foreignpolicy--2020-08-26--Britain’s Domestic Abuse Bill Still Leaves Migrants at Risk

Last month , Britain ’ s new domestic abuse bill finished its third reading in the House of Commons and began its journey through the House of Lords—the final hurdle before it becomes law .
The bill is designed to provide better protection for domestic abuse victims .
It includes the first statutory definition of domestic abuse and a legal duty for councils to provide safe accommodation for victims .
Former Prime Minister Theresa May introduced it in July 2019 , shortly before she departed No .
10 Downing St. , describing it as a “ once-in-a-generation opportunity.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and beset with delays , including the suspension of Parliament last year .
Prime Minister Boris Johnson reintroduced the bill in December 2019 , and it will finally be enshrined as law at the end of 2020 .
But there remains one glaring omission : In the bill ’ s current form , it still leaves many migrants without protection , allowing some of Britain ’ s most marginalized women to slip through the cracks .
On July 6 , 331 Conservative members of Parliament voted against introducing an amendment that would ensure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to escape domestic abuse by creating an exemption to the “ no recourse to public funds ” ( NRPF ) rule .
The NRPF rule makes some migrants ineligible to receive financial benefits from the state such as housing assistance and tax credits—even some who have been legally working and paying taxes in Britain for years .
For domestic abuse survivors , this is particularly dangerous .
Most shelters , reliant on housing benefits for income , are hesitant to provide space for victims with NRPF funding restrictions .
The latest annual audit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ only 5 percent of shelter vacancies listed in 2019 could accommodate women with NRPF .
This shortfall forces many victims with NRPF to choose between returning to their abuser or living on the streets .
The U.K. government recognizes that those whose immigration status is tied to their partner are particularly vulnerable to controlling behavior .
Migrants suffering domestic abuse who have a spousal or partner visa can apply for indefinite leave to remain status , which grants foreign nationals the right to reside in the United Kingdom without restrictions and receive access @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession while their application is processed .
But they also have to prove that their relationship ended as the result of abuse .
Those on other visas , such as students , workers , and visitors , can not follow this route .
To acquire their visas , they have already proved that they are financially independent ; in the eyes of the government , they can therefore afford to escape their abuser .
This does not take into account that they could still experience financial as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Gill went to the police .
She showed them her bruises , but they accused her of inflicting the injuries herself .
“ I felt unprotected , disbelieved , inhuman .
They confirmed what the perpetrator said multiple times : that they would not believe me , ” she said .
The police told Gill that because of her immigration status , they could not help her : as she was living in the country without a visa , she was subject to the NRPF rule .
The police directed her to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the abuse .
The U.K. Home Office told Gill that a voluntary return to Brazil would take a while to arrange .
In the meantime , they couldn ’ t help with accommodation or support—so Gill and one of her children moved between temporary shelters and slept on the street for three days in mid-January .
Gill ’ s experience is not uncommon .
In a 2019 report by the Step Up Migrant Women coalition involving more than 60 women from 22 different countries with experiences of domestic abuse and insecure immigration status @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support by the police when they reported the abuse .
“ Not including one section of society in the bill—from a moral perspective I don ’ t see how that ’ s possible.
” The exemption to the NRPF rule was introduced by the Labour Party MP Jess Phillips , who describes the domestic abuse bill in its current form as discriminatory .
“ Not including one section of society in the bill—from a moral perspective I don ’ t see how that ’ s possible , ” she said .
Front-line organizations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that provides for migrant women .
But their frustrations have been compounded by a recent Home Office report on the support available to migrant survivors of domestic abuse .
Despite 24 organizations submitting evidence , the Home Office found that there wasn ’ t enough information to implement their recommendations , including extending the Domestic Violence Indefinite Leave to Remain immigration route to people on other visas .
Minister for Safeguarding Victoria Atkins raised concerns that expanding the scope of the provision might lead to exploitation of the immigration system .
Instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pounds ( nearly $ 2 million ) to a Support for Migrant Victims pilot scheme to be launched later this year .
The scheme aims to cover the cost of support in a shelter for migrant victims with NRPF while building evidence for future policy decisions .
But activists worry that it will prolong the process of legislative change .
“ It ’ s concerning as to whether this is a willful refusal and a tactic to delay any concessions being made within the bill .
The evidence is there , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and campaigns officer for Southall Black Sisters , an organization that helps Black and minority women experiencing violence .
Based on previous experience with government funding , Southall Black Sisters projected that the scheme would only support 89 women over a one-year period—a fraction of the 3,630 women who would require it according to their estimate .
The amount of allocated funding also concerns Phillips .
“ What happens if the 1.5 million pounds is spent on that pilot project by the middle of the year ?
Do we then just leave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she said .
Sochi was unable to pay the rent , and her landlord demanded sex in return for staying at the property .
She escaped and stayed with a male friend , who after six months insisted that she marry a family member to regularize her status .
When she refused , the friend turned aggressive .
After one violent incident , the police arrived .
Instead of questioning the perpetrator , they interrogated Sochi about her immigration status .
In 2018 , Southall Black Sisters found that victims who reported serious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This practice reflects the U.K. ’ s hostile environment policy , introduced by then-Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 , which makes staying on British soil as difficult as possible for people without leave to remain .
The hostile environment policy has continued under Johnson ’ s government , with the prime minister ’ s own apparent ignorance of immigration policy thrown into the spotlight .
In May , while being questioned in Parliament , Johnson appeared to not know about the NRPF rule , despite 97 MPs writing to him months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of struggling families during the coronavirus pandemic .
Even more telling is the country ’ s continued delay in ratifying the Istanbul Convention .
Even more telling is the country ’ s continued delay in ratifying the Istanbul Convention , a human rights treaty adopted by the Council of Europe in 2011 to combat violence against women and ratified by 34 countries .
The U.K. signed onto the convention in 2012 , but it has not ratified it , which would bind the government to uphold standards for preventing violence against all women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ One of the discussed amendments to the domestic abuse bill would have incorporated a nondiscrimination clause , making it compliant with the convention , but it was dropped before the latest vote in the House of Commons .
Other countries have recently undermined the Istanbul Convention .
In July , Poland announced that it would pull out of the treaty , with the justice minister describing it as “ harmful ” because it required schools to teach children about gender .
Turkey also appears to be taking a step backward on women ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Erdogan also planning to withdraw—even as the country ’ s femicide rate soars .
Charlotte Proudman , a barrister who has represented migrant women in domestic abuse cases , said that the British government ’ s foot-dragging on the Istanbul Convention shows how there is a “ lack of will ” on the part of the government to provide protection for all domestic abuse victims—something that is echoed in the bill .
“ Migrants are not seen as people , or human beings who need access to support and safety , and I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .
For now , the fate of migrant domestic abuse victims rests in the hands of the House of Lords , which can still make amendments to the domestic abuse bill before royal assent .
It is the last opportunity for the U.K. government to show that it cares more about the rights of domestic abuse victims than their immigration status .

Last month, Britain’s new domestic abuse bill finished its third reading in the House of Commons and began its journey through the House of Lords—the final hurdle before it becomes law. The bill is designed to provide better protection for domestic abuse victims. It includes the first statutory definition of domestic abuse and a legal duty for councils to provide safe accommodation for victims. Former Prime Minister Theresa May introduced it in July 2019, shortly before she departed No. 10 Downing St., describing it as a “ once-in-a-generation opportunity .”
Last month, Britain’s new domestic abuse bill finished its third reading in the House of Commons and began its journey through the House of Lords—the final hurdle before it becomes law. The bill is designed to provide better protection for domestic abuse victims. It includes the first statutory definition of domestic abuse and a legal duty for councils to provide safe accommodation for victims. Former Prime Minister Theresa May introduced it in July 2019, shortly before she departed No. 10 Downing St., describing it as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity.”
The domestic abuse bill was overshadowed by Brexit and beset with delays, including the suspension of Parliament last year. Prime Minister Boris Johnson reintroduced the bill in December 2019, and it will finally be enshrined as law at the end of 2020. But there remains one glaring omission: In the bill’s current form, it still leaves many migrants without protection, allowing some of Britain’s most marginalized women to slip through the cracks.
On July 6, 331 Conservative members of Parliament voted against introducing an amendment that would ensure all migrant women could access financial support to escape domestic abuse by creating an exemption to the “no recourse to public funds” (NRPF) rule. The NRPF rule makes some migrants ineligible to receive financial benefits from the state such as housing assistance and tax credits—even some who have been legally working and paying taxes in Britain for years.
