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The Weekly GAB Friday, September 14, 2018
U.S. Global Leadership Coalition | www.usglc.org
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=-XHdwMaNjsCi9B9ESbVn1g

Who's in the News

WIBW NEWS

Retired General, Afghan Advisor Remembers Where He Was on 9-11, Talks
About Where Policy Goes From Here |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=YgNI2BP744vE6DtqXox6AA

Nick Gosnell

On the seventeenth anniversary of the attacks on New York and
Washington, a retired general talked about where he was that day and
where the U.S. needs to go from here in terms of its foreign policy...
Symanski sees a multifaceted approach as the best one to keep the
peace going forward. "The military solution cannot be the only
solution to every conflict that comes up," said Symanski.
"Veterans like myself know that the strong military that we have
is essential to enable good diplomacy. The diplomatic solution is the
most likely to resolve a conflict." That means that resources
both personal and financial must be put into both munitions and
diplomacy, including U.S. aid.

THE WASHINGTON POST
The West Can Still Shape the Terms for Peace in Syria

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=gVYrtHV1MIZNp-_mThRFyA

David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue
Committee

The seven years of Syria's crisis has cost half a million lives,
displaced more than 5 million refugees and reordered the geopolitics
of the Middle East. But the worst may be yet to come. Western
policymakers cannot be allowed to turn the other way and need to show
their mettle when the U.N. Security Council meets on Syria this month.
In June, President Bashar al-Assad's forces stormed the
southwestern region of Syria, where the uprising began. Within weeks,
they took control of the border crossings with Jordan that had been
used by aid agencies to supply cross-border aid to hundreds of
thousands of Syrians in desperate need... Now we are shut out,
with no access to those people in need.

THE WASHINGTON POST
The United States Has Leverage to End the Yemeni Civil War. Use it.

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=s93Vmpulz1QhvSiIFS8lLw

Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Senator Todd Young (R-IN)

The statistics are staggering: Three-quarters of Yemen's
population, approximately 22 million people, need humanitarian
assistance; 8 million are threatened with starvation; and 400,000
children suffer from severe malnutrition... Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis recently warned that U.S. support for the coalition is
"not unconditional." ... That's why we have led
bipartisan efforts in Congress to introduce and pass legislation into
law that gives the Trump administration leverage that it can use to
achieve our policy objectives and hold Saudi Arabia and the UAE
accountable.

FOREIGN POLICY

Allies Are Doubting How Long President Trump Will Stay in Power.
Here's How to Stop Irreversible Damage
http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=J-DL-uWxGig03UcgZzoi6w

Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret.), 16th Supreme Allied Commander at
NATO

The continuing melt-down in Washington, D.C., has profound and
challenging domestic implications. But far more dangerously, the
obvious chaos throughout the Executive branch - emanating from
the President himself - is weakening our allies' faith in
America's ability to lead... In all of the years I have spent as
a senior policy maker, and more recently as the Dean of a widely known
graduate school of international relations, I have never seen our
prestige as a nation at such a nadir. It will take all the best
efforts of the President's international team, as well as the
rest of us in contact with global interlocutors, to provide
reassurance and ask for patience to our network of allies, partners
and friends - and to prevent irreversible damage.

Development & Diplomacy

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The U.S. Can Defuse Iraq's Crisis

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=o_eUJzVogOLfssX11UHmhQ

Kimberly Kagan, Institute for the Study of War, and Frederick W.
Kagan, American Enterprise Institute

Iraq may be on the brink of its biggest crisis since 2006, when a
civil war threatened to topple its nascent democratic system... Such a
conflict could lead to the collapse of the Iraqi state and allow
Islamic State to re-emerge... Washington should not send military
forces into this effort. But it has the technical and financial
capacity to respond to the humanitarian disaster in southern Iraq,
which Iran and its proxies have exacerbated. The U.S. and its regional
partners can provide potable water, temporary power, medical
assistance and other resources. This could make a decisive difference
to Iraq's political future and America's national
security, but it requires swift action.

POLITICO

Growing Russian and Chinese Influence Could Spark Extremism, Task
Force Says |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=Kdq0M61V09nlJSVc1S-o3Q

Nahal Toosi

Russia's and China's expanding economic and military reach
could foster extremism in developing nations, and the U.S. must engage
the rest of the world in trying to prevent that threat from
materializing, a task force spearheaded by the leaders of the 9/11
Commission argues in a new report. The report, released Tuesday, the
17th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, comes as President
Donald Trump has pursued overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin
and other autocrats, tried to slash foreign aid spending and broken
with America's traditional democratic allies to an unusual
degree.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
Is Cash Better for Poor People Than Conventional Foreign Aid? |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=ZcersaaxyLd934h_lDilmg

Marc Gunther

Ms. Nyirabazungu's new life and the gratitude she expresses make
her experience a data point in a bold initiative by the United States
Agency for International Development, or U.S.A.I.D., that is intended
to find out whether conventional projects to help the world's
poor - by giving them chickens, textbooks, toilets, job training
or fertilizer - do as much good as simply giving people money
and letting them decide how to spend it. To that end, the agency has
begun measuring a few of its traditional programs against cash
transfers distributed by a nonprofit named GiveDirectly. Economists
will try to figure out which approach does more good.

THE GUARDIAN
Global Hunger Levels Rising Due to Extreme Weather, UN Warns |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=upqvJ0Q00BlpmqYqRt8eqA

Fiona Harvey and Karen McVeigh

Global hunger has reverted to levels last seen a decade ago, wiping
out progress on improving people's access to food and leaving
one in nine people undernourished last year, with extreme weather a
leading cause, the UN has warned. Hunger afflicted 821 million people
last year, the third annual rise since 2015, with most regions of
Africa and much of South America showing worsening signs of food
shortages and malnutrition. More than half a billion of the
world's hungry live in Asia.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Belt and Road Projects Direct Chinese Investment to All Corners of the
Globe. What Are the Local Impacts?

