Mr. Douthat starts with an excellent analysis of alternative views of vis-à-vis the importance of Ukraine to America's national security.
However, he veers off the road when he ties it to impeachment.
Though lethal aid to Ukraine has supporters across the political spectrum, the most ardent are the very Republican senators who will vote to acquit or convict.
12
For some reason the left and msm equate long term employment by the Federal Government as patriotic loyalty.
These “professionals” are just as corrupt as anyone else and will do whatever they can, including lying, to protect their turf.
President Trumps declaration to drain the swamp put this corruption into overdrive.
8
@John Gilday --Please show us your proof.
70
Given the multiple fronts on which Trump fails, from being Individual #1, to obstructing justice in the Mueller probe (according to the Stone verdict), to lying incessantly, to trading national interests for personal political conniving, we can be forgiven if the Ukraine Caper (which pushed an unlikely impeachment inquiry over the line to highly likely impeachment in the House) has taken center stage.
In a way, Mr. Douthat makes the case for changing this president out for a new one as soon as possible (even if that means we have to wait a year). Issues that should get our full attention simply cannot and will not as long as this charlatan lives in the White House.
14
No surprise. Professionalism is about morality. How could Trump like it.
13
That's rich--a right wing pundit clutching his pearls over his party's leader attacking government professionals. You may remember that the sainted Ronald Reagan's great laugh line was the contemptible slander "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'". How on Earth did Douthat think this was going to end?
19
You state"fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses" about Obama. That sounds like you think that there were, at least some, ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses. I would like to know what those are, if any.
50
Do Republicans remember Ronald Reagan. What a differance a generation makes. ... “What a difference a generation makes.” by banicki https://link.medium.com/fPZHTyxkH1
If Trump had a coherent foreign policy that differed from the consensus of the experts, based on a principled and reasoned critique, there might be room for rational argument. As it is, Trump is incoherently undermining US interests throughout the world based on his personal interests and his capricious, reactive whims. And many of his actions, whether intentionally or not, seem to work to Russia’s benefit.
39
Groups of Americans have asked "why does America have to be the world's policeman?" What Douthat left out in comparing Obama to Trump is the absolute mess W. Bush made of the Middle East and our relationship with Russia. Sadly Obama was not as swift as was H. Clinton when it came to Russia but Obama and Trump had both different motives and different circumstances to face.
7
POTUS will be re-elected because:
A. When the snow melts and the levees and dams have not been repaired or replaced and when much of America will be flooded, then the folks who are suffering will rightfully blame Congress.
B. When people of color realize that their lives have been measurably enhanced during his administration they will not gamble on a change.
C. When much of the electorate appreciates that we are a safer country, they will not take a chance on a new, unproven and ultra liberal new government.
D. When those huge corporations and financial institutions that employ the bulk of our workers see the threat of a socialized administration and congress they will collectively do everything possible to keep the status quo.
E. When the electorate also negatively reacts to the impeachment hearings that have stultified the vital programs that await congressional action.
Bottom Line for the voters: Don't make changes that will affect "pocketbook issues" and keep the "beast" we know instead of a "beast" we don't know, no matter what is promised!.
2
My observation is that the experts are wrong about as much as they are right. Their track record is far from 100%
4
@wes evans Even if true, Wes, hardly germane to the issue before the House.
10
Mr. Douthat,
I quote you: "Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.".
Would you mind listing ONE of President Obama's ludicrous and impeachable tweets of the supposed ones that are less frequent than the moron we have currently in office?
52
Others have already pointed out RD's false equivalency and combining of policy questions likely unknown to the ignorant Trump with his corrupt withholding of aid. I'd add three points.
If the country and Congress didn't favor support for Ukraine, why is it that fewer than two dozen lawmakers opposed the bill in 2014?
As for Macron, his doubts about NATO arise both from the historic French distrust of the US and Britain dating back to Degaulle and his very reasonable doubts about whether he can trust America in the age of Trump to respond to an attack on Europe.
Finally, if Trump's goal was top fight corruption, why do it secretly through a back channel rather than by tweet, as that is how Trump does all other "policy" work.
16
Corruption. I met a dark skinned Eritrean man and chatted as we walked the same direction in the park. He told me that he disliked living in Kenya because the police used racial profiling, for money. If you were white, German or American, police didn't bother you, but if you were a dark skinned African, they would stop and ask for your papers, and threaten to take you in unless you bribed them.
I live in Rural MD and have been stopped by police for minor speeding and usually get a warning, while if you were from the city, or out of state they would give a ticket. Human Nature at work I suppose, but in each case it is petty corruption.
Our place in the world is preeminent because the US, EU and the several "Western" nations maintain an integrity that tries to eliminate both that petty corruption and state corruption, still rampant in Russia previous Soviet states. Fighting corruption, racism and Xenophobia is an uphill struggle, but also defines Western Civilization, that I believe is the pinnacle of human organization at this time. We cannot give up the fight against corrupt influence by Neo-Aristocrats, above the law; as Lincoln spoke: "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
17
Trying to align Obama's policy with Trump is typical of Republican apologists these days. Trump's behavior isn't the problem, Joe Biden's is. Rudy Giuliani, an unpaid, unvetted grifter with money problems isn't the problem, it's the whistleblower making "accusations". Trumps' friends that have been convicted (6 and counting) for secret back channel double dealings aren't the problem, hearings in the basement with both sides present are.
Someday I fully expect to hear the Kennedy brothers (John, Robert and Teddy), as well as John Kerry, Robert Mueller and Al Gore didn't serve in the armed forces, but Trump, Stone, Manafort, Papadopoulos, Don Jr, Eric and Jared did.
Perhaps a gig as Tucker's substitute is in order.
22
None of this matters.
Perception is managed by President Murdoch and Vice President Hannity.
Perception is king.
16
When Trump's erratic and dangerous tweets propagated in the early hours of the morning without the advice of a team of seasoned advisors are considered to be his foreign policy, the country is in serious peril. Words matter. Mr. Douthat gives undue credit to an unstable and ignorant president whose simplistic words baffle leaders of every nation of the world and determine their postures regarding the U.S, both adversaries and allies alike. Just call it like it is. He is inept and dangerous without the constraints of the generals and intelligence experts in real and coherent foreign policy.
17
As long as serious conservatives try to bring whatever failings a Democrat has while discussing Trump should not be taken seriously. We are talking of cancer vs fever level disparity.
15
This column, while well written, is smoke and mirrors. There may be policy issues at stake, but they have nothing to do with the impeachable offenses that a Trump has committed. Attempting to have a foreign power target a political rival while withholding military aide. Obstructing congressional inquiry. Etc.
The problem is one of cowardice by administration officials and Congressional Republicans.
Mr. Douthat, you must speak clearly and simply about the problem and it is Trump. You this far, along with other conservatives, have failed to do so. It is cowardice.
22
What nonsense.
Your argument is the kind every guilty person's lawyer uses ('yes, your honor, my client committed a crime, but is a first rate guy, loves his mother, and really takes on the establishment.').
The acts of Trump, errors of commission, are separate from the deep state-shallow state divide.
Trump's actions directed at gaining personal political advantage by bribing a foreign government is completely independent of divisions about foreign policy (deep staters want to promote democracy, others are indifferent).
That divide exists independently of Trump; they do not render his actions benign, nor reduce their malignancy or criminality.
18
Donald Trump is running up against some very devoted and patriotic civil servants.
There are good reasons why the American people demand that government employees, whether in high office, or low, keep meticulous records. The main reasons being that governments are too powerful to be trusted, and so that government cannot be bent to serve government itself, nor any individual, instead of the people.
Trump will not accept that working in government is a higher service and that democracy requires that the workings of government be recorded and open to scrutiny. Instead, Donald Trump has withheld documents and shut every window in to his "civil service." His obstruction and misuse of the Justice Department is corrupt and dangerous to the nation And Trump has stated that as president he can do anything he wants, while his complicit Attorney General, Bill Barr, blocks the only organization in the world capable of competently investigating and prosecuting Trump's convoluted criminal conduct.
They are going to fall, because there are still civil servants in the Justice Department, who have kept meticulous records and who understand that the 240 year old American democratic experiment is in danger.
And those true civil servants will serve the vast majority of Americans who will not abide anyone being above the law, nor having an American king.
170
Ross is right. The USA has been over-reaching in foreign policy since the successful conclusion of the Marshall Plan sometime in the mid-1950s. We have tried to do things because we thought we could, and we were wrong on the facts. Not too bad on the goals, maybe, but wrong on the facts.
One of the multitude of lessons that should be learned from Ross's piece here is about the impeachment. By (apparently) limiting the grounds for impeachment to Trump's attempt to blackmail the Ukrainian government, the House Democrats are voluntarily giving up the chance to formally charge and factually show just how bad a President is Donald Trump, to anger more citizens and to drive that wooden stake into Trump and all his ilk. Few folks outside the Beltway are likely to have blood pressure problems from this tempest in a teapot of "who cares" and "so what" and "everybody does it." It needs to be driven home just how harmful, and similarly impeachable, have been Trump's actions at home. Otherwise, as Liz Drew says elsewhere in today's NYT, few of us and fewer of our descendants will care.
57
Good heavens, the lengths ‘conservatives’ are going to these days to avoid a reckoning with the plain facts. In this case “a deep dive” without ever bothering to weigh in unequivocally and unmistakably. Sleight of hand, reminiscent of those Republicans who turned on a dime in January 2008 to rebrand themselves as the “Tea Party” in order to evade any sense of responsibility for what they had fully supported during the W years.
Oh, Ross....
10
I disagree with the view of Trump as some kind of Svengali who has mesmerized an otherwise levelheaded and patriotic Republican party to follow him blindly.
Trump is the exact president that what’s left of the Republican party wanted. He’s like a perfectly formed piece to complete a very nasty jigsaw puzzle.
Trump didn’t massively disfranchise Black and other Democratic voters in several states. Trump didn’t steal a Supreme Court seat from Obama. Trump didn’t make up the stories that Obama wasn’t a citizen, or that it was really Ukraine that disrupted the 2016 election, or that Hilary Clinton was a criminal; he just appropriated them.
The Republican Party is in decline and their actions are acts of desperation.
All this hoohah about a split in Democratic politics is misguided; instead what we are seeing is the beginning of a new two-party system, progressive Dems vs. center-left Dems. In a few years the Republicans will join the Liberals and the Greens as not much more than an annoyance.
87
@Al Luongo
Your analysis is interesting, but doesn't account for the Deep South and rural midwest -- with their something like 45% of electoral votes. These (many) states won't be having the "progressive Dems vs. center-left Dems" debates anytime soon.
9
Russophobia is also present in Mitt Romney. And many others . Maybe that will convince you that is is a real problem . After all, Mitt is a Conservative Republican.
2
To describe those faithful to the oath they took to uphold our Constitution as "Deep State" is wrong. The actual deep state are those who bury deception and crime under the muck of executive privilege, and out right contempt of courts and Congress.
And the muck doesn't get any deeper and dirtier than Trump's lawyers, who are up to their necks in it in the White House basement.
113
@rich Or, one might suspect an outside lawyer with no security clearance, being in charge of the country's foreign policy while reporting in the shadows to an imperial presidency, might just be about as deep state as can be!
22
OK, so the current occupant of the Oval Office may be bad for humanity, but every other leader in the last 10 years was his enabler? Gotta shift the blame somewhere, I guess.
7
I see Ross Douthat is still unwilling to acknowledge that Trump richly deserves impeachment. Theater of the absurd, my foot.
11
if this were written by someone who knew something about foreign policy it might be interesting.
7
I think the Republican party and it's apologists are becoming Russia's Hezbollah.
11
Ross says:"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses." Dont remember any "ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses" by Obama. Trying to draw some equivalence between Obama and Trump's action is what is ludicrous.
17
Don't hear much about caravans these days. Ditto for stabbing the Kurds in the back. Separating children from parents at the border is on the backburner. You have to wonder in the coming weeks, what fresh undiscovered scandal will replace Ukraine on the front pages?
3
Sorry, but I cannot support or agree with the premise of this column. We are better than this, you sell us short.
8
South at writes that “Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.” Fewer? Really?
9
"...fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses" you say regarding Barack Obama.
Try: zero tweets and zero impeachable offenses. But, I understand you just can't stand not taking a gratuitous, baseless jab. Now that I think about it, you're an awful lot like Donald Trump! And, I well remember how enthusiastic you were at the start of Trump's presidency about Ivanka Trump someday being our first woman president. I guess you're not such a 'never Trumper' after all.
The purpose of our foreign policy 'blob' is to get nations on board with a modern way of relating to each other that includes more diplomacy and fewer weapons. That we fail to be successful at that mission is largely due to weak minded presidents like George W. Bush who believe WMDs are all over Iraq because Dick Cheney says so.
We have a Military Industrial Complex that's always itching for a fight so it can get more money for more weapons. But, even Jim Mattis understands the value of our State Department--more talk means fewer bullets. Plain and simple.
We're supposed to lead the way by showing the world how an honest, transparent, non-corrupt, democratic nation functions. We no longer have any credibility because we have a corrupt president engaging in corruption all day, every day.
So, in an odd way I agree with you. Maybe we should just shut down our embassies everywhere, pick up our chips and come home. After Trump, we're just a laughingstock anyway.
9
R Douthat just can not let go of the "Whadda' 'bout Obama" defense. This time by raising an unrelated policy question about Ukraine. At issue before the House Intelligence Committee is the likelyhood DJT abused the power of the Presidency in pursuit of private gain. R Douthat acknowledges this simple point but old habits die hard and by the last paragraph has returned to "Whadda' 'bout Obama" at twice the frequency of his comments about DJT's attempts at bribery and obstruction.
8
Hey, Ross, I think you forgot to mention that the military aid was approved in 2018, when Congress was controlled by the Republicans. Then the Administration told Congress in February and again in May of 2019 that the aid was going to be released. I guess there were many Republicans in Congress and the Administration who agreed with the professionals.
9
Gosh, thanks for thinking about us little people. Judging from the impeachment process (no pun intended) you would think the ultimate fate of over 300,000,000 citizens was not as important as the careers of professional deep thinkers. It’s really time WDC starts acting for and doing things for those who foot the bill. Past time. Maybe because Trump blunders around asking stupid questions such as “why are we doing this” with no real good answer a significant number of people like that.
2
IT is great that Trump is shrinking the State Dept to zero employees. This is the goal of people like Ross, movement conservatives. Government so small we can drown it in a bathtub. Ross must be so happy. MAGA.
You claim, falsely, that president Obama committed “fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.” Fewer? Try none.
11
Dems "newfound russophobia"?
How does this person continue to gain column inches in legitimate outlets?
It is one matter to support one's side (instead of one's nation)
It is another matter to employ such blatant dishonesty
9
A surprisingly perceptive article by Mr. Douthat.
Back in the days of Ronald Reagan, many people believed that the risk of nuclear war could best be reduced by drawing the United States and Russia closer to each other economically and culturally. This has largely happened. The world is safer as a result.
Against this, there has always been a pro-war faction in the U.S. government. Partly in the bureaucracy, but also amongst the many elected officials who profit from the arms industry. They have the same relationship to foreign policy that evangelicals have to religion. They cause harm to America in much the same ways.
It’s not entirely bad for U.S. foreign policy to be driven by “what’s good for Donald Trump”. If this principle had been followed consistently by past U.S. Administrations, many futile wars would have been avoided.
1
"Newfound Russophobia"? Given annexation of Crimea and ensuing war in Ukraine, a country now blamed by Trump for 2016 election meddling. Trump's antics ALWAYS help Putin come out on top. Remember Syria like it was yesterday or even today? There is plenty cause for fear. For those who glimpsed Soviet style hegemony Trump's complicity is a helluva nightmare.
11
“Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.”
I don’t know of ANY ludicrous tweets or impeachable offences committed by Barack Obama.
18
"... with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Ross, stop making ludicrous comments like that one. Obama committed NO impeachable offenses, and tweeted no ludicrous tweets, either. Stop with the false comparisons. There are virtually no similarities between Obama and Trump other than the fact that they are both men.
17
Same song, different verse from Ross: too bad Trump is a jerk because that anti "elite" thing is where it's at!
Of course if he really believed that, he'd stop writing his column and turn it over to the nearest random pwrson with no experience or knowledge in his field (whatever it is).
3
Douthat Quote: “Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.” What kind of irresponsible statement is this?? What tweet did Obama ever make during his 8 years?? And what impeachable offenses pray tell did Obama ever commit? What evidence are you relying on that Obama waged the same war as Trump with “fewer” tweets and impeachable offenses? Or are you just tossing out a loaded statement implying that Obama did the same things as Trump, just in a more “civilized” way? It’s precisely this kind of loose language that conservatives peddle daily that leads to a culture where no one can believe anything as “truth” anymore. Your credibility died with this line.
18
“Obama fought...with fewer impeachable offenses”
Mr. Douthat, would you please name them? You can add to the following list:
1. Wore a tan suit
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
19
The president will throw anyone, even his own family I suspect, under the bus if they dare to question him or criticize him. Sadly this boorish behavior no longer shocks us.
But to watch the republicans on this committee trash the testimony of these people who have spent their adult lives serving their country is sickening.
12
The professionals were attempting to carry out this administration’s declared policies on this issue and many other issues. These are policies that the president’s hand-picked advisers crafted and that the president either explicitly or implicitly approved. It may seem obvious and to ‘go without saying’ to reporters, but the most damning and disqualifying thing this president does is to undermine or even directly attack those declared US interests, which the current administration says still stand. If the declared policies are what his voters hoped for, then he’s betraying those voters by undermining the policies they hired him to enact and execute. Who, then, does he serve? Himself. This can’t be allowed to continue or the US will be just another kleptocracy.
7
“The Democrats did it first...”
Conservative ideologues mantra circa 2019
5
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Oops! Try with zero ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.
Looks like your Conservative prejudices showed up.
13
Fewer tweets Mr. Douthat get real. Obama didn;t tweet at all.
8
I find this essay utterly too facile.
Mr. Trump is neither defending nor attacking a “position” of the professionals on Ukraine.
He is, as he always is, on the lookout in the Ukraine for a way that he can help himself, and the professionals simply got in the way.
To turn this into a debate over “Russian irredentism” is altogether too absurd.
To bring in the usual conservative Obama-hatred is altogether too predictable.
Really? Exonerate Trump because he is a forward thinking global strategist outwitting the slow-footed Foreign Service?
Gee, Ross, when will Mr. Trump’s new vision appear in his article for Foreign Affairs?
Oh, sorry, Rudy is writing that for him....
8
In an otherwise thoughtful article about US foreign policy the author cannot resist a cheap shot at Obama.
“Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with FEWER ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.”
Fewer? The word should be ‘NO’ I am sure the author has sufficient knowledge of the English language to know the difference in meaning of the two words.
11
This column is like excusing the person that torches his house because the house needs a remodel anyway.
9
Ross, forget Ukraine. Nothing more than a sideshow that will disappear in a few years.
Here's the question for your party, the Republicans. What on god's green earth could motivate 40% of your party to vote for the buffoon that currently occupies the Oval Office?
I recall your columns from the 2015-16 saying, well, you can kind of understand why folks support Trump. They have lots of grievances.
Well, no, they have one grievance, Black and Brown people!
Best you spend your columns between now and next year's election making this point so we don't end up with the same bigoted xenophobe as president.
9
Please republicans buy Jim Jordan a suit and tie.
3
The first three paragraphs here are dead on target — but then the column morphs into a masterpiece of obfuscation.
3
The tacky signs behind the Republicans in the committee are pathetic and add to the circus they make us endure to defend a corrupt president. The fear of losing power and privilege makes them sacrifice decency without any remorse.
8
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Name ONE impeachable offense by President Obama. Cite ONE ludicrous tweet by President Obama.
"Fewer!!!!???" I hope that is just hasty typing MR. Douthat.
11
Mr. Douthat:
If it's Trump vs. the professionals, then the comments about other thoughts on geo-political strategies are for another column.
The argument about extending or retreating from being the world's cop is certainly a good one.
However, Trump's behavior in this case is about nothing but his own interests, and not the United States. If there were an intellectual discussion in the Senate about not providing the Ukraine with defense funds, I didn't hear it.
I also never heard State or Defense make your argument. You are setting up a straw argument when all we should be concerned about is Trump's behavior, and for that he should be found guilty.
8
Come'n Ross.
Obama "fought the war with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses?"
Give us a break.
Or at least have the grace and honesty to back up your pusillanimous canard,
8
A hostile appropriation of a sovereign nation is "Russiaphobia?"
5
Did Giuliani try to take over the Ukrainian gas sector? Will Trump make him the fall guy?
What does Obama have to do with it? Ans: Nothing.
Is Trump morally reprehensible?
Is the Pope Catholic?
9
Obama fought with "fewer ludicrous tweets," you say. How many ludicrous tweets did Obama write? Quote a few. Quote some of the fewer than multi-thousands sent by Trump. Obama wrote what? 950 ludicrous tweets? Nothing more reveals your rightwing hatred of the man unless it is your consistent trashing of Pope Francis.
9
Yeah Putin is a real good guy and a true American friend. He is in fact the most evil and dangerous man in the world and Trump is his puppet.
9
You can't be "friends" with Russia. Murderers and liars like Putin don't have friends, they don't have the internal moral fortitude to feel friendship. They manipulate, and our naive, ignorant, and gullible President is a perfect target. Along with people like Douthat, who believe they are Republicans but are not, who believe they are Christians but are not.
8
More appropriate headline: Trump Against the Grown-ups.
5
Whatever Douthat alleges it doesn’t change the fact the Obama never placed his personal or electoral prospects ahead of national security interests or well defined and articulated public policy.
In addition can we all agree that Russia is the third world country with an economy the size of Texas? It’s time we bury them once and for all using economic, political, cyber and yes Strategic military interventions. Get them off the world stage so that we can focus on China which is truly our existential threat.
88
I mostly agree with your sentiments. The only problem is that Russia has, oh, a nuclear arsenal that could destroy the world many times over. We do have to tread very carefully in our dealings with Russia — because they are cornered economically and ruled by a little authoritarian with a very outsized ego; i.e. a dangerous mixture.
16
Donald Trump has the mindset of a crook that is quick to recognize a mark and put on the squeeze. Ukraine and its president being the mark. Trump is also an ego centered authoritarian who feel kinship with the dictators of the world in particular Putin and would love to take this country into a phone democracy like Russia's. He probably also feels he owes Putin a debt for his help in his election and has tried in several ways to pay back this debt. (Giving up Syria to Russian influence is just the most recent example). But the Russians were caught in their election meddling. There is a bi-party concensus in the dangers of Russia and I believe it is the politics of the situation only that prevents Trump from more fully paying off the debt he owes Putin. This in not really about differing foreign policy philosophies but about the mind set of someone (Trump) who truly thinks like a criminal.
8
Journalist Douthat's column is timely and forces one to sit back and ponder America's lack of a cohesive and effectual foreign policy.
"Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
The majority of US citizens live a cloistered life. More so if they reside in the heartland. It's up to the administration, in this case Trump's, to provide a vision as to what government's social and political focus will be while in office.
His administration is approaching the 3 yr mark and I haven't heard Trump communicate a positive, cohesive vision for the future of our country.
His tools are his ability to craft and communicate a cohesive plan and for foreign policy, he has Dept. of State professionals to help achieve his agenda. This can't be done by tweets and most certainly it can't be done by "gut.” Trump, without doubt, has done a terrible job.
Trump's behavior focuses on satiating his ego and increasing his personal wealth. It’s unfortunate that his view of the world is so narrow minded and self-centered he can't accept or abide by any policy that doesn't place him at the center of the universe. Furthermore, his lack of experience with statecraft and his treatment of Dept. of State professionals does our country a terrible disservice.
He must be impeached and removed from office.
7
If the American people really support Appeasement, pandering and capitulation to Russian ambitions- then Trump should come out of his Putin-ophilia and state his views. He must explain why it is in US national security interests to have Syria & Russia kill of the Kurds & release Isis prisoners, why it is best to unravel NATO alliances, why letting Russia invade Ukraine and flood social media with looney disinformation, send Butina, Manafort, Rudy, Firtash et al on a wild ride toward lifting US sanctions against a crippled Russian economy so EXXON can renew it's plan to joint venture into Arctic drilling.
Then a rational American patriot- probably a Democrat of moderate true Reagan Republican can explain why these policies are bunk.
6
Douthat picks an interesting historical moment to argue that Russia is not a threat to the United States and democracy around the world. Of course he doesn’t put it in quite those words. He asks whether America can afford international “commitments” etc. But to use his own rhetorical construct, that’s exactly the dispute lingering under the details of Trump’s bullying of a country Russia would like to see America bully. Douthat should just come right out and argue for letting Russia expand the influence of oligarchs and fascist dictatorship. It would be more honest.
4
After the fall of the Soviet, America and NATO, was temporary in control. It was a time of unipolar power, the “end of history “. The model of liberal democracy and free markets should just be spread to the rest of the world. EU should be pushed to the border of Russia. The rise of China should not be feared, as they prospered a middle class would emerge and they would push for democracy. IMFs shock therapy to post-Soviet economy and support of Jeltsin undermined a transition to democracy in Russia .In the Middle East Iraq was supposed be a new democracy showing the way for the rest of the region, however the many costly wars and social engineering projects has benefitted few. USA has spread liberal democracy ideology including human rights, while at the same time leading a war against terror where torture and mass surveillance was eagerly used.
The militant spread of liberal democracy has been is a very expensive failure. Both parties are equally responsible.
The world needs US to contain or balance China. Obama’s TPP was an attempt to do that.