For domestic abuse survivors, this is particularly dangerous. Most shelters, reliant on housing benefits for income, are hesitant to provide space for victims with NRPF funding restrictions. The latest annual audit by Women’s Aid found that only 5 percent of shelter vacancies listed in 2019 could accommodate women with NRPF. This shortfall forces many victims with NRPF to choose between returning to their abuser or living on the streets.
The U.K. government recognizes that those whose immigration status is tied to their partner are particularly vulnerable to controlling behavior. Migrants suffering domestic abuse who have a spousal or partner visa can apply for indefinite leave to remain status, which grants foreign nationals the right to reside in the United Kingdom without restrictions and receive access to public funds for three months through the Destitution Domestic Violence Concession while their application is processed. But they also have to prove that their relationship ended as the result of abuse.
Those on other visas, such as students, workers, and visitors, cannot follow this route. To acquire their visas, they have already proved that they are financially independent; in the eyes of the government, they can therefore afford to escape their abuser. This does not take into account that they could still experience financial as well as physical abuse.
Gill arrived in the United Kingdom from Brazil in 2016 with her former partner, who holds dual British and Brazilian citizenship, and two young children. (She requested to use a pseudonym for her protection.) For five years she suffered physical, emotional, and financial abuse, which began when they lived in Brazil. When her U.K. tourist visa expired, Gill became undocumented; her partner promised to get her a partner visa, but he never did. Instead he used her insecure immigration status against her, threatening to get her deported.
After a physical assault, Gill went to the police. She showed them her bruises, but they accused her of inflicting the injuries herself. “I felt unprotected, disbelieved, inhuman. They confirmed what the perpetrator said multiple times: that they would not believe me,” she said.
The police told Gill that because of her immigration status, they could not help her: as she was living in the country without a visa, she was subject to the NRPF rule. The police directed her to the Brazilian Embassy in London without investigating the abuse. The U.K. Home Office told Gill that a voluntary return to Brazil would take a while to arrange. In the meantime, they couldn’t help with accommodation or support—so Gill and one of her children moved between temporary shelters and slept on the street for three days in mid-January.
Gill’s experience is not uncommon. In a 2019 report by the Step Up Migrant Women coalition involving more than 60 women from 22 different countries with experiences of domestic abuse and insecure immigration status, 45 percent said they were denied support by the police when they reported the abuse.
“Not including one section of society in the bill—from a moral perspective I don’t see how that’s possible.”
The exemption to the NRPF rule was introduced by the Labour Party MP Jess Phillips, who describes the domestic abuse bill in its current form as discriminatory. “Not including one section of society in the bill—from a moral perspective I don’t see how that’s possible,” she said. Front-line organizations and activists have long fought for legislation that provides for migrant women. But their frustrations have been compounded by a recent Home Office report on the support available to migrant survivors of domestic abuse.
Despite 24 organizations submitting evidence, the Home Office found that there wasn’t enough information to implement their recommendations, including extending the Domestic Violence Indefinite Leave to Remain immigration route to people on other visas. Minister for Safeguarding Victoria Atkins raised concerns that expanding the scope of the provision might lead to exploitation of the immigration system.
Instead, the government plans to allocate 1.5 million pounds (nearly $2 million) to a Support for Migrant Victims pilot scheme to be launched later this year. The scheme aims to cover the cost of support in a shelter for migrant victims with NRPF while building evidence for future policy decisions. But activists worry that it will prolong the process of legislative change. “It’s concerning as to whether this is a willful refusal and a tactic to delay any concessions being made within the bill. The evidence is there,” said Janaya Walker, the legal, policy, and campaigns officer for Southall Black Sisters, an organization that helps Black and minority women experiencing violence.
Based on previous experience with government funding, Southall Black Sisters projected that the scheme would only support 89 women over a one-year period—a fraction of the 3,630 women who would require it according to their estimate. The amount of allocated funding also concerns Phillips. “What happens if the 1.5 million pounds is spent on that pilot project by the middle of the year? Do we then just leave those women on the street?” she said.
Insecure immigration status can lead to a cycle of abuse and revictimization. Sochi, whose name has been changed, came to the United Kingdom from Nigeria in 2002 with her husband, who was on a student visa. On arrival, she was subject to the NRPF rule. After a few years, the relationship turned abusive. Her husband had control over her passport, and Sochi only discovered he hadn’t regularized her status after he abandoned her in 2012 and immigration officers showed up at her residence, informing her that she could no longer work.
Sochi was unable to pay the rent, and her landlord demanded sex in return for staying at the property. She escaped and stayed with a male friend, who after six months insisted that she marry a family member to regularize her status. When she refused, the friend turned aggressive. After one violent incident, the police arrived. Instead of questioning the perpetrator, they interrogated Sochi about her immigration status.
In 2018, Southall Black Sisters found that victims who reported serious crimes were frequently reported to immigration enforcement. This practice reflects the U.K.’s hostile environment policy, introduced by then-Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012, which makes staying on British soil as difficult as possible for people without leave to remain.
The hostile environment policy has continued under Johnson’s government, with the prime minister’s own apparent ignorance of immigration policy thrown into the spotlight. In May, while being questioned in Parliament, Johnson appeared to not know about the NRPF rule, despite 97 MPs writing to him months before warning of its impact on thousands of struggling families during the coronavirus pandemic.
Even more telling is the country’s continued delay in ratifying the Istanbul Convention.
Even more telling is the country’s continued delay in ratifying the Istanbul Convention, a human rights treaty adopted by the Council of Europe in 2011 to combat violence against women and ratified by 34 countries. The U.K. signed onto the convention in 2012, but it has not ratified it, which would bind the government to uphold standards for preventing violence against all women and girls—regardless of their immigration status. One of the discussed amendments to the domestic abuse bill would have incorporated a nondiscrimination clause, making it compliant with the convention, but it was dropped before the latest vote in the House of Commons.
Other countries have recently undermined the Istanbul Convention. In July, Poland announced that it would pull out of the treaty, with the justice minister describing it as “harmful” because it required schools to teach children about gender. Turkey also appears to be taking a step backward on women’s rights, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also planning to withdraw—even as the country’s femicide rate soars.
Charlotte Proudman, a barrister who has represented migrant women in domestic abuse cases, said that the British government’s foot-dragging on the Istanbul Convention shows how there is a “lack of will” on the part of the government to provide protection for all domestic abuse victims—something that is echoed in the bill. “Migrants are not seen as people, or human beings who need access to support and safety, and I think that’s the real concern,” she said.
For now, the fate of migrant domestic abuse victims rests in the hands of the House of Lords, which can still make amendments to the domestic abuse bill before royal assent. It is the last opportunity for the U.K. government to show that it cares more about the rights of domestic abuse victims than their immigration status.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-26--Pompeo and Haley Position Themselves as the Republican Standard-Bearers After Trump

Pompeo and Haley Position Themselves as the Republican Standard-Bearers After Trump As the Republican establishment reaffirms its fealty to U.S. President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention ( RNC ) , two of the president ’ s most influential lieutenants appear to be vying for a bit of the spotlight themselves—and potentially positioning themselves for party leadership in a post-Trump era .
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley , Trump ’ s former ambassador to the United Nations , devoted their prime-time addresses to promoting the president ’ s policy achievements in which they played a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have an eye on 2024 , ” said Mark Groombridge , who served as a Republican political appointee at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under John Bolton .
“ They are showing MAGA [ Make America Great Again ] land , the Trump base , that they are in his favor , and having a speaking role reinforces that view .
It also helps introduce them to a broader public.
” Republican insiders say Haley and Pompeo both stand a credible chance of leading the party mantle after Trump leaves the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ face competition from other aspirants , including Vice President Mike Pence , who delivered his speech from Abraham Lincoln ’ s Indiana home .
“ I think they are both serious enough people .
Not that that ’ s a criterion for office anymore , ” said Danielle Pletka , a senior fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute .
“ Does that mean they won ’ t get a run for their money from governors and senators and reality stars ?
Nope.
” Pompeo ’ s address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diverse city rich with symbolism for two critical electoral constituencies : pro-Israel conservatives who have aligned ever more closely with the Republican Party and evangelical Christians .
Pompeo portrayed administration achievements in religious terms that appeal to the party ’ s base .
“ The president , too , moved the U.S. Embassy to this very city of God , Jerusalem , the rightful capital of the Jewish homeland , and just two weeks ago , the president brokered a historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates .
This is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about in their history books , ” Pompeo said .
In urging Americans to stay the course with Trump in 2020 , Pompeo quoted an American pastor that the Trump administration helped free from imprisonment in Turkey .
“ An American hostage , imprisoned in Turkey for two years , Pastor Andrew Brunson , said upon his release that he survived his ordeal with these words of scripture , ‘ Be faithful , endure , and finish well.
’ If we stay the course , we will , ” he said .
