The upcoming second Trump term will not be a mere retread of his first, post-Obama and pre-pandemic administration. Instead, Trump will return to power in a changed landscape, with new billionaire backers like Elon Musk and new conflicts that will shape his terms and choices. As Nancy Okail explains in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, this second Trump era will defined by new depths of corruption, Trump’s personal self-interest, a backdrop of “Great Power Competition” with Russia and China, and a global justice system on life support.
Writes Okail:
By eroding domestic institutions and bankrupting international ones—such as the World Health Organization and the World Food Program—Trump will undermine the very mechanisms that are vital for addressing global crises. Climate change, geopolitical instability, and pandemics do not—and will never—respect borders. It is impossible to safeguard Americans, not to mention people around the world, from these and other threats without international collaboration. While there are rightful critiques of our domestic and international institutions, destroying them without well-thought-out replacements will make life worse, not better, including for Trump’s own constituencies.
As international progressives, we must not be deterred, and there are four key areas on which we must focus to go beyond resistance and build a better world.
Trump’s victory in the presidential election means that, rather than the general continuity Ukraine could have expected from a Biden to Harris administrations, the United States will soon be governed by an executive less invested in Ukrainian freedom from Russian domination. In Foreign Policy, Matt Duss and Robert Farley argue that, “despite his ideological affinity for Putin, Trump has an interest in a genuinely durable settlement that does not simply result in Russian troops overrunning Ukraine,” if only for the simple reason that image-conscious Trump will want to avoid the appearance of unmanaged chaos that would come with the fall of Kyiv.
Write Duss and Farley:
On our visit to Ukraine in September 2023, we witnessed a vibrant democratic society rallying to prevent Russian domination of their country. Drawn out of Russia’s shadow since the 2014 war, Ukraine has undergone a cultural awakening, with art, music, literature, and history emphasizing a distinct national character. This awakening is hardly unconnected to the war. The normal avenues of Russian domination, including organized crime and state-sponsored religious activity, have been cut off by the war. Corruption still exists in Ukraine, but the impact of Russian dirty money has been substantially curtailed.
These outcomes are worth preserving, and any negotiated peace should seek to preserve them. The most important outcome of a cease-fire for Ukraine’s future must be an affirmation of Ukraine’s ability to protect itself, either by investing in its own defense or through relying upon its friends and neighbors. The threat posed by Russia to Ukraine is larger and more complex than simply a reprise of this invasion after a pause of months or years to recover strength.
After Tuesday’s sweeping electoral victory by former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris, Politico asked 10 thinkers about what the defeated Democratic party needs right now.
Matt Duss, CIP’s executive vice president, says to listen to voters when they say that they’re hurting. Writes Duss:
It’s clear that, whatever experts might tell them about how great the economy is doing, a huge number of Americans are not feeling it in their own lives and communities. Joe Biden successfully adopted a unifying economic populist message from the party’s left in 2020, and as president took important steps to start building a more worker-centered American economy. Democrats really need to lean into that work with a vision that meets Americans from across the political spectrum where they are, and helps them see how policies often labeled “progressive” actually address the needs of workers and communities, including from purple and deep-red areas that have been passed over by globalization and corporatization of our entire economy. In the absence of that vision of shared American prosperity and security, many voters will continue to respond to demagogues who claim to feel their pain and pin the blame for it on immigrants, minorities and foreign enemies while doing nothing to actually make their lives better.
What kind of relationships does the United States build when it gives or sells arms to countries abroad is a big question, one that sits at the heart of day-to-day foreign policy. Ari Tolany, Director of CIP’s Security Assistance Technology, and the Arms Trade (SAM) program, recently went on the Security Dilemma podcast to talk about arms transfers, transparency, and what it means to attempt to build friendships through the promise of weapons.
Said Tolany:
“Basically we’re losing a lot of transparency and granularity in our reporting, and I know it seems wonky, and it seems technically, but fundamentally, the way that so many people engage with the United States is not with our soft power or the various aspects of American culture we like to think of as promoting a US brand around the world, it’s at the barrel of a gun. When we have less information about that, we are less able to conduct effective oversight or check-in on concerning issues around defense companies like graft and corruption.”
The episode, hosted by AJ Manuzzi and John Allen Gay of the John Quincy Adams Society, walks through popular arguments and counter-arguments to arms transparency, the way arms sales make the US a participant in the wars of partners and allies, and what happens when the US tries to tie arms sales to respect for human rights, without ever threatening to withhold sales should weapons be used to violate human rights.