Trump is right that the endless wars are a waste and that China is a bigger threat than Syria, however Trump is not the answer. Trump is using internal division as a tool, he is destroying the common resources and government institutions, the Ukraine case is just the straw that broke the camel’s back
3
What the American diplomats are trying to preserve in Ukraine, and elsewhere, is the self-evident truth that all persons have the right to life, liberty, & happiness; that each and every person is equal under the rule of law. Those ideals are what "the professionals" are risking their lives to uphold in our embassies around the world!
Republicans apparently no longer believe in the Declaration's bedrock ideal of America; and prefer to support untruths, thugs, kleptocrats, and those like Trump who prefer "backchannels," bribery, tax dodges, extortion, multiple felonies, and raw power plays to anything approaching meeting the ideals of our democratic republic. As his tweets and pardons show us, Trump does not believe in American ideals, nor even respect our American judicial system or our American military, much less Congress! (Republicans voted for the aid to Ukraine that he illegally held up!)
The GOP's new motto is clearly "might makes right." They should all be ashamed of themselves for supporting this anti-American president; but could just yet redeem themselves by removing him from office and apologizing to their constituents for not being better leaders, leaders in the pattern of Senator McCain who stopped HIS constituents from lies and slanders about his opponent, President Obama, instead of working in foreign countries to dig up "dirt" on them. Do your jobs and uphold The Constitution and the rule of law. Counter the Fox lying machine now.
E Pluribus Unum.
7
I'm thinking all (most) of the trouble in the world, at least involving the U.S., is based on the Oil and Gas guys causing trouble, buying politicians, playing with (buying) truth in the media. Russia is an Oil and Gas economy, people borrowed money from them, and are now in debt to the Russians.
The Oil and Gas guys (billionaires and oligarchs) in the world, are best friends with each other, and bond together to achieve their common goals, which do not include clean air, water, viable economies (for the common folk), public education, and truth in politics or the media.
4
Oh, so "Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Please provide a list of Obama's "ludicrous tweets" and "impeachable offenses," so that we can compare them with Trump's.
Ye gods, Ross, can't you get through ONE column without casting some kind of shade at the Democrats?
7
Putin is clearly a bad state actor. Trying as mightily as can to extend his influence over not only Ukraine, but Syria, Iran and buddying up with China. He's making hay now in Turkey as well. Putin's moves are a diversion for the Russian people as they begin to confront a dyer problem caused by a one commodity economic system, oil, and climate change. In 50 years $100,000,000,000,000(that's 100 trillion) in fossil fuel assets will be at risk. Putin like Trump does not give a hoot for his countries people. He's the head gangster of a mafia like led government. Trump wants to emulate him. Fortunately for us Trump is ignorant and obsessed with himself and will go down in flames soon, I hope.
4
FEWER ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses from Obama? Really? That implies that you think Obama put out SOME or at least ONE ludicrous tweet, and that he committed at least ONE impeachable offense.
Please do specify in detail, Ross, now that you have clearly and publicly implied that Obama committed at least one impeachable offense. What was it, exactly?
And which of his tweets was ludicrous?
Go ahead; we're waiting.
10
Once again, Douthat attempts to elide, dismiss or fog the enormous differences between the behavior of previous Presidents and their administrations and those of Trump. Obama had the same skepticism as Trump, albeit with "fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Seriously? "Fewer"? As if "impeachable offenses" were just a detail that could be set aside in favor of Douthat's supposedly larger point? This President is a solipsistic crook, to his core. Any attempt to justify his skepticism of our Ukraine policy as being founded on anything other than a rapacious, all-consuming self-interest is a joke. This Emperor has no clothes, period.
9
Douthat is correct about the two themes in the testimony; so are Douthat's critics in saying here that regardless of what one thinks of the foreign policy issue, Trump sought to bribe Ukraine into his enabling a smear campaign against Biden.
This is a third issue surfaced in the testimony of experienced diplomats but largely ignored in the public discussion of the Ukraine caper. That issue is the simultaneous existence of two Trump administration foreign policies toward Ukraine.
A) the official story, duly authorized by the White House and supported by Congress, that the U.S. supports Ukraine's independence and territorial integrity against Russian military aggression in Ukraine's Donbass region and
B) the off the books foreign policy, also authorized by the President,led by Rudy Giuliani, indicted associates and enabled by Mick Mulvaney and, apparently, Mike Pompeo.\
At any moment Trump could have told Pompeo to instruct the State Department and our Embassy in Kyiv that Trump had terminated the old policy and replaced it with a new one, meant to get Ukraine to do the President's political bidding.
My point is not about impeachment but about the impossibility of carrying out two contrary policies at once. Diplomats were required to follow the never rescinded.instructions. Running opposed policies down the same track was a recipe for a train wreck, proof not only of venality but incompetence.
9
The column fails when it says “All the people testifying believe that propping up Ukrainian democracy and supporting Kiev’s struggle against Russian irredentism is an essential goal for U.S. foreign policy. All of them believe that Trump’s behavior wasn’t just wrong because it turned U.S. aid to partisan ends, but also because it undermined a vital policy objective that any patriotic American ought to share.”
The legislative and executive branches all agree propping up Ukrainian democracy against Russia is an essential goal. The writer’s premise is that those testifying are outliers because they support Ukraine and others do not. That’s untrue. Even Trump has signed legislation supporting Ukraine. The problem isn’t a disagreement over policy. The problem is that the big orange baby lacks the ability to put any interest ahead of his self-interests. That’s why he needs to be out of office. He lacks the self-control to perform a fiduciary duty for anyone but himself.
16
Spot on.
3
Good article, and on the mark. How much do we really want to expand and defend our "interests" overseas. I've always been a sceptic of our military expansion, being a child of the Cold War and Vietnam eras, and so a real discussion of foreign policy is welcome. But, of course, the whole Trump/Ukraine mess is anything but. When it really gets down to a discussion based in reality, the Dems and the R's will basically agree on the old model, and we'll keep propping up dictators and giving lots of arms to everybody. Unless we vote in some real reformers, but I ain't holding my breath.
1
"However, the president’s defenders are right about this much: If you listened to the testimony from the witnesses this week, you could sense submerged beneath the critique of Trump’s specific actions a larger policy worldview, one not so much argued for as simply assumed. All the people testifying believe that propping up Ukrainian democracy and supporting Kiev’s struggle against Russian irredentism is an essential goal for U.S. foreign policy. All of them believe that Trump’s behavior wasn’t just wrong because it turned U.S. aid to partisan ends, but also because it undermined a vital policy objective that any patriotic American ought to share."
I believe it is an accepted tenet of international law that nations should not occupy any part of another sovereign country by force. Beyond that, such incursions, whether ultimately successful or not, foster instability. Few times in modern history has geopolitical stability been so necessary as now, when climatic instability burgeons.
We certainly need to debate the policies to follow in the post-Cold-War era. But I doubt that pulling back from the commitments of that era has much to recommend it.
4
While I easily understand the disadvantage Trump has put conservative columnists in with his actions of late, I see no reason for Douthat or his fellow conservatives to resurrect Obama's policies and failures as he sees them. Obama is no longer in office. While Trump works as diligently as his narcissism will allow him to undo as much of Obama's policies and regulations as he can, more out of spite than wisdom and consultation with wise advisors, Trump is the president and he sets his policies. And we are now being provided ample evidence of just how unfit for office this man is. His impeachment will proceed regardless of Pres. Obama's policies or Pres. Clinton's policies or Pres. Bush;s policies. It's evident that you, Ross, and David Brooks and Bret Stephens recognize the malfeasance of this president.
Whether the Senate votes to convict is sadly unconnected to this president's guilt and contempt for our Constitution and our laws. And we are now seeing the damage that Leader McConnell did to our nation by refusing hearings on the nomination of Judge Garland. While Chief Justice Roberts heads the trial itself, will he be able to judge independently from the majority rightwing justices?
12
Thoughtful article but I have a problem with the premise. None of Trump’s foreign policy staff including his personal political appointees ever mentioned any doubts regarding our policy towards Ukraine. In fact our policy would have continued without any pause for reflection provided the requested “favors” were performed. What we are seeing is the rationale invented after the fact by the president’s supporters to justify their decision not to support impeachment. A decision made before the facts are known and indeed despite the facts, otherwise they would demand that Bolton and others with direct knowledge testify.
12
And these same people decry the democratic lead impeachment hearings for only supplying hearsay and 2nd and even 3rd hand information, while at the same time disallowing those players with 1st hand information to testify under oath.
7
I've been distressed by the sudden adulation of State Department business as usual, when their policies have created dangerous situations that Donald Trump and this nation now has to deal with: Iran, which supposedly was going to wait 15 years to develop nuclear weaponry, which now is shown to have had no intention of waiting, and also feels aggrieved about not having been given as much money as they feel they were promised to promote terrorism from Iraq to the Mediterranean. Years and years of begging North Korea to sit down and talk, while they steadily violated agreements produced by those talks and got more and better weaponry and rockets. Why am I suddenly being asked to miss the good old days of foreign policy that kowtows to dangerous adversaries and meets their grievances by throwing American taxpayer money at them? And have we forgotten the lower level official at one of the Middle Eastern embassies who said they were expected to approve VISAs at the rate of one every three minutes? Do I miss this utter disregard of American safety just because there have been really very few incidents of dead Americans resulting, and not one good sized suicide bombing? So yes, I don't miss the good old days of foreign policy, and while I am sure most of the staff just did as they were told, the State Department owes all of us some promise to rethink their old policies.
1
Iran was in-line with the treaty until Chump pulled us out. Now, Iran has started uranium enrichment processes again. This is what you wanted? I’d recommend you rethink your “get rid of the old foreign policies,” before we are left standing all by ourselves against more enemies with nuclear weapons.
4
The issue with this article, as with any article that includes any mention of Trump, is that it distracts from the core issue. Be it now or later, Trump will be gone. The schism between America’s foreign policy as practiced by its professionals and as desired by its populace will continue to endure.
2
I think this is one of the best pieces I have read by this writer, with whom I mostly disagree. With careful reading one discerns he is not making the argument that underlying political schisms in how we should conduct US foreign policy should be any kind of "excuse" not to proceed with impeachment.
He is pointing out that those serious and important schisms will continue to exist, and affect our politics, long after the current political moment passes. (And as they did before it arose- thus contributing to the current moment).
1
As long as Russia is the land of murder and oligarchs and land grabs, I don't see how it is any different from the other "strong men" Trump loves. So is Trump's stature as a fan boy of authoritarians a policy or a character flaw? I would argue its a character flaw because Trump is pretty shallow when it comes to the thinking department. His reasoning pretty much stops at "how does this benefit me?". I think Mr. Douthat makes a mistake attributing Trump with advancing some "disengagement" policy that has substantial traction. It may be that Macron's view is a legitimate policy that departs from traditional American strategy. But it doesn't involve bribing a foreign power to influence American elections. Douthat is wrong to give Trump the benefit of the doubt in this matter. So much corruption cannot be hidden under a rug of "new policy".
7
Yet another strange defense: Mr. Douthat acknowledges that Trump abused his office for personal political gain, but argues that the more important issue is the correctness of our policy supporting Ukraine. Taken alone, one can fairly raise that question. But to raise it when discussing Trump’s conduct is to engage in Trump-like slight of hand.
Moreover, Our policy toward Ukraine does not arise only from the “foreign policy establishment,” regardless of how that imprecise term may be defined. It is the formal policy of this Administration and is supported by the GOP Senate. Whether or not you agree with it, it is currently America’s foreign policy. And Trump undercut America’s foreign policy, not because he wanted to press for a different policy, but for personal gain.
13
Trumps super-armed, don't-tread-on-me, fortress-America, is hardly welcoming of non-intervention and international harmony. It is a warning to the world that: we've bombed a lot before, in many places, and have no hesitation to bomb a lot in the future, if displeased.
If Mr Douthat is right, I wish that the Republican peacenicks would come out of the closet, and help dispose of Mr Trump, who has no inclination to to do anything more complicated than sanction and bomb.
3
Granted that Obama's approach to deal with the Ukraine issue, even slightly comparing to what Trump tried to do seems like a partisan view.
Obama did not personally benefit from his foreign policy. He did not break any laws.
Trump was asking for personal favors and broke the law while doing so.
Why is it that even moderate Republicans like Mr. Dought fail to understand this simple fact?
11
The problem here, I'm afraid, is that Mr. Douthat essentially muddies the issue Trump's self-serving political quid pro quo with the larger issue of security strategy.
In fact, these are distinct issues. While reasonable people can disagree with how to best conceptualize a foreign policy, there should really be no dispute among reasonable people whether a president should withhold aide (at that point, the strategy BEHIND the aide is irrelevant) and attempting to gin up a phony investigation against a political opponent.
One interesting point that to my knowledge nobody has brought up is why the Justice Dept. itself did not investigate Biden if there were probably cause to do so. The obvious answer is that Justice's "investigation" simply would be perceived as what it would have been in reality -- a political smear job.
5
Ross, your defense of Republican talking points is filled with holes. "His policy differed only". The policy you label as the policy of the "bureaucrats" was based on a bipartisan bill to aid Ukraine in a fight for survival against a Russian invader. The people testifying were supporting as their job requires this bipartisan direction. I doubt there is support for Ross that a great many people don't share the view that America's and the west's vital interests justify support for Ukraine especially under this new president.
Any person following world events that doubts that America and the West are under attack by Russia and China is sadly misinformed. Trump having killed Obama's Trans Pacific Partnership that would have substantially formed an barrier to China's threat to all those bordering the S. China Sea and beyond is also clearly a supporter of Putin's challenge to the West using both military intervention in the Middle East in Syria and aligned with Iran and now with Erdogan. (Beware of the linkage of sons in law of would be autocrats.)
Yes we must always be on guard about over reach, but our best defense is in strong alliances with strong Democratic countries especially our European Allies supporting our NATO agreements. America first cannot be America alone. An alliance with autocrats and despots should not define U.S. policy.
9
Lots of words, but very few insights into how Americans think about Ukraine or any other country.
Why don't you do this: find a county, any county, that voted for Donald Trump by a reasonably persuasive margin. Show any five Trump voters in that county a map, and if even one of them can identify where Ukraine is, and what our current policy toward them is, then you can credibly opine on how Americans feel about established foreign policy objectives of the United States.
16
Mr. Douthat states, "Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses." I'm certain that this is meant to be more arch than a statement of fact, but if nothing else it serves as a stark reminder of what we had, and what we have now, and how unbelievably depressing that comparison is to contemplate...as is the very real prospect that this train wreck of a presidency could very possibly continue for four more years.
15
Mr Douthat clearly does not understand how our system works.
Mr. Trump is the boss. He can, in one moment, put a Kurd-Exit strategy in motion. Simply declare that the United States will no longer support Ukraine. Then all the diplomats who believe otherwise will resign and retire. Only those who are willing to execute the new policy will remain. This is how it works.
Why did Mr. Trump decide to continue previous policy while working to undermine that policy on the side? Simple! For self benefit.
The previous policy dangles hope and material support for the Ukrainians. This is the hook, line and sinker. This is leverage. He wants this over their heads as the hostage, or the bait.
His own third-arm private mafia team then begins to extort concession from the Ukrainians whose eyes are on the leverage. Quid pro quo.
We really do not need any testimony to show that Mr. Trump has no interest in any cogent policy strategy towards Ukraine. Ukraine is just a pawn in his game to remain in power for another four years.
This is never about foreign policy or establishment or anything that Mr. Douthat presented. It is a simply an honest attempt at satiating a personal greed through extortion.
17
@LazyPoster: Yes! Douthit tries to link or imply a link between Trump’s actions to Douthit’s interpretation of the tactical or strategic plans of actually sentient national leaders. Trump’s sordid goals and actions were totally focused on personal political gain in the form of some headlines embarrassing for Joe Biden. No wonder the professionals who work at executing actual national policy suffered a reflexive gag reaction. Douthit’s linkage can not be done—even the best and most resourceful cook can not make chicken Kyiv out of roadkill. Oh, by the way, Trump abused the powers of his office to achieve his corrupt ends. Let us not forget that in the fog of Douthit’s false scholasticism.
4
I realize in the Trump era the daily enfillade of outrages can make the remembrance of things past difficult, but one would hope that opinion writers in the Times might recall the historical record of Trump's persistent advancement of pro-Putin positions in Ukraine, for instance this: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-trump-ukraine-russia.html
What the article lays out is a back channel plan by pro-Putin Ukrainian politicians with the apparent support of Trump's national security advisor and then attorney, whose principle aim was to lift the sanctions against Putin and his oligarchic cronies.
Looking at the history of Trump's relations with Ukraine, what we see here is not then some policy realignment, albeit hamfisted, that the foreign policy establishment is resisting. We see instead resistance to, on the one hand, a venal autocrat attempting to subvert democratic ideals, and on the other, resistance to the depredations of the Russians...
6
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
An astonishing sentence even in an , as usual, convoluted column by RD. With a reprehensible sleight of hand, he puts Obama and Trump on a spectrum of impeachable offenses-- Trump on the higher end and Obama on the lower; Obama is forgiven only with the word "fewer," not with a total clean slate.
Can Ross cite any "ludicrous tweets" by Obama compared to a daily flood from Trump ? And, pray, what "impeachable offenses" did Obama commit AT ALL?
22
Yes, I agree that Mr. Douthat’s subtle slander of President Obama is reprehensible.
Please, Mr. Douthat provide a list President Obama’s ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.
2
Mr. Douthat, I know you’d feel a lot better if there were some kind of Republican wisdom to be extracted from the actions of this greedy, dishonest, incompetent administration and its absurd apologists. Unfortunately, self enrichment is not a “side benefit” of the Trump agenda, rather it IS the Trump agenda.
We’ve already learned that many of Trump’s most powerful supporters would seek to have him acquitted for shooting someone on 5th Avenue. There have long been many Republicans who don’t care a lick for human rights protections anywhere. Rather than a rising tide of a new policy, American opposition to international, non-partisan diplomacy and actual anti-corruption measures is only an indication of widespread ignorance and the disinformation that it makes possible.
10
The trickle has become a torrent, what with the newly zombified "Trump Forever No Matter The Cost, Even Bigger Government Which I Formerly Professed to Hate" Paul Rand making a wooden appearance in defense of his new political paramour.
With the full extent of the duplicity of every cabinet department and every administration agency swearing openly to act in direct opposition to missions assigned to them by congress
And that pervy Ohio guy in the used car salesman costume trying to hide his sicko behavior relative to college wrestlers under a Crazy Eddie style of harangue that, apparently, Big Ag Welfare Queens of the Noble Trump Midwest just adore.
Its everywhere and now, here it is with Ross.
Trying, as always, to hide his intent behind the blandest of passive constructions and imprecise attribution, Ross here argues for Trumpspeak, the sudden shifting of a word's meaning, the bizarre lottery of tenses and unannounced flashbacks and flashforwards through time and geography that allow Ross to make innocent and even wise sounding compressions between utterly unrelated things.
This has obviously been coming for some time, but it is somehow especially disheartening to see so thoroughgoing an ideologue as Mr. Douthat finally give up the struggle and go all in on the woeful Mr. Trump, as he does here in the name of freedom of debate, like that's a thing in Trupmerica.
Its all over now, for Ross, but the ongoing blather.
17
Like the term or not, there really is a "deep state" -- professional career employes of very large departments, like State, Defense, and Justice. Many of them are very sharp and well informed about extremely complex matters. Do they have their own points of view, developed over years of experience that may differ from those of their senior "political appointees"? Absolutely. Inevitably. But sometimes they get out of order and defend what they do to bend or thwart what those political appointees want done by referring to themselves as defenders of the Constitution. That is wrong and a grave mistake. In the end it isn't and shouldn't be up to them. It's up to the president and his appointees and those they in turn appoint. Or call those "minions" or "henchmen." Whatever. But what is to be done is, like it or not, still up to the president and his appointees whether the career civil servant agrees with it or not, and even if that civil servant views what is being done as contrary to the best interests of the country or illegal. If the latter, report it, don't do it and get fired, or quit. It still not up to that career civil servant no matter how nobly motivated. Thinking otherwise is a recipe for ruin and chaos. Can't have that.
5
Rather than focus on whether or not we should disengage from foreign intervention in any country's future, maybe we could remember that one reason our country was formed was the belief that people should decide for themselves what kind of government they want. Ukraine seems to want Russia out and not to govern them. That's the only reason I can see, and the best reason that adheres to the principles upon which our country was founded to support the Ukrainian endeavor: the right of people to govern themselves.
3
Some good points. The notion that these State Dept. types who wanted to destroy Assad's regime with direct US military involvement which Obama rejected. Ukraine's coup in 2/2014 proved a fleeting effort by extreme Ukrainian nationalists to get the US to back their efforts about Russians in Ukraine. Again Obama rejected their advise. These professionals lent their expertise to little more than an effort to foment an ethnic war in Ukraine. Macron has made good arguments about the dangerous policy of defending countries that were in the Warsaw pact or formerly part of the USSR. The days of Russian expansion are over. The Russians are a nuclear power with a much diminished military. The impeachment is largely the result of the anti Russian hysteria ginned up by Trump's election. Efforts to make Trump Putin's hand puppet are clearly false. The claims that Russia has any meaningful ability to pick and choose who wins the US presidency is crazy.
3
This is a strange article. While it may be true that the establishment (bureaucracy) is invested in a cold war era when "foreign policy prioritize democracy promotion east and southeast of the European core", given Russia's hostility towards the US and US interests, it is a good strategy to support Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia. Maybe, if US and NATO allies were to turn away from the Russian satellite countries, Russia would not feel so beleaguered, and cease its hostility towards the west. But I doubt that would happen under Putin; he will simply do even more harm because the only thing Russia can do to stay relevant in global affairs is nuisance value; prop by Syria's Bashar when no one else would, or Iran and so on. Russia needs to be contained as long as Putin is in power, and therefore, supporting Ukraine against Russia is in US' interest.
4
Rethinking post Cold War foreign policy preconceptions is definitely a good idea. Russia is understandably concerned by a NATO expansion that would push it's extent to the east of Moscow.
However, doing so does not mean acquiescing to an irredentist and trouble-making Russia. By rapidly replacing fossil-fuel powered vehicles with electric vehicles, we would crash the price of oil and eliminate the one thing that enables Putin's ambition. It would also have the beneficial effect of drastically lowering the stakes in the Middle East and weakening the rival petro-states of the area, not to mention slowing climate change and the massive pressure for immigration it creates.
Replacing gasoline and diesel vehicles with electric vehicles may not be a panacea, but it looks like the best tool we have to start the transition to a more peaceful world.
4
I perceive, in much of the commentary here, a symptom of a particularly modern malaise (though I suspect my understanding of it as "modern" is colored by nostalgia): a general inability, often instigated by a stubborn refusal, to deal with nuance and subtlety in the affairs of men, or even to accept that such nuance and subtlety exists.
Our political discussions have become thoroughly dominated by black and white, by a refusal not only to talk about but even to to acknowledge the existence of any other colors or shades. The whole point of Mr. Douthat's musing is that there is a duality to what is happening: Yes, it is about corruption; but that doesn't mean it can't also be about policy and about principles of governance -- about what policies we should pursue and, more importantly, about who should get to decide on what those policies are.
Contrary to his critics' contention, Mr. Douthat is not asserting any particular policy acumen on Trump's part, and he is certainly not dismissing Trump's venality. He us reminding us that we should not let our justified focus on that venality blind us to other important lessons we might draw from this opportunity for an extraordinary visibility into the context within which that venality operated.
-apl
4
@Augustus P. Lowell
Unfortunately, Ross blows up whatever rationality he might have offered by hold out the false equivalence of Trump and Obama. That’s why I will look to other thinkers for the more nuanced discussion of our government, it’s policies, and their implementation.
2
While the USA stood still the world moved on. It has been 55 years since the GOP declared war on the Civil Rights Act and here in Quebec even our center right government would be far to the left of Bernie Sanders. I have too many Russian friends to be anti Russian but I see little difference between oligarchs and the military industrial judicial and financial elites. The best I can do is say is Putin's Russia, Trump's America and Xi's China are not our friends.Another thing I believe is the 70% support for Zelensky in Ukraine is support not for the man but the promise of truth and justice he and his party embody. I believe in Democracy even as it has shortcomings that sometimes make totalitarian rule look a better option. I can think no better example than Ronald Reagan and his government who were the least empathetic and compassionate of men.
I am not a knee jerk liberal and even as I believe healthcare is more than a right it is a prime directive for a healthy society but it is more important that the USA get its fundamentals correct and undertaking tackling what all men are created equal means. In remember 1964 when the GOP made it job one to destroy the Civil Rights Act and Reagan was a leader.
Today I awoke to a headline that shook up this old liberal because even as the world move too quickly some moves are quicker than others.
Today's local headline was.
Students and employees of the University of Sherbrooke can now choose their first name, name and gender.
Wow!!!
3
Fair enough, Ross, some good points to consider re US foreign policy moving forward.
And you write: "For Trump, it’s the containment of China and Iran by some sort of league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit."
"... a side benefit" Father Ross? Surely you just. " Self enrichment has ALWAYS been trumpolini's primary concern, whether pursued legally or not.
Will be highly 'entertaining' should Mike Bloomberg become the Democratic candidate (or just a 'candidate'), as he's had a front seat to view many of trump's illegal and questionable actions in the interest of 'self enrichment' (which were often unsuccessful)...too many to detail here.
If I were the donald, I'd be more concerned about Bloomberg than Biden.
3
And yet, congress did pass and President Trump did sign the legislation authorizing the funds for the weapons. So America is somehow against our involvement in supporting Ukraine. Really? It seems to me, the professionals testifying about the workings of Trump and his shadow policy thugs were perfectly aligned with the will of congress.
9
@Bryan
You are correct. The civil servants who are concerned about a President engaging in bribery of a foreign leader for personal political gain is pretty much aligned with those in the House who find such criminality by this President repugnant.
