cost of individual platforms tends to grow over time, this dilemma will only become more acute.
This week, the Air Force’s A-variant of the F-35 Lightning II fired its first shots in anger, conducting a strike mission against an ISIS target in northern Iraq. This is not the first time that an F-35 has been used in combat; the Marines used their vertical landing B-variant against targets in Afghanistan last September and the Israelis have used their F-35s to strike at targets in Syria for the last year. But here’s the thing: the F-35 is an exquisite piece of next-generation technology; it has an unmatched suite of stealth materials and sensors; each aircraft costs almost $90 million to purchase and approximately $25,000 per hour to operate. So why is it being used to attack undefended tunnels? The Air Force says a lot of nice things about the F-35, many of which are even true, but there is a serious disconnect between what the platform is designed to do — providing air dominance in a contested environment against a major power adversary — and what the military needs right now — bombing caves.
The Navy is facing its own version of this problem. For months, Navy and Pentagon brass have argued that they need to decommission the USS Harry S Truman (CVN-75) early. The Truman is a nuclear-powered, Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that was commissioned in 1998 and scheduled to operate for 50 years. In order for that to happen, the Navy would need to refit the ship with updated technology and refuel its nuclear reactor, which was estimated to cost around $6 billion. The Defense Department’s FY2020 budget request stated that they would not undertake this project and would allow the Truman to run out its current fuel and be retired in the mid-2020s as part of a deal to buy two more new Gerald Ford-class carriers (fortunately the future of the next USS Enterprise was never in doubt) and increase the total number of ships in the fleet by 70. This week, however, President Trump and Vice President Pence bent to pressure from Congress and announced that the Truman will receive the upgrades that would allow it to continue to operate until 2048.
The Navy’s 11 aircraft carriers are the jewels in the crown of the U.S. military and project power like no other platform. The carrier air wing is designed to operate and strike anywhere in the world from its floating air base and command center, but a combination of decisions made by the U.S. government and reactions from adversaries, threaten to limit its effectiveness in the future. The current carrier air wing consists of a mix of catapult-launch C-variant F-35s and F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets, which have an estimated attack range of around 600 nautical miles. China and Russia are both developing a suite of systems designed to force American aircraft carriers to operate from further away and China has already deployed an anti-ship ballistic missile — colloquially called a “carrier killer” — designed to hit a target more than 800 nautical miles away. Carriers take years to build and cost billions of dollars, so losing one in combat could substantially diminish America’s military capability. This does not mean that the Navy would be left swinging impotently while the enemy operated with impunity under a protective bubble, but it does mean that the most expensive asset in the military’s inventory may be poorly suited to the fight of the future.
In both of these cases, major defense programs are like albatross contracts in baseball. The Baltimore Orioles are paying first baseman Chris Davis so much money that they cannot afford not to play him everyday, even when he is on pace for the second-worst season by a batter in baseball history. The F-35 is such a colossal investment by the Air Force that it needs to demonstrate its usefulness even on missions that could be completed (as Dan colorfully put it) by “a Cessna with bombs attached.” The debate over acquiring a new attack aircraft designed for counter-insurgency support has been extremely acrimonious since it would divert money away from programs that would help in a high-end fight. The United States Navy does carrier aviation better than any force on the planet, so adversaries would prefer to deter the platform rather than go toe-to-toe with a carrier air wing. The Navy would like to use “distributed lethality,” allowing surface ships other than aircraft carriers to deliver long-range, effective striking capabilities. Doing this will be difficult if the Navy is permanently tied to a fixed number of supercarriers. All of these choices require an intelligent allocation of funding and priorities, which is exactly what the Trump administration promised in their National Defense Strategy. It is disappointing to see the administration continue to emulate Deion Sanders in a 1995 Pizza Hut commercial, hearing a series of “either-or” questions and answering “both.”
Phase II of the Invisible Primary Has Begun
Chris Condon
While there are still a few potential candidates who may enter the race (highlighted on the chart below in italics), the 2020 Democratic primary is well underway. The last time we discussed the candidates, the contest was in its first stage, which began when Elizabeth Warren launched her campaign and encompassed the declarations of all the major candidates, culminating in the announcement of former Vice President Joe Biden last week. We have now shifted to the second phase of the campaign, when voters will become acquainted with a broader swath of the field through the primary debates and other events (such as the Iowa state fair). It is also the phase that will likely see a lot in flux among the major candidates, which is why we’re seizing this opportunity to take stock of what we know so far.
As mentioned above, Former Vice President Joe Biden recently entered the race to a wide range of reactions from various Democratic constituencies. Younger, more progressive Democrats jeered and scowled, citing Biden’s inappropriate touching scandal, his advanced age (he’s currently 76), and his famous propensity for the political center. Many of the older, moderate party members rejoiced, pointing to Biden’s folksy, moderate persona as a weapon to win back the voters of the industrial midwest that vaulted President Trump to the presidency in 2016. What makes Joe Biden an interesting case study is that he represents the old Democratic party that supported Clintonian, third-way centrism. In a party whose ideological energy now seems captured by younger, more progressive figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it is uncertain whether Biden will be able to maintain his strong lead in the polls as one of the only moderates in the field.
The other top contender at this point is progressive warrior Senator Bernie Sanders. Seeking to make hay of his strong 2016 base of supporters, he stepped into the race as a frontrunner, the elder statesman of the left wing. He won 43% of the 2016 primary vote, which would give him a commanding lead this cycle, but it seems as if much the senator’s past support stemmed more from anti-Hillary sentiment rather than a particular endearment to Sanders himself. Hovering around 20% in the 2020 polls, he is still the strongest progressive challenger to Biden so far. What remains to be seen is whether someone as well known as Bernie will be able to expand past his current level of support. Other progressive figures such as Elizabeth Warren must be eagerly anticipating the answer as well.
