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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on defence and foreign policy: an old-fashioned look at the future | Editorial

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      The integrated review offers a nostalgic – at times, even anachronistic – response to the challenges of the 21st century. Its intent is laudable: acknowledging that attempting to defend the status quo is not enough, and seeking to carve out a path ahead. It recognises the multiple threats that the UK faces – from future pandemics to cyber-attacks – and the need for serious investment in science and technology. But overall, “global Britain” offers a hazy vision of a country that is looking east of Suez once more, wedded to the symbolic power of aircraft carriers, and contemplating a nuclear response to cyberthreats.The policy paper is in essence a response to three big shifts: the rise of China, the related but broader decline of the existing global order, and Brexit. Two of these confront democracies around the world. But the last is a self-inflicted wound, which the government appears determined to deepen. And the need to deal with the first two is not in itself a solution to the third, as this policy paper sometimes seems to imagine.The plan essentially recognises the move that is already taking place towards a warier, more critical approach to China, away from the woefully misjudged “golden era” spearheaded by George Osborne, and the fact that parameters will be set for us by the tougher approach of the US, in particular. It accepts that we must engage on issues such as climate change, and that we are not in a new cold war – we live in a globalised economy – albeit that there is likely to be more decoupling than many anticipated.But it does not try to explain how the UK can square the circle of courting investment while shielding itself from undue Chinese influence and expanding regional alliances. Australia is currently finding out what happens when Beijing is angered by a strategic shift.The tilt to the Indo-Pacific may – like Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia” – fail to live up to its advertising. But it is true that Britain has paid insufficient attention to Asia, and is wise to pursue stronger ties with Five Eyes nations and other democracies in the region. These relationships will sometimes be problematic; India is the world’s largest democracy, but under Narendra Modi is looking ever less democratic. The pursuit of new partnerships could have been “in addition to” rather than “instead of”. Yet Britain is snubbing old, reliable, largely like-minded friends with clear common interests. The review is written almost as if the EU did not exist, preferring to mention individual member states. That seems especially childish when it also identifies Russia as an “active threat”. Nor is it likely – even if the UK joins the Trans-Pacific free-trade pact – that countries thousands of miles away can fully compensate for the collapse in trade with the EU that saw Britain record a £5.6bn slump in exports to the bloc in January. Geography matters.Behind the rhetoric of the review is a country that has failed to match its words and ambitions to its actions. Britain boasts of its soft power and talks of upholding the rule of law internationally – yet has declared itself happy to break international law when it considers it convenient. Though the paper promises to restore the commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on aid “when the fiscal situation allows”, slashing the budget is not only undermining the UK’s standing, but global security and stability too.Most strikingly, after 30 years of gradual disarmament since the end of the Soviet Union, and despite its obligations under the non-proliferation treaty, Britain is raising the cap on its nuclear warheads – a decision met with dismay by the UN Elders and others, and bafflement by analysts. Mr Johnson has not deigned to explain why.The review has rightly asked difficult questions. While Joe Biden has brought the US back to multilateralism, his predecessor has shown that the longer-term parameters of US policy may not be as predictable as Britain once believed. Old certainties have gone. But the new challenges cannot be met by turning back to nukes and aircraft carriers. The government should have looked closer to home and been bolder in addressing the future. More

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      Afghans dread the ‘danger hours’ as fragile gains of 20 years slip away

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      Ghazaal Habibyar’s trembling hand hovered over her mobile phone, unable to type the numbers. “I was afraid to hear bad news,” she recalls of that morning in Kabul when she heard there’d been an explosion close to her young son’s school.
      “Why should we have to choose between educating or protecting our children?” asks the 38-year-old mother of two – a former Afghan deputy minister of mines and petroleum. That day, her six-year-old son was sitting safely in class.
      This is how the day begins now in Kabul – the time of day in a time of war that is most worrying of all. Afghans call them “the danger hours”.
      “There’ve been blasts before me, and blasts behind me,” says 22-year-olduniversity student Sadeq Alakozai. “Every day we wonder whose turn it will be.”
      One morning, a magnetic “sticky” bomb slapped on a minibus took the life of a popular TV presenter at the same time Alakozai and his friends were driving to work on the same street. Another morning, a district security chief was assassinated in a blast so strong it flipped the police car upside down at a busy roundabout just before they reached the same corner.
      Afghanistan – map
      From 7.30am to 9.30am, when the diesel fume-soaked streets of the capital are choked with traffic as government employees go to work, is the time to avoid, if you can. Every day someone somewhere in Afghanistan is picked off: journalists and judges; civil servants and scholars; activists and academics.
      Many of the victims came of age in the two decades since the Taliban were toppled from power in the US-led invasion after the 9/11 attacks; their lives are being cut short as the last of the US-led Nato forces deliberate over a departure date and the Taliban boast of victory.
      The Taliban’s path back to power could either run through accelerating moves by President Joe Biden’s team to negotiate a political way out of war, or what many fear could be the most blistering of battles this summer in a country which has already lived through more than 40 years of pain.
      No one takes responsibility for this wave of assassinations. The Afghan government blames the Taliban. The Taliban accuse the Afghan government, which is also under fire for not being able to protect its people. And, in a time of rising insecurity and impunity, anyone with a gun and a grudge can exploit the moment.
      Many see a concerted campaign by Taliban supporters to kill off or frighten away what is described, in shorthand, as the “gains of the last 20 years”: educated, ambitious women; a vibrant media; an active civil society.
      “They claim these realities were created under the US military occupation and are like foam on top of water, which goes away as soon as you touch the waters underneath,” says Tamim Asey, a former deputy defence minister who now chairs the Institute of War and Peace Studies in Kabul. More