1
If US foreign policy covering 200+ countries cannot benefit from a corps of professionals who can make it transcend four-year election cycles then the US is at a severe disadvantage on a world stage where other major actors are not so constrained. Building long-term relationships based on trust is undermined when everyone knows they can be reversed in four-year mood swings. Most Americans pay little attention to foreign policy which is why impeaching Trump based on his abuse of it is hard to imagine. But his mistreatment of those who give continuity to our country’s interests in foreign affairs that are supported across ideological differences is a major loss to our country.
6
If Donald Trump does “not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests”, as Mr. Douthat seems to suggest, then Donald Trump should not have given any aid to Ukraine at all, period. Instead, he tied that aid to a “favor” and no amount of sesquipedalian gibberish about differences of opinion on foreign policy, “a Russian reset” or “a pivot to Asia” can change that salient point.
As for Mr. Douthat’s contention that “Trump himself……..does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests”, I’m not sure Donald Trump has ANY carefully considered view of “America’s vital interests” that extend beyond his own personal interests or that he has sufficient intelligence and knowledge to formulate such a view.
409
@Sid, and others who might clarify the situation for us: I have, possibly very ignorantly, the impression that the provision of military aid to other countries originates from Congress, and I'm guessing that the President has the power to stop that aid only if the Defense Department finds certain problems. Can anyone inform me/us of the actual process?
15
But... "propping up Ukrainian democracy" is Trump administration policy.
If Donald truly wants to review his own policy, he can do it in the light.
4
An intellectual who sows distrust of intellectuals, scientists, and professionalism--interesting. Yes we should let the oil field workers and corn farmers determine foreign policy. What could possibly go wrong?
8
Yeah, Ross, but who in the entire current administration or Senate has ever enunciated the new policy you adumbrate admirably here??? Policy is not what amateur political appointees do behind the back, knifing therein, of everybody charged with the existing policy. Policy requires research, debate, professional review. What Obama faced was an obstinancy for sure, but one as likely entrenched by deep ties to the MIC as to some bureaucratic blobbery as such. Trump's people deny us all the courtesy of an explanation, whiile parroting Putinese slogans instead of clear expressions of a national interest other than something that is identical to what 'the President' simply and magisterially prefers.
7
Gambling with the national security of the United States for any reason including politics is a violation of the oath of office and is a crime.
8
This column is an excellent example of the right's many creative (but bogus) ways to support Donald Trump. This is the "Douthat is an honorable man and liberals are the real problem" version. Of course each of his essays typically contains a swipe at "the left" but what's new here is finally Douthat explicitly comes out and defends Trump. It's what comes after many stages of denial and rationalization. "Yeah, he did it and his attempt was corrupt but he's really trying to keep us out of foreign intanglements that have been forced on us by liberals."
So exactly who has been championing American Exceptionalism all these years? Who thought invading Iraq was a good idea? Douthat writes of "newfound Russophobia". Are you arguing for Russophilia instead? How about a column or three about how good Putin is for folks worried that Christians are being prosecuted around the world for their religious beliefs?
Douthat has just made a subtle "lesser of two evils argument" while flipping sides on which is the greater evil. Surprise! It's NOT impeachment or Putin; it's liberals.
But he never addresses a key aspect of his argument: does he a condone a Russian invasion of Ukraine? There is a lot of fuzzy logic here. As usual.
18
Rarely have I seen such a shameful lack of humanity & empathy. I am embarrassed by Douthat’s view. Especially reading his after Kristof’s. I find myself wondering Douthat’s view if Xi or Putin decided America was equally detritus to be pitched, as Ross views Ukraine.
8
Re: "Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses." "Fewer"? Did I miss something? How about "none"?
17
It’s not a war against professionals, it’s a war by a narcissistic child against responsible adults.
14
The joke about all this is that Mr. Trump has no policy. He doesn't know and doesn't want to know. To equate the differences he has with State Dept. bureaucrats with those of Obama is ludicrous. Mr Obama, and likely Mr Macron, are informed and thoughtful. They challenge their aides to explain and validate their views and policy proposals. Leaders can (and probably should) redirect policy and change tactics and strategic objectives. But to put that corruption and ignorance in the same conversation is just another pathetic defense of the indefensible.
11
Douthat raises legitimate foreign policy issues, about which I've been personally ambivalent for years. But Trump wasn't promoting any alternate policy view--or any policy view at all. He was only promoting Donald Trump. In other words, he was simply trying to bribe the Ukraine into supporting Donald Trump by besmirching a political rival.
1057
@IamCurious: Trump's foreign policy is used as a tool to benefit Trump, not the country.
Is that really so difficult to understand?
Never mind...
92
@IamCurious
Does anyone believe that Donald Trump even knows who George Kennan was? Please point me to the speech where Trump explained his beliefs that “our present policy in Ukraine accomplishes very little except to degrade our relationship with the Russians?”
How many of the words in that sentence are even in Donald Trump’s vocabulary?
You seem to care about history and policy. Can you not see that Trump cares about neither? That’s been clear since he started campaigning.
89
@IamCurious: Putin is a crime boss, who drains his countries wealth for his own benefit. He murders his opposition, holds sham elections, and invades his neighbors to take their territory by force. He interferes with our elections, and those of other democracies. Putin is largely responsible for the chaos that is becoming more prevalent throughout the democratic world. Trump benefited from Russia's election meddling, and he takes Putin's word over the security forces of the United States. He thinks Putin is a great leader, and he is envious of Putin's corrupt power. Some Americans believe that democracy is something that should be encouraged. Trump and his cronies don't really believe in democracy. They are about winning at all cost, including voter suppression, super-gerrymandering, and now even conspiring with adversarial countries to affect our elections. Trump tried to bribe the new president of a vulnerable country attacked by the Russians for his own political gain. He has invited China to interfere in our upcoming election on his behalf. He seems to have an affection for authoritarian leaders in whose countries he has or wants to have personal business interests. Putin seeks to resurrect the Iron Curtain around his neighbors, and subject them to his authoritarianism and corruption. Are we to simply accept it all, and let him get away with it again in 2020?
46
Douthat's criticism might have some merit if there was any reason to believe Trump has ever spent more than 30 seconds considering the national interest.
Maybe current US policy towards Ukraine should be reconsidered. However, Ukraine is close to being a failed state and Russia has annexed part of its territory. Those are problems that risk expanding beyond the already weak Ukrainian borders. To suggest that the US doesn't have an interest in preventing or mitigating the consequences of those problem is simply wrong.
Trump has already made policy changes, such as recalling the Ambassador to Ukraine and pressing for information on the 'black ledger' based on lobbying by convicted or indicted criminals (Manafort, Parnas, Fruman, etc). To suggest he's capable of formulating a policy worth more than a bucket of warm spit is ludicrous.
185
@SAO
"To suggest he's capable of formulating a policy worth more than a bucket of warm spit is ludicrous."
It doesn't seem that this particular editorial is making that argument- but love your metaphor!
3
Yes, there are disagreements within policy circles and among the American people about how our policies should evolve. However, one cannot overlook the extent to which Putin and others are trying to impact that discussion or the extent to which we do not understand the President's tendency to support the Putin agenda and magnify his disinformation campaign. Further, it is likely a stretch to argue that the President has given any serious consideration to the policy ramifications of his conduct or to how our policies should change. Given his approach to everything, one must assume he sees in his support for Russian some advantage to himself. His country is not at the top of his priority list.
136
@T. Schultz Trump has pushed back at Russia and Putin more than Obama ever did.
In the end this impeachment is not so much about policy as it is about corruption on a grand scale that we've never seen before. The corruption of this so-called administration leaks into everything. Every "policy" has to have a payoff to someone or some group.
In its simplest terms this is about good versus evil.
15
How creatively Douthat recreates recent history.
The aid to Ukraine was a bipartisan decision. Even trump believed, however fleetingly, that Ukrain should have the aid.
The decision to withhold that aid was trump's decision alone and that decision had nothing to do with any vital policy objective.
Douthat says that such objective, the aid was what "any patriotic American ought to share." Yes, and ... ?
Douthat says it is not only Trump who doesn't share professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans." Yes, and ...?
As if trump had ANY view of America's vital interests. As if he even could find Ukraine on an accurate map. As if "a great many people" know the professionals' view of our vital interests.
Hello, Douthat? Hello, trump? Hello GOP? Listen: the reason professionals exist is that maybe, just maybe they know a little bit more than "a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
Sort of like scientists. You know, people who study things in depth and can help people who maybe don't know as much to formulate policy.
That's their job, to know stuff about what they are talking about. Unlike Douthat's president or any of the flop-sweat on the republican side of the investigation, they actually do their jobs in support of our country.
15
I'm not sure if the headline uses "professionals" as a pejorative shared by both the Obama and Trump administrations. Obama was apparently frustrated with the foreign policy establishment and its resistance to change in shifting diplomatic initiatives. Trump simply reduces the insistence on following 70 years of policy and alliances to pablum for his followers: a plot by his enemies in the "deep state."
It's worth remembering the career professionals in the diplomatic community typically outlast the presidencies they serve and know far more about their business and their theaters of action than presidents and political issues recognize or wish to circumvent. We saw three of these professionals testifying and placing themselves and their careers in jeopardy. Next week we will hear from an ambassador who bought his position conditioned on swearing allegiance to a man whose interests are transactional and of some benefit to himself.
11
Ukraine policy is neither static nor does it occur in a vacuum. What Obama did in 2015 when the Russia America was dealing with had yet to interfere in American elections or had not exerted itself against American interests to the extent it has in 2019. And Ukraine is now considered more strategic in what has become, or should be considered, a front in a world where Russia is more than a competitor of the United States. In the entirety of Trump’s negative interactions with our allies and friendly acts towards Russia and other malevolent dictatorships, his actions endanger American security. Taking acts individually out of context creates an inaccurate picture.
11
There always has been and always will be differences on American foreign policy, especially in respect to Russia. Thanks for reminding us. But Donald Trump does not have a cogent, considered, openly stated, governmentally discussed and expressed view that can be supported and challenged. Where is the coordination between executive, state, military, commerce, intelligence, and other government branches that support a cohesive policy? In its place we have conspiracy theories, whimsy, Fox News leadership and tweets. Donald Trump’s disdain for knowledge, learning and thoughtful action are all too obvious even to the casual observer. One can discern any subtext from the impeachment hearings witnesses one chooses. Let’s get rid of the crook in the Oval Office who has no policy in Ukraine other than self-enrichment and then we can start an open policy discussion. Maybe even have a presidential speech in support of a unified federal plan.
8
Does Mr. Douthat know that Trump has never objected to the military aid to Ukraine? In fact, Trump has applauded it. On the surface, as evidence of a get-tough policy toward the Russians and also to one-up Obama. Below the surface, to have something to use as leverage against a potentially useful entity in a state of distress. So this essay doesn't make a lot of sense.
Republicans want to argue that because the crime was thwarted, it didn't exist. So we were fortunate to hear three highly intelligent experts articulate that real harm has in fact occurred by the holdup of aid. And that real harm will continue to occur indefinitely as a result of loss of confidence among partners and allies.
Trust is difficult to gain, and very easy to lose. When it's gone, it often never returns. Look at the divorce rate. Every businessman knows that you are only as good as your word. Do we need any more evidence that Trump is not a businessman?
10
Any discussion of misguided American priorities should recognize what those priorities actually are: American corporate enrichment - the military-industrial complex, and the exploiting of foreign resources for corporate American profit. We are at the end of what used to be called “empire.” It manifests itself in almost 600 U.S. military bases in 42 countries, and takes over $600 billion a year to support.
Whose interests is all of this serving? Trump doesn’t want to change the #1 American priority - enrichment flowing to the oligarchs - he just wants to change the way it is achieved. He wants to pull out of the Middle East and, at the same time, impose record increases in military spending. He and the GOP want to shower the wealthy with huge tax breaks, less corporate regulation, and tariffs on imports. Meanwhile the working and middle class continue to bleed.
Douthat naively assumes that foreign policy is some kind of academic chess game, that it is divorced from economic and social policy. Trump and the sycophantic GOP want to make America’s vital interests compatible with the interests of the wealthy. And they want to make it appear as if those priorities express conservative values so as to garner support from the underemployed.
But what good is it if we control the world with our military (and enrich the wealthy in the process) while back home society withers from lack of education, healthcare and jobs -and climate change knocks on our door like the grim reaper?
11
Douthat appears to be ignoring two salient facts of Trump's Ukrainian situation. 1) Congress successfully voted to send $391 billion of military aid to Ukraine, 2) Trump decided to manipulate the funding of that aid by demanding a "Biden investigation favor" to benefit his 2020 re-election campaign in return for said aid. Douthat then proceeds to blame the professionals in the "Deep State" for manipulating international statecraft to suit their own purposes. Douthat is using the typical Republican ploy "don't look over here (where we've created a corrupt mess), look over there at the big picture we're painting".
13
It is fascinating to see how Americans just seem to be blind to what we could be losing here. Look at the people of Hong Kong, Venezuela and Ukraine itself! They fight and die in the streets for what we can't be bothered to think about - the difference between freedom and what Xi, Maduro and Putin, are peddling. I dearly hope we never have to do the same, but I worry more and more that our watered down sense of what matters in this world - articulated at the heart of this column - doesn't come back to bite us, and soon.
13
A cogent analysis and clearly written. I am 88 and since Vietnam have concluded that we have been far too long involved in preserving our hegemony.
We are not, nor should we be, the world's cop.
I dislike Trump's conduct, his buffoonery, but he understands the unease of the country.
Jim, Illinois
@jimwjacobs I don't disagree with you about the unease of being the world's cop. But do you really believe that asking Ukraine in that phone call to investigate Crowdstrike and Joe Biden is expressing our unease about being the world's cop? Or that defending Trump by pointing out he gave missiles to Ukraine and is therefore more supportive than Obama, is expressing that unease?
2
The "policy" is beside the point.
Trump tried to shake down a foreign head of state for his own personal political benefit and then the White House covered it up.
This is Impeachment 101.
18
' Trump was clearly advancing no policy agenda beyond his own self-interest. ' Plus Putin's.
15
Republican Party has lost their touch with the American people, a party at one time for law and order but now the restraints they don't hold back corrupt President Donald Trump have you seen in the pass his fell businesses, Republicans have tried to distract from the American people this is not argument this is not a reality show, these are real people. The Republican Party in their official uncapacity the house and the Senate are scared of Pres. Donald Trump due to his every day tantrums on tweeter .
The Republican in Congress asked for open hearings that they were shut out that not the truth.
The Republican Party in Congress asked to see whistleblower , even though his life was threatened by this president. If you remember David Nunez Republican a representative from California had of a chairman on the Russian investigation ran to the White House to tell Donald Trump everything can you trust the Republican now in Congress. They have loose tongs and could jeopardize the life of the whistleblower.
What kind nation do we have a party of liars and deceive to the American people just look what the Republican Party have done to the American people just like the president lies.
6
All roads lead to Putin pleasing for a Trump Tower Moscow so Trump can make millions of dollars. All the rest is just words.
Trump cares only about himself and his family. Clarity at last.
7
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Good to know.
But Obama did SOME ludicrous tweets and committed SOME impeachable offenses?
Could you be a little more specific?
14
Suggesting that Trump had higher goals with regard to disengagement is ridiculous on the face of it. Other than total disregard for constitutional norms, criminality and incompetence the only thing totally consistent with Trump is fealty to Russia. The only motivation here political and support of Putin's interests.
10
Trump has no foreign policy, unless protecting his overseas assets constitutes a policy. Every decision he makes is based on what’s in it for him. He sidles up to murderous dictators for one of two reasons. Either he needs to protect his businesses (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Philippines) or he wants to start a business (Russia, North Korea.) If there was a Trump property in Paris or Berlin he would actually support our allies. I am through with Republicans attempting to defend him at any cost. I get they need his support for re-election but Trump is a threat to our national security. Which is more important? To all Republicans I say, you can always find another job. But where are you gonna find another country after Trump destroys this one?
7
"Fewer impeachable offenses"? Wow. Do you really think that if the Republicans could have impeached him, they would have resisted?
13
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous Tweets and impeachable offenses."
Shrewd observation, Ross.
The bogus "Tweeting" comparison aside, you're absolutely right to assert that Obama committed "fewer" impeachable offenses than Trump. Factually true, of course, but starkly revealing of the author's bias when presented as fact. And, of course, you provide no substantiating details, as there are none.
10
Even if I don't agree with their positions, I am glad that The New York Times includes some non-Trumpian conservative columnists. It is useful to hear constructive criticism and it helps to identify assumptions and weak points to address in liberal/centrist arguments.
3
There is a critical difference between Obama's questioning and Trump's actions. Trump is selectively coordinating with Putin. From Ukraine to Syria to Turkey, Putin has had US cooperation to the extent Trump could deliver it. It's no wonder Kushner tried to set up communications that could evade US intelligence surveillance. The US professionals properly place Russian interests as against US national interest. Trump's allegiance is clearly elsewhere.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/kushner-talked-to-russian-envoy-about-creating-secret-channel-with-kremlin.html
7
At the impeachment hearing I saw two professionals acting like they owned American foreign policy. They were the pro's who are making Ukraine a strategic partner with us right on Russia's border. I'm blinded by the brilliance.
Why am I supposed to accept this new cold war with Russia. Could Russia's meddling in our elections have anything to do with us setting up shop on their border and meddling in Ukraine's elections? While we were distracted over gay marriage and transgender bathrooms look at what the aristocrat wannabe's in the State Department and intellegence community have been doing. Did we vote for it?
@JoeG
Hmmm... what I saw was a public discussion of views on foreign policy that should have been had publicly all along. But really, the discussion was simply setting the stage for the denouement of the actual impeachable offenses of bribery and extortion (yes, saying “give me dirt on Biden or my associate Vlad will break your legs” is most certainly extortion), either of which are an abuse of power. You are indeed blinded.
1
The man, I bet, will even today not be able to locate Ukraine on a map, even with the countries named in bold letters, someone will have to circle it with Sharpie first. His foreign policy, to the extent there is any, is first, to follow the money, then follow the platitudes, failing both of which would be to follow the Sharpie.
7
This "Trump is a corrupt buffoon, but his instincts are those of Middle America" argument no doubt has some kernel of truth, but so what? This country has made the decision to spend more on its military than most of the rest of the world combined, project its power on all continents, and deter aggression from larger totalitarian regimes that present the ever-present threat of a return to 1939. Removal of not only our power, but our example and our will, leads to Erdogan, Orban, and Assad, and emboldens Putin and Xi. Going back 100 years, as the New Yorker did recently, yields political rhetoric and attitudes that might embarrass even the current presidential apologists. Lets not pretend that is a valid choice, which only the Deep State keeps from being allowed to flourish.
3
“Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.” Ross, are you actually suggesting that Obama engaged in impeachable offenses? Shame on you for even trying to insinuate some kind of false equivalence between the least corrupt President in decades and the most corrupt in US history.
9
Ross is a smart, articulate columnist, but his argument here s an iconic indulgence in not seeing the forest for the trees. Yeah, there are foreign policy grievances that professional diplomats have visa viz Trump, but to raise that as an issue vs. the monumental abuse of power and, yes, "bribery" charges against this pathetic excuse for a President, is nearly as shameful as The Fox News PR narrative of the impeachment inquiry.
7
Oh, come on Ross! It's obvious to anyone who looks at the situation seriously that Trump is getting paid more by corrupt president Putin and his oligarch mob buddies than he is by us. EVERYTHING and I mean EVERYTHING he has done has been EXACTLY what Putin would have wanted him to do. Why else would he be so freaked about his taxes being released? SERIOUSLY!
6
What? Russia attacked Ukraine and Crimea in 2014, and Putin's puppet Viktor Yanykovych, the President of Ukraine, fled Ukraine for Russia. Ukraine applied for membership in NATO in 2008, but Yanukovych opposed it. Not surprisingly, the new government in Ukraine favors membership in NATO and protection from Putin and Russia. Protecting Ukraine from a thug like Putin is good for Ukraine, good for Europe, good for America, and good for freedom. Russiaphobia? Really? What many Americans oppose is America's penchant for supporting dictators and thugs, many of which Trump courts like a sympathetic fellow dictator and thug.
6
From your newspaper: "The activist, Kateryna Handziuk, was outside her home in the Ukrainian city of Kherson in July 2018 when someone splashed her with a quart of sulfuric acid, severely burning more than 30 percent of her body. After 11 surgeries over three months, Ms. Handziuk succumbed to her excruciating wounds. She was 33."
Then Yovanovitch gets a call telling her that her security is at risk and she is being recalled home. Perhaps if you read your own newspaper and many of the folks at home did, too, instead of simply reading columnists, they might find that the "professionals" have a deeper understanding than a President who watches FOX News. The question is a good question, but a good President challenges the conventional wisdom, but (s)he listens to a variety of viewpoints and learns.
7
which is a fancy way of saying you and Devin Nunes are of the same opinion on the impeachment hearings.
7
Well-argued and well-reasoned piece,
I find it truly absurd to use POTUS' impeachment hearings to gloss over the unconstitutionality of the President's behaviors and then gloss over the differences among some voters' perceptions and 'the professionals' opinions. You ignore your party's aggressive ignorance.
Really what you mean is that your party's nemesis--'liberal elites'--actually comprehend the vagaries and ambiguities of foreign policy, and #45 and his GOP minions have barely a clue how the world works--or hold their tongues to keep their base. You also ignore your party's aggressive ignorance on climate change, which, like foreign policy, is based in science.
What truly horrifies me about the current GOP world view is that it wants to control me; it wants me to be some twisted amalgamation of Christian fundamentalism and conservatism where one denies science, stops questioning anything, and preys to the gods of economic disparity, white supremacy, knocks down the walls between church and state, and celebrates in the pains of the oppressed.
9
Gee whiz, now Ross is an international relations & global diplomacy. Ummm, no. For starters, it is quite a stretch to suggest that those of us who live in the real world suffer from an imagined mental illness called "Russiaphobia". No Ross. Real experts & intelligent citizens alike, acknowledge the very real Russian invasion & occupation of the Crimea as well as their hard core interference in USA core bedrock democratic institutions such as the vote for POTUS. Your (faux lethargic) support of Trump's submission to Putin's will, & of all things Russia, is mind boggling. Indeed, Trump should listen to the professionals who know what they are talking about. May I suggest you do the same.
4
The situation per Ross Douthat:
Democrats for the wrong policy
Trump against Democrats
Professionals for the wrong policy
Trump against professionals
Trump (regardless of crimes) for America
Conclusion: Douthat invents a problem and praises Trump for trying to solve it in the face of professionals and Democrats trying to stop him.
3
I suspect that an easy 99% of Americans have no opinion on US foreign policy regarding Russian irredentism because they have no idea what the word irredentism means, and at that’s point they encounter it, they’re likely to return to their main concerns: comfort food and entertainment.
2
Yet again Douthat manages to produce a weasely, wormy half-defense of Trump posing as adherance to some larger great principle. But this sentence gives away his game: “Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses.“ How insidious can one columnist be: Obama had NO ludicrous tweets and ZERO impeachable offenses.
8
Congress has a role in shaping foreign policy. Congress makes the laws, the executive branch “executes” the laws. Congress voted to send money to the Ukrainian government to help in their war with Russia. The president was asking for a bribe in exchange for doing his job. That’s what it boils down to.
4
All Americans, left and right, have no problem with the "policy" issue of turning the Ukraine over to Russia's Putin? And giving Putin Syria and kissing away Turkey? Why isn't trump being charged with treason, for God's sake? Ross, you too far as a thinking, toilet-trained Conservative in defending what cannot be defended. Where are your guts as an American?
4
These people are awful.
What is going to become of them in a post-trump world.
They'll be about as in demand as shirt collars from Troy, New York.
Or those little plastic things we used to put in 45rpm records to make them play on a regular record player.
We will never have a peaceful world if we support evil autocrats like Putin and Orban. We have a long history of supporting ruthless dictators that are rotten to the core. Why? For the exploitation of the resources of other countries and for promoting a morally bankrupt version of capitalism. Trump is no better.
5
Is it possible that macron has figured out that trump is going to turn on the EU and so is embracing Putin while following Arthashastra ?
Why are republicans allowed to install these posters at the front of the room? I understand the concept of free speech but...
3
Yes, it’s true. There is zero chance this Senate will vote to remove the president from office. Zero.
At this point, the House Dems are simply building a record of the president’s words and deeds that they consider to be unacceptable, if not illegal.
So, I would caution my Republican friends to be careful what they wish for. The arguments you are making and precedents you are setting in 2019 may very well come back to bite you in the not-too-distant future.
8
As a person who exists because of Russian aggression in the Ukraine that sent my four-year-old grandfather to Siberia, I have been realizing — or awakening to — the idea that America is right to support the Ukraine against new Russian aggression. There was progress that broke the USSR back into its component parts, and there was progress with democracy in Russia, but Putin is winding the clock backwards.
4
It may be that Obama was reluctant to send military aid to Ukraine because Poroshenko was as corrupt as all the previous presidents and it would've been a fools' errand. Zalensky is the first Ukrainian President who has made a genuine effort to clean up corruption in his country. Along comes Trump and his corrupt interests, and an embarrassing mess ensues. With everything that Trump touches, one more brick in American integrity crumbles.
223
"For Trump, it’s the containment of China and Iran by some sort of league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit. "
Self-enrichment is hardly a side benefit; it is always Trump's primary if not sole goal.
4
The Ukraine issue is the issue of European defense, which is --alongside an issue of human freedom-- the issue of nuclear war. Weakening NATO and allowing Russia new status as Trump did with explicit verbal pronouncements required some offset, which is what bipartisan Congressional action, aided by State department and whistle blower. was able to provide.