Tolany also discusses the shallow fear that the US not selling a country arms means irreparably harming that country’s relationship with the United States. Says Tolany:
“The notion that arms transfers are a solid foundation for international partnership building is flawed. If a partner can just as easily turn to China and Russia, I would argue that arms transfers are only papering over a relationship that is fundamentally misaligned.”
There will come a time in Gaza when the guns fall silent, when the people left alive attempt to pick up the pieces, and when, most likely, some incarnation of Hamas will reach an agreement with the government of Israel about the immediate future of the strip, the people in it, and the adversarial organizations that have dominated life in Gaza for decades. Omar Shaban, CIP’s inaugural Leahy Fellow for Human Rights and Security, published a thoughtful meditation on the future of Hamas at Cairo Review, starting from the recent death of Yahya Sinwar, and the growing role of Hamas’ five-person council directing the organization from outside of Gaza.
Writes Shaban:
For the civilian population in Gaza, the first and foremost issue is immediately ending the genocidal war against them by the Israeli military. When it comes to post-war governance and administration of the Strip, Palestinians in Gaza will support whichever entity actively contributes to stopping the war and working toward reconstruction and rehabilitation in all respects—societal, economic, psychological, and political. Given the above, Hamas’ ability to provide for the needs of the Palestinians is in question.
But does this mean removing Hamas entirely from the political map in Palestine and the region? The most pragmatic answer is, no. Hamas is a resistance movement with an Islamic ideology that is deeply woven into the Palestinian popular fabric and has become an ideological mainstay in the Palestinian lexicon.
Shaban further outlines an argument that Hamas as an entity will still exist, or at least in enough of a form to make a major decision about the shape and structure of the group after the present war. The three options are, in summary: lay down arms in exchange for becoming a purely civilian government of Gaza, reconcile with other Palestinian parties and play a diminished role in a national consensus government, or step aside from direct government of Gaza and instead let a technocratic entity rule while maintaining Hamas independence as an organization.
To understand the possible shape of a coming peace, read Omar Shaban in The Cairo Review.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is headed to the Middle East this week, following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by the Israel Defence Forces, and as Israel continues its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Michele Kelemen of NPR interviewed CIP’s Executive Vice President Matt Duss about Blinken’s upcoming trip.
For hawks inside Washington, this is a moment for Israel to press the advantage against Hamas and Hezbollah, both seen as Iranian proxies. Says Duss:
“There are people in the Biden administration who are buying this. They see what is happening in Gaza, what is happening in Lebanon, possible strikes elsewhere in the region including Iran, essentially as a way to reshuffle the regional security deck. We have seen historically this kind of hubris and overreach does not deliver peace, it does not deliver stability, it has a whole set of unintended consequences, they may not happen right now but they will come. I think the United States looks more powerless with every successive trip [Blinken] takes there and comes back with nothing.”
CIP executive vice president Matt Duss tells CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that the death of Hamas leader and architect of the October 7, 2023 attacks, Yahya Sinwar, can and should provide a new opening to push for a ceasefire and hostage release in the Gaza War.
Duss explains:
“The Biden Administration, the United States has leverage it’s not choosing to use. We provide an enormous amount of ammunition for a start: arms, bombs, all kinds of ammunition, intelligence support, and of course diplomatic support in multilateral fora like the United Nations. And so withholding, or at least beginning to withhold some of that support as a way to change Netanyahu’s behavior here and push him to accept a ceasefire I think is something that should have been done long ago.”
The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on October 17 closes a distinct chapter in the conflict between Hamas and Israel, even as the Palestinian people continue to suffer through the war and Israelis prepare for possible retaliation from Hezbollah and Iran, Hamas’ long-standing allies. In the Wall Street Journal, Yaroslav Trofimov explores how Sinwar’s death and the October 7th, 2023 attacks, Sinwar’s “bloody gambit,” has changed the politics of the region.
President and CEO of the Center for International Policy Nancy Okail tells Trofimov:
“Sinwar certainly achieved his goal of bringing the Palestinian issue to the center of geopolitics. […] But this came at a very high cost and in reality hasn’t moved the United States an inch in its support of Israel. And if the U.S. policy doesn’t change, the situation for Palestinians won’t change.”