Pompeo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s own ranks and several Democratic lawmakers for addressing the RNC while on official travel , breaking a historic precedent of secretaries of state avoiding domestic politics—and potentially violating State Department rules on officials participating in political events .
But Pompeo has weathered countless political firestorms in Trump ’ s Washington unscathed and emerged as one of Trump ’ s closest confidants unlike dozens of other administration officials .
Conservative foreign-policy experts believe Pompeo has a bright political future in the Republican Party , made clear by his consideration of a Senate run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , encouraged by senior Republican lawmakers .
Pompeo has caught flak in the past for mixing his purported political ambitions with official State Department business .
He has visited deep-pocketed conservative political donors during pit stops on official State Department trips , and he traveled to Kansas so often while flirting with a Senate run that one of the state ’ s top newspapers urged him to stop unless he jumped into the race .
Trump ’ s top diplomat refrained from taking partisan potshots at Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden , instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s prime foreign-policy achievements : negotiating the release of Americans detained in North Korea , Turkey , and Iran ; withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal ; moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ; and ramping up pressure on the Chinese Communist Party—all moves that play directly to the party ’ s conservative base .
“ President Trump has put his America First vision into action .
It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital , but it ’ s worked , ” Pompeo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ response from some veterans of Middle East peacemaking .
“ Having had [ the ] honor of working for half [ a ] dozen Secretaries of State , never believed I ’ d see one use Jerusalem as a stage prop , undermine the prestige of the office and abuse its power to help a US President seek re-election and further his own political ambitions , ” Aaron David Miller , a veteran U.S. diplomat and Middle East scholar , tweeted after the speech .
Others disagreed , portraying the criticisms as overblown @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fuss as so much partisan garbage , ” Pletka told Foreign Policy .
“ The coverage of the convention has been a disgrace to the profession of journalism .
“ I don ’ t think we can think of anyone who appears on the stage outside the context of their own ambitions except perhaps the candidate ’ s wife .
And even then—Hillary , ” she added , referring to Hillary Clinton .
“ That goes for every party , and Amb .
Haley and Sec .
Pompeo are no different.
” Haley @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night of the convention , paid homage to the president , saying that Trump “ has always put America first .
And he has earned four more years as president.
” But the former South Carolina governor quickly shifted gears , highlighting her support for Israel and her role in bringing business to South Carolina .
Seeking to address charges of racism in the Republican Party , Haley highlighted her own personal story as the bullied child of Indian immigrants who rose to the heights of the U.S. government .
If Trump wins @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another cabinet-level position , possibly secretary of state , Groombridge noted .
But that would require Pompeo to move on to another position .
Since leaving her post at the U.N. in 2018 , Haley has remained in the national spotlight , founding an advocacy group called Stand for America and frequently speaking publicly on burning issues .
“ What ’ s interesting is since Haley left the U.N. , she hasn ’ t stopped talking and engaging on foreign policy , ” said James Carafano , an expert on foreign policy at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ defeated , Haley and Pompeo would both seek to continue his legacy , Groombridge said .
“ There is zero incentive at this stage for anyone to try to repudiate or divorce themselves from Trumpism.
” Would their foreign-policy experience give them an advantage over other Republican candidates ?
“ On the pure political front … the base couldn ’ t care less about these issues , so it ’ s funny to see Haley and Pompeo up front , ” Pletka said .

As the Republican establishment reaffirms its fealty to U.S. President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention (RNC), two of the president’s most influential lieutenants appear to be vying for a bit of the spotlight themselves—and potentially positioning themselves for party leadership in a post-Trump era.
As the Republican establishment reaffirms its fealty to U.S. President Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention (RNC), two of the president’s most influential lieutenants appear to be vying for a bit of the spotlight themselves—and potentially positioning themselves for party leadership in a post-Trump era.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, devoted their prime-time addresses to promoting the president’s policy achievements in which they played a leading role.
“Both of them have an eye on 2024,” said Mark Groombridge, who served as a Republican political appointee at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under John Bolton. “They are showing MAGA [Make America Great Again] land, the Trump base, that they are in his favor, and having a speaking role reinforces that view. It also helps introduce them to a broader public.”
Republican insiders say Haley and Pompeo both stand a credible chance of leading the party mantle after Trump leaves the scene, but they are likely to face competition from other aspirants, including Vice President Mike Pence, who delivered his speech from Abraham Lincoln’s Indiana home.
“I think they are both serious enough people. Not that that’s a criterion for office anymore,” said Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “Does that mean they won’t get a run for their money from governors and senators and reality stars? Nope.”
Pompeo’s address was recorded in Jerusalem, a religiously diverse city rich with symbolism for two critical electoral constituencies: pro-Israel conservatives who have aligned ever more closely with the Republican Party and evangelical Christians. Pompeo portrayed administration achievements in religious terms that appeal to the party’s base.
“The president, too, moved the U.S. Embassy to this very city of God, Jerusalem, the rightful capital of the Jewish homeland, and just two weeks ago, the president brokered a historic peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. This is a deal that our grandchildren will read about in their history books,” Pompeo said.
In urging Americans to stay the course with Trump in 2020, Pompeo quoted an American pastor that the Trump administration helped free from imprisonment in Turkey. “An American hostage, imprisoned in Turkey for two years, Pastor Andrew Brunson, said upon his release that he survived his ordeal with these words of scripture, ‘Be faithful, endure, and finish well.’ If we stay the course, we will,” he said.
Pompeo drew fire from the State Department’s own ranks and several Democratic lawmakers for addressing the RNC while on official travel, breaking a historic precedent of secretaries of state avoiding domestic politics—and potentially violating State Department rules on officials participating in political events.
But Pompeo has weathered countless political firestorms in Trump’s Washington unscathed and emerged as one of Trump’s closest confidants unlike dozens of other administration officials.
Conservative foreign-policy experts believe Pompeo has a bright political future in the Republican Party, made clear by his consideration of a Senate run in his adopted home state of Kansas, encouraged by senior Republican lawmakers.
Pompeo has caught flak in the past for mixing his purported political ambitions with official State Department business. He has visited deep-pocketed conservative political donors during pit stops on official State Department trips, and he traveled to Kansas so often while flirting with a Senate run that one of the state’s top newspapers urged him to stop unless he jumped into the race.
Trump’s top diplomat refrained from taking partisan potshots at Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, instead listing what he saw as the administration’s prime foreign-policy achievements: negotiating the release of Americans detained in North Korea, Turkey, and Iran; withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal; moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; and ramping up pressure on the Chinese Communist Party—all moves that play directly to the party’s conservative base. “President Trump has put his America First vision into action. It may not have made him popular in every foreign capital, but it’s worked,” Pompeo said.
His speech drew a sharp response from some veterans of Middle East peacemaking. “Having had [the] honor of working for half [a] dozen Secretaries of State, never believed I’d see one use Jerusalem as a stage prop, undermine the prestige of the office and abuse its power to help a US President seek re-election and further his own political ambitions,” Aaron David Miller, a veteran U.S. diplomat and Middle East scholar, tweeted after the speech.
Others disagreed, portraying the criticisms as overblown. “I see the Pompeo protocol fuss as so much partisan garbage,” Pletka told Foreign Policy. “The coverage of the convention has been a disgrace to the profession of journalism.
“I don’t think we can think of anyone who appears on the stage outside the context of their own ambitions except perhaps the candidate’s wife. And even then—Hillary,” she added, referring to Hillary Clinton. “That goes for every party, and Amb. Haley and Sec. Pompeo are no different.”
Haley, in a speech on the opening night of the convention, paid homage to the president, saying that Trump “has always put America first. And he has earned four more years as president.” But the former South Carolina governor quickly shifted gears, highlighting her support for Israel and her role in bringing business to South Carolina.
Seeking to address charges of racism in the Republican Party, Haley highlighted her own personal story as the bullied child of Indian immigrants who rose to the heights of the U.S. government.
If Trump wins in November, Haley would likely get another cabinet-level position, possibly secretary of state, Groombridge noted. But that would require Pompeo to move on to another position.
Since leaving her post at the U.N. in 2018, Haley has remained in the national spotlight, founding an advocacy group called Stand for America and frequently speaking publicly on burning issues. “What’s interesting is since Haley left the U.N., she hasn’t stopped talking and engaging on foreign policy,” said James Carafano, an expert on foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation.
If Trump is defeated, Haley and Pompeo would both seek to continue his legacy, Groombridge said. “There is zero incentive at this stage for anyone to try to repudiate or divorce themselves from Trumpism.”
Would their foreign-policy experience give them an advantage over other Republican candidates?