5
The extent and nature of our country's involvement in world affairs is certainly a topic of legitimate discussion. However, legitimate discussion of policy is not the issue here. If Trump truly thought that giving military aid to Ukraine was not in the best interest of the United States, he could have vetoed the appropriation bill and spoken out against the aid. Instead, during the ongoing impeachment hearings, he and his Congressional enablers have persistently praised his decision to support the military aid, contrasting his position with that of Obama, who opposed direct military aid.
What is at issue here, and what led to the impeachment inquiry, is the evidence that Trump used the aid appropriated by Congress and approved by him as leverage to force Ukraine's president to unlawfully help him with his re-election campaign. Foreign policy experts have testified that withholding military aid has impaired U.S. national security, perhaps as a way of demonstrating that Trump's actions were not harmless, but that is, of course, their opinion. The real harm might be the manifestation of corruption in the United States government, that that the rest of the world now cannot trust us as a righteous leader.
5
Great insight here, Ross. The agenda are being followed by all of the professional career officers are traditional, just what Trump has log criticized. Those professionals never mentioned the second investigation:
the Mueller probe of Trump as a Russian agent! News anchors often referred to investigations but only named one, Trump as trading US Aid for personal gain. When one them was asked directly about Biden trading a firing for aid, about which Biden bragged on camera, the State Department deputy said; nothing wrong there. Why? he was following our advice and strategic guidance. State also does quid pro quo! Common behavior. Trump is seeking two legal things, one shady or illegal. Both investigating Biden is reasonable and in our national interest and the genesis of the Russian probe featuring Trump.
I think the "professionals" had to carry out the law, which in this particular case was made by Congress, to send armaments to Ukraine. The law and the global security system also make corruption illegal, which is what the "professionals" like Yovanovitch were trying to combat. Also, Russia attacked international law and the global security system by attacking and seizing Crimea and trying to seize Eastern Ukraine; problems that the "professionals" have been trying to handle somehow as well.
Douthat sounds reasonable on the surface, but is somewhat twisting the facts. Russia has been working to achieve such doubts of international law and the global security system for a long time.
9
Ross' epiphany that the US needs to be more friendlier to Russia just happened to occur the very day that Trump and the Republicans were shown to be so willing to embrace corruption.
Ross intentionally leaves out the main fact that the Republicans and Democrats voted out in the open for aid to Ukraine and that is how democracies work.
12
I'm grateful to Mr Douthat for exposing the underlying assumptions governing the military interventionist policies of the U.S. foreign policy establishment as obliquely revealed in these impeachment hearings. The dedication and integrity of the professionals is, indeed, impressive, especially when contrasted with the appalling character of the president and his sycophants. But while watching the hearings, I could not shake the thought that these virtuous professionals had invested themselves in overarching policies unworthy of their noble capacities. Mr. Douthat is correct: there are, in fact, profound moral and strategic reasons to challenge the wisdom of our "autopilot" Pax Americana policies and tactics--including providing arms to Ukraine--invariably framed by the foreign policy experts as "inevitable and necessary."
1
@Ron Parks
And those challenges to conventional wisdom and policy happen all the time. What does not happen all the time is the subversion of policy for the purpose of shaking down a foreign leader to gain a personal political advantage.
1
OK, Ross. Trump is doing us a favor, or at least calling into question the notion that we spent too much time villifying Russia, that we should befriend them, and quickly, and that the takeover of Ukraine and killing of Ukranians is just fine.
That's all well as a policy discussion, but why isn't Trump courageous enough to say so and defend the actions? And in what ways prior to 2016 did he articulate his foreign policy goals of disempowering NATO and allowing Russia new status? The only evidence was when he said "wouldn't it be better to have Russia as a friend and not an enemy?"
He was too cowardly and inarticulate to formulate the foreign policy you are stating in the column, Ross.
What happened to the Republican party who was tough on dictatorships and communists? Just as the party was once tough on deficits, that position has also been shelved.
168
mr. Do that, You have done it. Your best, most thoughtful piece yet. The Soviet Union was our enemy. We turned Russia into an enemy after the fall of the Soviet Union. The reason, I believe, was the continued hight level funding of the military/indusrial complex. The fact that Obama was not a neocon was one of the things I really like about him. It's unfortunate that so many who revile Trump, who should be reviled for many reasons, have glomed onto Trumps one positive - that he is apparently not a neocon.
1
I very much remember the speech Pelosi made when she announced the Inquiry....she said Democrats had "to take this stand." Period. She said, even if we loose the 2020 election bc of the Inquiry (Impeachment?), Democrats had to obey the constitution and act w integrity.
5
Mr. Douthat,
While you have a point that we perhaps need a better foreign policy, I think you do the country a small disservice by interjecting this point in middle of an issue that is about abuse of power, not good or bad policy. Yes, your first couple of paragraphs did point out that Trump was not engaged in U.S. policy making. But that doesn't take away the fact that our focus must stay on the real Trump crimes.
9
"a friendlier relationship with Russia"
Putin is Russia.
Here is a man who invades democracies, assassinates his enemies, jails members of the Russian press that criticize him, interferes in free elections outside his country, tries to split up NATO, and befriends tyrants from other countries.
It makes all the sense in the world that Trump and Macron would want to befriend him. Talk about Russian assets.
6
President Obama was a realist about the limits of America spreading democracy, particularly in the wake of our disastrous war in Iraq. It’s one thing to accept the world as it is; far another to clearly prefer and champion dictators, while mocking and snubbing democratic leaders, as does Trump.
In fact, Trump’s unmistakable affinity with authoritarians makes it laughable that he could claim to care about weeding out corruption in Ukraine.
13
Obama helped kick Putin out of G8. I think he was very much against the attacks in the Crimea. We should be standing behind countries which are under attack by Russia, and which are creating democracies. As leaders invested in democracy and fair government, and more selfishly, because we need allies to support us against those like Putin for whom the cold war never ended.
11
"What the public mood supports. ..." What evidence does Mr. Douthat put forth for that broad brush statement? And if the "America First" pull-back-from-the-world mood of the man on the street is on point, is it any more correct as a foreign policy than Charles Lindbergh's was in 1940? Then it was stay out of Europe's troubles and keep Jewish refugees out of the U.S. How did that work out? Thank God for the professionals.
9
It’s not a bribe. A bribe is when I offer you something to do something. Extortion is when I threaten to take away something that is yours by right, in this case something the US Congress has given you, if you don’t do something.
4
So what’s wrong with “making friends” with Russia some below are asking. Because Russia is an oligarch totalitarian state, where rule of law is disregarded, where political enemies are murdered, where elections are manipulated, where people aren’t allowed to speak their minds and where the rich corrupt few are pilfering the general public. This is a system we should oppose and stifle rather than encourage. In my view the US has been tilting towards this, with our increasing inequality and growing distrust in and opposition to the free press (democracy’s third rail) and the democratic institutions that have both guaranteed our freedoms for 150 years. Trump is incompetently trying to mold this country into his own banana republic but that doesn’t mean that he or someone else can’t pull it off. Wake up citizens. You are the frog in the pot and the water is warming. Liberty and free speech require vigilance.
Mr. Douthat says that “many people” don’t support aid to the Ukraine. Well let me remind him that the duly elected representatives in both chambers authorized $400 million in aid in a bipartisan fashion and POTUS signed it. Very little of consequence happens in DC but this one passed with flying colors. Hmmmm. Either our federal politicians are all out of step with public opinion or “many people” is a vanishingly small number.
8
The main issues are Trump's high crimes and misdemeanors, not our policy toward Ukraine. This column reads like an intentional diversion; to wit, indirectly downgrade the importance of the testimonies of Taylor et al. on Trump's crimes because of their convictions regrading policy. Who cares? Different people will always have different opinions on proper policy. But different people should not reasonably differ about what Trump has done. He has violated his oath of office and should be removed, along with a host of others.
8
It's so wonderful that Ross Douthat decided today of all days that he wanted to embrace what Douthat insists is the "will of the people" -- isolationism.
Now some might question the fact that never before has Ross Douthat said anything but the nastiest things about Democrats who weren't all in for helping promote democracy. Some might question that not once before has Ross done anything but attack those who question a hard line toward Russia and spending money to promote democracy.
But it is so wonderful that today of all days, while watching Trump being shown up as the corrupt leader he is, with the Republican Congressional leadership excusing that corruption, Ross Douthat experienced an epiphany! But that epiphany was NOT that Trump and the Republican party Ross adores might have a problem. Nope, not that.
Suddenly, Ross is an isolationist!
In Ross' desperation to minimize the great harm that Trump has done to our democracy, Ross has overlooked the great harm his own reputation has taken. This column is truly the lowest of the low.
Maybe some Fox News junkies will believe that Ross just happened to have this foreign policy epiphany today of all days. It is telling that this so-called "epiphany" just happened to coincide with Ross desperately needing to minimize Trump's corruption.
Truly appalling column.
10
You neglect to add the fact that the Russian Government was interfering in our 2016 election to benefit Donald Trump. This is far more likely the driver of the President's behavior than some policy agenda. It's hard to conceive that the president has any serious strategy about anything beyond his own interests. The evidence to any other motive is paltry.
7
Rita, you nailed it! Drown to the last Iota.
It is clear from the testimony of witnesses that these impeccably fine public servants were, to the the best of their ability, executing long-standing public policy with respect to foreign affairs.
It is also clear that Trump, and his cronies, are doing every type of grammatical gymnastics to try and defend, even exculpate, what is clearly back-channel maneuvers for the purpose of aiding Trump’s electoral chances.
Bravo to Rita’s analysis and to the courage and professionalism of those testifying in the impeachment inquiry!
5
Do intelligent, professional Republican politicians (for example, Lindsey Graham) actually believe the mess they're spinning about Trump? Or is there an internal Republican dialog among the educated professionals that sounds like this: "Now Trump's done blah, blah, blah. How can we spin this to keep conservative America voting for us?"
Second question... Do young Republican Congress people realize that their affiliation with Trump is going to follow them for decades?
2
The issue is resurgent fascism exemplified by Putin - authoritarian regimes dedicated to the corrupt enrichment of the insiders, who remain in power by stoking and playing upon the prejudices of the masses. While many are hesitant to enter into forever wars against this new fascism, Trump actively supports it.
3
"...Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
This is Mr. Douthat's key point, at least for me, though I would change the word "share" to "understand" because until these hearings, I never gave any thought, over decades I am ashamed to say, to the State Department. Now, its non-political work force has a human face, or rather three
1
Like all Republicans, Douthat, Russian interference in the 2016 election is “over”. Like all Republicans, Trump’s hand over of Syria to Russia is not suspicious or even important. Like all Republicans, the Ukrainian shake down is a blunder but not impeachable because Republicans and Douthat are clinging to the delusion that Russia does not benefit. That may be because they doggedly permit “Trump to be Trump” or other absurd, shameful nonsense. Or could there be a new level of cynicism?
Obama’s policy in Ukraine and Syria is kept in play with no pundit or Democrat opposing that narrative? Not true. The “red line” failure was squarely a Republican choice in the Republican Congress that refused to authorize military intervention. The Ukrainian issue required Congressional authorization and it was refused. Obama’s policy ended ISIS and established a clear road to address corruption in Ukraine. That Obama’s accomplishments can be distorted is a function of... strange? Given the liberal media, it persists along with the commitment to blaming Obama and Ukraine for interference with the 2016 election on the right. Why? Are liberals and Democrats too smug to wage a scorched earth campaign on conservative, Republican propaganda and pro-oligarchic, anti democracy narratives thrive in the vacuum of determined opposition.
Are Republicans really allied with Trump and plutocracy and Putin? Are Republicans just going along to get lower taxes, more pollution, and oppression of women?
2
This isn't about U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Security assistance funds were already appropriated per U.S. policy. This is about a group of grifters - Giuliani, Trump, Sondland, Perry, and Giuliani's two friends - trying to game U.S. policy to benefit themselves. Flat out, straightforward corruption. And it's about the entire Republican Party working to enable Trump's corruption. When will enough be enough?
1
To what extent is Mr. Douthat trying to subtly deflect attention from the real issue of subornation of bribery and extortion? He does realize that Congress appropriated money that Trump used for these purposes, right? Does he really think that it's appropriate to raise policy issues in the midst of this chaos?
I think that he has put himself in the same camp as Mr. Hannity. He's not telling the same blatant lies, but effect is pretty much identical.
For shame. I really thought better of you, Douthat.
5
You forgot to mention that Congress had appropriated money to assist Ukraine - however Trump tired to subvert the will of Congress - a co-equal branch of Government-for his personal, political purposes. Trump and his cronies wanted Ambassador Yavanovich out of the way to they could implement their corrupt scheme. This entire affair had nothing to do with U.S. foreign policy perse - it had everything to do with Trump trying to get dirt on Joe Biden to use against him in the election.
3
@dairyfarmersdaughter
Ross did not "forget". He intentionally left out the one fact that completely ruins his justification for Trump's crime.
There is no excuse for the NY Times printing this entirely dishonest rant that is worthy of Fox News. Perhaps that is the only news source Ross watches anymore as Sean Hannity could have written this same dreck.
2
If our nation's role in world affairs would be made more productive by steering a new course, I would prefer to have that proposed change explained calmly by the president prior to his taking some shocking, inexplicable knee-jerk international action. Instead we have someone who can't complete a coherent thought without digressing into a rambling monologue about how perfect he is, and how all his enemies should be imprisoned. And could he refrain from insulting and alienating all our traditional allies around the world?
I would be more comfortable if the president could formulate and express a coherent foreign policy. I would be less nervous if he had the patience to sit through a foreign policy briefing, or read the materials. As it stands, forgive me for suspecting that the only rationale governing the current president's actions is personal self-interest.
4
Large numbers of Americans can tell you who won on the Voice last week but can't tell you who the Vice President is.
I wouldn't put a lot of faith in what many Americans believe.
2
Mr. Douthat is this really the time to be arguing about the fine points of our foreign policy when right now when the only policy we have now is to follow the instructions of whomever our crackpot President's son in law wants to please that day? Turkey, China, Saudi Arabia,Russia-take your pick. But if you want to, let's discuss the results of supporting Ukraine. After helping defend their citizens, the people of that country elected a government to try to undo years of corruption that disrupted the world's economy because of rampant money laundering activities by the international crooked banks that were based there among other things. In any case, we need to get on the case and remove our own corrupt Republican federal government. That needs to be our first priority. Then we can go back to fine tuning a sane and rational foreign policy.
3
To talk of this administration as if there is any policy objective or coherency except for promoting the personal fortunes of the president and his party is ludicrous. We have become his and his cronies' piggy bank. You can't put an intellectual spin on how one president in less than three years has torn asunder what was working. TPP, The Iran Agreement, Paris Climate Accord, NATO, UN etc etc. I remember on the eve of 2000 how good it felt to be American. the deficit was coming back from the red, the world admired us and were glad to come to our aid after 9/11. Then we torpedoed fiscal responsibility with a tax giveaway by Bush and an the eventual inevitable crash, ill advised war in Iraq. Obama worked hard to restore fiscal sanity and a foreign policy that reflected our values. He wasn't perfect, who is, but it took time. How much time is it going to take to right this ship after Trump? We are going to have to work very hard to win back the legitimacy we have lost.
2
Everyone should applaud these brave public servants. Republicans cannot pretend, as you do, that the policies and institutions these public servants uphold are in any way arbitrary. They're central to a functioning republic and democracy as they derive directly from the US Constitution.
Federal employees take an oath in which they "swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America." What we've seen from those like William Taylor and Marie Yovanovitch is a belief in the sanctity of that oath, in the Constitution, and in the rule of law.
There is no greater contrast than Trump and Congressional Republicans blatantly and dishonorably violating their oaths of office.
There was no policy behind Trump's impeachable offenses. You offer specious arguments to excuse Trump blatantly committing a host of "High Crimes".
"For Trump, it's the containment of China and Iran by some sort of league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit."
"Self-enrichment as a side benefit"? Trump's sole purpose is self-enrichment and self-advancement. Any attempt to contain China or Iran was revealed long ago to be a sham when Trump traded in his early tariffs against China, like chits at a casino, for Chinese patents for himself and his daughter.
Finally, there's no such thing as a "league of U.S.-friendly strongmen". Despots like Putin are hostile to America, but in Trump they have an American president who sells out America for personal gain.
1
There is something you forget. All the people who testified against Trump's behavior also said they were in the foreign service to represent American policy and that they had supported the policies of previous administrations both Democratic and Republican. What they objected to was criminal behavior by Trump and his sycophants, whether they were Giuliani and his mobsters or the sleaze that inhabit the current White House and have don't the backbone to tell Trump that demanding a foreign government "investigate" an American citizen in exchange for weapons is illegal.
1
The whole of the right wing movement is predicated on convincing their audience that they alone, know what their opponents are thinking. Once that is established, they can then argue why those opponents are so dastardly. Of course most, if not all of the mind reading is based on the premise of setting the audience up for the holier than though retort of the "enemies," thoughts.
Of course, you can always throw in the Hannity "adjective, laced," propaganda. My favorite is the "salacious," Steele dossier.
Either way, their audience can then feel empowered, as they are now part of those who stand upon the hill in judgment, of those underlings, who dare to think or support such things.
Unfortunately, there are about 30% of our fellow citizens, who fall for this type of influence, without regard to facts or education.
2
The history of isolationism is long and bloody. The U.S. can be engaged with other countries in the promotion of democracy without starting a bunch of wars. And if Bush hadn’t become president in 2000, we might not be in two of the quagmires he happily led us into. But the balance is hard to find. Either-or thinking is ascendant in America right now. What disaster will it take to break it?
It’s not only foreign policy professionals that draw the disdain of Trumpists; it’s all professionals. Trumpists share a deep suspicion of higher education, technical expertise, Science and complex logical analysis. For them the right path comes from “gut” feelings, religion and common sense (with an emphasis on common). The only time that they drop their hatred of the elites is when they are lying on a gurney in an Emergency Room attended by a bunch of slender nerdy highly educated professionals who are often Jewish or recent immigrants from India or Iran.
1
The real question is why the administration wants to contain China but not Russia.
It has to do with a certain laundry business headquartered on 5th Avenue that Putin has some real dirt on.
It is in the United States' interests to promote and sustain democracy where it is weak or non-existent. That is a far cry from sending soldiers to guard oil wells, invade Iraq and keeping troops in Afghanistan long after al Queda was defeated.
Equating "deep state" conspiracy theories--the lazy rhetorical device deployed by people who would prefer absolute power to the rule of law--with Obama's criticism of groupthink in foreign policy ("the blob") is utterly disingenuous coming from someone like Ross, who knows better.
Mr. Douthat goes on to say that, compared to Trump, Obama composed "fewer ludicrous tweets" (I guess zero is "fewer" than tens of thousands, yes) and committed fewer "impeachable offenses" (zero counts of bribery is indeed "fewer" than Trump's one)--but this too is an entirely disingenuous comparison. Obama was not deranged or corrupt at all. Trump has no interest in foreign policy *except* deranged, corrupt ones.
Let's put the cute comparisons aside. What anti-elite foreign policy viewpoint does Mr. Douthat want us to consider? "Admittedly, the alternative...is hardly clear." He mumbles something about "the European core" but knows he can't define this in a non-bigoted way. Mr. Douthat notices that Trump has fallen in with a "league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit". Except that self-enrichment is the *only* benefit for a president who never reads briefing materials and always works half-days.
Mr. Douthat marvels at how readily liberals "subsume their skepticism of the national security state in newfound Russophobia," because he can't comprehend how anyone could so highly prioritize getting back to having a non-deranged, non-corrupt man running the government.
2
Let’s cut through the nonsense Ross.
Trump was extorting Ukraine because he could, and doing so benefitted him. Personally.
Not more. Not less.
As for policy ... sure there are disagreements and alternate courses of action that might suit. However, a rather unlikely number of actions by the Trump Administration, and more specifically Trump personally, have neatly served Russia’s interests.
Maybe finding out more about THAT would provide you with some comfort.
2
“Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans.”
Nonsense! This aid to Ukraine was overwhelmingly passed into law by the people’s duly elected representatives of both parties in the House and Senate. Through the power of the purse, Congress is the ultimate arbiter of the nation’s vital interests. Furthermore, the investigation of the President’s political rival by a foreign power is in no way a vital interest of America and Americans.
4
It is interesting to note that Obama wanted a "reset" with Russia, and only grudgingly agreed to non-lethal aid to Ukraine - despite Russia's obvious aggression. And it was Trump who increased sanctions on Russia and provided Ukraine with anti-tank missiles and other lethal military aid in their fight against Russian aggression.
Despite this, Democrats still see Trump as a Russian stooge.
Conflating Trump's views on Ukraine with Obama's is more than disingenuous it's dishonest. Trump has no objectives other than self-aggrandizement and profit. That was never Obama's objectives or policy. This is more than a false equivalency--it's positively Trumpian.
More of this article could have dealt with the implications of its title, "Trump Against the Professionals"---Trump has a strong disdain for experience and professionalism and believes his superior intellect can do a better job than the reputed experts---after all, he considers himself a genius. His problems stem not only from ignoring the advice of individuals such as Obama and Macron ; he prefers relying only on himself . Consider that he has demonstrated a lack of mastery in the past with six bankruptcies ( although, as expected, admitting only to four)---leaving unpaid creditors, unpaid contractors and unpaid laborers in the lurch.
As president, he calls the scientific community a group of fakers perpetrating a hoax, as there is no climate change. He insults the foreign service and ignores their advice. He recently pardoned three soldiers who had committed serious crimes while in service, against the advice of military superiors. He removed the few soldiers defending the Kurds against the advice of the Department of Defense and the generals. Trump with his bloated ego really believes that training and education and experience and achieving licensing and degrees are all meaningless compared to his genius ability---and so he makes a lot of stupid decisions, leading to many bankruptcies in his private business and to many mistakes in his public policy----Trump Against Professionals.
1
Balderdash! The professionals believe in their job is to conduct an orderly implementation of the foreign policy of the United States. They believe in process and they are patriots. When the ambassador expressed her horror and astonishment that a sleazy band of corrupt operators could remove an ambassador so trump could further his political ambitions, she elucidated the reason we should throw him out of office. You imply it’s to protect her political view of expansion of NATO and containment of Russia. Europeans have long been integrated with Russia on several levels ( they supply much of the energy). However, they are also wary of Russian incursions. Reevaluating relationships and commitments is no bad thing. But this is not what this is about and you are quite wrong to intimate that it is.
3
Don't quite get your point Ross. Probably because I did not see any untoward motivation or demeanor in any of the honest professionals.
Foreign policy is tricky. Wrongs and rights fluid. No one can be perfect in this endeavor.
Trump OVERALL has missed the obvious targets - targets he could have and should have hit.
Partly because as Lindsey put it because of incoherency, partly because he's on the regressive modernity defying isolation train, and MOSTLY because he only cares about himself and feeding red meat to his cult followers.
Professionals have every reason and right to feel "this is just plain wrong!"
Again I don't expect any one or any President to be perfect especially in hindsight. But I do expect them to REALLY fight for liberal democracy. Trump and the GOP do NOT and that is obvious and sickening. And I am a patriot first and progressive second! The truth!
1
"policy differences"? Like incompetent corrupt self-dealing versus qualified analysis by non-partisan professionals putting the security of the country and our allies ahead of politics ? Any defender of Trump at this point should have their eyelids stapled and be forced to watch Trump stump speeches 24/7.
3
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses. "
By "fewer" you mean "none?" - just a nit. But more importantly, your argument, Mr. Douthat, ignores at least 2 points: first, that Trump is clearly unfit for the office, and that ignorance in an electorate shouldn't be accepted.
2
Weak column, frankly. Hand waving "deep thoughts" do nothing to address the criminality of Trump, nor the traitorous collaboration of the GOP. The issue is not some slow moving, broader transition to a different "security architecture".
This column is akin to discussing what color a family was going to paint their dining room while watching the house burn down in front of them. It is, in a word, a sideshow.
Douthat should be educated enough to know this full well. If he does, this is little more than Fox-like diversion, a talking point to keep the ground truth from being examined.
I'd expect better from the Times, but the pretzel logic of the right is ubiquitous. This rhetoric is probably about as good as we're going to get. Look at the Post if you want to see some canonical examples of confused argument.
1
Implicit in the false equivalency of Russ Douthat's column is that Trump's banality and insidious corruption, are part of some larger issue about American foreign policy. Douthat's assertions are simply another disingenuous conservative attempt to partially legitimize the craven, sycophantic behavior, of Trump's Republican enablers. The mendacious rants of congressman Jim Jordan, a former coach at the scandal ridden " The Ohio State Perversity " wrestling program, were especially embarrassing to those Americans who still value honor and integrity in their elected representatives .
3
Nice try. Impeachment is not "getting at" anything important about this political moment aside from the fact that we have an unfit President (with no real strategic foreign policy, let alone coherent thought process) using American power and that of the Presidency for his own personal political gain. Please write this column again when you really mean to discuss these ideas and not just muddy the waters for your "team".
3
This article is revolting. Sure, not everyone agrees with current US foreign policy toward Ukraine. So Ross is somehow suggesting that what Trump and his cronies did is a bit more palatable because withholding money from the Ukraine is something that some folks in the US want?
Some people in the US are atheist. Does that give more credence to people who steal from religious charities? I mean, some of those atheists may not like the idea of donating to your church/synagogue/mosque, and they'd want donations going elsewhere.
A criminal act might be well intentioned, but it's still a criminal act. But what Trump and his cronies are accused of is worse than that. They committed a criminal act to gain political advantage - not because they were interested in the Obama administration's concerns about supporting Ukraine.
Don't try to justify its morality in that some people might have wanted a similar underlying outcome.
2
Let me add one more reason for Republican's embarrassing and treasonous behavior the last few weeks: it's worked before.