On October 17, the Israeli military confirmed that it had killed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and mastermind of the October 7, 2023 attacks, in a military operation in southern Gaza.
With him no longer commanding Hamas, there is a new opening for the U.S. to push for a ceasefire and hostage release in the Gaza War and move toward de-escalation and enhancing human security in the region, argues CIP Executive Vice President Matt Duss in a new essay in The New York Times:
If Mr. Sinwar truly was the obstacle to a cease-fire agreement that U.S. officials — including President Biden — have claimed, that obstacle is now gone. The United States and its partners have a window to halt the downward spiral to regional conflagration. The Biden administration must press the Netanyahu government and remaining Hamas officials to end the war in Gaza, return hostages to their families, surge humanitarian aid into the territory and urgently take other steps to ensure that Gazans have adequate shelter, supplies and security as winter approaches.
The Biden administration declared in May that Israel had already achieved the stated desire of military degradation of Hamas, ensuring the organization would not be able to launch another attack on the scale of October 7. Those conditions are only more true today, but getting Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to the negotiation table will take more than just a statement of facts, it will take the exercise of leverage. Duss continues:
All of that will require fresh diplomatic pressure on both sides, including a willingness for the Biden administration to withhold offensive arms to Israel if it does not cooperate. The United States should simultaneously renew its abandoned push for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon that allows civilians to safely return to their homes on both sides of the border. In furtherance of those aims, the Biden administration should also urge Israel to refrain from potentially escalatory strikes on Iran.
Last week, CIP Executive Vice President Matt Duss published “Joe Biden Chose This Catastrophic Path Every Step of the Way” in the New Republic , offering a clear indictment of how specific US policy choices made in response to the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel have led to unrelenting tragedy in Gaza and Israel’s expanded war with its neighbors.
On Al Jazeera’s The Bottom Line, host Steve Clemons interviewed Duss about the piece, about the response of Middle Eastern autocracies, and about what US support for Israel’s war means in terms of democratic politics and the 2024 elections.
Here’s Matt Duss on the disconnect between Biden’s language and actions:
We have a policy and this goes back a long time, but it’s far worse now. By upholding Israeli impunity and essentially enforcing Palestinian homelessness, we have affirmed and supported the worst, most hardline elements in all of these societies. And I think that is exactly what we’re seeing now: this idea that Israel is just going to move kind of like Michael Corleone at the end of Godfather and settle all family business. We know how that ultimately ended, okay? It did not end well for Corleone or anyone. But I’ll also say we saw exactly this back in the early 1980s when Israel decided, well we’re going to take out our enemies in Lebanon, tried to take out the PLO leadership and deal with family business then. And what happened ? Well one thing that happened is the rise of Hezbollah. So my concern is what comes next, what is going to arise in the wake of this catastrophe that the United States and Israel have been cooperating to inflict on this region.
On the US reaction to Israel’s geographic expansion of its military offensive:
Over the past few weeks, in the wake of the strikes on Lebanon, the assassination of [Hassan] Nasrallah, the decapitation of Hezbollah’s leadership and the incursion into Lebanon basically after the proposed ceasefire agreement President Biden saying I hope I expect we’re about to get a ceasefire in Lebanon and then Netanyahu said nope, gonna kill all of Hezbollah’s leaders and invade Lebanon instead.
Since that time, the US posture seems to have changed and basically Biden seems to be just riding this war down like Slim Pickens in Doctor Strangelove. Even the statement that came out, the readout of the call between Netanyahu and Biden made no mention of a ceasefire in Lebanon. They have completely dropped that.
And I’m really concerned that there does seem to be – there’s clearly a sense in Washington like this sense of exaltation that is just dangerously and terrifyingly reminiscent of the leadup to the Iraq War, this sense that by dint of our enormous power or Israel’s enormous military power, we’re essentially going to reshuffle the deck in the Middle East and kind of rearrange …the security arrangement in the Middle East in a way that’s more beneficial to us. And it’s really kind of staggering for those of us who lived through that. That we would have to relearn this lesson. It will not work.
Israel clearly has enormous capabilities, they’ve scored a number of very, very impressive tactical victories. I don’t think anyone could deny that. But what we’ve seen year after year, decade after decade in that region is that both the United States and Israel have utterly failed to turn these tactical victories into strategic wins. And that is what we still have yet to see from either the US or Israel is any explanation of how this ends.