“On the pure political front … the base couldn’t care less about these issues, so it’s funny to see Haley and Pompeo up front,” Pletka said.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-26--Yes, We Can Get Rid of the World’s Dirtiest Fuel

Yes , We Can Get Rid of the World ’ s Dirtiest Fuel Reading the headlines , it would be easy to conclude that coal is dead .
The International Energy Agency ( IEA ) estimates the most polluting fossil fuel to be responsible for nearly one-third of global warming , and it is now struggling to attract financing and compete with cheaper alternatives .
This month , the world ’ s biggest mining group , BHP , announced plans to phase out mining coal for electricity generation .
COVID-19 has added to coal ’ s woes .
Yet hundreds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ being built , leading U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres last month to urge nations to stop coal financing .
Many have pledged to do so , as have a growing number of financial institutions .
But the problem is that even if nations heed Guterres ’ s call—itself a steep hill to climb—far too little attention is being paid by governments and environmentalists to the coal plants that already exist .
Even if not a single additional coal plant is built , the world will fall short of its climate goals if existing coal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ normal life spans without curbs on their emissions .
For governments working to combat climate change , developing a feasible and affordable plan to finance a transition of today ’ s existing fleet of coal power plants must be a more urgent priority .
The outlook for coal is certainly getting bleaker .
New renewable energy generation is cheaper for power producers than new coal generation in much of the world .
This is starting to be true even without subsidies and including the cost of backup power plants , which are required @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nor the sun always shine .
In the past decade , the costs of solar power and batteries have fallen by 85 percent and wind power by nearly 50 percent .
In the United States , renewable energy consumption surpassed coal last year for the first time in 130 years .
In Britain , the power grid just ran for more than two months without any electricity produced from coal for the first time in 138 years .
Despite all this progress , there are still nearly 400 new coal plants under construction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones proposed .
China approved more new coal-fired power capacity through May of this year than in all of 2019 , and much more is being planned .
And more than 40 percent of China ’ s global lending for power projects through its Belt and Road Initiative in 2018 was for coal—although some recipient countries are expressing concern .
There is growing recognition among policymakers that building new coal plants is inconsistent with combating climate change .
The single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is coal-fired electricity generation , and two-thirds @ @ @ @ @ @ @ used to produce electricity .
( Most of the rest is used to make iron and steel . )
The falling cost of renewable energy makes this goal increasingly feasible .
Indeed , renewables made up the largest increment to global power generation in 2019 by far .
Growing evidence about the public health harms from burning coal is also adding to the pressure to reduce coal use , especially in emerging markets .
The problem is that it ’ s not enough to stop building new coal plants .
Most carbon dioxide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years , so emissions are cumulative .
Even if all the new power plants in the world were zero-carbon starting tomorrow , the IEA projects that emissions from existing coal-fired power plants would use up most of the remaining carbon budget consistent with hitting the stringent climate goals in the Paris agreement .
Solving this problem thus requires much greater focus on phasing out emissions from existing coal plants .
Phasing out emissions from the existing fleet of coal power plants faces steep challenges .
Phasing out emissions from the existing coal fleet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ market forces unleashed by cheap natural gas and the improved economics of renewables that drove the retirement of old coal power plants in the United States won ’ t be sufficient to do so for most of the world ’ s coal fleet .
The average age of the remaining U.S. coal plants is 46 years .
In Asia ’ s developing economies , it is only 12 years .
Globally , 60 percent of all coal power plants are younger than 20 years .
Second , investors counting on recouping their investments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ given the relatively young age of most plants .
According to the IEA , more than $ 1 trillion of capital invested in the existing coal fleet has yet to be recovered , mostly in Asia .
Moreover , many of the assets are owned by state-owned companies , especially in China , and they do not respond to economic incentives in the same way private investors do .
Third , for nations like India that might otherwise depend on imported fuels , such as liquefied natural gas , domestically produced coal is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enhance energy security .
Fourth , existing coal plants can produce very cheap power , which make them particularly attractive for supplying the 840 million people around the world who still lack electricity .
Nations in sub-Saharan Africa , where most of those people live , understandably balk at the notion that they should sacrifice access to reliable and affordable electricity and forgo economic development .
Fortunately , the dramatic fall in the cost of producing renewable energy is rapidly undermining the economic case for coal as the cheapest source of electricity .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ however , long-term contracts and regulated electricity prices often pose a barrier to switching away from coal even when doing so would be economical .
Fifth , coal supplies nearly 40 percent of the world ’ s electricity , and there are practical limits on how quickly that could be replaced or retrofitted .
Consider that 2018 was the best year in history for the growth of renewable energy generation in China—but the total volume was still just 3 percent of the power generated from coal .
The challenge becomes even more daunting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be required to electrify sectors that use hydrocarbons today , such as cars , trucks , and residential heating .
EU lawmakers faced a backlash when they slashed the amount earmarked in a green stimulus package for coal-dependent member states like Poland .
Finally , coal is an important source of jobs in many countries , and thus phasing it out faces huge political objections .
Roughly half a million people work as coal miners in India , for example , and many more are indirectly employed .
Indian Railways is the largest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provides nearly half of the firm ’ s freight revenue .
Preserving the jobs associated with the production , transport , and burning of coal will be an even stronger imperative in many countries suffering economically due to COVID-19 .
Recent experience in Europe , where the political will to combat climate change is greatest , demonstrates how difficult it will be to overcome these challenges .
Germany , Europe ’ s largest coal consumer , announced plans to phase out its coal plants—but not until 2038 , even though the average age @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years .
And the German government still had to offer 40 billion euros ( $ 45 billion ) in compensation to regional governments , companies , and workers .
More recently , lawmakers in Brussels faced backlash when they slashed the amount earmarked in a massive green stimulus package for coal-dependent states like Poland .
To overcome these challenges and provide an economically and politically viable pathway to curbing emissions from existing coal-fired power plants , policymakers should take five steps .
First , they should build mechanisms into domestic climate policies to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ carbon reductions , such as through tradable carbon credits .
Leveling the playing field between carbon-free and carbon-intensive energy sources creates incentives to replace coal with lower-carbon energy or use existing coal plants only intermittently to back up solar and wind energy or otherwise meet periodic spikes in demand .
Second , governments should develop financial instruments , such as low-cost debt refinancing , to help make the owners of coal plants whole if they choose to retire plants .
Preferential financing can also change the investment decisions of state-owned companies .
Third @ @ @ @ @ @ @ retrofit existing coal plants with technology to capture and store the plant ’ s emissions , such as a carbon price , emissions caps , or direct subsidies .
Retrofitting coal with carbon capture and storage can be a cost-effective option in some cases and also makes it possible for countries that are heavily dependent on coal—such as China , India , and countries in Southeast Asia—to continue using coal even while transitioning to low-carbon power generation .
Doing so may be more politically acceptable and also lowers the cost of decarbonization compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plus the necessary backup storage or other carbon-free capacity .
Rich countries should also hold China accountable for subsidizing coal projects through its Belt and Road Initiative .
Fourth , policymakers need to invest far more in economic development and diversification to help coal-dependent communities and regions , which makes both good economic and political sense .
This includes technical assistance , retraining , infrastructure investment , and direct financial payments to local governments , workers , and firms .
Fifth , wealthy nations in North America and Europe need to provide poor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to subsidized credit so they can retire coal plants and build clean energy .
Rich countries should also hold China accountable for subsidizing coal projects through its Belt and Road Initiative .
After all , most of today ’ s carbon emissions in the atmosphere come from the aging coal plants that industrialized nations have run for decades .
When it comes to climate change , the law of holes—if you find yourself in one , stop digging—only gets you so far .
Despite years of activist pressure and government pledges , nations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the largest source of emissions .
Yet even if that were to change , as it must , the emissions from existing plants still mean there ’ s no chance of meeting the world ’ s climate targets .
This reality deserves far more attention , with international climate diplomacy and policy efforts focusing far more on developing financially and politically viable plans to curb emissions from the world ’ s existing coal plants .

Reading the headlines , it would be easy to conclude that coal is dead. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the most polluting fossil fuel to be responsible for nearly one-third of global warming, and it is now struggling to attract financing and compete with cheaper alternatives. This month, the world’s biggest mining group, BHP, announced plans to phase out mining coal for electricity generation. COVID-19 has added to coal’s woes. Yet hundreds of new coal power plants are still being built, leading U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres last month to urge nations to stop coal financing. Many have pledged to do so, as have a growing number of financial institutions.
Reading the headlines, it would be easy to conclude that coal is dead. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates the most polluting fossil fuel to be responsible for nearly one-third of global warming, and it is now struggling to attract financing and compete with cheaper alternatives. This month, the world’s biggest mining group, BHP, announced plans to phase out mining coal for electricity generation. COVID-19 has added to coal’s woes. Yet hundreds of new coal power plants are still being built, leading U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres last month to urge nations to stop coal financing. Many have pledged to do so, as have a growing number of financial institutions.