This country let Reagan/Bush I get away with Iran-Contra (Google Barr, Wm. in that one, too), let Bush II, Cheney and Rumsfeld get away with No WMD in the Iraq war, and let Trump get away with obstruction of justice in the Mueller report (Barr, Wm. 2.0). Why wouldn't they think they can get away with anything now?
3
So the argument here is that withholding foreign aid until Ukraine starts a formal investigation into the Bidens, which of course would damage his chances in a general election, is sort of okay because you know, many smart people have doubts about Western policy towards Russia?
Wow, cognitive dissonance can sure spur creativity in smart people's minds.
3
Mr. Douthat wrote:
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
Allow me to make this sentence more precise:
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with ZERO ludicrous tweets and ZERO impeachable offenses."
:-)
1
Who exactly is offering this "critique of American priorities"? I don't understand.
It can't be congressional Republicans since one of the main themes of their defense of Trump in the hearings has been "Obama only gave Ukraine blankets; Trump gave them missiles!"
There are no critiques of any kind taking place. There is he craven buffoonery you describe, and the Republican defense of the craven buffoonery.
1
It is odd to me that the character of the current President doesn't seem to bother Mr. Douthat. His pettiness, constant lying, childish taunts on-line, pursuit of self interest while in office and a myriad of other flaws apparently don't disqualify him for the Oval Office in Douthat's mind. Have we lowered the bar to this level as nation when we choose those to lead? If so, we are surely doomed to fail as a nation.
1
“Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses. “
Thanks, Ross, for readily providing the expected conservative’s moral equivalency game between Trump and Obama. What “ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses” can you attribute to Obama? You imply with the word “fewer” that there were at least some.
Please, just cut it out.
Trump is dangerous, and is aided and abetted by his Republican lackeys. Our democracy is in grave danger and the U.S. has become the laughingstock of the world. There is no comparison between the moral abomination of Trump and our 44th President.
3
The professionals are dedicated public servants who have spent their lives dedicated to a set of ideals that are deeply and truly American. With Trump, we have someone showing up to take over a government who is deeply ignorant of any day-to-day operational requirements of government and disdainful of the principles upon which the entire government rests.
It is analogous to an ignorant pedestrian gaining control of a neurosurgery unit in a fine hospital then appointing someone with a phony degree and a phony photo on the cover to TIME as head of the department with Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, and Sondland as surgeons.
1
One needs to distinguish between abuse of power / bribery, and geopolitics. I don’t think Ross was bold here. See Dowd’s column of today ... trump’s comment about Ukrainians’ desire to be part of Russia.
Putin is taking Ukraine, a fledgling democracy bit by bit. Why? The oil, as he is quickly running out of his personal piggy bank. See Maddow’s “Blowout”. Putin and the oil cartel would take the oil and run, leaving Ukrainians with nothing.
1
"For Trump, it’s the containment of China and Iran by some sort of league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit." Could it be that you are underestimating Trump's narcissism and greed?
2
There was no policy whatsoever behind Trump's impeachable offenses. These are specious arguments to excuse Trump blatantly committing a host of "High Crimes".
"For Trump, it's the containment of China and Iran by some sort of league of U.S.-friendly strongmen, with self-enrichment as a side benefit."
"Self-enrichment as a side benefit"? You must be kidding. Trump's sole purpose is self-enrichment, self-advancement, and self-aggrandizement. Any attempt to contain China or Iran was revealed long ago to be a sham when Trump traded in his early tariffs against China, like chits at a casino, for Chinese patents for himself and his daughter.
There's no such thing as a "league of U.S.-friendly strongmen". It's just the current Republican lie that a lawless Trump is America. There are many despots, like Putin and Erdoğan, who are hostile to America. In Trump they have a narcissist who gladly sells out America's interests for personal benefit.
If Trump can't sell out America to one of our enemies, he pressures, extorts, bribes, and solicit bribes from allies for personal gain. It is what Trump did to President Zelensky. He was forcing our Ukrainian ally to fabricate a story about his political rivals to ensure his reelection.
This is the state of Republican and Conservative post-factual commentary. It's pure dezinformatsiya. You don’t need to go to Fox News to find it; it is being fed to us right here in the Times.
Douthat proves that "Principled Conservative" is an oxymoron.
Please. Trump has no policy, save Trumpism. He would happily impose anything on anybody if he thought it would help him. This is not a policy, and it does not become one just because some people think the means he uses are a policy. Some people believe that a policy they hold to shouldn't be achieved through theft, bribery, extortion, and the like. You shouldn't steal an election because (you think you) have a good policy, and it doesn't matter how many people think you should. Some things are simple, notwithstanding Douthats's fondness for complexity. This is a silly piece, no matter its "intelligence."
1
Nonsense. These people would have just carried out State Department orders if the President had said that US policy now was not to support Ukraine economically unless they carried out certain policies. Or even that we were just not going to support them and our relations with Russia were more important. Instead, an extracurricular, clandestine program to extort an investigation of Trump’s political opponent was carried out and they were threatened if they did not comply. This is not a political struggle of people with some ideology against the administration. This is a struggle of responsibility against thuggery.
1
Trump has made war against the whole federal government which is how his base wants it. Pompeo has chosen not to fight back and not defend long time professionals such as Ms. yovanovitch and Mr. Taylor which makes Pompeo a coward who has left those working under him high and dry. Then there is the so called AG William Barr who has chosen to defend a criminal president under the false banner of executive privilege.
A few questions for Mr. Barr. Would he defend other presidents power or just his favorite Mr. Trump? Would he stand against Mitch McConnell who denied the president's choice Judge Garland for the Supreme Court? How far would he go in defending a dangerous president to the point of giving Trump absolute power? When Barr defends Trump at the same time convicting people like Roger Stones for similar crimes as the president he betrays his office.
So sorry for the tangent, but no one Trump has chosen for office has ever been a professional.
3
These "bureaucrats" are people who have worked their whole lives in public service--in both the military and foreign service. They have worked for multiple administrations--Republican and Democratic. The idea that they are somehow acting against the president in terms of policy is a complete and total fiction. The idea that you are subtly conflating Donald Trump's extortion (of a vulnerable leader in a precarious situation) with international policy is...hard to comprehend. This case is not about Donald Trump's "behavior" --he is not a trained dog.
1
In this piece, Ross tries to turn “bureaucrat” into a dirty word, but why? It’s the regular demeaning of all things government that the right does all the time. The result is the election of someone like Trump. An outsider who is worse than the old angry guy at the end of the bar yelling.
I applaud bureaucrats who keep the country functioning as best they can.
3
Leave it to the indefatigable intellectual provocateur Ross Douthat to try to squeeze some juice out of the (Republican, "populist") lemon in this impeachment inquiry. In fact, Ross is, in his own way, almost as irresponsible as our addled, mob boss of a president, in vastly overstating both the facts and the seriousness of any legitimate policy critique that could underlie the evident polarization on display day after day. Ross, come clean: do you really intend to argue for, say, relinquishing current U.S. support for Ukraine against Russia, given the history of that region and the realities on the ground in the current context? Do you really intend to promote the tired, Fox News suspicion of the core aims of the European Union project (notwithstanding its clear challenges)? Do you really intend to argue that "the establishment" is keeping the U.S. on foreign policy autopilot, that the West's 70 year old security architecture is somehow no longer prudent or necessary?
3
Where does Douthat get the bizarre idea that the majority of Americans favor the destruction of Ukraine by Russia our avowed adversary?
4
Mr. Douthat: This is not "Trump against professionals" indeed.
Twenty years ago many qualified US professionals stongly opposed the Ukraine policy of Mr. Clinton. This fact is documented by European sources only, not by English. See the German article in Wikipedia on enlargement of NATO
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO-Osterweiterung
sub "Ablehnung durch Politiker der USA" (rejection by US politiicians). Just look at the names
In opposite to this view Europeans supported enlargement of NATO in general but were extremely skeptical in regard to Ukraine because Ukraine always had been a core area of interest of Russia and the Eastern part of Ukraine had always been the industrial heart of the Russian empire.
In opposite to this European view later US governments, particularly G.W.Bush and his advisor Cheney pushed the Ukraine issue for geostratigical reasons - to be clear: Just to weaken Russia. EU did not support this but US carried on. US foreign services were brought into this line. Mr. Yanukovich was "Mr. Putins revenge"
Mr. Obama was personally undecided but his apparatus kept pushing. Some kind of mass inertia was driving his professionals to go on with this geopolitical strategy. Civil servants are not paid to be creative. They have to follow instructions and to implement political agenda by politicians at best.
As you have felt there is an urgent need to rework the US Ukraine strategy. In general Mr. Trump has realized the need also. But he is Mr. Trump...
If Adam Schiff indeed does not know the name of the whistleblower he should rip down that harassing 95 day sign the republicans childishly put up.
Is there a good reason Crimea goes unmentioned in this article?
Or is Douthat leaving that difficult detail out of his narrative because it undermines his whole thesis? Never mind the circular logic of “foreign policy is bad if it’s unpopular and it’s unpopular because it’s bad”?
Opposing Putin’s annexations with money and guns is worth doing. Talk to the contrary puts Douthat closer to Trumpism than he would like to admit.
1
Oh please, in this or any alternate universe will it ever be appropriate to abandon Ukraine to Russia under Putin? And that’s giving Trump the benefit of the doubt in respect of the burning question: FOOL/DUPE/ASSET? Given our KGB grad’s proclivities to interfere in the politics of this democracy and those of our allies while building influence in Africa, the Middle East and South America, how can you rationally argue that we need to adopt a friendlier stance towards Russia as now governed and continue this America First foolishness.
If Russia ceases to be a worldwide threat to peace and stability, we can look into relaxing our vigilance (except that China will no doubt be delighted to fill the void.). Until then, stop your contrarian nonsense and enjoy a fresh croissant with that paragon of foreign policy wisdom, Monsieur Macron.
3
Once again, Douthat oversimplifies. He's making an argument for the existence of a "deep state" that presumes to be more sophisticated than Bannon's. Of course, he has little idea that within bureaucracies there is plenty of debate and fails to see the virtue of professionals and specialists. I.e., he isn't more sophisticated than Bannon.
Boy Douthat, you sure go out of your way to excuse Trump's overall behavior despite being critical of his specific actions.
2
So,Mr. Douthat - "Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses." Fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses - as in none? Why falsely intimate some form of equivalency between Obama and Trump? In spite of the travesties laid before us every day - often every hour - You intellectually elevated, even-handed variety of conservative pundits just don't seem able bring yourselves to go all in in order to save this nations, do you?
3
Yes this is what he run on an won: building walls
1
If there was a Pulitzer Prize for disingenuousness, then Douthat would be a top contender. The intellectual speciousness is bad enough; it is the moral bankruptcy that I find most alarming. I don’t think I’ve ever read greater nonsense revolving around the idea of Doubt. Douthat trashes an important value for no apparent good reason.
2
Trump has contained China and Iran? Yeah, not so much. China has a free hand in Africa and Trump just handed Syria and northern Iraq to the Iranians.
3
Ross, I read your column because you so often make an effort to be vigilant about the unspoken assumptions behind arguments. Do you really think Russophobia is unwarranted? Do you really think that an isolationist alternative exists to the European alliance? Do you really think your integrity is served by excusing a corrupt President who is destroying trust in our nation, trust in government, and distorting truth in every area where it matters, simply because some people, [you, I guess] think we should rethink established foreign policy? Yikes. Regain your status as a clear thinker, print a retraction, and exert the moral peer leadership that I believe you actually aspire to.
1
It's too bad that Tulsi Gabbard's campaign hasn't taken off. Her voice - in favor of overseas disengagement and a non-interventionist foreign policy - should be especially resonant in the Democratic party.
Jasper
Putin is the one that foisted the false idea that Ukraine not Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help HRC and Russia did not try to help Trump.
Eventually that idea found its way into Trump's brain and now the Republican party and so Putin wins again.
The establishment and I know this Ukraine conspiracy is a lie. There is no deep state conspiracy against Trump just people who know facts from fantasy.
2
"with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
fewer!? There were none. Obama pursued the correct way for a president to move policy in a different direction, appropriately using his powers.
This whole article from a writer who usually expresses himself clearly is just more apologetics for Trump.
1
It's curious to me that the word "isolationism" does not appear here. Ross should call this impulse what it is.
Strange that the professionals were so worried about Ukraine corruption but ignored Burisma and the Bidens
Also, so much concern for the welfare of Ukraine when it was Trump not Obama who sent them military weapons against Russia
This convoluted column attempts to view Trump's absolute incompetence and narcissism evidenced in the impeachment hearings in relation to serious foreign policy views. Ross, you need two separate columns: one on the impeachment of Trump and another on foreign policy. Where do you get the gall to speak of president Obama's "fewer ludricous tweets and impeachable offenses"? Fewer? Really? I cannot recall President Obama ever giving a "ludricous" tweet and by no means having any "impeachable" offenses. What exactly are you talking about?
On the one hand, you admit to Trump's incompetence, vulgarity on Twitter, and "impeachable" actions; on the other hand, your attempt to compare Trump "policy" with are previous, highly competent president who was truly concerned about corruption is disengenious at best.
I seriously was cheering when I heard Trump went to the doctor today. Drop dead, I said, much as it is bad karma.
But, Trump has accumulated many lifetimes of that problem.
1
When all else fails, make a very convoluted argument involving Obama. And for bonus points, insult the French.
Rinse and repeat, ad nauseam.
3
It is missing the point entirely to examine the wisdom of Ukraine policy under a headline about Trump's perfidy in subverting our policy, a policy that is nowhere at issue in the current matter.
Clearly he is indifferent to our country's policy except insofar as he might find a means to pervert it for his personal gain, and neither he nor his cult has attempted to excuse his behavior as arising from any quarrel with that policy. Nor should a Times columnist create the appearance of suggesting that.
3
Douthat seems to imply that most Americans no longer want to defend or promote Democracy on a global scale. I don't believe this to be true. what we are tired of is ineffective, inhumane, and expensive wars that promote democracy. But that is very different from using diplomats and diplomacy to promote our interest on the world stage. Even in this bifurcated society I believe most Americans want to see our diplomats promoting American interests and promoting Democracy overseas. The witnesses who spoke during the impeachment we're doing exactly that.
2
“Trump was clearly advancing no policy agenda beyond his own self-interest”
True. What I have not seen yet is an examination of how Trump’s defenders in the Senate and House are likewise doing nothing other than serving their own self-interest in not seeing their entire party go down for having gone all-in with a morally reprehensible president who proved himself worse than they could have imagined, and, at the individual level, serving their own sslf-interest in not being mean-tweeted by Trump out of their well- perk’ed, cozy seats in Congress. Every Republican in Congress is complicit. Every Republican in Congress, in effect, wishes that Trump had indeed gotten what he wanted — Zelensky in a “public box” saying “Biden” and “investigation” in the same sentence.
120
Good one, Ross! And if Trump got caught robbing a bank, you'd make the point that while that was wrong, he WAS making a valid point about the misallocation of investment capital and savings incentives...
4
ANY conservative who wants to go back to a real debate on policy, after what the GOP just did to the WH and then to the impeachment hearings, and who wants to mention Obama, should START by correcting the latest lies that the GOP has been spreading about him.
That means informing people of the fact that since 2014 (= since the war began and Ukraine became a NATO-aligned nation), Congress has sent $1.4 billion in military aid to the country. INCLUDING under Obama.
So no, Obama wasn't against helping Ukraine AT ALL. And of course, he never upheld that aid, during a war, for 11 months, as Trump did, nor did he try to corrupt its president and prosecutors, as Trump did, nor did he sent his personal lawyer to launch a local smear campaign against our own US ambassador, a career anti-corruption expert.
What Obama opposed was getting involved too much in trying to democratizing Ukraine BEFORE 2014, in other words, when its president was radically pro-Russian and anti-NATO, its population supported its non-aligned status, and corruption was rampant. But this is a "technically cautious" approach, NOT a policy of disengagement, as some neocons indeed support.
Without putting this out first, and unambiguously, an op-ed like this can easily be rejected as the typical GOP false equivalencies, designed to cultivate cynicism - which then undermines America's institutions and as a consequence greatness.
8
Like most right wingers, Ross is Obama obsessed. Obama hasn’t been president for three years, but Ross can’t stop mentioning him. I’m surprised he didn’t reference Hillary. But I guess that’s the game for the republicans - blame the guy who has nothing to do with this to deflect attention from Trump’s crimes.
1
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses."
No, Ross, Obama didn't commit FEWER impeachable offenses. He didn't commit ANY.
535
@John Snow
Yes, like most conservatives critical of Trump. Douthat can't make it through a single column without seeming to do his utmost, under most difficult circumstances, to normalize Trump's utterly aberrant behavior.
83
@John Snow
It also wasn't a war.
As soon as Ukraine's pro-Russia and anti-NATO president fled the country, in 2014, and Russia subsequently invaded the country, he started signing the bipartisan military aid bills passed in Congress.
So you can't discuss Obama's Ukraine policy sincerely and seriously without:
1. explaining the huge shift from pro-Russia to pro-NATO that happened in the country (both on the level of the presidency, and the population), during Obama's last two years in office
2. explaining how his administration SUPPORTED and actively sent military aid to the country (Congress gave it $1.4 billion in military aid, from 2014 to 2019), whereas the Trump administration withheld almost one third of that amount for 11 months - AND, as Douthat admits, for merely personal reasons.
The DISAGREEMENTS (not a "war", of course - there were no casualties, contrary to Trump's war with the state department, and no ambassadors had to go through public smear campaigns) between Obama and the experts had to do with how much the US can help Ukraine's democratization process, concretely, as long as it's anti-West and corruption is so high.
Those are sincere disagreements, and contrary to what Douthat suggests, Obama NEVER supported the idea of disengaging, as neocons want.
67
@John Snow That line jumped out to me too. President Obama committed zero impeachable offenses. I'd also like to see what Douthat considers a "ludicrous tweet" from President Obama.
88
I've pretty much had it with columnists who critique Trump's malfeasance in office and figure their job done by duly noting that Senate Republicans are unlikely to vote for his removal, usually as a prelude to hand-wringing over the Democratic field, but often, as is the case here, as a prelude to nothing. No, that is not the end of your job, your duty, your responsibility as members of the "Fourth Estate." It's yours to advocate Trump's impeachment and to persuade Senate Republicans to do their Constitutional duty. And, until you do, directly and emphatically, you are as complicit in Trump's malfeasance as the craven GOP he has turned on its head.
10
In defense of Trump and the Republicans, Douthat makes the veiled suggestion that maybe we should reconsider our opposition to Russian expansion. That perhaps it would be in the best interests of America to side with totalitarian regimes that murder their own people. Of course Douthat doesn't come right out and say that, but that is the gist of his defense. Now somewhere I seem to recall that Douthat is a Catholic. As such, is he suggesting that the U.S. should partner with murdering tyrants for our own interests? What would Christ say about that? And when Douthat says that some grand strategy would suggest we disengage from protecting against Russian expansion "for the sake of other ends." What ends would those be? Douthat can't or won't say.
5
@USS Johnston EXACTLY! You've stated so eloquently what I was thinking. Thank you.
1
Ross, in speaking of President Obama, it would have been fairer (or more truthful, if you prefer) of you to have said, "vanishing few, if any, ludicrous tweets, and no impeachable acts". There exist no meaningful parallels between the official or personal behavior of President Obama and that of the current occupant of the Oval Office, except perhaps that the latter also seats himself, if only briefly and intermittently, for publicity photos that promote an impression of a Chief Executive at work, at the Resolute Desk.
But I agree in general with your insightful argument.
3
Your premise that there is a "gap between what the foreign policy establishment believes and what the public mood supports" is belied by the fact that congress voted $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. The american people want Ukraine to succeed in its attempt to divorce itself from Russia.
6
Douthat is wrong again as usual. Trump is not like most people in his world view - he has no thought out, reasoned view, on anything except his self-interest. the issue at stake is his motive - which is malevolent in two ways - he will sell America for his benefit, and he is beholden to Russia. He is, as others have said, a clear and present danger to America and the world.
15
One reason the people are too exhausted to care much about foreign policy is that we have structured our capitalist system into one which is winner-take-all and a trickle to the undeserving ( rest of us (47% or more, according to the other Mitch).
To get back to seeing our system as a beacon of hope for our posterity and the rest of the world, we need to right the ship of our economy. When we feel that what we have to offer is what it once was and can be again, then we can better pick our foreign policy battles, better position the intellectual structure of our foreign policy blob, and maybe not think of our career bureaucrats as the "deep state."
To get there we need to commit to stopping our march to oligarchy and reverse it.
12
Isolationists always seem to think that we can just turn away from the world’s worst regimes without consequence.
Russia is an oligarchic kleptocracy. China is reinventing totalitarianism for the digital age. Both are actively promoting these illiberal visions at liberal democracy’s expense.
We see the consequence for this all over the world as elections are undermined and societies weakened with misinformation and covert action.
Mr Douthat would have us believe that because neocon adventurism was a disaster, inaction is preferable. But we see on a daily basis how the Chinese and Russians attack our democracy (and economy).
Does Mr Douthat really believe that ignoring that problem will make it go away?
And in the meantime, as we sit in our (for the moment) confortable bubbles, where does that leave the people in Hong Kong, Egypt, Ukraine, Philippines... the list goes on.
13
After watching the hearings it was more like the professionals against the keystone cops.
The idea that we can have an effective State Department, military CIA, FBI that can protect the US without professionals that bring institutional integrity and memory because they may not turn the ship of state on a dime when elections change our policies is wrong.
Today it is the only thing standing between us and the Manchurian candidate the Russians have installed in the White House.
Our system was designed to have checks and balances to slow down the kind of radical dissolution of our Constitutional Republic that we are now living with. The checks and balances between the Congress and the President has been attacked by Presidential obstruction. Fortunately the ship of state is a little to too heavy for corrupt leaders to quickly turn it for their personal profit.
Without a professional government the Republican argument of no government is compelling.
20
@HL
Exactly.
The only moment when a government becomes "the enemy of the people" is when it becomes a dictatorship.
Universal healthcare has NOTHING to do with dictatorship, contrary to what the GOP's corrupt rhetoric has been whispering in the ears of conservatives for decades now.
Universal access to education has NOTHING to do with dictatorship, and everything with putting America, rather than the wealthiest global elites and their infighting first.
A dictatorship is defined by the constitutional abolishment of the separation of the three branches of government, and the end of the free press and free, real, respectful debate.
The GOP's main attitude during the impeachment hearings IS totalitarian in nature, in that instead of informing people about Ukraine, WWI and WWII, the role of NATO (and the role of Obama, who STARTED military aid to Ukraine, already in 2014, instead of merely sending "blankets"), they do everything they can to distract them and avoid any real debate.
But the US remains a constitutional democracy (= separation of the 3 branches) and republic (= with a head of state who gets appointed, rather than inheriting the WH from his father).
It's just that when one major political party starts suggesting that ALL people are corrupt, and then systematically asks its voters to NOT inform themselves, the greatness of a country goes down, inevitably. And then the GOP has what it wants: an oligarchy, with citizens too cynical to engage...
8
Mr. Douthat has made an important point. Trump and many of his supporters are against Pax Americana that has kept the world safe and gradually advanced democracy ever since world war 2. The retreat of America is of course also aligned with the interests of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China. Isolationism is not a new idea in America and has been ascendant in the past. The idea that we should fix things at home and let the rest of the world fend for itself has its attractions. However, in a world of easily transported dirty bombs, cyber warfare via the all connecting internet, rapid transcontinental deployment of navy and air forces, and huge arsenals of intercontinental missiles, is there real safety offered by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans? I am not a defense professional but I KNOW the answer already. The sad thing is that even as an isolationist, Trump is executing this idea in the most inefficient and dangerous way by what is best described as: talking tough but carrying a tiny stick.
By the way, Mr. Douthat is wrong that Mr. Obama and Mr. Macron are not isolationists as he incorrectly tried to draw parallels. Obama remains widely popular in Western Europe for a reason.
10
I can prize out of Ross's argument the following : there are two issues here.
First: there is a US policy issue in dealing with Eastern Europe (and the Middle East, and everywhere on this planet). If we presume on the part of this administration a wizened approach to foreign affairs - then clearly, for better or worse, their activities represent a change in approach.
but...Second: This president's demeanor makes it utterly impossible to presume intelligent forethought with respect to any of his maneuvers and, in fact, it's clear from these proceedings that he is guilty of corruption on a scale we have never seen or tolerated before in our country. How any Republican supporter can sleep at night is beyond any sensible speculation.
If anything - what this administration has uncovered is something all Americans have speculated for decades over Sunday family dinners at the dining room table and beers at the sports bar: the nature of politics is to corrupt absolutely.
To most of us observers we can only conclude that public office is an ego-boosting open cash machine from which money and influence pours like water from an garden hose. Only the strongest 1% of our population are patriots who can ignore that and do the people's business.
The rest would rather sell their grandmothers into slavery than jeopardize that.
5
Criticially NOT stated - that since deployment of each of the policy - let's say 'attitudes' - affixed to the reticence of some gamut of the US political spectrum, bounded on one end by Obama in this article, to view containment of Russian as nonessential, there appeared the now widely accepted as fact campaign of meddling of this NEVER BEEN DEMOCRATIC giant in internal US politics focused on the 2016 election. Throw that in, and a LOT of folks who once saw containment as 'quaint' - dated and so 20th century - likely see much differently now. A CONTEMPORARY debate, rather than a virtual one between the hard present and the reconstructed image of the recent past, would certainly bear that out!
Mr. Douthat confounds two separate issues such that confusion is created, not abated.
It is the policy of the Republicans and the Democrats that the US should assist Ukraine against the naked aggression from Russia. This may be a good policy or a bad policy, but it is our policy today. The degree of that support is also largely agreed and includes certain financial and military support. The Defense and State Departments were clear in their mandate.