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=T5hpRQqajJbXjhRu-5w0mA

Bradley Parks et al., College of William and Mary

As the BRI enters its fifth year of implementation, questions are
swirling about whether these infrastructure investments provide good
value for money... Critics of the BRI claim that the vast global
network of new road, rail and pipeline projects will benefit primarily
China... There's some good news to report. Chinese development
projects - in particular, investments in connective
infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, railways and ports -
create a more equal distribution of economic activity within the
provinces and districts where they are implemented.

VANITY FAIR

"The Department of Justice Is a Hydra": Trump's Witch Hunt Drives The
Deep State Underground |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=1-278p35EQV7CQccbK5PBA

Abigail Tracy

If the Deep State didn't exist before, the president has brought
it into being with his attacks on Bruce Ohr. The mood in some pockets
of the State Department, one former official said, has "turned
normal-functioning government into a scary thing for regular civil
servants." ... For civil servants who might otherwise protest,
Trump's attacks on Ohr have underscored that such ideological
vetting is not only acceptable, but, arguably, encouraged. "If
they see the president attacking, directly, a career employee, there
are always going to be ramifications for the people that speak out."

USGLC GLOBAL IMPACT BLOG
87 Elephants Dead in Botswana, Wildlife Traffickers Still at Large |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=M5-B_CYQwz2u65nQyLEcnw

Cody Corrington

According to Elephants Without Borders, an organization that conducts
an elephant census for the Botswana government every four years, there
has been a major increase in poaching in the region from previous
years. In their 2014 census, the organization reported nine poached
elephants. This year, while only halfway through the census, 87 dead
have already been found.

Politics & Foreign Policy

THE HILL

International Criminal Court Plays Important Role in Global Rule of
Law

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=DZWTECrnszUbXPNHnIrUsg

Catherine Powell, Council on Foreign Relations, Fmr. Director for
Human Rights on the National Security Council

This week, White House national security adviser John Bolton slammed
the International Criminal Court in the latest shot across the bow the
Trump administration has taken against multilateral institutions... It
is shortsighted for the Trump administration to undermine support for
the important work the ICC does, as the court has played a significant
role in advancing interests that the United States paved the way for
following World War II, and there are many ways that America can
support the court without formally becoming a party.

THE DAILY BEAST

Lindsey Graham's Under-the-Radar Push to Turn Trump Into a
Defense Hawk |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=RtSzPLRhPM18Fw21sJbwxw

Lachlan Markay, Asawin Suebsaeng, and Andrew Desiderio

Graham, a recurring Trump golfing buddy, appears to have developed a
vocabulary that hits all the right notes in his conversations with the
president-warning of hits to his legacy, and trash-talking the
Obama foreign policy brain trust at which Trump himself has taken
aim... For Graham, once a fierce critic of Trump during the 2016
primaries, his conversion to Trump booster began shortly into the
Trump era... Meanwhile, some on Capitol Hill have lamented
Graham's influence over Trump as the president shuns competing
voices like Corker.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Cost of American Retreat

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=vawf8gdHc4eju3JL3ke8Qg

Robert Kagan, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution

The liberal world order established by the United States a little over
seven decades ago is collapsing. This should not be surprising... Like
a garden, it can last only so long as it is tended and protected.
Today, the U.S. seems bent on relinquishing its duties in pushing back
the jungle... We wanted to believe that the course of history was
taking us away from the war, tyranny and destruction of the first half
of the 20th century, but it may be taking us back toward them, absent
some prodigious effort on our part to prevent such regression... It
needs constant tending lest the jungle grow back and engulf us all.

THE ATLANTIC

UN Secretary-General: American Power Is in Decline, the World Is
'in Pieces' |

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=z3mjNKnans9kiZOq6NKtmQ

Uri Friedman

For the past two years, the secretary-general of the United Nations,
António Guterres, has watched as President Donald Trump upends
American foreign policy, engaging in trade wars while simultaneously
disengaging from international agreements and alliances. And now
Guterres has reached a verdict: The United States, once the guarantor
of global stability, is losing its ability to influence world events.
"I think that the soft power of the United States ... is
being reduced at the present moment," Guterres told me in an
interview. This, he suggested, is dangerous because there "is no
way to solve most of the problems in the world without" America.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Is the Taliban Prepared to Make Peace?

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=8-unafwb3nZITJKIMEEVVQ

John Walsh, United States Institute of Peace

The vital question throughout this period has been whether the Taliban
insurgency is actually open to making peace. The group has sent mixed
signals this summer-agreeing, on one hand, to the June
cease-fire, as well as restarting direct talks with the United States,
but all the while continuing its years-long refusal to negotiate with
what it calls the illegitimate Afghan government. The Taliban did not
formally accept a second cease-fire for the Eid al-Adha holiday in
August, and the intensity of its military campaign has hardly flagged.
What, then, does the Taliban ultimately want, and is its leadership
sincere about peace talks?

THE WASHINGTON POST

The U.S. Ordered the Palestinian Mission to Close. Here's Why it
Matters.

http://action.usglc.org/site/R?i=1lxdF2f-moFevO_twQX9VQ

Husam Zomlot, fmr. Head of the PLO General Delegation to the United
States

On Sunday evening, the American government informed me that it would
shut down the Palestinian Liberation Organization's mission in
the United States. From Ramallah, I convened a video conference with
my staff in Washington. The directive was very clear: We had to close
down completely in a month, ending our contacts with the United States
and terminating the lease on our building... The closure is
devastating to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live in
America... We're not confused here: Our quarrel is not with the
people of the United States but with this presidential administration.


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