Someone who has room to grow (or to plunge back to Earth) is Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. In our last discussion of this race, we placed Mayor Pete in the third tier; he has now rocketed from the bottom of the pack to fourth place in most polls. Buttigieg has apparently filled the niche that many ascribed to Beto O’Rourke: a fresh face that can bridge the gap between the far left and the Democratic center. The major pitfall for the mayor at this point is his lack of policy chops; with no federal experience or concrete proposals listed on his website, it has yet to be seen whether or not his candidacy can survive a base level of scrutiny that the press has failed to provide. If he fizzles out akin to Ben Carson’s candidacy in 2016, it will be interesting to observe which candidate his supporters back instead. With low name recognition (less than ⅔ of Democratic voters at this point) relative to Biden and Sanders (who are already known by almost the entire electorate), however, his capacity to expand his base of support may prove greater than those currently at the top.
Aside from the current heavyweights, there are those candidates whose failure to launch betrays the conventional political wisdom. First among them is Beto O’Rourke, who has resorted to boutique campaigning to make inroads with voters in early states. Amy Klobuchar and Kirsten Gillibrand also fall into this bucket. The first, as a moderate voice from the midwest, was originally thought to provide an apt foil to Trump’s northeastern bombast; she has spun her wheels since the outset of the campaign. Gillibrand attempted to position herself as the voice of Democratic women, but a lack of press coverage and other distinctions has caused her campaign to stall. Cory Booker, who evoked President Obama in his calls for optimism and unity among the Democratic Party, has had similar issues.
Fundraising dollars tell a somewhat different story from recent polling. While Joe Biden raised a staggering $6.3 million dollars in the first 24 hours of his campaign, Beto O’Rourke follows with a $6.1 million first day total. Following closely is Sen. Sanders, who raked in a formidable $5.9 million. Since polls are not very predictive this early in a primary cycle, fundraising may give us a clearer picture of the race’s standings. However, we cannot gather a complete account of these numbers until the end of this quarter, when we will be able to see candidates’ total fundraising and cash on hand in the expanded field. As the second phase develops and we learn more about the second tier through the Democratic debates this summer and beyond, keep a close eye on this race. It’s bound to be a slugfest.
Stories You May Have Missed
Pur(er) Michigan? Great Lake State to Get Voting Map Redrawn
Alec Mancini
A panel of three federal judges recently ruled that both Michigan’s state legislative districts and congressional districts were gerrymandered to favor Republicans. In the ruling, federal district judge Eric Clay writes that the redistricting plan issued by the state in 2011 “deliberately dilutes the power” of votes by “placing them [the plaintiffs] in districts that were intentionally drawn to ensure a particular partisan outcome in each district”. The ruling states that more than 30 districts have to be redrawn prior to the election in 2020. The implications of this ruling stand to potentially be highly consequential, as Michigan is one of the three states that was instrumental in narrowly handing President Trump the White House. As of this writing, Republicans in Michigan have appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.
From Pennsylvania Avenue with Love? White House Plan for Maduro Ouster Goes All Wrong
Alec Mancini
Tuesday, April 30, 2019 was apparently the day that the United States thought that embattled Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro would leave office. On Tuesday, both of the men at the center of the struggle for Venezuela’s future played roles in the theater of a now fumbled attempt to replace Nicolas Maduro’s government. The day began with opposition leader Juan Guaido posting a video to his Twitter account in which he appeared at a military base and announces the “final phase of Operation Freedom.” Meanwhile, an airplane was apparently ready to depart and take Maduro to Cuba, but according to comments by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, “the Russians indicated he should stay.” These developments, and the continued presence of Maduro, add an additional layer of complexity to a foreign policy dilemma that comes with all the crucial elements of a modern-day blockbuster film: intrigue, power, regime change, and — of course — social media.
Cain and Moore Withdraw from Fed Consideration
In the last two weeks, both of President Trump’s nominees for open seats on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors withdrew their names from consideration. Herman Cain, the former presidential aspirant, expressed concern that Fed governors are only paid $183,100 per year and he would be limited in his ability to give paid speeches. Moore evoked harrumphs from Senate Republicans in reference to past statements that Mr. Moore called attacks on his character and other observers called direct quotes from his previous published statements about whether it was acceptable for women to report on sports if they did not “look like Bonnie Bernstein,” who he added should wear halter tops. That both men also espoused crank economic ideas also probably played a role in the opposition from the Republican-controlled upper house.
Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh Resigns Amid Book Scandal
We have been following the scandal dogging Baltimore’s Mayor Catherine Pugh for several weeks now, who resigned yesterday. Ms. Pugh has been under scrutiny for selling copies of the children’s book she authored to the University of Maryland Medical System, on whose board she sat. She reportedly earned $800,000 from those sales and may not have sold any copies of the poorly edited volumes to any other customers. As shown on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, she also used a press conference in which she tried to answer these charges to hawk a line of children’s clothing. She has been under investigation from local and federal authorities and on a leave of absence since April 1.
British Defense Minister Ousted in Leak Scandal
As noted in last week’s roundup, the decision regarding Huawei hardware in the future British 5G network was leaked from within the UK’s National Security Council, stunning those who regarded it as one of the most airtight bodies in Her Majesty’s Government. This week, Prime Minister May removed Defence Minister Gavin Williamson, citing evidence that he was the source of the leak. While the Prime Minister’s supporters said that this was evidence of her continued strong leadership, even in Brexit turmoil, those supporting Williamson said that the evidence was flawed. As seems to be the case with British politics these days, the rival personalities involved are overshadowing the policy implications.
The views expressed by contributors are theirs and not the view of CSPC.