Donald Trump can make NO claim that his actions were in any way based upon a policy difference that he holds. His actions were blatant and naked extortion.
If Mr. Douthat wants to propose a rethinking of US foreign policy with regard to either Ukraine or Russia, that is fine. But let no hint be made the Trump had some honorable or subtle policy issue in his mind when he acted. He is neither honorable nor capable of subtle distinctions.
17
@Bob
Exactly!
Mr. Douthat must have ignored the parts of the witnesses’ testimony where they talked about the official foreign policy of the US and the fact that Trump was holding up Congressionally authorized military aid to Ukraine.
The fact that those witnesses may have privately supported the policy in addition to publicly supporting it is not relevant.
If we are to have a change in foreign policy, could Congress, the Secretary of State, and Trump please let the foreign service professionals and the State Department know so that they are all on the same page?
Whether the existing policy towards trying to contain Russia’s influence and ambitions should be changed is a good discussion to have. But one should point out that Russia has not made that discussion easier by its military incursion into Crimea and Donbas and its aggressive interference in our elections.
Trump’s motives in dealing with Russia have been suspect for a long time. He is simply not the right person to lead such a debate. And, unfortunately, not many Republicans in Congress are trustworthy either.
12
Yes, professionals generally, not just those in foreign affairs, "submerged beneath [their] critique of Trump's specific actions [is] a larger policy worldview, one not so much argued for as simply assumed." It's the RULE OF LAW!
11
The over-arching question is "Why does everything Trump says and does benefit vladimr Putin?" In 20 years there will books and documentaries, and probably commercial movie, portraying exactly that issue. we will find out what Putin has on Trump and what the ultimate cost has been for Trump' treasonous relationship with Putin. THAT is what journalists should be exploring now. it is the definitive issue of our time.
13
@TS
Trump's tax returns just might indicate a clue.
1
Given that our democracy is under aggressive assault by Putin, I don't think that our dealing with Russia is accurately characterized as foreign policy. This is happening within our borders, not across the sea.
9
As a businessman, Trump finds laws against bribing foreign government officials "horrible laws" (re FCPA) because they "hurt business" (May 2016). Did he choose to run for president with the rolling back of Jimmy Carter's bill in mind? Did Trump nominate William Barr because of his stance on the question of presidential indictment or impeachment (should either occasion arise) who would then test {Trump's) stance on laws such as the FCPA as applicable to Trump's current dilemma? Could this be the cynical reason behind our current reality of a President Trump? And if so, who approached him to run for President in the first place?
10
It should be sobering for some to remember that the Obama policy was to withhold even defensive arms (we sent body bags and medical supplies instead) from the Ukraine and to support Poroshenko's administration.
It was the Trump administration that changed course and sent arms to Kiev to oppose the Russians. And Biden's defense of his admitted extortion of the Ukraine was that it was part of a push for good government and had nothing to do with Burisma and his son. It must have done wonders - the people voted out the Obama-supported Poroshenko due to corruption.
@Chris The Trump administration did not "change course". It was the bipartisan Congress that changed course, while Trump, knowing it would negatively affect Russia, fought against that change. Finally, Trump had no recourse but to go along with Congress...but only after dragging it out as long as possible. Of course, he is now claiming credit for that move. Sobering indeed.
Biden was implementing the stated US government policy on corruption in the Ukraine. As Republicans love to emphasize, using foreign aid to force countries to adhere to more ethical pursuits is not wrong...it's only when the benefits accrue to just one person. If anything, the Obama policy toward Ukraine increased the probability of Hunter Biden's situation becoming more visible.
17
@Chris
Where to begin....
Obama provided over 600 million in aid; he didn’t include lethal arms, out of concern—-with European allies—-that the fighting would escalate and potentially spread.
Trump’s selling of Javelin missiles was contingent on them not being used in the conflict with Russian separatists. Aside from military contractors making a profit, the aid is no better than what Obama provided.
Biden was aligned with the EU and others to remove the prosecutor. It increased chances that if Burisma were engaged in corrupt practices, the new prosecutor would investigate.
To your last point: providing aid and support to a nation need not align with supporting all facets of its president. The Obama administration repeatedly conditioned aid on Ukraine fighting corruption.
7
The right answer for Europe, the USA and the world is the Obama pivot to Asia without the Russian reset—that plus a parallel pivot to Africa, where China is making great strides. The much- maligned TPP was actually a genius move to strengthen the USA In the Pacific vis a vis China. Why Joe Biden or some other moderate is not trumpeting that on a daily basis, I don’t know. Sometimes old ideas are good ones—so a pivot back to the TPP (some new versions of it, for which admittedly it might be too late) plus a focus on getting South Africa on track as an engine for all of Africa is the way to get the USA itself back on track after Trump.
8
@Mike. As for pivots and resets: "Eastasia has always been our friend, Eurasia has always been our enemy" and vice versa. - George Orwell in "1984".
Seriously? You're equating the current president with Macron, Obama, others? Other than the quest for incremental personal enrichment, what policy goal was the president after?
22
Ross takes the rather banal observation that most Americans do not care about Ukraine and tries to turn it into a pseudo-intellectual treatise on a rebellion against foreign policy expertise. There is nothing "deep" about the observation that many Americans under both Obama and Trump disapprove of sending American troops abroad to fight for regime change.
12
The statement that Republicans and some Democrats doubt our Nation's Foreign Policy and that those Americans who work in Foreign Policy are political actors and defenders of something other than Foreign Policy is untrue and is itself an attack on that Policy. The two main arguments used to justify disengagement and support isolation are weak and false. The first is that we have enough of our own problems, us first. There are no real attempts to address infrastructure, healthcare, inequality, and many other issues here at home despite the need and popular support. A second argument is that people's elsewhere will simply figure out their own political systems and institutions. This ignores that our own conditions grew out of cicumstances of isolation, the vulnerability of our controllers, the world 250 years ago was much simpler, and of course the will of a people who had for generations fought to survive now united to revolt. The majority of Americans understand that our less than perfect attempts to lead and encourage people to form and sustain their own governments for themselves is still needed and wanted. We live in a world in which at least here on this planet, the last frontier is a reexamination of lands long settled, with a goal of colonizing and grabbing resources at the expense of those living there much like our treatment of indigenous peoples 500 years ago. Our Foreign Policy and the Professionals who carry this mission are crucial to the Nation and World.
6
Well this certainly wins my respect for modern-day conservatives: throw the Ukrainians and the rest of Eastern Europe under the bus. As much as the old-time conservatives gave me the willies, at least they knew tyranny when they saw it and did what they could during the Cold War to keep alight the small lamps of freedom still lit under Russian (then Soviet) absolutism. Now that the same Russian absolutism still threatens liberty throughout Eastern Europe, has invaded Ukraine, occupies large swathes of Ukrainian territory, and killed more than ten thousand Ukrainians -- oh well, sighs Mr. Douthat, these people were never part of "core Europe" anyway.
And how exactly do we define "core Europe?" Call me Mr. Crazy, but I suspect Mr. Douthat defines it as the part of Europe which comprises medieval "Christendom" -- which looks to Rome -- rather than the Eastern European Orthodox Christians who, as the heirs of ancient Byzantium, don't.
29
The third paragraph of Mr. Douthat’s piece ends with an astoundingly wrong assertion: “His policy only differed from the policy of the bureaucracy in that its execution was premised on the extraction of a favor, a politically motivated ask.” (1) “[h]is policy” presumes Trump had a policy. He doesn’t, unless one considers personal enrichment regardless of the effects on American interests a policy. That is, Trump’s policy was not premised on the extraction of a favor; his policy WAS extraction of a favor. Which brings us to the second, third, and fourth mistakes in the quoted sentence: (2) the people Mr. Douthat refers to as “bureaucrats” were, in fact, dedicated and expert public servants seeking to advance the interests of the American people, not protect procedure over American interests, (3) there is no “policy of the bureaucracy,” there is only US policy, and, so, (4) Trump’s “policy” did not differ “only” on it’s premise.
48
@Michael Greenfield
Thank you, very good analysis of the column being offered and the thought process that argues the opposite.
12
This is a good, thoughtful article. But notice that the Ukraine is actually *not* in NATO. That was a deliberate decision by the Clinton and Bush administrations to keep U.S. commitments limited. You could say it worked: when Russia invaded, there was no military response from us. That's what we wanted, right?
3
@hepcat
Well ... Ukraine was governed by a pro-Russian president who totally opposed being part of NATO, just like the vast majority of the Ukrainian people until 2014 (= until the Russia invasion) ...
It doesn't seem like a good idea to sell US weapons to a pro-Russia country, does it? ;-)
You cannot possibly think about foreign policy in the terms that the corrupt GOP rhetoric is proposing today, namely as if countries don't evolve.
The political situation today in Ukraine is totally different from what it was before 2014, and was totally different in 2008 than it was in 1998.
That's why since 2014, Obama and Congress have sent $1.4 billion in military aid to Ukraine - whereas Trump withheld 30% of that amount for almost an entire year, and for personal, anti-US reasons.
11
this is not a good article in that it concedes Trump's impeachable conduct, but shrugs it off. the general wsj/fox conservative response is he did it, so what? let's talk about something else. that in itself is bad for the country in ways Clinton/Lewinsky could never have been.
1
Mr. Ross Douthat begins by claiming that "According to Donald Trump’s Republican defenders, the impeachment ... is all about ... career foreign policy bureaucrats cooking up excuses to remove a president" and as far as I can see that's FALSE.
The Republican defenders claim that it's about Democrat legislators cooking up excuses. I have not heard a single defender of the President say that the impeachment movement was started by bureaucrats, whether career or temporary, whether foreign policy or domestic policy or science policy.
If Mr. Douthat HAS heard this particular defense, he should quote the relevant "Republican defender" rather than just say what Mr. Douthat WISHES the "Republican defender" had said.
18
@Dan Styer
I love these comment sections of the Times. This is where I learn the most. So many intelligent analysis and responses. Thank you @ Dan Styer.
1
@Dan Styer What do you think it is that Republican defenders are referring to when they use the term "deep state"?
Wait, wait - didn't the SCP hold up Congressionally authorized and appropriated money for defense for the Ukraine? Wasn't that authorization part of a policy of the US, one to assist Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression? Wasn't the actions of the SCP a covert action against the overt policy of the US?
Wasn't the diplomatic corps attempting to carry out the overt policy agenda of the US?
Please explain.
8
The 80 years after 1940 are an aberration in America's traditional policy. Trump was elected with a policy to revert to this tradition.
1
@wjth
The U. S. has been an expansionist imperial power since the Spanish-American War, and before that it expanded on the continent. It acted like Britain, Germany, and Russia but with less opposition, more success. The U. S., because it consumed more resources than any other country, has necessarily been deeply involved in the economic and political affairs of countries on every continent. Unless you would like to see the U.S. shrink economically, politically, and inevitably, militarily, you won't support Trump.
2
@wjth Do you believe that Trump's request in his phone call that Ukraine undertake an investigations of "Crowdstrike" and the Bidens was a U.S. President's effort to shift a 75 year old foreign policy?
@wjth You'll have to be more specific--I have no idea what you are talking about. What's America's traditional policy?
There is certainly nothing wrong with examining where the US and Europe are headed after 75 years, and what policy and institutional changes are needed to better support future directions. In this regard I find Douthat's column interesting. Unfortunately he starts out with a stated assumption that distorts what might otherwise be a productive basis for discussion: "All the people testifying believe that propping up Ukrain(e)...is an essential goal ....believe that Trump's behavior...undermined a vital policy objective.." No Ross. This is not merely "..the professionals' view of America's vital interests..." All those people are simply carrying out their assigned jobs to implement the U.S. foreign policy that is currently in place, because they have not yet been informed by the President that the policy has changed. He has only signaled to them his contempt for the concept of "policy" by using his presidential powers to benefit himself. Dedicated public servants will just as faithfully implement revised policy when properly communicated to them.
37
It is quite a shock to see Trump's misbehavior in Ukraine portrayed as a kind of people's neo-isolationism. The overwhelming question is rather, why did his actions so closely align with Putin's interests and policies toward Ukraine? Does neo-isolationism mean just simply giving in to our adversaries in such a manner so as to afford them maximal benefit? If so, there is a very close parallel: Trump's retreat in Syria.
20
Douthat tortures logic so that by the last paragraph, he can line up with GOP talking points on the mythical “deep state.”
First, in comparing Obama and GOP policy with respect to Russia he conflates constant “interests” with evolving “policy.” American interests, which enjoy strong, long-standing consensus say that liberal democracy in former Soviet satellites and containment of a newly militant Russia are good. No one, except, perhaps Putin and Trump, disagree with this.
Douthat knows the difference between “interest” and “policy.”
Second, he cites the fact that French president Macron has “lately been arguing for a limit on the European Union’s expansion and a friendlier relationship with Russia” as evidence of a lack of consensus on Russia among our allies. This ignores the fact that any European overtures to Russia are directly motivated by Trump’s sabotage of the successful 75-year Western alliance, which until now has secured peace and freedom in the West. Without United States support, Europe has no choice but to compromise with Putin’s crime syndicate.
What Douthat calls “the establishment” is just the community of honorable career diplomats, intelligence workers and other patriots, who honor their oaths of office and have dedicated their lives to defending a successful policy that has enjoyed the support of 12 presidents since WWII.
Douthat’s spin leads him to a conclusion that lines up against this ongoing and compelling interest.
35
You can disagree about the aims for US foreign policy. That is not the issue with the impeachment. The issue is that he is using a foreign government to assist him in winning the 2020 election.
The election should be decided on the candidates ability to do the job of being President, not on his ability to promote scandal and ridicule towards his opponents.
28
Is Ross saying that Trump did the wrong thing for the right reason? No, that couldn’t be.
Trump’s attempted extortion of the Ukrainians and the Western diplomatic worldview are completely separate things here. Neither has anything to do with the other. Trump didn’t engage with Ukraine because of some post Cold War strategy. He did it because he thinks he sees an easy way to get re-elected.
Russian aggression in Crimea and Syria needs a response. But please don’t imply that Trump’s impeachment hearings are part of that response, unless it turns out Trump has truly been compromised by Russia. In that case the diplomats Trump so aggressively disparages have been right all along.
33
Ross covers a lot here. First of all I believe it has been proven trump tried to leverage the US help and recognition of the new Ukraine government for his personal gain. Second, the bureaucrats in the State Department who are non partisan saw the problem and blew the whistle about it. They have followed the law and I believe supported trumps foreign policy, that is where there one and its legal and not set by Rudy G. Lastly, I am not sure the American people have any real set idea on foreign policy except we should be friends with Europe, Canada and parts of the Americans and to get out of the Middle east.
27
Re Trump against the professionals, Ross Douthat: the Republicans in Congress are just beginning to realize they have no defense against President Trump's misconduct in his foreign and domestic policies. Donald Trump's absolute self-interest is open to scrutiny by the people, not the G.O.P.
Only the Democratic House can prove that Trump owns the corruption of the Ukraine scandal on Congress's impeachment table. Doesn't it look like democracy in Kiev is rampant with the same ol' same ol' corruption we've seen here in America since Day One of Trump's presidency?
8
Trump impeachment, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Foreign Policy,--trying to make sense of it all today?
So far as I can tell, the entirety is incoherence. Nothing straps logically onto anything else, refers intelligently to anything else. You have these isolated parts: U.S. Constitution; Foreign Service Officer Oaths; various laws from all angles; Bureaucracies; elected representatives; foreign and domestic ties; conflicting media and government reports and none of it makes sense.
It's as if the U.S. is a ship coming apart in a storm of changing world, that none of the cliches, platitudes, bromides, by the book operations, laws, etc. match the nation and world, that we are in the middle of paradigm change where nothing locks into anything else in sensible fashion and we are left with moral language and in moral quandary like children arguing over puzzle pieces because they can't make puzzle come together: This person's good, that one's bad; this institution is noble, that one not so; this law makes sense, not that one; this is a corrupt connection foreign/domestic, and not that one; and so on.
It's as if the world's changing and you can't stick the surface elements together in coherent sense and there's more than suspicion that behind scenes things are no less a mess than on surface, so I'm not sure what's to be expected by impeaching a President or removing or adding any element of anything when it's the whole which needs new articulation and design to match change.
1
@Daniel12
It´s as simple as this: Mr.Douthat has no clue of European policy in general and particularly no clue what´s going on in Ukraine. When it comes to Ukraine US foreign policy hasn´t been consistent for decades and was not fully supported by Europeans. The typical "regime change" US strategy towards Ukraine has been flawed for a long time. This regime change policy has been part of a encirclement strategy towards Russia also not agreed but Europeans (Remember Macron) In addition Ukraine in it´s present condition is in a bad inner state - unchecked oligarchy, dysfunctionality, corruption much worse than in Russia, unreliable - and is by no means a shiny good guy in this game. No matter what geopolitical strategy is to apply this has to be changed into a good governance system. All Europeans and US government particularly all US professionals fully agree. As far as I know even Russia is concerned but though Russia has commited several revenge fouls particularly border violations. This is the most dangerous offence in Europe, especially in Eastern and Central Europe.
Now Mr. Trump who has surely not even begun to comprehend what is going on there acted like he has learned his infamous New York real estate busines by usual cooperation with his usual accomplices. Then Mr. Douthat who also has no idea what´s going on there has written a column about it nevertheless while he just felt correctly that something in official US policy must be wrong beyond Trump.
Voilá.
2
This is the most extreme stretch of the facts, to reach an assumption of congressional or national intent, I have seen in a while. The idea that Congress ( not Trump) doesn't represent the will of the country in their increased aid to Ukraine, is stretching the meaning of the country's fear of a deep state, to reach an unproven conclusion.
The fear of the deep state has more to do with right wing fears of a deep state interfering with peoples PERSONAL lives than it does with a desire to pull away from the rest of the world.
Attempting to insert that theory into the current crisis is a distraction.
30
I do not quite follow Mr Douthat's reasoning. The fact that Obama did not want to help Ukraine, because he was trying not to anger Russia, does not mean that this was right. Obama was many times the president that Trump is but he made a lot of mistakes. In my opinion this was one of them.
The current struggle in the Ukraine is about its survival as an independent state - under any form of government - rather than as part of the Russian hegemony. The question here Is: does current American policy represent the best way of insuring Ukraine's independence? Especially since Trump seems to be acting as an agent of Kremlin policy.
Even if the American policy on Ukraine is wrong; that does not negate the fact that Trump asked (threatened) its president into interfering in US politics to Trump's advantage.
I would further note that Trump has abused his position to (indirectly) incite his followers against the professionals who are failing to worship and obey him.
50
@Philip Brown -You make a good point. Supporting the survival of an independent state against Russian expansionism, and not by embedding US soldiers in its army, but by providing them arms, is an unassailable, honorable, and appropriate position. Full stop.
19
@Philip Brown
Obama did want to help Ukraine. Don't confuse objective with method, and don;t presume that Obama had a free hand. Obama pursued a policy of sanctions and diplomacy to contain Russia, and no doubt would have done more if the GOP Senate had not actively opposed his efforts on every single project. Even when Obama reported active Russian interference in our elections, Mitch McConnell, of "#MoscowMitch" fame, blocked a bi-partisan response.
19
There you have it: Ross' defense of Trump as a case of fighting the "Deep State" and just doing what most Americans actually want. Hmm, or is this actually what Putin wants?
21
The foreign policy of the US in Ukraine is not so much pro-Democracy as it is anti-corruption or pro-rule of law. The ambassadors said rule of law is key, for example, in establishing business relationships that are open, fair, and predictable. Rule of law also means you don't have to bribe anyone to get protection of the police or courts. Likewise it means you cannot bribe the police or the courts to avoid accountability, or, even worse, to start prosecutions against political enemies.
To help bring Ukraine out of the dystopian world of corruption is what the Ukrainian people want and is the US foreign policy, the ambassadors said. That is why Trump's behavior, and Republican support for it, is so outrageous. There is no dispute about the importance of rule of law in Ukraine except among its thugs and Americans who actively abuse its corruption to get rich and who lie under oath about their nefarious plots.
23
Both Trump and Obama as heroes of our time fighting the Imperial aspirations of our deep state which is under the control of financial interests who profit by conflict.
Let us come to recognize that the idea of "what's good for business is good for America" is clearly not true. We must do what is best for the American people. Business ideally would come to embrace that idea or have it forced upon them.
4
" ... not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
A great many people? Really?
As Margaret Thatcher once memorably asked: "What are their names?"
21
@Ken If politicians did not share those views of America's interests, why did they vote for the aid to Ukraine? Why did Trump sign the bill?
Dems need to steer the discussion away from Ukraine policy and turn the spotlight on the way Trump sought to undermine American democracy by corrupt dealings involving Ukraine. The author is correct in thinking that many Americans will be unmoved by the argument that the US should be throwing more resources into foreign military adventures, even if only through the provision of arms.
At the same time, the fact is that Trump did NOT publicly or privately change US policy toward Ukraine; to the contrary he amplified on the existing policy by adding the Javelins to the mix of defense assistance being provided. In no way did Trump seek to pull the US out of this particular foreign adventure. Those who want a retreat cannot so argue in Trump's favor.
What he did do, as should be plain to all, is conspire with Giuliani, his henchman, Sondland, and others in an abuse of power to secure his re-election. This is an impeachable offense, and if we have to call it bribery to get the American people to understand it, fine, because it was that too.
22
Agree to a large extent but for one missing point... there’s no agenda except self promotion and making profits. Not for once did he think about national interests.
24
Two magic tricks everyone should know; creating policy out of thin air and defending the indefensible.
1
Mr Douthat, policies may change. But until they do the civil servants and career diplomats have one job, and that is to act on the policies in place.
I can assure you that for Europeans Putin’s power grab in the Ukraine looks quite different and a lot more menacing than it does from your end of the world. Menacing why? Because Putin stands for an oligarchy, not freedom and democracy. He and the former Ukrainian government stand for corruption, not for the common good of ‚we, the people‘.
Miss Yovanovich made it very clear that the reason for her removal were not changing policies but rather her commitment to fight corruption. But of course, under the current President, who himself is a deeply flawed and corrupt man, that fight is not at the center of any policy. He does not care for the people, not even for his own. All he cares for is himself.
48
The policy debate happened (my guess is the Trump administration was too busy tweeting to constructively join the discussion or steer the policy) and the folks arguing for aid to combat Russian aggression won. In other words, Congress overwhelmingly approved a relatively small sum to help a democracy in its struggle with arguably the world’s most destructive country. Trump doesn’t get a do over because they missed or didn’t understand the process. Further, if he was in the least big consistent or coherent about foreign policy, maybe the country could come to a consensus on these matters. Unfortunately, he’s not the man to do it.
7
Interesting analysis. Theatre of the absurd you say. My mind goes back to the hearings at the time of Kavanagh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. The lady accusing him of misbehaviour, in the opinion of the majority at the time, felt she was a brave person and had done a very good job. All that did not help and Kavanagh is a Supreme Court Judge. The Ambassador Yvanovitch has also done a remarkable job, she has been bullied in real time, but the Republicans, said at the end of that hearing that what had happened was not an impeachable offence. The trouble is MORALITY has taken a nose dive and the general public appear inured to such revelations. Their representatives, in turn are only interested in getting re-elected and will similarly present a thick skin and a closed mind to what emerges. The altruistic concept of Public service is long dead, and I shall not be surprised if all this comes to nothing although deeply disappointed. I have an ancillary worry in that the Democrats do not seem to have a winning candidate to field against Trump. Hilary and Bloomberg are also thinking of putting their hats in the ring and I can only pray that the Democrats unite solidly to field one of these, Biden, Warren and Sanders included, who will hopefully trounce Trump.
14
@Lakshman Pardhanani You morality point is I fear correct. More specifically, morality as imperative to show concern for the less fortunate and the greater good.
4
The lead story in this day's paper, about the Chinese party's internment of hundreds of thousands of Xinjiang's Muslims in the border with central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, helps confirm Mr. Douthat's point that Macron and Trump may in part be seeking realignment with Russia for "containment of China." Among other things, Russia can help with resistance against Chinese incursions not only to the north and in the eastern and southern sea regions, but in central Asia. Moreover, with China pushing to show "absolutely no mercery" and Russia reasserting strong-man nationalism no matter what we do, it only makes sense to disrupt the utopian dream of a global federalism so fondly held by the "blobs" in Foggy Bottom and Brussels. These blobs are dangerous to the world's safety and human rights, despite what they smugly think of themselves. It makes no difference who points it out, even if it's an hysterical Trump.
3
@Dave Oedel
No sane administration would align with Russia, even to oppose Satan.
Macron wants to buddy with Putin to keep trade, particularly natural gas, flowing.
Trump is a Russian puppet; albeit a largely unconscious one.
Immigration and massive global "defense" spending are 2 areas that support this thesis. However, the thesis is barely, if at all, relevant to Trump's Ukraine problem: the threatened sabotage of financial assistance already approved with overwhelming bi-partisan support in Congress to a nation bent on fighting its own battle, not expecting us to do so. Maybe all bureaucrats aren't heroes, but the ones we've been listening to this week surely are. By pretending they aren't, you, and the Republican establishment, feed the attitudes and conduct that make the US look like Nicaragua and Venezuela. Time to call a spade a spade Mr. Douthat.
19
Ukraine is not an isolated case. The three former Soviet Baltic republics also have significant Russian minorities who might one day take up arms to be part of Russia. Can this be avoided? A good place to start would be for NATO & EU officials to insist the governments of Ukraine and the Baltic states extend full civil and language rights to their Russian minorities, if they don't do so already. The security of Europe depends on the restiveness or otherwise of these minorities.