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      in US Politics

      'Great expectations': how world leaders reacted to Biden and Harris's election win – video

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      Most world leaders rushed to congratulate Joe Biden on his election on Twitter, and spoke of ‘hope’ and ‘expectation’ in later statements.
      Biden’s key foreign policy priorities are cooperation in the fight against coronavirus, a commitment to rejoin the UN Paris climate agreement and, more broadly, to promise a change in tone toward traditional US allies. 
      Russia and China are yet to congratulate the president-elect, as the outgoing president, Donald Trump, is yet to concede defeat
      Russia and China silence speaks volumes as leaders congratulate Biden More

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      in US Politics

      India tries to shake off pro-Trump image in run-up to US election

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      At a podium in Delhi on Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the secretary of defense, Mark Esper, made a clear declaration of their country’s commitment to its alliance with India.“The US will stand with India in its efforts to defend its sovereignty and its liberty,” Pompeo said, emphasising the importance of the US-India relationship in countering China’s “threats”.Pompeo and Esper had travelled to Delhi this week to sign a deal for high-level intelligence sharing between the two countries. The timing – just a week before the US election – was taken by many observers to be politically strategic, giving the Trump administration a platform to increase its anti-China rhetoric and show off its close ties to India, playing to Indian-American voters.Indian ministers, however, were at pains to emphasise that Pompeo and Esper were there for diplomatic, not political, purposes – it was nothing to do with the US election.It was not the first time Indian officials had voiced concern over appearing to be partisan in the US vote. Last month, India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party told its overseas affiliates in the US not to campaign under a BJP banner – to do so could put “deep strategic relations” at risk.The subtext was evident. With Joe Biden pulling ahead of Donald Trump in the polls, the BJP was worried its American wing had a pro-Trump image problem. “The effort in Delhi has always been to remain bipartisan and stay out of polarised US politics,” said Shivshankar Menon, a former Indian foreign secretary, national security adviser and diplomat. “But this has got more difficult in the last few years.”Certainly, Trump’s public displays of camaraderie with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, have been a defining feature of US-India relations over the last four years. At the “Howdy Modi” rally, in Texas in September 2019, Trump hailed Modi as one of “America’s greatest, most devoted and most loyal friends”, while the two leaders tightly grasped each other’s hands. A similarly gushing rally was held for Trump when he visited India in March 2020.However, as the election has approached, the emphasis in New Delhi has been on bipartisanship. Since 2000 – through Democrat and Republican presidents in the US, and BJP and Congress governments in India – the alliance has largely strengthened. Whether the occupier of the Oval Office in January is Biden or Trump, India is determined to keep it that way. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump's Afghanistan withdrawal announcement takes US officials by surprise