But the problem is that even if nations heed Guterres’s call—itself a steep hill to climb—far too little attention is being paid by governments and environmentalists to the coal plants that already exist. Even if not a single additional coal plant is built, the world will fall short of its climate goals if existing coal plants run to the end of their normal life spans without curbs on their emissions. For governments working to combat climate change, developing a feasible and affordable plan to finance a transition of today’s existing fleet of coal power plants must be a more urgent priority.
The outlook for coal is certainly getting bleaker. New renewable energy generation is cheaper for power producers than new coal generation in much of the world. This is starting to be true even without subsidies and including the cost of backup power plants, which are required since the wind does not always blow nor the sun always shine. In the past decade, the costs of solar power and batteries have fallen by 85 percent and wind power by nearly 50 percent. In the United States, renewable energy consumption surpassed coal last year for the first time in 130 years. In Britain, the power grid just ran for more than two months without any electricity produced from coal for the first time in 138 years.
Despite all this progress, there are still nearly 400 new coal plants under construction around the world and almost 700 additional ones proposed. China approved more new coal-fired power capacity through May of this year than in all of 2019, and much more is being planned. And more than 40 percent of China’s global lending for power projects through its Belt and Road Initiative in 2018 was for coal—although some recipient countries are expressing concern.
There is growing recognition among policymakers that building new coal plants is inconsistent with combating climate change. The single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is coal-fired electricity generation, and two-thirds of the world’s coal is used to produce electricity. (Most of the rest is used to make iron and steel.) The falling cost of renewable energy makes this goal increasingly feasible. Indeed, renewables made up the largest increment to global power generation in 2019 by far. Growing evidence about the public health harms from burning coal is also adding to the pressure to reduce coal use, especially in emerging markets.
The problem is that it’s not enough to stop building new coal plants. Most carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, so emissions are cumulative. Even if all the new power plants in the world were zero-carbon starting tomorrow, the IEA projects that emissions from existing coal-fired power plants would use up most of the remaining carbon budget consistent with hitting the stringent climate goals in the Paris agreement. Solving this problem thus requires much greater focus on phasing out emissions from existing coal plants.
Phasing out emissions from the existing fleet of coal power plants faces steep challenges.
Phasing out emissions from the existing coal fleet faces steep challenges. First, the market forces unleashed by cheap natural gas and the improved economics of renewables that drove the retirement of old coal power plants in the United States won’t be sufficient to do so for most of the world’s coal fleet. The average age of the remaining U.S. coal plants is 46 years. In Asia’s developing economies, it is only 12 years. Globally, 60 percent of all coal power plants are younger than 20 years.
Second, investors counting on recouping their investments in coal plants will oppose early retirement given the relatively young age of most plants. According to the IEA, more than $1 trillion of capital invested in the existing coal fleet has yet to be recovered, mostly in Asia. Moreover, many of the assets are owned by state-owned companies, especially in China, and they do not respond to economic incentives in the same way private investors do.
Third, for nations like India that might otherwise depend on imported fuels, such as liquefied natural gas, domestically produced coal is embraced partly because it is perceived to enhance energy security.
Fourth, existing coal plants can produce very cheap power, which make them particularly attractive for supplying the 840 million people around the world who still lack electricity. Nations in sub-Saharan Africa, where most of those people live, understandably balk at the notion that they should sacrifice access to reliable and affordable electricity and forgo economic development. Fortunately, the dramatic fall in the cost of producing renewable energy is rapidly undermining the economic case for coal as the cheapest source of electricity. In places with existing coal plants, however, long-term contracts and regulated electricity prices often pose a barrier to switching away from coal even when doing so would be economical.
Fifth, coal supplies nearly 40 percent of the world’s electricity, and there are practical limits on how quickly that could be replaced or retrofitted. Consider that 2018 was the best year in history for the growth of renewable energy generation in China—but the total volume was still just 3 percent of the power generated from coal. The challenge becomes even more daunting if electricity use rises, which will be required to electrify sectors that use hydrocarbons today, such as cars, trucks, and residential heating.
EU lawmakers faced a backlash when they slashed the amount earmarked in a green stimulus package for coal-dependent member states like Poland.
Finally, coal is an important source of jobs in many countries, and thus phasing it out faces huge political objections. Roughly half a million people work as coal miners in India, for example, and many more are indirectly employed. Indian Railways is the largest civilian employer in India, and coal provides nearly half of the firm’s freight revenue. Preserving the jobs associated with the production, transport, and burning of coal will be an even stronger imperative in many countries suffering economically due to COVID-19.
Recent experience in Europe, where the political will to combat climate change is greatest, demonstrates how difficult it will be to overcome these challenges. Germany, Europe’s largest coal consumer, announced plans to phase out its coal plants—but not until 2038, even though the average age of the German plants is about 30 years. And the German government still had to offer 40 billion euros ($45 billion) in compensation to regional governments, companies, and workers. More recently, lawmakers in Brussels faced backlash when they slashed the amount earmarked in a massive green stimulus package for coal-dependent states like Poland.
To overcome these challenges and provide an economically and politically viable pathway to curbing emissions from existing coal-fired power plants, policymakers should take five steps.
First, they should build mechanisms into domestic climate policies to allow investors to monetize the value of carbon reductions, such as through tradable carbon credits. Leveling the playing field between carbon-free and carbon-intensive energy sources creates incentives to replace coal with lower-carbon energy or use existing coal plants only intermittently to back up solar and wind energy or otherwise meet periodic spikes in demand.
Second, governments should develop financial instruments, such as low-cost debt refinancing, to help make the owners of coal plants whole if they choose to retire plants. Preferential financing can also change the investment decisions of state-owned companies.
Third, policymakers need to create incentives to retrofit existing coal plants with technology to capture and store the plant’s emissions, such as a carbon price, emissions caps, or direct subsidies. Retrofitting coal with carbon capture and storage can be a cost-effective option in some cases and also makes it possible for countries that are heavily dependent on coal—such as China, India, and countries in Southeast Asia—to continue using coal even while transitioning to low-carbon power generation. Doing so may be more politically acceptable and also lowers the cost of decarbonization compared with relying solely on intermittent renewable energy plus the necessary backup storage or other carbon-free capacity.
Rich countries should also hold China accountable for subsidizing coal projects through its Belt and Road Initiative.
Fourth, policymakers need to invest far more in economic development and diversification to help coal-dependent communities and regions, which makes both good economic and political sense. This includes technical assistance, retraining, infrastructure investment, and direct financial payments to local governments, workers, and firms.
Fifth, wealthy nations in North America and Europe need to provide poor countries with direct financial assistance and access to subsidized credit so they can retire coal plants and build clean energy. Rich countries should also hold China accountable for subsidizing coal projects through its Belt and Road Initiative. After all, most of today’s carbon emissions in the atmosphere come from the aging coal plants that industrialized nations have run for decades.
When it comes to climate change, the law of holes—if you find yourself in one, stop digging—only gets you so far. Despite years of activist pressure and government pledges, nations are still building coal-fired power plants, the largest source of emissions. Yet even if that were to change, as it must, the emissions from existing plants still mean there’s no chance of meeting the world’s climate targets. This reality deserves far more attention, with international climate diplomacy and policy efforts focusing far more on developing financially and politically viable plans to curb emissions from the world’s existing coal plants.


foreignpolicy--2020-08-26--Stay Calm About China

Stay Calm About China

Rivalry between the United States and China is not a battle to the death of this kind , and it is very important that the United States not see it as such .
The phrase “ a new cold war ” is a cheap journalistic formula , but it contains real dangers .
The United States ’ geopolitical competition with China is fundamentally different from that with the Soviet Union , and if the U.S. establishment frames it in the terms of the Cold War , it may do great damage to the United States and the world in general @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Soviet Union stemmed originally from the Soviet revolutionary threat and the brutal nature of Joseph Stalin ’ s regime , many of the ways in which this rivalry was imagined and therefore conducted by the United States did terrible damage to its own politics , culture , and public ethics .
When states permanently threaten each other with destruction from without or within , even periods of peace have the character of temporary armed truces requiring permanent military and ideological mobilization .
This breeds in turn continual international tension and domestic repression , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , hysteria , and conspiratorial thinking in all the countries concerned .
We have learned this again over the past generation .
The contemporary Middle East is a tragic example of how an entire region can be crippled by the threat of internal revolutions backed by rival ideological states ; but our European ancestors learned it more than 350 years ago , and tried to do something about it .