4
Our foreign policy should focus on global economic development. Most problems in the world are caused by the extreme income inequality between countries. About two-thirds of income inequality is between countries and only one-third is within countries. This inequality is the root cause of mass migration. And most international conflict since 1945 has been about rich versus poor countries; we flatter ourselves by saying they were about democracy, but in the Cold War, the world’s largest democracy (India) was Soviet-aligned because it was a poor country. Even authoritarianism is largely attributable to poverty, as all countries except a few Petrostates where the government controls all the oil transition to democracies when they get close to first-world levels of GDP per capita.
Hopefully, the new Democrats who seem attuned to income inequality within the US will also understand that income inequality between countries has the same corrosive effect as income inequality within countries.
3
There are plenty of general arguments to be had about NATO and EU expansion and the extent of U.S. commitment to spreading freedom, democracy, and the American Way around the world. But opposing Russia's direct military attack on Ukraine and its extensive, outrageous interventions in our electoral system? Is that really "post-Cold War autopilot" and "newfound Russophobia"? I think Americans should share that objective, transcending differing general worldviews that were in no way undercurrents of this week's testimony.
"Irredentism" is by definition a type of policy or political principle, favoring return of territory to a country that once possessed it. Many in Ukraine and the U.S. would argue against that principle, but our support for Ukraine is not aimed at helping win a policy argument. It's to resist military invasion. "Propping up" (in a political context) is generally associated with something that lacks public support, such as an oppressive regime. Describing our efforts as "propping up Ukrainian democracy and supporting Kiev's struggle against Russian irredentism" is first a cheap diminution ("propping up") and second a gross understatement ("irredentism"). As a columnist, you are keenly aware of how choices of words color the messages that are conveyed. You are suggesting opposition to U.S. actions in Ukraine through misleading and inaccurate choices of words rather than cogent argument.
36
One important and accurate point that Douthat makes here is that Americans don't really know or care much about the Ukraine - and why should they? For those of us over 30 it was part of the Soviet Union. The end of that was definitely a good thing. Most of us who grew up learning to hide under our desks in case of a nuclear attack were happy with that. We don't really want to go back to those days. It's China rather than Russia which is expansionist now, so what's wrong with making friends with the Russians? The civil war between the two is important to them but meaningless to us. All this mess is pointless.
2
@Cloudy hardly meaningless. Russia interfered in not just our election, but multiple elections around the globe. Their world view and actions are anathema to our values as a free society. While they may not have the ability to expand their territory militarily, they are responsible for much of the rise in nationalism, distrust, and disinformation that we see influencing and eroding democratic values. You may fear the rise of China, but NEVER turn your back on Russia.
22
If you're a journalist in Russia and the least critical of government, you're at constant risk. Anything from minor harassment and vicious beatings to assassination attempts by the police and secret service. The same goes for members of political opposition parties. Russia under Putin is not a benign actor by any means.
3
@Cloudy
When one country invades another country, it is NOT a civil war. Look it up.
2
Surely there is a reasonable center in the policies of the US government, in this geopolitical fight with Russians, extremists in the Middle East, and China. It still is in our interest to have a Europe that is strong, democratic, and united whether we turn our attention to the East and China or not. That does not mean we have to try to rope in Belarus into the NATO or EU orbit. It is important not to let Russia invade small European states. As for what the center view on the Middle East is, I am on the side of less involvement the better. Get out. Let the Russians and the Iranians handle the bottomless problems of the area. And by all means really turn toward Asia, that is Japan, China, India, and the rest. But turn in a coordinated logical planned way, not with helter skelter and destructive import duties.
4
Another well-written, thought provoking piece. However, I feel that Douthat's reading of the situation is too narrow, and typically for Republicans ignores the elephant in the room (pun intended): climate change. Moving forward, the significance of the Trump presidency vs. the State Dept. and its institutional drive to expand US spheres of influence and promote Liberal Democratic values abroad will be its impact on our ability to capitalize on those post-Cold War efforts to forge a progressive global coalition - our only real hope in fighting off a universal existential threat to human life on this planet.
4
Buried in the middle of this is the notion that popular opinion trumps the advice of professionals. Indeed. Why have experts? Oh, and I particularly like the notion that Obama anticipated the deep state.
8
Mr. Douthat starts with an excellent analysis of alternative views vis-à-vis the importance of Ukraine to America's national security.
However, he veers off the road when he ties it to impeachment.
Though lethal aid to Ukraine has supporters across the political spectrum, the most ardent are the very Republican senators who will vote to acquit or convict.
7
@Mark Keller
Exactly. I groan a little because think this article is a huge deflection from the issue at-large in the impeachment. The fact that you might sense that the witnesses might have certain policy biases does not have anything to do with the facts of the actual, impeachable misbehavior that they are testifying to.
This does not boil down to a question of the priorities of the elite versus the priorities of the people. We could be talking about any country in the world. The setting here happens to be the Ukraine. What central is the corruption here in the oval office.
1
Experts don't know anything. If they did, people would need to listen to them. But Republicans and Trumpistas don't want to listen because they don't like what those experts are saying, so the only alt-logical step is to deny the experts and the whole concept of expertise. 'Now I'm not an expert, but What About everything else I can think of?'
See, that was easy. Expertise problem solved. Keep the Noise >>> Signal. What we ignore can't hurt us.
17
Ukraine is not a member of NATO or the EU. It borders Russia, and is in fact the cultural origin of Rus, Muscovy; i.e. the origin of what became Russia. Why the obsession with Ukraine? Does anyone really think that it is in the vital interest of the U.S. to risk war with Russia in order to bring Ukraine into some sort of formal alliance with the West? Why in the world does the foreign policy establishment think Ukraine is so important to the U.S.?
2
Ross,
Since the 1990's, when Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons, US policy has been to protect Ukraine from Russia.
One person who publicly advocated more military aid to Ukraine was Trump. That's why, in part, Congress passed a $400 million aid package and he signed the legislation. To borrow a phrase, Trump was for it before he was against it. Then he realized that the aid might upset Putin. So, Trump holds up the aid until Ukraine manufactures dirt on Biden. Remember, without the whistleblower Congress and the media would not have known about the hold-up. On 9/13 Zelensky was scheduled to go on CNN to talk about Biden corruption. I don't believe Trump would then have released the aid.Trump would have said Ukraine is corrupt and impounded the aid if anyone bothered to ask. On Thursday the 13th Trump is just 2 weeks away from the end of fiscal year when the Ukraine aid would have expired.
Trump's plan was to blackmail Ukraine for dirt, not give them the aid which then leaves Ukraine at Putin's mercy, while Rudy, Lev, Igor, Rick Perry and whoever else get at Ukraine's energy sector.
No, Ukraine is not on most Americans' minds, but is on Putin's mind and Trump's because a corrupt buck is easily made there. Trump went against a policy he advocated and legislation he signed. The diplomats were implementing American government policy that recognizes Russia as a threat and Ukraine as a buffer and a foil to Russia's aims.
23
Sure, these arguments exist, but as a matter of decency and good taste, I do not understand why Douthat is writing about them at a time when American foreign policy is going rogue, but for the honesty and spine of our diplomatic community. Is the conservative preference that backhanded deals become the order of the day?
14
I don’t know why Douthat is writing about these problems, but my guess is it’s because he thinks it’s an interesting and worthwhile topic that he has original thoughts about. This is a good reason to write the column. Another is that I wanted to read it. I have read Trump criticized in a lot of ways and agree with almost all of them, but it’s hard to criticize Trump in a way that zillions of others haven’t already done.
There is the mild implication in this comment and others that discussing Trump’s foreign policy without dwelling on the self-serving nature of the man himself is some sort of apology for the president, but simply because Douthat looks at the policy apart from the man doesn’t make him an apologist for the man.
Thus is a good column because it made me think about something different.
2
@Adam Block
So one of the reasons Mr Douthat wrote the column is "that I wanted to read it." You are a very important man, I must say.
@Adam Block
where are different with you is that this article doesn’t present a good argument about what it open with.
The article implies that the impeachment fight boils down to differences in policy, or orientation towards the world. It doesn’t. As one commenter noted, the most ardent defenders of the Ukraine are Republicans.
I think what Eric was getting was getting at is that this article is a high-end version of the opposition strategy of “muddying the waters.”
After acknowledging the obvious corruption in the Ukraine in which Trump subverted existing U.S. policy in the Ukraine, Mr. Douthat stated that the career professionals view of supporting Kiev’s struggle as an essential goal for U.S. foreign policy may not be shared by many people, voters and politicians. In doing so, Mr. Douthat suggested that the career professionals were pursuing their own foreign policy agenda. While people may disagree as to the level of U.S. support (if any) there should be to the Ukraine, there should be no disagreement that the career professionals were pursuing the stated foreign policy objectives of the U.S.; not their own. The career professionals uniformly testified their mission is to further the stated foreign policy of the U.S. As a matter of foreign policy, it was the Republican Congress that sought the imposition of sanctions against Russia upon its annexation of Crimea, as well as the subsequent legislative appropriation of military aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression. When the appropriated funds were not released and it became apparent it was inexplicably being withheld, Republicans and Democrats alike demanded that the White House release the appropriated aid, demonstrating that supporting Ukraine was the foreign policy being pursued by the U.S. at the time.
30
You completely ignore the evidence of Russia's commitment to undermine democracy in the US and Europe. It is a well-coordinated and carefully planned strategy starting with their ongoing attempts to sabotage our elections. Who specifically are you referring to in this vague statement; "Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
16
@Tom Same question I asked. Name one.
Win or lose, come November 2020, I’m looking forward to voting for someone who actually wants to be the leader of the free world.
18
@Vasari Winterburg And that will not be Donald Trump. He wants to join the club of dictators who also do not want to manage the world. They just want freedom to do what they want to do in their own bailiwicks and destroy all the opposition where they are and to make big bucks.
The Senate Republicans are watching all this very carefully. They’re waiting for signs that the non-partisan professionals are more persuasive to the American electorate then the ultra-partisan Trump. As soon as they smell the shift in the political winds away from Trump the 20 Republican Senators needed to uphold the House Bill of Impeachment which is forthcoming may to begin to materialize in order to save their own re-election prospects.
8
"... However, the president’s defenders are right about this much: If you listened to the testimony from the witnesses this week, you could sense submerged beneath the critique of Trump’s specific actions a larger policy worldview …"
The first 3 paragraphs are good. The 4th paragraph is where this article flies of the rails.
There is no 'larger policy worldview' 'submerged beneath' 'Trump’s specific actions'.
Man, how milquetoast does it get: 'Trump’s specific actions'.
Replace 'specific actions' with 'extortion'.
Trump used tax payer money to extort a personal favor from a foreign government. This is not only illegal, an abuse of power, it is a felony. This in and of itself is not defensible, and utterly unacceptable. All the rest is noise.
33
As someone whose ethnic background hails from Eastern Europe I can attest that keeping Russia from reclaiming and or expanding back into Europe is in Americans self interest.
Russian influence or worse a Russian invasion will only plunge Europe back into wars that will have a ripple effect throughout the West and Middle East as well as Africa.
This needs to be avoided at all cost.
WWW 3 would leave the globe in shambles and open the door for unsavory actors on the world stage to move in. It won’t be pretty.
Russia needs to stay out of Europe, cease its aggression and should instead try to work along side Europe as a genuine ally and trading partner. I believe that Putin is motivated to undermine and destabilize Europe out of not just greed and dominance of resources but of pure mendacity and vindictiveness.
He never forgave the US for helping the fall of the Soviet Union nor for helping to get Yeltsin elected. This is payback based on wounded pride.
18
@PP
"This is payback based on wounded pride."
Hmm, I wonder if any other world leader would sympathize with that.
The American public may not believe as unquestioningly as Marie Yovanovitch appears to that we have a vested interest, and particularly, a national security interest, in the strength and security of democratic countries abroad.
However, one has to attribute, at least in part, the discounting of that interest's importance by some Americans (including our President) to ignorance rather than to any real understanding of history, foreign affairs or international relations. Because education in those areas, plus years of experience in the field informed by it, are assets these foreign relations professionals bring to their opinions of what is and isn't in America's security interests.
Discounting what people with real expertise can tell you comes under the category. of not asking your auto mechanic to perform your appendectomy, and not asking people who care about nothing other than money to run your country.
27
Here he goes again - the gadfly for the right only because of his unbending love for the truth.
Actually who cares. In the end , either you believe that the values earned by the 2nd World War and their incarnation in a generation and that generations' children had deep and abiding value, or those values should be held up , rotated and examined by people who never lived through flames. Of course, it's wonderful to listen to folks on the right talking about the biblical veracity of the constitution etc. but who dismiss the wisdom imparted by the recently dead or courageous.
Douthat's no FOXhead, but he provides the Stephen Miller's of the world with a philosophical underpinning far worthier than their actions - and yet he continues to provide it - since he's more interested in speaking the truth than promoting it.
8
Mr. Douthat writes: "it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans." That this is so casts shame not on the "professionals" but on the "many people" Mr. Douthat (correctly) estimates.
But the same is true of the views of "professionals" in other fields. Professional economists adhere to the notion that governance requires taxation; professional scientists hold that species evolve, and that the climate is changing, in part owing to human activity; Intelligence professionals tell us that Trump's campaign collaborated with Putin's Russia, that Trump bribed the president of Ukraine, that Trump's policies in Korea and Syria have failed, the Iran nuclear deal was working, and that the USA should treat allies better than it treats enemies. Yes, "a great many people" do not "share" those professionals' views. But I wonder how many of them would start Sean Hannity at quarterback against the Patriots, or hire Jared Kushner to fix the brakes on their cars.
19
@Martin Daly
Very well said. The trouble with this article is that dresses up its arguments in a bunch of abstract nouns. When you translate it into concrete words, it seems absurd.
The problem with this critique is that Congress had appropriated money to assist Ukraine in resisting / battling Russia, which means at least that branch of government decided doing so was important to US interests. And I suspect, although I don't know where to find this evidence, that the executive branch had supported that policy goal. So it actually DOES matter that 45's behavior undermined previously debated and adopted US foreign policy for his own personal goals.
29
@rebecca
Not only did Congress appropriate the money but 45 then signed that legislation. He had the opportunity to veto it but he did not. So whatever one might think of the policy it was the official policy of the US. The money allocated to Ukraine was the law of the land.
14
@Will Smith
And the professional diplomats were following the law, not their personal worldview.
10
There are genuine policy disagreements on how much defending Ukraine against Russian encroachment is in the US national interest. However, that is not what is at stake here. What is at stake is whether it is a Presidential prerogative to use his power to pressure a country that is relying on US aid to do dirty work against a political opponent. One may disagree with the way the State Department bureaucracy sees its role in the Ukraine but one cannot claim they are being dishonest. No foreign policy should be pursued for personal benefit, from the lowest employee up to the President.
22
@Serban
The combination of Trump, Giuliani and the Ukraine oligarchs is Godfather Part Five. Instead of trying to clean up Ukraine, the Trumpsters decided to just weaponize the corruption to his advantage for his re-election. It’s an open and shut gusher of impeachable offenses.
But it will be ignored. The US oligarchs will dismiss it and Trump will stuff more tax cuts down their throats. We have no better government than Ukraine if we can’t wrench this mobster out of office.
@Serban Actually, there were NOT policy disagreements. There was bipartisan support in Congress, including from most Republicans, for the aid to Ukraine. And Trump signed the bill.
The people who want us to retreat from involvement in the rest of the world are like the people who want us to balance the budget. They have simplistic notions of how things work and do not see or care to see the consequences that would follow their policies.
Retreating from involvement in the rest of the world would entail giving up the dollar's status as the world's primary currency and also shrinking the military. This retreat, like balancing the budget, would shrink our economy and leave our surplus labor to fend for itself.
11
@sdavidc9
We had a balanced budget during the 1990’s without much suffering. Perhaps shrinking the military budget would be a good thing, since the Pentagon has no idea where the money goes anyway...
1
We could spend money on infrastructure instead. No reason to put people out of work.
1
Many Americans are not paying much attention to the impeachment hearings but planning for the Holiday Season while sensing that it is not business as usual.
To get to The Heart of The Matter, there is an undercurrent that all is not right.
Our former president has cautioned those on the Left to remain steady, and I hear him. The New York Times is taking a beating from staunch republicans who believe our country is on the right track, and it is a good a time as ever to thank the above publication for its fine work, responsible, meticulous and fact-finding.
On a subjective note, we have gone from the sublime to the slime in a few years. This can be redressed and it will take work. It was a relief to hear the voices of some of our top commentators return.
A somber moment in our history, there is a feeling of dread, and that all these allegations of corruption are a burden impacting on us in ways that we do not wish to address, and it is an opportune moment to extend appreciation to those who have come forward.
The author Wilde might have disagreed, but on occasion the importance of being earnest cannot be underestimated. Rise high America, and cease with the twittering in the courtroom.
12
Republicans in the Senate and House are working hard to become Trump's co-conspirators in there effort to retain political control at all costs. They know no boundaries and are exhibiting no courage, morals or independence. Trump and the Republicans need to disappear before they completely undermine the American democratic experiment. If the Senate Republicans keep Trump in the presidency despite the massive criminal and thug like behavior, including live witness intimidation while the witness is testifying to Congress, they are making Richard Nixon look like an angel. Republicans are making their own demise more likely as they are spellbound by power under Don the Mob Boss. But Mob Bosses generally do not have longevity, and hopefully this Mob and Boss will end up indicted and incarcerated to prevent their poison from spreading. Let's hope their end is sooner rather than later.
16
I think the entire global policy sphere is being rethought with the realization that the US under Trump is no longer a reliable partner. Everyone thought they knew the rules, and they are now coming to the realization that there are no rules. Our foreign policy is total chaos. The only people who seem to have a consistent Green Light are the Saudi's, Israel, Russia and Turkey. Everyone else, even long term allies has been criticized by Trump or double crossed.
The US has had its own way in the world for some time. Our foreign policy blunders under Trump are causing many around the world to rethink their assumptions. When we finally dispose of Trump, we may find our former friends to be wary of our embrace. It may become a more arms length relationship going forward. French President Macron may be the first of many who say it is time for us to stand on our own two feet without American assistance. That is good and bad. It will save us money, but lessen our ability to influence world affairs.
8
@Bruce1253
Trump's embrace of Putin and rejection of Allies is not a blunder. He is doing these deliberately.
with Trump, all roads lead to Putin!
Douthat's thesis is that the view of career diplomats, who argue that Ukraine should be propped up against Russian aggression because it is vital to American's interests, is not shared by "a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
That's your evidence to support your thesis?
I would argue that a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans, DO agree with career diplomats and those who study geopolitical issues about the importance of providing Ukraine with assistance to defend themselves from an unprovoked attack by Russia.
I think a great many people would share the view that it is entirely in America's vital interest and in the interest of the greater world order to show Russia, and any others who would emulate them, that invading and annexing another country's territory will not be tolerated.
23
@Morals Matter
Ross' thesis is something he came to just this week when he was desperate to defend Trump. Ross spent the entire Obama Presidency ranting against Obama for not being more belligerent toward Russia.
Ross's goal is to enable Trump no matter what. Ross is one of the people who would figure out how Trump's shooting someone on Fifth Avenue (which he will acknowledge might be a little bit wrong) is a minor issue compared the idea that Presidents may have to make decisions about killing people for good reasons and it's important to let them.
2
@Morals Matter Also, the aid to Ukraine was passed by Congress, including almost all Republicans, and signed by Trump. It was the law.
1
I did not hear Taylor, Kent or Yovanovich arguing for "constant enlargements of American commitments, NATO and European Union membership as an inevitable and necessary goal." What I did hear was an underlying assumption that encouragement of democracy and discouragement of Russian-style corruption in Ukraine are consistent with American values and hence our national interest. I know of no liberals who question that assumption, whatever their views on the appropriate forms of American assistance. What I find scary is that those values are indeed questioned on the right, where a reactionary oligarchy and a resurgent white nationalist movement increasingly find Putin's Russia an appealing model for Europe and America.
39
I do NOT doubt that a vast majority of Americans will support the promotion of democracy in other parts of the world as log as it does not involve the military going in there to develop democratic institutions. Like we are or were doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This is a red herring because George W and his cabal invaded Iraq under false pretenses and Obama was unable to disengage, "Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans."
In the case of Ukraine, the Kurds and maybe even the legitimately recognized Government in Libya we, to put it mildly, lost our way. I have more explicit words but may be frowned upon in a family newspaper.
We support them financially, through sale of arms and diplomacy and allow them to establish their own democracies or fail. We don't have to concede space to dictators.
6
The professionals may be the backbone of government, but there is a reason that they are not charge (at least officially).
The trick is to listen to the professionals, read what they write, seek counsel from some, but the professionals after all are not in charge and they do not or should not set policy. They enforce it. The Executive Branch does that and executes it. As Mr. Douthat writes, Mr. Trump is not the first to have problems with the system. He is though perhaps the most blatant and vociferous about his objections to it.
1
@Joshua Schwartz
Except the professionals were implementing US policy. Congress passed the aid package and Trump signed it.
Yes, Ross, when you call attention to the fact that “it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans” we are beginning to address the far more important moment of whether professional geostrategists as well as patriotic citizens are viewing the conditions of democracy vs. Empire as requiring cooperation or competition.
2
To please those, in this case Putin, who can supply the real estate and funding for Trump is the object. Please don’t conflate his approach with anything that occupies a higher plane.
25
I have been so impressed with our foreign service officers testimony. I never seriously considered their plight or their/our mission until this past week. Together they have convinced me of the importance of foreign aide to make this world a better and peaceful place and avoid unending wars. In truth I paid little attention to Ukraine until these professionals made me appreciate this valiant country’s attempts to free themselves from Russian influence.
Republicans, its not too late to stand up to Trump’s tyranny and remake your party, but this may be your last chance.
28
@Gus --- it's way too late. When you make a deal with a mafioso in exchange for your tax cuts and deregulation, that deal is forever. There is no exit.
1
Ross when you state that "Because it is not only Trump himself who does not share the professionals’ view of America’s vital interests, but a great many people, voters and politicians, Democrats and Republicans" you imply that professionals who are deeply involved in policy are somehow less objective and less correct than voters and politicians. Based on that I have no problem saying that this is clearly your poorest column ever.
93
@Paul Given that their careers have succeeded by believing their construct of the world, they are, in fact, less objective in reveiwing whether that construct is in need of change.
@Ashland
Um, I think I'd trust the knowledgeable viewpoints of people who've actually spent time working in those countries, and who've gotten to know their people (and their politicians) more than the uneducated opinion of someone in a place like, oh, maybe Missouri.
2
Douthat is again the most astute observer we have of the liberal establishment. The post-Soviet Union assumption that the world needed to be reshaped according to US standards --Madeline Albright, the US as "indispensable"-- culminated in Hillary Clinton, Libya and "endless wars." This was a point Bernie Sanders made in 2016-- maintaining the US Empire was hurting the world and helping impoverish Americans. That "anti-Establishment" view has rightly made great headway among Americans. And it is not wrong: why should Ukraine or Georgia be in NATO? How many Americans have been willing to let Cuba be Cuba?
The failure of the Dem Party and the policy elite to understand this (aside form the occasional doubt Obama entertained) left it to the criminal Trump to assume this mantle. Douthat has it exactly right!
10
@David There is a lot wrong with dictatorship--go live in one for a week. There is a lot right about resisting dictatorship wherever we can. There is nothing wrong with endless war, if that's what it takes. We defeated Al Queda and Issis through patient effort. Our 1,000 troops in Syria were caretakers of that victory, no long at war. If we can stop psychopathic tyrants--and they are all mass murderers in the end, if they assume maximum power as Xi has, for example--in a practical way, we should do it. It costs us little to stop the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and if it takes 100 years of that kind of practical minimum military effort to keep out of power those who splashed acid on a school girl's face because she attended school, it should be done.
This column gives way too much credit to Trump. He has no interest in some new foreign policy objective that is in America’s interest. In Ukraine, as is quite evident in the summary of the July 25th call, Trump wanted to encourage corruption - indeed participate in and benefit from corruption in Ukraine. For himself. Yes, Trump’s interests were at odds with Ambassador Yovanovich and career diplomats, but not because he had some great new plan to benefit Americans and make us great. His plans were aimed at benefitting himself, his family, maybe a few buddies.
84
NYT needs a new editorial paradigm. Columnists should submit columns when they have something to say. This conflation of Trump criminality with foreign policy smacks of a college all-nighter.
America's proper role in international affairs is a debate worth having. But that question has nothing whatsoever to do with the impeachment proceeding and I think it is accurate to say that it has never occupied a moment of time in Donald Trump's head.
If nothing more, I am thankful that the impeachment has given us the opportunity to hear from these public service professionals. We don't often have the opportunity to hear highly intelligent people speak at length -- in well-constructed arguments in paragraph form -- about who we are and why we do the things we do. A cynic would argue that we go to foreign countries to steal things. But I hope that TV-oriented people avail themselves of this opportunity to learn why we commit ourselves to foreign peoples and how our mutual cooperation makes us both stronger and more secure.
163
@Joyboy: Shall we gussy up the prose of your keen retort a tad, by recasting what you've branded "a college all-nighter" to something like " an excerpt from a metastasized term paper," eh?
Every so often I take a gander at what Mr. Douthat has to say, and come away with a strong inclination to believe that he'd likely find his true calling tucked away in a remote monastery, illuminating manuscripts or somesuch
8
It’s particularly unfortunate because the events of the past 5 years have proven the establishment right. Just as the US public contemplates inchoate issues with the post-Cold War autopilot, Russia and China are advanced in their strategies for the new Cold War. Trump is just as much of a disaster as Obama in this regard.
2
Sixty million people- many of them civilians- died as a result of the Second World War. The U.S. beat the Germans by a hair in developing a nuclear bomb. And so with the end of that unspeakably gruesome chapter of modern history, a new world order emerged however imperfect it may have been. The world finally celebrated the fall of the Iron Curtain, detente and another phase of international relations struggled to emerge distancing us further away from multinational armed conflict. Along with this still imperfect "system" and the members of the U.N. attempting to talk things out, all of mankind now faces global climate disaster in which cooperation is our only path to survival.