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      Donald Trump has announced on Twitter that he wants to bring all US troops home from Afghanistan by Christmas – a plan that came as a surprise to administration officials and which puts complicated peace negotiations in jeopardy.Multiple officials told the Associated Press they had not been informed of any such deadline and military experts said it would be impossible to withdraw all 5,000 US troops in Afghanistan and dismantle the US military headquarters by the end of the year.They suggested the president’s claim was aimed at shifting the news cycle away from coronavirus coverage and that the Pentagon would not act on the order before the 3 November US election.The announcement was, however, greeted enthusiastically by the Taliban on Thursday. If Trump follows through, the militant group would almost certainly claim it as a victory, after decades of couching their fight as a war against foreign aggression.“It’s no surprise that the Taliban have welcomed Trump’s announcement that he’d have the troops home by Christmas. They spent 19 years fighting for this,” said Ashley Jackson, the director of the ODI’s Centre for the Study of Armed Groups.“This is the last leverage the US had left in talks with the Taliban, and Trump is proposing to give it away for free.”Without the prospect of US military pressure, the Taliban would have little incentive to stay at the negotiating table with representatives of the Kabul government.From a practical point of view, disentangling a 19-year military presence would take considerably longer than two months.“It’s October, so no – it’s ridiculous. It’s simply can’t happen,” said Jason Dempsey, a former infantry officer who served in Afghanistan. “We could make some superficial show of pulling out uniformed troops, but obviously we still have a very massive contractor presence, and we would need a uniformed headquarters to oversee the shutdown and withdrawal of everything we have in country.”Trump has made impulsive policy announcements about Afghanistan on Twitter before, including calling off a US-Taliban summit last year, shortly before a withdrawal agreement was first expected to be signed.He also has a record of ordering abrupt and total troop withdrawals from foreign deployments. In most cases the Pentagon has sought to mitigate and slow the speed of the pullout but in some case the president has prevailed in bringing soldiers back home.The Afghan government and Taliban negotiators are currently attempting to hammer out a new political settlement for the country in the Qatari capital. The peace talks were set up under a withdrawal agreement signed earlier this year between the Taliban and Trump’s administration.The US-Taliban deal laid out a full departure of American forces by May 2021 but only if conditions on counter-terrorism were met, including severing ties with al-Qaida. Some critics of the Doha talks argue that the militants are merely marking time until the departure of US troops.Trump’s plans were announced in a tweet late on Wednesday night. The White House doubled down on the message on Thursday morning: “our troops in Afghanistan are coming home by the end of the year”, the official Twitter account for the administration said.It was the latest in a long line of ad hoc policy announcements from Trump that have caught his own advisers and military by surprise. His national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, had said shortly before Trump tweeted that troop numbers would be brought down to 2,500 early next year.About 4,500 troops are currently on the ground in Afghanistan, reduced from over 12,000 when the deal was signed in February.The Pentagon referred all requests for comment on Afghanistan drawdown plans to the White House.The Taliban welcomed Trump’s remarks as “a positive step towards the implementation of [the] Doha agreement”, a spokesman for the Islamist group, Mohammad Naeem, said in a statement, referring to the US withdrawal deal.Peace talks have been progressing slowly, with negotiators still trying to lay out the ground rules for their discussion. They are currently stalled on which school of Islam should be used when settling disputes.Trump has made a promise to “end” America’s wars overseas part of his bid for re-election this year, promising to bring troops home from a constellation of conflict zones including Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.But past pledges to bring back troops have often been abandoned, reversed or only partially completed.After ordering a total withdrawal of US troops from Syria in October 2019, Trump was persuaded to let some stay on the grounds that they would protect oil installations there. A US military presence has remained, but it is about half the size of the thousand-strong force that was supporting Kurdish forces in northern Syria.In July, the Pentagon announced it was pulling nearly 12,000 troops out of Germany, after Trump called for a total withdrawal to punish the Berlin government over policy disagreements.Senior military officials made clear it would take years to redeploy that number of troops, and Congress is scrutinising the order. The drawdown of foreign deployed forces was dwarfed by the dispatch of 10,000 US troops to the Gulf following the killing of the Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in January. Dempsey, now adjunct senior fellow of the military, veterans and society program at the Center for a New American Security, said the Pentagon would wait to see the outcome of the presidential election before carrying out major troop movements. “I think the lesson we all should have learned after four years is the president’s conception of his powers doesn’t go anywhere beyond his enjoyment of having an expanded Twitter presence,” he said. “We’ve become so inured to these kind of kneejerk attempts to win the news cycle that nobody will be talking about this 48 hours from now.” More

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      in Elections

      With a word of Tamil, Kamala Harris boosts her fanbase in India

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      As a child wandering between the legs of the aunts, uncles and family friends who filled her grandparents’ apartment in Chennai, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a young Kamala Harris grew used to being addressed in Tamil.It was the main language spoken by her grandmother, who had only fragmented English, and over the years of Harris’s childhood trips from California to Chennai – which back then was called Madras – to visit her mother’s side of the family, she slowly learned to understand, if not speak, the mother tongue of her Indian relatives.Standing at the Democratic convention podium last week accepting her historic nomination for US vice-president, Harris made a passing but significant nod to this aspect of her heritage. She said her mother had “raised us to know and be proud of our Indian heritage”, adding: “Family is my uncles, my aunts and my chithis.” More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Covid-19 and cults of strength: the weakest response | Editorial

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      Even leaders who thrive by bullying people have realised that they can’t bully a pandemic. But nor does caution fit easily with their macho political image. Their temptation has been to let it run its course instead. Now the facts are catching up with them. The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, has repeatedly dismissed the risks […] More

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      Senior ICC judges authorise Afghanistan war crimes inquiry

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      Decision overturns earlier rejection of request to examine actions of US soldiers Senior judges at the international criminal court have authorised an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, overturning an earlier rejection of the inquiry. The ICC investigation will look at actions by US, Afghan and Taliban troops. It is […] More