Following are what I see as the foreign affairs issues of greatest importance to the United States.that will develop in 2019 across the world.
Each of them can evolve, fortunately, without involvement by President Donald J. Trump, although each of them has at some previous point in history been of some interest to America. The list assumes that cooler heads in Washington and in the country at large can prevent the warmonger-zealot that Mr. Trump has made national security adviser, John R. Bolton, from somehow launching us into an unnecessary war with Iran or some other country.
1. The United States will withdraw its current 14,000 troops from Afghanistan, ending our now 18-year-plus war there, acknowledging that we have done as much there as we could, leaving future surveillance of it to satellites and drones, and leaving it to the Afghans themselves to determine who they would like to govern them. The war in Afghanistan has been long, expensive in lives and money, and shows no indication of evolving to our benefit. Enough has been enough for a long time already.
2. America will continue to accept the increasing Israeli incorporation through ever-growing settlements of the West Bank into Israel proper. We will continue to tolerate the de facto aspect of that issue with official, de jure recognition of it still some distance in the future in spite of increasing Sunni Muslim nation acceptance of what is taking place. The question of what that development will mean for the future of Israel itself will be left to the Israelis, whether it will be a Jewish state or a democratic one.
3. It is already showing itself as an issue of great importance to Chinese president Xi Jinping, part of his global Belt and Road Initiative, but it is likely that in 2019, China will step up its pressure on Taiwan to move its status closer to that of Hong Kong and Macau, as opposed to its current partly-U.S.-supported relative independence. In recent years, both China and Taiwan have contented themselves with increasing economic cooperation between them, without much focus on its political implications. For the United States, there will be temptation to respond to opportunities for arms sales, to use our Navy more aggressively in the South China Sea or even in the Taiwan Strait, or to listen to remaining advocates of Taiwan among Washington lobbyists.
4. The North Korea issue will continue to be of interest to Washington, at least as long as another summit between Mr. Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un carries media attention for the American president. Mr. Trump continues to deserve some credit for having blasted that issue out of the concrete bounds into which it had fallen over the years. Now, however, real progress toward Korean reunification, which should be the real goal of Korean-Chinese-U.S. machinations, will depend principally on Mr. Kim and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who have remained very active in their cross-border diplomacy.
5. Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw the 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, a process that has begun, is correct, in my view, and will proceed in 2019, even though it will mean an increase in the role of Iran, Russia and Turkey in Middle East decision-making and a corresponding decrease in U.S. influence there. What is unnecessary, and undesirable in my view, is Mr. Trump publicly sticking his finger in Turkey’s eye to discourage it from going after the Kurds in Syria who fought on our side, nicely paid, short-term and long-term, against Islamic State forces. Turkey is, in fact, the NATO ally who should serve as a leavening force in the Iran, Russia and Turkey alliance whose influence in the Middle East will grow as ours diminishes. Why alienate the Turks? Stupid, shortsighted and maybe painful for America.
6. The impact of Russia and its U.S. election meddling will — at least if the Mueller investigation’s results ever emerge above the stagnant water in the Washington swamp — be significant in 2019, although the impact will be much more in terms of U.S. domestic politics than as a foreign affairs issue. President Vladimir V. Putin is not going to unleash a Russian blitzkrieg in Eastern Europe. In spite of the many ethics-free Americans who have circled around the cash-filled Ukrainian honeypot, that country’s miserable situation is not one apt to draw in U.S. military elements in the real world.
7. The Chinese will eventually batter the Muslim Uighurs and other minorities in Western China to an extent that perhaps will provoke a revolt among them in 2019. That will have pretty much nothing to do with the United States and will be unlikely to become any more than a low-level item on the list of issues between China and the United States that will be headed by pushing and pulling on trade. Americans should go berserk in protest if they ever hear that U.S. forces, military or CIA, are operating in that part of China.
8. In the field of foreign affairs, probably the most important area of concern for Americans is the low quality of understanding and adeptness on the part of those representing us in that area. Whether it be the Iran-obsessed Mr. Bolton, or former Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, or the successor to competent Gen. James N. Mattis as secretary of defense, not to mention Mr. Trump himself as Twitterer-in-chief, it is scary to think of America’s military, commercial and international political power in their hands.
My own experience is that overseas powers have more or less decided just to wait them out, but who knows when one of them might try to steal a base while the U.S. defense is distracted by some domestic political mosquito attack.
Dan Simpson, a former U.S. ambassador, is a columnist for the Post-Gazette (dhsimpson999@gmail.com).
First Published: January 16, 2019, 11:00 a.m.