The great achievement of the Peace of Westphalia was to end in Europe—for 144 years—ideologically driven mass rebellions supported by rival states against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ settlement was the principle of cuius regio , eius religio ( whose realm , his religion ) ; in other words , that the ruler of a country dictated the religion of his or her subjects without interference from other states belonging to the other religion .
Rivalries and conflicts would continue , but states and regimes would no longer pose existential threats to each other .
All this changed again with the French Revolution .
Once again , states threatened the basic identity of other states , and did so in part @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , endangered states responded with ferocious mass repression .
Assassination and the execution of defeated enemies returned to the European scene .
The French Revolution spawned later socialist revolutions and conservative counterrevolutions , which later characterized the Cold War .
By the standards of the rest of the world , the United States has not suffered from a truly existential threat from another power since the British defeat at New Orleans in 1815 .
Since then , the protecting oceans and the military and economic weakness of other American states has given the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which in turn ( as Alexis de Tocqueville noted ) has contributed greatly to its exceptional success .
Hence the ability of the United States throughout its history until World War II to maintain only a very strong standing army ( but a very powerful navy ) .
The only subsequent existential threat to the United States was internal : the secession of the Southern states , brought about by basic and irreconcilable disagreement over the nature of U.S. society and ideology .
As former President Abraham Lincoln said , “ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ourselves be its author and finisher.
” This remains true today .
There is no conventional threat to the continental United States today , nor any way that such a threat could be created in the teeth of the U.S. Navy and Air Force .
The U.S. Army and Marine Corps today have no part in the defense of the U.S. homeland—at least , on the assumption that the United States is unlikely to be attacked by Canada and Mexico .
Their entire purpose is to defend U.S. interests in the wider world @ @ @ @ @ @ @ considerably less so .
Even in the Cold War ( nuclear weapons aside ) the United States itself did not face a truly existential threat .
There was never the slightest chance of communists taking over the United States either from within or without .
On the other hand , in the first years of the struggle , there were good reasons to believe that a combination of communist ideology and Soviet power was a threat to vital U.S. allies : Stalinism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was truly evil and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Western Europe after World War II did give opportunities for communist takeovers ; the Soviet Red Army was in 1945 clearly the most formidable land force on earth ; and by 1950 China too had experienced communist revolution .
Within a relatively few years , however , the Soviet Union ’ s threats to the U.S. and its key allies , though still real , had greatly diminished .
In Europe , Stalin ’ s death led to a much milder version of communism .
Stalin ’ s withdrawal of support from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 1949 had already made clear that the Kremlin would not risk a direct clash with the United States in Europe .
By the early 1960s , the Hungarian revolt and the mass flight of East Germans to the West ( leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall to keep them in ) made clear the collapse of communism as an attractive force in Europe .
By then , the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China were also bitterly at odds , giving the United States the chance to turn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two-thirds of the Cold War could therefore well have been conceptualized by the U.S. establishment as a limited series of minor skirmishes and holding actions until the Soviet bloc collapsed under the weight of its increasingly dysfunctional economy and its internal national divisions .
The reality of course was very different .
The struggle with Soviet communism became the intellectual framework and the standard operating procedure for the whole of U.S. foreign and security policy .
Into this every local issue was fitted , with all the local elements that did not fit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the Soviet Union stripped out in the dominant U.S. analysis .
The result was a series of disastrous misunderstandings , with consequences that haunt the United States to this day : of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in Iran as a communist agent rather than an Iranian secular nationalist ; of the communist revolution in Vietnam as part of a Soviet plan for world domination rather than a continuation of the anti-colonial nationalist struggle against France ; of the Afghan war of the 1980s as a struggle for liberation from Soviet imperialism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ struggle between the forces of authoritarian modernization and Islamic and tribal conservatism , in which the Soviet Union became embroiled ( followed by the United States two decades later ) .
And of course , across much of the world , the United States found itself committed to supporting “ anti-communist ” regimes that were often as vile as the communists ’ and bitterly unpopular with their own peoples .
Across much of the world , the United States found itself committed to supporting “ anti-communist ” regimes that were often as vile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with their own peoples .
Again and again , the United States was drawn into local conflicts in which it had very few real interests at stake .
As today , each one of these was then cast by the U.S. establishment and media in the terms of the struggles against Nazism and Stalinism : as a black and white struggle of U.S.-led good against absolute evil , with complexities abolished and facts twisted to conform to this image .
As C. Vann Woodward wrote in 1960 : “ The true American mission @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view , is a moral crusade on a world-wide scale .
Such people are likely to concede no validity whatever and grant no hearing to the opposing point of view , and to appeal to a higher law to justify bloody and revolting means in the name of a noble end .
For what end could be nobler , they ask , than the liberation of man ?
” At home , the Cold War exacerbated older tendencies toward paranoia , cultural anxiety , and Manichean views of the world .
McCarthyism passed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hysteria , extremism , and paranoia that blights the Republican Party to this day and has never had much connection to real dangers to the United States , whether external or internal .
And of course the Vietnam War greatly worsened internal divisions in the United States which also linger to this day , with disastrous results for U.S. national unity and basic political consensus .
Rivalry with China should thus be conceptualized by the U.S. foreign and security establishment as a limited competition in particular areas , not a universal and existential @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from anything else , to center the whole of U.S. policy on struggle with China will be a terrible distraction from what are in fact much greater threats to the well-being of U.S. citizens : at home , economic inequality and racial tensions ; in the world as a whole , climate change and its consequences .
The coronavirus pandemic should also help the United States better to understand the real interests of ordinary Americans .
Whatever the administration of President Donald Trump may now be trying to suggest , it has been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese and U.S. governmental incompetence ) , and not a rival great power , that at the time of writing has killed more Americans than died in the Vietnam War and Korean War put together .
U.S. competition with China is real , serious , and bound to increase .
That is inevitable , both for economic reasons and because of the incompatibility between Chinese ambitions and the U.S. establishment ’ s determination to maintain U.S. global leadership .
However , it is not an existential struggle between two fundamentally opposed systems , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ must be fought in every corner of the world .
A comparison with basic features of the Cold War should make the difference clear .
China is not promoting communist revolution around the world .
In fact there is no evidence at all that it is aiming at the overthrow of existing states .
As a great capitalist trading power , it has a strong stake in the stability of markets and the safety of Chinese investments .
If the Chinese government in principle prefers authoritarian states , it has as yet done @ @ @ @ @ @ @ influence operations in the West are real and should be resisted , but they are intended to influence Western policies toward China , not cause state collapse and revolution .
And the United States has an old and tried arsenal of international influence operations of its own that it can deploy in response .
As to the U.S. political system , the impact of Chinese ( and Russian ) covert propaganda on U.S. politics has been minimal compared to the impact of the United States ’ own domestic problems .
It was not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a capitalist trading state , China is dependent on the health and stability of the international capitalist system .
Unlike the Soviet Union , it needs a degree of rules-based international order—though not if ( as seen from China ) this means a system in which the United States sets all the rules and then breaks them whenever it wishes .
On the other hand , China has certainly sought with great determination to increase its international influence through international capitalism .
Some of these efforts ( like Huawei ’ s role in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resisted .
They do not however as yet greatly exceed past U.S. patterns of international economic influence .
The impact of Chinese ( and Russian ) covert propaganda on U.S. politics has been minimal compared to the impact of the United States ’ own domestic problems .
It was not China that killed George Floyd .
The defense and strengthening of U.S. capitalism in competition with China is indeed essential , but needs to be seen not just in terms of tariffs on Chinese imports ( as the Trump administration has seen it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program of U.S. domestic economic reform and investment in infrastructure and technology—in other words , the way the Chinese government conducts this competition .
When it comes to hard geopolitical influence and the expansion of Chinese military power , with one important exception China has proceeded with great caution .
In the Indian Ocean , until now the Chinese program of port construction has been entirely commercial ( except for a small refueling and repair station in Djibouti , next to a much bigger U.S. one ) .
The Chinese naval presence in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the United States , let alone the United States plus India .
Above all , China has not sought to exploit U.S. difficulties in the Middle East , despite multiple opportunities to do so .
The contrast between the strategies of Beijing and Moscow in this regard is extremely marked .
Readers may wish to imagine , for example , the impact on the United States ’ position in the region if China were to devote even a fraction of its resources to a full-scale program of strengthening Iran economically and militarily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are not of course altruistic .
In the first place , China as the world ’ s greatest energy importer depends on the stability of the Persian Gulf—far more than does the United States , since thanks to fracking the United States is now virtually self-sufficient in oil and gas .
Secondly , as a Chinese official told me a decade ago , China has studied the repeated and disastrous messes that the United States has gotten into ( and sometimes caused ) in the Middle East , and has no desire to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that this very sensible approach has changed in the years since .
