Trump indictment does little to calm anxieties overseas: The ramifications of former President Donald Trump’s indictment on Thursday are rippling through the American political atmosphere, and our politics reporter Eli Yokley has you covered on the domestic reaction. Amid all the uncertainty, one thing is clear: Trump is running, conviction or no.
That does little to lower the blood pressure in Brussels, Kyiv, Tokyo or any number of allied capitals where growing world tensions have laid bare their existential dependence on U.S. support. The war in Ukraine has done much to draw together allies in Europe, and we appear to be on the precipice of a similar closing of the ranks in Asia if Seoul and Tokyo can pull off their attempted rapprochement. Russia and China can take the lion’s share of the responsibility, but as questions arise of a possible Trump re-election, analysis that fails to consider how allies are triangulating for that scenario will fall short.
What we are watching: To what degree are allies strengthening their defenses and working to ensure energy independence because of fears about the United States?
In the very first piece I wrote for Morning Consult, historian and analyst Anne Applebaum said a Trump re-election would be “the end of NATO.” That was just two months before Russia invaded Ukraine, and NATO found itself reinhabiting its Cold War role as a lynchpin of world politics. It also highlighted one of the few areas where commentators who otherwise attacked Trump often conceded he had a point: Europe was too complacent over its own security.
The invasion seemed to jolt Europe into action, with Germany pledging massive military investment and reform and Macron reviving his idea of “strategic autonomy” in a continental military force outside the NATO command structure.
Don’t overlook that last detail. It’s a big red flag that reads “No Americans.”
Fortunately for Washington, Europe has struggled to get its act together. Germany’s massive military investment isn’t really showing up on the ground, and Macron’s proposal is encountering the same road blocks it has in years past, despite the urgency of the moment. And Europe’s other major military power, the United Kingdom, is even more beholden to Washington because of Brexit.
European bureaucrats and politicians will be eagerly awaiting to see how Trump’s mounting legal troubles affect his popularity, and it’s far from certain it will be negative. Just ask Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim if being imprisoned on charges widely seen as unjust didn’t goose their image prior to taking office. If Hugo Chavez were alive, you could ask him too. And I won’t even mention the guy you’re expecting me to.
The point is, the way the U.S. public reacts to Trump’s legal troubles will be crucial for allies, and we will be watching it carefully. A rally ‘round the flag effect could do a lot to cut through red tape in Berlin and Paris when it comes to military spending.
I’ll also be interested to see the reaction in Japan, South Korea and the rest of Asia, where unlike in Europe, many considered Trump’s aggressive posture toward Beijing after 2017 to be an improvement over the Obama administration’s lower profile approach. That leaves the political waters much murkier. Does a Trump bounce help or hurt the prospects of Seoul-Tokyo rapprochement? Where does the Taiwanese election swing on this news? What about ties to ASEAN? India? AUKUS? Are all these nations willing to trust their national security to a second Trump administration?
We’ll find out soon enough. Buckle in, everyone, the ride is starting up again.
Wall Street Journal reporter detained in Russia: Russian federal authorities detained American journalist Evan Gershkovich on espionage charges this week, a serious provocation. Gershkovich has extensive experience reporting in Russia and the Journal vehemently rejected the charges and condemned his detention, as did the White House.
A 1977 CIA regulation banning it from using journalism as a cover for its activities is meant to protect reporters working in hostile environments, but glaring loopholes often discredit it in the eyes of foreign governments. Nonetheless, Gershkovich is the first American reporter detained by Russian authorities since the Cold War.
What we are watching: Is Russia using Gershkovich as a negotiating chip, a la Brittney Griner?
Paul Whelan, another American, remains in Russian detention, but his plight has not stayed in the headlines. Detaining and parading Griner through the Russian justice system did quite a lot to capture American attention. Perhaps Moscow felt a fresh detention, particularly a provocative one, might repeat the trick.
And it must be said that Moscow has been laying down some pretty big cards to muted response from the West. The Kremlin’s announcement of rebasing nuclear weapons into Belarus — which in the halcyon days of 2021 would likely have been top news for a week — faded quickly from the headlines. Bombarding civilians on the anniversary of the discovery of the Bucha massacre didn’t seem to make it into the cable news prime time producer’s rundown. Nor did its posturing during the grain deal renewal generate the kind of outrage it once might have.
But grabbing an American reporter gives Moscow control over the narrative. They can — and likely will — parade him in front of cameras in handcuffs, sit him in a cage in the courtroom and harangue him for the world to see. We’ll be watching for what Moscow demands in exchange for his release.
North Korea may escape a food crisis through arms deals: As we have reported for several weeks running, the food crisis in North Korea appears to be the most severe the hermit kingdom has experienced in recent memory, with vanishingly small avenues for the international community to help.
However, this week, American officials disclosed intelligence indicating Pyongyang was willing to sell Russia arms and munitions in exchange for food. Notwithstanding the hopes that more North Koreans will survive if they can access the food — which is far from certain — this is among the least desirable outcomes for U.S. interests.
What we are watching: Could this deal help Pyongyang revive its old Beijing-Moscow shuffle and further retrench the Kim dynasty?
For those of you who spent your early twenties doing more interesting things than reading about North Korean Cold War foreign policy, let me tell you what I mean. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s grandfather Kim Il Sung could see very early on, even before the Korean War, that the relationship between Communist China and the Soviet Union was unstable, and represented an opportunity for his small country. He manipulated the rivalry between Stalin and Mao to get permission and support to invade South Korea, then exploited the growing divide between Mao and Khrushchev after 1953 to rebuild after the disastrous war flattened his country, dangling his allegiance to draw out more and more aid.
Pyongyang’s non-aligned position within the communist bloc contributed to North Korea recovering faster from the war than South Korea, despite being left in a relatively worse state, and also increasing recognition of North Korea by non-communist states, particularly former colonial possessions.
By the 1980s Pyongyang’s economy entered serious stagnation, however, and Kim Il Sung’s 1984 realignment with the Soviet Union turned out to be the wrong bet. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact between 1989 and 1991 left North Korea with critical deficits in fuel and food imports and no patron country to turn to. By 1994, millions had begun to starve, and even after food aid from China, South Korea, the United States and other countries arrived, it took months to stabilize the situation.
COVID-19 protocols and increasing bellicosity have left the Kim regime in perhaps an even more isolated state. Beijing remains North Korea’s only treaty ally and — though they will not allow Pyongyang to collapse — prefers to keep it on as short a leash as possible while still deterring U.S. meddling. Moscow, on the other hand, actually needs something from North Korea: weapons. And Pyongyang may therefore find more generous reciprocation.
And here is where we find the setback for U.S. interests. The opportunity to help with an existential problem in the past afforded the opportunity to Washington, Seoul and Beijing to work together on their shared interest of preventing a collapse, while also preventing as much as possible the opportunity for the Kim dynasty to profit from the aid.
Russia has no such shared interest. They will gladly strengthen the Kim regime and make no effort to prevent aid from being siphoned off and sold by corrupt officials, which means widespread hunger could persist for the ordinary North Korean while the elite are spared. We’ll be watching for signs Pyongyang is drawing closer to Moscow’s orbit, and how it affects relations between China, South Korea and the United States.