The great exception to this Chinese caution has been the South China Sea , which Beijing regards as its backyard .
Here , the United States must continue to reject Chinese territorial claims .
But Chinese control of these reefs and sandbanks ( which climate change will in any case eventually place underwater ) does not threaten international trade or U.S. maritime supremacy .
If China were mad enough to block trade through the South China Sea , the U.S. Navy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have the power to interdict Chinese maritime trade with the whole of the rest of the world .
Elsewhere in East Asia , the United States has a formal military alliance with Japan , which is by far the most important state of the region after China , and which has no intention of submitting to Chinese hegemony .
This alliance , and U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea , must of course be maintained .
The only truly dangerous issue between the United States and China remains , as it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course , the United States can not and must not give any kind of green light to Beijing to invade Taiwan .
At the same time , the U.S. security establishment must clearly , but privately , recognize that in the future , whatever the United States does , growing Chinese military power and the proximity of the Chinese mainland will make it impossible for the United States to defend Taiwan against blockade or invasion without an unacceptable risk of military defeat or nuclear war .
The goal must be to make sure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic and political damage that it would suffer from such an invasion .
U.S. geopolitical competition with China should therefore be handled by the United States on a pragmatic and case-by-case basis , and combined with continued cooperation with China on other critically important issues , such as climate change and disease control .
Washington must be careful not to be drawn into local conflicts in which the U.S. has no national interest , and where the rights and wrongs are uncertain and the dangers of escalation very great : the Sino-Indian border @ @ @ @ @ @ @ area of struggle in the Cold War was Europe , and it was there that the evident economic , social , and political superiority of the West eventually led the Soviet bloc to collapse from within .
In Europe , however , U.S. allies were ( mostly ) successful liberal democracies ranged against communist dictatorships .
In Asia , the picture is very different .
The key Asian regimes that the U.S. needs to cultivate include Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’ s Hindu-chauvinist and quasi-authoritarian regime in India , the Vietnamese communist state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines .
These are hardly convincing allies in a struggle to defend and promote democracy .
Above all , as Stephen Walt has written in Foreign Policy , conceptualizing the competition with China in terms of an existential ideological conflict will both distort U.S. strategy and make the competition vastly more dangerous : “ Focusing on the internal characteristics of other states is also tempting because it absolves us of responsibility for conflict and allows us to pin the blame on others.… Pinning most of the blame @ @ @ @ @ @ @ domestic characteristics is also dangerous .
For starters , if conflict is due primarily to the nature of the opposing regime ( s ) , then the only long-term solution is to overthrow them .
Accommodation , mutual coexistence , or even extensive cooperation on matters of mutual interest are for the most part ruled out , with potentially catastrophic consequences .
When rivals see the nature of the other side as a threat in itself , a struggle to the death becomes the only alternative.
” The competition with China can not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ knockout that finished the Soviet Union , and that the Soviet Union dreamed of inflicting on the West .
Its most important aspect is the relative success of the two capitalist systems in terms of economic growth , the maintenance of social stability , and ability to cope with new crises .
This is indeed where China , as a successful capitalist country , is a more serious challenger than the Soviet Union .
For the United States to compete successfully with China in these areas does not however require more warships , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Voice of America .
It requires long overdue reforms at home .

Then-Vice President Xi Jinping emerges as head of the newly reshuffled seven-member Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 15, 2012. Xi became president of China in 2013. MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
A central distinction in realist international relations thought is that between vital and secondary national interests. Vital interests are threats to a state’s survival, and can take the form either of conquest and subjugation from outside, or the promotion of internal subversion aimed at destroying the existing political and ideological order—the strategy followed by the Soviet Union across much of the world during the Cold War, and by the United States against the Soviet Union and allied regimes.
Rivalry between the United States and China is not a battle to the death of this kind, and it is very important that the United States not see it as such. The phrase “a new cold war” is a cheap journalistic formula, but it contains real dangers. The United States’ geopolitical competition with China is fundamentally different from that with the Soviet Union, and if the U.S. establishment frames it in the terms of the Cold War, it may do great damage to the United States and the world in general. While the Cold War with the Soviet Union stemmed originally from the Soviet revolutionary threat and the brutal nature of Joseph Stalin’s regime, many of the ways in which this rivalry was imagined and therefore conducted by the United States did terrible damage to its own politics, culture, and public ethics.
When states permanently threaten each other with destruction from without or within, even periods of peace have the character of temporary armed truces requiring permanent military and ideological mobilization. This breeds in turn continual international tension and domestic repression, along with a cultural atmosphere of fanaticism, hysteria, and conspiratorial thinking in all the countries concerned.
We have learned this again over the past generation. The contemporary Middle East is a tragic example of how an entire region can be crippled by the threat of internal revolutions backed by rival ideological states; but our European ancestors learned it more than 350 years ago, and tried to do something about it. The great achievement of the Peace of Westphalia was to end in Europe—for 144 years—ideologically driven mass rebellions supported by rival states against existing states.
Crucial to the Westphalia settlement was the principle of cuius regio, eius religio (whose realm, his religion); in other words, that the ruler of a country dictated the religion of his or her subjects without interference from other states belonging to the other religion. Rivalries and conflicts would continue, but states and regimes would no longer pose existential threats to each other.
All this changed again with the French Revolution. Once again, states threatened the basic identity of other states, and did so in part by stimulating internal rebellion. Once again, endangered states responded with ferocious mass repression. Assassination and the execution of defeated enemies returned to the European scene. The French Revolution spawned later socialist revolutions and conservative counterrevolutions, which later characterized the Cold War.
By the standards of the rest of the world, the United States has not suffered from a truly existential threat from another power since the British defeat at New Orleans in 1815. Since then, the protecting oceans and the military and economic weakness of other American states has given the United States an exceptional degree of security, which in turn (as Alexis de Tocqueville noted) has contributed greatly to its exceptional success. Hence the ability of the United States throughout its history until World War II to maintain only a very strong standing army (but a very powerful navy). The only subsequent existential threat to the United States was internal: the secession of the Southern states, brought about by basic and irreconcilable disagreement over the nature of U.S. society and ideology. As former President Abraham Lincoln said, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
This remains true today. There is no conventional threat to the continental United States today, nor any way that such a threat could be created in the teeth of the U.S. Navy and Air Force. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps today have no part in the defense of the U.S. homeland—at least, on the assumption that the United States is unlikely to be attacked by Canada and Mexico. Their entire purpose is to defend U.S. interests in the wider world; some of them important, others considerably less so.
Even in the Cold War (nuclear weapons aside) the United States itself did not face a truly existential threat. There was never the slightest chance of communists taking over the United States either from within or without. On the other hand, in the first years of the struggle, there were good reasons to believe that a combination of communist ideology and Soviet power was a threat to vital U.S. allies: Stalinism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was truly evil and monstrous system; the economic chaos of Western Europe after World War II did give opportunities for communist takeovers; the Soviet Red Army was in 1945 clearly the most formidable land force on earth; and by 1950 China too had experienced communist revolution.
Within a relatively few years, however, the Soviet Union’s threats to the U.S. and its key allies, though still real, had greatly diminished. In Europe, Stalin’s death led to a much milder version of communism. Stalin’s withdrawal of support from the communist side in the Greek Civil War in 1949 had already made clear that the Kremlin would not risk a direct clash with the United States in Europe.
By the early 1960s, the Hungarian revolt and the mass flight of East Germans to the West (leading to the construction of the Berlin Wall to keep them in) made clear the collapse of communism as an attractive force in Europe. By then, the communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China were also bitterly at odds, giving the United States the chance to turn China into a quasi-ally. The last two-thirds of the Cold War could therefore well have been conceptualized by the U.S. establishment as a limited series of minor skirmishes and holding actions until the Soviet bloc collapsed under the weight of its increasingly dysfunctional economy and its internal national divisions.
Young people carry portraits of Communist leader Joseph Stalin during a Soviet-sponsored youth rally in Berlin.
Sen. Joseph McCarthy testifies.
The reality of course was very different. The struggle with Soviet communism became the intellectual framework and the standard operating procedure for the whole of U.S. foreign and security policy. Into this every local issue was fitted, with all the local elements that did not fit the paradigm of universal and existential struggle with the Soviet Union stripped out in the dominant U.S. analysis.
The result was a series of disastrous misunderstandings, with consequences that haunt the United States to this day: of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in Iran as a communist agent rather than an Iranian secular nationalist; of the communist revolution in Vietnam as part of a Soviet plan for world domination rather than a continuation of the anti-colonial nationalist struggle against France; of the Afghan war of the 1980s as a struggle for liberation from Soviet imperialism rather than a continuation of a generations-old struggle between the forces of authoritarian modernization and Islamic and tribal conservatism, in which the Soviet Union became embroiled (followed by the United States two decades later). And of course, across much of the world, the United States found itself committed to supporting “anti-communist” regimes that were often as vile as the communists’ and bitterly unpopular with their own peoples.
Across much of the world, the United States found itself committed to supporting “anti-communist” regimes that were often as vile as the communists’ and bitterly unpopular with their own peoples.
Again and again, the United States was drawn into local conflicts in which it had very few real interests at stake. As today, each one of these was then cast by the U.S. establishment and media in the terms of the struggles against Nazism and Stalinism: as a black and white struggle of U.S.-led good against absolute evil, with complexities abolished and facts twisted to conform to this image.
As C. Vann Woodward wrote in 1960: “The true American mission, according to those who support this view, is a moral crusade on a world-wide scale. Such people are likely to concede no validity whatever and grant no hearing to the opposing point of view, and to appeal to a higher law to justify bloody and revolting means in the name of a noble end. For what end could be nobler, they ask, than the liberation of man?”
At home, the Cold War exacerbated older tendencies toward paranoia, cultural anxiety, and Manichean views of the world. McCarthyism passed, but left behind a legacy of hysteria, extremism, and paranoia that blights the Republican Party to this day and has never had much connection to real dangers to the United States, whether external or internal. And of course the Vietnam War greatly worsened internal divisions in the United States which also linger to this day, with disastrous results for U.S. national unity and basic political consensus.
Rivalry with China should thus be conceptualized by the U.S. foreign and security establishment as a limited competition in particular areas, not a universal and existential struggle between good and evil. Apart from anything else, to center the whole of U.S. policy on struggle with China will be a terrible distraction from what are in fact much greater threats to the well-being of U.S. citizens: at home, economic inequality and racial tensions; in the world as a whole, climate change and its consequences.
The coronavirus pandemic should also help the United States better to understand the real interests of ordinary Americans. Whatever the administration of President Donald Trump may now be trying to suggest, it has been a virus (albeit made worse by Chinese and U.S. governmental incompetence), and not a rival great power, that at the time of writing has killed more Americans than died in the Vietnam War and Korean War put together.
U.S. competition with China is real, serious, and bound to increase. That is inevitable, both for economic reasons and because of the incompatibility between Chinese ambitions and the U.S. establishment’s determination to maintain U.S. global leadership. However, it is not an existential struggle between two fundamentally opposed systems, nor is it a universal struggle that must be fought in every corner of the world.
A comparison with basic features of the Cold War should make the difference clear. China is not promoting communist revolution around the world. In fact there is no evidence at all that it is aiming at the overthrow of existing states. As a great capitalist trading power, it has a strong stake in the stability of markets and the safety of Chinese investments. If the Chinese government in principle prefers authoritarian states, it has as yet done nothing to foster such systems.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Chinese influence operations in the West are real and should be resisted, but they are intended to influence Western policies toward China, not cause state collapse and revolution. And the United States has an old and tried arsenal of international influence operations of its own that it can deploy in response. As to the U.S. political system, the impact of Chinese (and Russian) covert propaganda on U.S. politics has been minimal compared to the impact of the United States’ own domestic problems. It was not China that killed George Floyd.
As a capitalist trading state, China is dependent on the health and stability of the international capitalist system. Unlike the Soviet Union, it needs a degree of rules-based international order—though not if (as seen from China) this means a system in which the United States sets all the rules and then breaks them whenever it wishes. On the other hand, China has certainly sought with great determination to increase its international influence through international capitalism. Some of these efforts (like Huawei’s role in fifth-generation telecommunications technology) must be strongly resisted. They do not however as yet greatly exceed past U.S. patterns of international economic influence.
The impact of Chinese (and Russian) covert propaganda on U.S. politics has been minimal compared to the impact of the United States’ own domestic problems. It was not China that killed George Floyd.
The defense and strengthening of U.S. capitalism in competition with China is indeed essential, but needs to be seen not just in terms of tariffs on Chinese imports (as the Trump administration has seen it), but as requiring a massive program of U.S. domestic economic reform and investment in infrastructure and technology—in other words, the way the Chinese government conducts this competition.
When it comes to hard geopolitical influence and the expansion of Chinese military power, with one important exception China has proceeded with great caution. In the Indian Ocean, until now the Chinese program of port construction has been entirely commercial (except for a small refueling and repair station in Djibouti, next to a much bigger U.S. one). The Chinese naval presence in the region is insignificant compared to that of the United States, let alone the United States plus India.
Above all, China has not sought to exploit U.S. difficulties in the Middle East, despite multiple opportunities to do so. The contrast between the strategies of Beijing and Moscow in this regard is extremely marked. Readers may wish to imagine, for example, the impact on the United States’ position in the region if China were to devote even a fraction of its resources to a full-scale program of strengthening Iran economically and militarily.
The reasons for this Chinese abstinence are not of course altruistic. In the first place, China as the world’s greatest energy importer depends on the stability of the Persian Gulf—far more than does the United States, since thanks to fracking the United States is now virtually self-sufficient in oil and gas. Secondly, as a Chinese official told me a decade ago, China has studied the repeated and disastrous messes that the United States has gotten into (and sometimes caused) in the Middle East, and has no desire to follow suit. There is no evidence that this very sensible approach has changed in the years since.
The great exception to this Chinese caution has been the South China Sea, which Beijing regards as its backyard. Here, the United States must continue to reject Chinese territorial claims. But Chinese control of these reefs and sandbanks (which climate change will in any case eventually place underwater) does not threaten international trade or U.S. maritime supremacy. If China were mad enough to block trade through the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy (especially if backed by India) would have the power to interdict Chinese maritime trade with the whole of the rest of the world. Elsewhere in East Asia, the United States has a formal military alliance with Japan, which is by far the most important state of the region after China, and which has no intention of submitting to Chinese hegemony. This alliance, and U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea, must of course be maintained.
U.S. Marines exit an amphibious assault vehicle.
U.S Health Secretary Alex Azar leaves a message of condolence to Taiwan’s former president Lee Teng-hui.
The only truly dangerous issue between the United States and China remains, as it has always been, Taiwan. Of course, the United States cannot and must not give any kind of green light to Beijing to invade Taiwan. At the same time, the U.S. security establishment must clearly, but privately, recognize that in the future, whatever the United States does, growing Chinese military power and the proximity of the Chinese mainland will make it impossible for the United States to defend Taiwan against blockade or invasion without an unacceptable risk of military defeat or nuclear war. The goal must be to make sure that Beijing remains convinced of the catastrophic economic and political damage that it would suffer from such an invasion.
U.S. geopolitical competition with China should therefore be handled by the United States on a pragmatic and case-by-case basis, and combined with continued cooperation with China on other critically important issues, such as climate change and disease control. Washington must be careful not to be drawn into local conflicts in which the U.S. has no national interest, and where the rights and wrongs are uncertain and the dangers of escalation very great: the Sino-Indian border dispute, for example.
The key area of struggle in the Cold War was Europe, and it was there that the evident economic, social, and political superiority of the West eventually led the Soviet bloc to collapse from within. In Europe, however, U.S. allies were (mostly) successful liberal democracies ranged against communist dictatorships. In Asia, the picture is very different. The key Asian regimes that the U.S. needs to cultivate include Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-chauvinist and quasi-authoritarian regime in India, the Vietnamese communist state, and the ferocious authoritarian populist government of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. These are hardly convincing allies in a struggle to defend and promote democracy.
Above all, as Stephen Walt has written in Foreign Policy, conceptualizing the competition with China in terms of an existential ideological conflict will both distort U.S. strategy and make the competition vastly more dangerous: “Focusing on the internal characteristics of other states is also tempting because it absolves us of responsibility for conflict and allows us to pin the blame on others.… Pinning most of the blame for conflict on an opponent’s domestic characteristics is also dangerous. For starters, if conflict is due primarily to the nature of the opposing regime(s), then the only long-term solution is to overthrow them. Accommodation, mutual coexistence, or even extensive cooperation on matters of mutual interest are for the most part ruled out, with potentially catastrophic consequences. When rivals see the nature of the other side as a threat in itself, a struggle to the death becomes the only alternative.”
The competition with China cannot be won by the sort of systemic knockout that finished the Soviet Union, and that the Soviet Union dreamed of inflicting on the West. Its most important aspect is the relative success of the two capitalist systems in terms of economic growth, the maintenance of social stability, and ability to cope with new crises. This is indeed where China, as a successful capitalist country, is a more serious challenger than the Soviet Union. For the United States to compete successfully with China in these areas does not however require more warships, more CIA operations, or more money for Voice of America. It requires long overdue reforms at home.