John Lennon asked in a song to imagine there were no countries-
but that is exactly where we find ourselves. Ukraine is key to a free and democratic Europe, which is one of our greatest means of support in the world. We also need to get serious about our ties to Sub-Sahara Africa as well as Asia and India. Isolationism went away with Christopher Columbus. Magellan then sailed around the entire world, and not that long afterward we took to the air as well. Of course there have to be some kind of borders to preserve national identity. But BOTH SIDES of that border have to possess approximately the same living standards or the alternative is endless conflict and suffering. And the future climate won't take sides, either- just lives.
24
That no mention is made of the professional mistreatment of climate professionals is at best a huge blindspot in the perspective of both Douthat and the Republican Party. The latter’s decision to relegate global climate change to a partisan lever issue will brand them in the future as guilty of crimes against humanity which will utterly dwarf the crimes of Nazi Germany, not just in sheer body count but in the degradation of our world and the destruction of civilized society.
The Republicans’ own children – the little Barron Trumps of the world – will know the shame of the criminal acts of their fathers, and the destruction they wrought upon the world.
For once I agree with this writer. As an "OK boomer" taking a long view of American foreign policy, it has often been misguided and driven by specious goals. It has often been driven (post WWII at least) by the rapacious maw of the "Deep State" military industrial complex. For a long time there has been little oversight by either the electorate, or the people's house, congress, and no real robust debate on this issue. I have to quote parts of another letter from another political column in today's Times, which moved me, on this topic
"I don’t doubt Trump violated the law here because he seems to be incapable of understanding any kind of ethical constraint...What exactly are we doing in the Ukraine that is so noble? Sending weapons to support one side in a war. We seem to do that everywhere. Obama actually refused to do it in the Ukraine, but did it elsewhere, as in Yemen, to his shame. So, of course, does Trump.
Remind me of how many people resigned because we chose to support the Saudi war in Yemen. I don’t recall hearing of any. I have seen YouTube clips of both Obama and Trump spokespeople whitewashing Saudi crimes.
So Trump thinks foreign policy should be bent to support his political campaign. Fine, impeach him. We know he won’t be impeached for helping the Saudis murder children in Yemen."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/16/opinion/sunday/trump-impeachment-hearings.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
3
Republican questioners made the point that the Professionals being questioned actually agree with Trump’s policy (of supplying javelins to Ukraine) and tried to ask why were they now complaining. But even had they disagreed, the issue here is nothing to do with policy per se, it is the abuse of policy which is being highlighted, abuse because it is being executed to further Trump’s personal interest (re-election) rather than American interests (including fair elections). It is also apparent that there is another reason for Trump’s foreign policy creation which is whether it benefit Russia: “a different grand strategy that disengages from those regions for the sake of ... [Russian] ends?
12
I expect that Trump had little to do with the javelin plans except to try to use them as leverage for his personal benefit
There is an aspect of this column that I find very troubling. Douthat seems to me to go to pains to rehabilitate Trump as a rational actor. Thus he mentions Trump wanted investigations of the Bidens, a rational (corrupt) act. But Douthat doesn't mention that Trump's first ask in the phone call was about a crazy conspiracy theory (Crowdstrike and a Democratic Party Server.) To mention this insanity would undermine the idea he promotes that Trumpian foreign policy is based on something other than populist demagoguery.
Foreign policy has always been ripe pickings for the demagogue. Foreign aid always polls very poorly. What is "America First" but a sort of vague promise to run foreign policy on the cheap? The idea that Trump has some strategy to recalibrate America's commitments that isn't based on irresponsible populism is absurd.
90
@LewisPG
Just like with the Bidens Trump wanted Ukraine to manufacture evidence about Crowdstrike and the Dem server to get the Russians off the hook.
With Trump, all roads lead to Putin.
Trying to draw some sort of cogent, consistent, considered legitimacy between the erratic non-policy of trump with past presidents' foreign policy (however flawed) is in itself a "theater-of-the-absurd" Mr. Douthat.
Look to one of the last standing GOP members still tied to sanity, Colin Powell, who recently stated that our foreign "policy" is in "shambles".
I used to read you regularly, agree or disagree, but this recent turn to "maybe trump is a genius on this one thing" is bogus. Your party is headed for the dustbin.
49
Wonderful article, so thoughtful. You know one thought about Stalin: two world wars. a mere 20 years apart, killing millions of Russians, created by Europeans. I think, in his mind, he was not going to let it happen again. Eastern Europe is complicated. The "percentages agreement," for example. I doubt that our President ever tries to get near the history of all this. I pray that we can come together post Trump. We really do have existential issues.
2
@IamCurious
IF, as you write, "President Trump believes that our present policy in the Ukraine accomplishes very little except to degrade our relationship with the Russians", then why did Trump SIGN THE BILL giving aid to Ukraine?
Also, Putin subverted democracy in Russia and is threatening Eastern Europe. Let's not forget who the bad guy is here.
@Robert Reese
You do realize, I hope, that Russia was a very participant in starting WWI and the USSR, under Stalin, helped get WWII going by collaborating with Hitler to divide Poland.
I hope I misread you.
You started out well, and then this column just all went to pieces.
Focus. What did the president do wrong? You described it pretty well. The president improperly used coercive means, with aid promised to a foreign country by Congress, to get a personal favor done that would interfere with our upcoming election.
Why wallow in the weeds about this policy, that policy, Obama's policy, etc? Do you want to argue whether Congress should approve aid for this country or that country? In this particular column, WHY?
24
The country is at a dangerous existential point: Without Neoliberalism the country's socioeconomic system would not have been crashed. And without Neoconservatism, we never would have invaded Iraq, ISIS would not have been created, nor would the country have ceded its international, primacy to China, Russia and other nefarious powers; nor, above all, would country adopted the “greed is good” mantra that Leon Cooperman and Loyd Blankfein are vigorously defending. But for Neoliberalism, billionaire speculators would not be running the country and destroying our political institutions. It’s no wonder that people like Sheldon Adelson and Ronald Lauder are working hard to re-elect Trump.
7
“[Trump’s] policy only differed from the policy of the bureaucracy in that its execution was premised on the extraction of a favor, a politically motivated ask.“
Seriously? The State Dept was executing Trump’s—not its own—foreign policy and rightfully expecting the money Congress—not Trump—appropriated for Ukraine’s defense. The “bureaucracy’s” only mistake was perhaps assuming that they were acting on behalf of an adult with a cohesive worldview—not an opportunistic child.
10
Absolutely right. Ross is saying the State department witnesses truly believe it is right to defend Ukraine from Russian agression but in fact they testified they were implementing the stated policy of the Trump Administration and Congress. Trump needed an alternative team led by Giuliani to carry on his conspiracy theory motivated behavior and his attempt to get dirt on Biden. Also Trump is in Putin’s camp all the way
3
Whether or not the support for Ukraine that Trump had put on hold is wise policy is irrelevant. The Aid package for Ukraine had been voted and approved by Congress (both the House and Senate) and, presumably, then signed into law by Trump as part of a larger appropriations bill.
So withholding this particular Aid Package was NOT an option. He had an obligation to let it move forward through the Executive branch -- i.e., he would have been breaking the law even IF there was no attempt to coerce the President of Ukraine.
11
"as opposed to pivoting to a different grand strategy that disengages from those regions for the sake of other ends?"
Please, Ross, enlighten us as to your "different grand strategy"...and exactly what are the "other ends" to be strived for?
If it involves making nice with Russia and their present criminal government, then no thanks. I would rather endure another cold war.
12
If we've listened carefully over the last several weeks lately Trump has offered, "It was a perfect call...", along with this he has made reference several times to the powers granted him in Article 2..there is a constitutional confrontation brewing in that, it can only be a perfect call (wow what a descriptive)..if in deed he is outside the powers of the Congress..it will be a true test of Wm. Barr and earlier John Yoos arguments for "Unitary Executive Theory"
Call the Supremes we're about to be entertained.
3
Whatever is going on, whatever the impeachment is really about, in its depths or on its surface, it is mostly of interest to the political establishment, political professionals and committed hardcore Democratic partisans who hope to oust Mr. Trump, and their supporters in the dependably left-leaning news media--it's of little practical interest to average American voters. People outside Washington, when asked if they're paying attention to the impeachment hearings just shake their heads and make faces. The Dems are using this whole thing as a coverup to hide the fact that they're controlled by a left fringe element of their own party that's pushing socialist policies with little broad support. The inability of any current Democratic presidential candidate to catch fire, and trial balloons by possible late-race Democratic entrants, shows this.
@Ronald B. Duke "it's [impeachment] of little practical interest to average American voters." I don't agree, Republicans are very invested in NOT impeaching Trump no matter what he has done, and Democrats want him held accountable. Congress has an obligation to oversee and investigate the actions of the Executive branch whether or not it is politically popular. If a President has committed a crime he should be impeached even if he has a 90 per approval rating. As the Speaker of the House said (who did not want to have impeachment hearings contrary to your opinion) "he left us no choice".
5
@Ronald B. Duke
Americans who don't care about corruption in their president or who are unwillingly to hold him accountable should be ashamed of themselves.
While it is in the President's prerogative to set US foreign policy, I have never seen anyone in the current administration argue that supporting Ukraine in its effort to repulse ongoing Russian aggression is not US policy. You would think if there was actually discussion of changing that existing policy, the Trump administration would have registered its displeasure during discussion of $400M in lethal aid that easily passed the Republican-controlled Senate.
As recent revelations pretty clearly show, the reason the Ukraine ended up in the Trump doghouse was not Whitehouse concern about corruption in that country, but rather because the Ukraine failed to adequately go along with corruption emanating from the Trump Whitehouse.
23
I saw all of these public questioning sessions, and you somehow found "could sense submerged beneath the critique of Trump’s specific actions a larger policy worldview." I don't how you found when the consistent critique was that Trump was undermining his OWN policy, and of course he was.
6
@Tblumoff Not his own policy, I have yet to see anything consistent enough to be called a "policy" come from this President, other than to bully those he perceives as either a threat or an impediment to realizing his fantasy of being "great" in the sense of all-powerful. That "greatness" is his "policy objective."
Bipartisan support for arming Ukraine might not indicate unanimity of the vast majority of American policy makers and the electorate for checking Russian aggression in former Soviet republics?
Alternative universe, magical thinking Rand Paulian stuff from Ross.
15
"But really...doubts about the West’s security architecture aren’t just the preserve of Russian trolls and isolationists. They reflect a deep and reasonable public uncertainty about the establishment’s post-Cold War autopilot..."
Douthat is right to say that offering criticism of Trump's inept and corrupt behavior is not the same thing as endorsing whatever policy seems to be the implicit target of that behavior. But Ukraine is not a good example of the problem. Unless, like Trump, you are rooting fervently for Putin and the restoration of the Russian empire, some degree of support for an independent Ukraine likely seems a worthwhile policy goal. The real argument is over the level and forms of support, with some contending that a more moderate commitment could coexist with pursuing a better relationship with Russia.
A clearer example would be the recent troop disengagement in northern Syria. Many who favor this as a general policy goal were nonetheless dismayed with the feckless, impulsive and incoherent way that Trump executed it.
On a larger scale, the inability to rationally divide the world into stable cohorts of Good Guys and Bad Guys is a major conundrum of contemporary existence. Increasingly, situational judgments seem to be required. Forces that appear to be benevolent in one context may play dysfunctional roles in others. Simply signing on to one side forever no longer suffices. And nowhere is this dilemma so fraught as with the national security bureaucracy.
10
You are trying to conflate two separate issues.
The president and the State Department have every right to debate policy.
But Trump wasn’t debating policy. He was trying to dangle foreign aid in front of an ally to force them to besmirch a political rival.
These two issues cannot be combined in any coherent way. A policy debate is a routine and necessary process.
A bribe is a Trump tactic that he’s used all his life to get his way and skirt the law.
81
I felt like the author of this editorial is a little confused. The purpose of the ambassadors is to morally support the Ukrainians in their attempts to create a strong democracy, not force democracy on them through any kind of military means. Furthermore, it's not the fact that some countries don't have democracy that's of concern, but that some countries that don't have democracy are aggressive and trying to overturn democracies (including our own) and replace them with dictatorships. It strains credibility that any American who understands the situation would be other than alarmed by this situation. Also, I don't think it's true that a large number of Americans don't want us to morally support democracy in other countries through diplomacy. I do think there are many Americans (though thankfully not as many as Douthat suggests) that simply have no understanding of the situation at all.
21
Depends on what you mean by professional. Certainly not the disasterous choices at the beginning of the new century the country was made to endure, those terrible political actions which genuine politicians would never have allowed themselves to be a part of.
What? Setting aside the myriad of reasons why Ukraine is enormously important to US interests, the policy in question was not and is not the clandestine work of deep state bureaucrats. The actual fact here is that the aid in question was voted by Congress.
But arguments like this are insidious: the very framing of this article’s thesis implicitly accepts the conspiracy theorists’, and Trump’s, view of the world. At it’s best, this argument is a form of false equivalence. At it’s worst, it takes Trump’s corruption and covers it with the patina of a cogent worldview. No thank you.
56
@R.S.
You have nailed it. Ross Douthat is so desperate to excuse the truly corrupt behavior of the party that shares his moral core that he is now claiming that there is a deep state different than democracy!
It seems to me that the ultimate result of this suggested approach would be that we let the Russians reconstitute their Eastern European empire. How good an idea is that?
14
Trump’s foreign policy, such as it is, is best described by a small portion of THE soliloquy in Shakespeare’s MacBeth...”full of sound and fury signifying nothing..”. He threatens to leave NATO and doesn’t. He threatens North Korea with “fire and fury” and traipses to Asia 3 times for a photo op. He cozies up to Putin and when Congress objects, offers $400 million to Ukraine to resist Russian aggression.
At this point, isn’t it fair to say there is no coherent, tangible Trump foreign policy??
It is also likely he will get away with seeking help from Ukraine for his re-election campaign in exchange for the aid voted by Congress. It won’t be long before the only Trump foreign policy is to use taxpayer money to leverage personal political or financial favors from any country that receives assistance of any kind.
Senators should think about that before voting to remove.
10
Given the GOP stance and its defense of their incorrigible boss , I would say that the current showdown is people with ethics, integrity and patriotism taking on the corrupt and wanton conservatives.
This battle to protect the soul of America and our constitutional integrity is no longer Us vs Trump. It is the Patriots vs. The Conservatives.
It is the second coming of the civil war, except that this version is being fought in the courtrooms of our Judiciary, the hearing committees of our Congress and the electoral mandate at the Polls.
14
While trying to paint a larger picture, I think this editorial utterly fails in its effort. This is word salad and the whataboutism involving Obama is the work of a small mind.
The testimony of witnesses in these hearings do not support this "line of thinking," if you can call it that.
Douthat is trying as hard as he can to maintain some semblance of credibility within the lost world of actual conservatives. For the rest of us, he is way too far from shore to land any points.
58
No, Ross, you are misrepresenting what the professionals in the Foreign Service were standing up for in their testimony against Trump's self-serving, irregular, and secretive efforts to subvert legitimate diplomacy in Ukraine.
At no point were any of them defending, or trying to advance, an ambitious liberal agenda -- nation-building, trying to impose an American model of governance and free enterprise, etc. Those three Foreign Service officers had served both Republican and Democratic administrations. This column avoids the "Deep State" label, but carries on as if such a cabal is in fact carrying on its devious business, without regard for the will of the people and their elected representatives. That's not what I heard.
19
The post-WWII western alliance, primarily a construct of the United States, taken together with the delicate, U.S.-led diplomacy of the post-Iron Curtain era, has most certainly not resulted in a perfect world. But, at its best (and, at its worst), it resulted in a world far less perilous and far more prosperous than that produced by the world order of the late 19th-century, pre-WWI and pre-WWII eras.
At bottom, it is nothing more than an updated replica of the latter---with its "spheres of influence"---for which Douthat and his fellow ideologues pine. It failed miserably when the world was far less integrated and far less interdependent than it is now. But like most members of the right-wing intelligentsia, he is determined to pull failed paradigms out of history's trash bin ("trickle-down" economics?) and impose them on the unwashed masses.
14
Russia has been attacking and continues to attack the foundation of our democracy, our free elections and free speech. They are attempting to expand their empire territorially--have already annexed Crimea. The Ukrainians are are fighting back. A percent or two of our yearly defense money to help in this seems reasonable. Pushing back against Russian expansionism and anti-democratic actions is not that controversial, is it? I don't get it, Ross.
19
Mr. Douthat, as his practice, constructs a skewed environment that best supports his own arguments and desired outcome.
In reality, we can ignore the tension between the career foreign service folks and the buffoon in the White House in assessing the buffoon's misconduct. Trump's conduct was clearly unlawful.
Congress authorized and appropriated the military assistance in question. Trump signed the enacted authorization and budget legislation.
Other than requesting specific statutory authority from Congress, the president has a mandatory, non-discretionary duty to disburse the funds as appropriated by Congress.
15
It's hard to measure the professionalism of Foreign Service officers against the lack of professionalism in the Trump White House. The professionals work within a process. Mr. Trump doesn't understand any process. He is said, by those who work closely with him, that he doesn't read, has a short attention span, can't understand numbers, and won't tolerate details. His modus operandi is to think with his gut. He makes spur of the moment decisions without consultation, meets with heads of state with little preparation, and truly feels he can 'read the moment.'
I guess that's okay in some situations, usually social. I'm not sure it's in America's interest to have the President ignore staff advice and limit consultations with professionals. But Mr. Trump started out saying he knows more than the generals, is a stable genius, and has 'great and unmatched wisdom,'
So all in all, I guess we're lucky to have him lead our nation.
4
If you are happy with Russian expansion and increasing truculence on the world stage, than by all means subscribe to Douthat's column. Trump's withdrawal is not based on any sort of policy direction or philosophy; he and his family are in hoc to Russian oligarchs, and for him to stay afloat, his regime will do anything to maintain his Moscow line of credit.
35
Douthat is arguing for the defense of subtext. Yet the text of our foreign policy is clear. One may disapprove of our foreign policy, but if republicans feel that way, they should say so and change the actual text of our foreign policy. Making a case for both an official and unofficial foreign policy will only lead to a muddle, and encourage the kind of dangerous lawlessness our chief executive has undoubtedly engaged in.
10
Missing the point, and most likely deliberately. That's Ross Douthat for ya, again, ladies and gentlemen.
One can substitute "Ukraine" with "Estonia" or "Taiwan" and Trump's actions to extort personal benefit through illegal withholding of tax payer-funded and Congressionally-appropriated funds would still be completely impeachable.
Thus, Mr. Douthat's attempt to trivialize Trump's self-serving extortion racket by attacking the specific reasons to support Ukraine completely falls apart. This inquiry is not a referendum on US-Ukraine relationship.
70
Strategy and tactics. As in love and marriage, so the song goes, you can't have one without the other. Yet the calculus of time always changes everything, now more rapidly than ever before. America has become more reactive instead of more proactive, tentative instead of resolute. Why? Ask the guy in charge of your future. If only he's not more concerned with spending your money investigating his own personal election opponents instead of protecting your interests at home and abroad.
No brainer. What could go wrong?
9
So what's the alternative to promoting democracy and diminishing corruption through an active State Department with clear - well defined - goals (i.e. no shadowy back-channels run by the president's lackeys and/or relatives)? Do we support and promote the rule of law, or do we just let the strongmen do what suits them as long as they don't step on too many (of our) toes? And if they do, we have our military "locked and loaded."
Don't really know what point you are trying to make here.
32
this is not a foreign policy issue. it's bribery and extortion. it's a govt official using his power to distribute public resources for personal benefits. no different from a health inspector taking cash to deliver a passing grade. simple.
126
@James brummel
It’s both which is not only explained in the article but what makes this an egregious offense that should bring about impeachment.
Critique of American priorities is a good thing when it is done publicly. The critique becomes part of the discussion, and the discussion includes the public. Not all of it of course. There will always be a need for secrecy, which done well is simply a different degree of discretion. Public discourse won't eliminate "uncertainty around alternatives," but it might help prevent future Executive Offices from a focus on personal profit. If we're lucky the public discourse of televised impeachment proceedings will once again lead to a change in leadership in spite of the Republican Party or what's left of it.
8
The problem with Ross is that he doesn't understand that Trump is conspiring with Russia to make Russia great again, and to make Trump actually wealthy. The grand bigger picture may exist in theory among intellectuals, but the current salient actors have other objectives.
68
@tbs the problem with Ross is that he sides with guys like Jordan in the first place.
1
It takes no more then to watch the intelligent, informed, well behaved professionals answer questions and watch the Repubs ask them. The difference in their character, ability, ethics, knowledge is obvious.
The Repubs shouting, angry, accusing them and no interest in answers , just want to make statements that they have been told to make before the hearing began. Who would you want deciding complex policies? Who would you trust to tell the truth?
29
Since 9/11/01 a mere 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to wear the military uniform of any American armed force.
While the rest of us pretend to be brave honorable patriots by rising to sing the national anthem and saluting the flag at sporting events.
There is clearly no military solution to any of these multiple ethnic sectarian foreign civil wars. Congress has continually slowly ceded it's Constitutional duty and power to declare and pay for war to the President.
George Washington warned against the danger of foreign entanglements to our republic. Dwight Eisenhower warned about the threat posed by the military-industrial complex to our nation. Trump is no Eisenhower nor Washington.
11
@Blackmamba and probably can’t even tell you which number of president they are. 1&34 but we all know he is 45
Trump has maintained from the start that he will no longer let the US be taken advantage of financially when it comes to the security of this region. I don't really know how professional that may be but it sure makes more sense than what has been the policy in the past. The question remains then, were the actions of the professionals really in our best interest, or were they merely the actions of politicians doing what they were told by outside interests. It is a fact that Trump was elected over the establishment politicians over extremely questionable choices both militarily, and economical, illegal actions that would, could not have been, implemented without clandestine direction and approval.
1
@Joe Gilkey, none of this is relevant, though. This wasn’t Trump promoting a different policy. He signed the legislation authorizing this aid to Ukraine. It’s his administration’s policy, and his own appointees trying to carry it out along with the professional diplomats, not the professionals going rogue.
He just held up the aid as leverage to achieve his own political goals - the definition of abuse of power. Whatever Jim Jordan says, Trump did not hold it up to look into Ukrainian corruption. There are no policy matters at issue here, just simple bribery for political gain.
1
So Trump thought U. S. policy was wrong. OK, I get that. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even grasp the idea of policy. But that's really not the issue here. The issue is that he tried to extort the Ukrainian government to do his political bidding by investigating a political enemy. Everything else's noise. He sought to use a foreign government to influence an American election. End of story. Impeach.
93
@John Locke Well said. Also may I remind American Citizens that he lied numerous times and utilized bribery to have his way with the world. IMPEACH.
4
@John Locke Yes he probably has no idea of Ukraine except for the Miss Universe babes he man handled. The main ideas are the following:
#1- It does not matter what he thought about the country, its leaders etc. there are official ways to go to the congress to State, and explain his ideas and suggest new ones. Even if his interference was to change policy with the rational that it would be good for the country, his "three amigo" plus Giuliani was not the proper way to do this.
#2- The main thing is two fold-He was doing this not for the countries good, or to better Ukraine, he was doing this for Trump, his needs, his fears his insecurity. That is a NO,NO. Called abuse of office in the constitution.
#3-Using his leverage for an important meeting, holding up vital defense funds , promising that these would happen if he got his needs met. Thats extortion, and bribery. Called High crimes in the constitution.
Big question . Are we as a nation going to accept this as new "normal behavior"?
2
Macron has pivoted because he is a realist, and recognizes the future uncertainty from the possibility of Trump with another four years.
If you have a disengaged USA, the energy being spent to spread democracy, a fabulously better way to live than in a dictatorship, has no obvious leader, and may fail. So he is suggesting delaying the effort to actually give people their own lives via honest government and elections.
Trump seems to destroy everything good that he touches.
10
"To what extent should Western foreign policy prioritize democracy promotion east and southeast of the European core — as opposed to pivoting to a different grand strategy that disengages from those regions for the sake of other ends?"
What other ends, exactly? What do we gain by giving up our influence in the world and abandoning our allies? It's not as if Trump wants to spend less on the military and use that money for domestic needs.
14
Like most neoliberals (think Bolton, Cheney, Rumsford, etc.) Ross can't distinguish between support for democracy, civil right & the rule of law and 18th & 19th century spheres of influence and military support. The professional people in the State Department know that a country can support the latter without being a satellite or ally of the US.
And it works the other way, too. For example Hungry is a member of NATO and the EU, but the professionals in the State Department are working to return democracy, civil rights and the rule of law to Hungry as well as the Ukraine.
10
Douthat seems to be engaging in the right wing side show happening on the sidelines of the impeachment inquiry. The kinds of questions he hints at are basically what Fox News pundits have been talking about all week. It's a debate the GOP is having with themselves, acting as if any of the questions are related to the impeachment.
Nobody on the left is arguing that Trump can hire his own ambassadors, nor set policy. This has nothing to do with that. It's about misusing power for personal gain.
In an unrelated side note, please stop acting like Trump has some sort of coherent world view or strategy. He knows nothing about the world, and doesn't care. That alone renders this entire piece moot.
294
Douthat says Trump and his defenders are right to think that Ukraine may not be as strategically important to the US as many assume. I think we’re expected to conclude that Trump’s extortion of Ukraine was less perfidious than if it were, say, Germany being victimized. This attempt to mitigate the treachery of Trump’s actions isn’t convincing, at all.
First, Ukraine may, in fact, be strategically critical. Many keen foreign policy thinkers, as creditable as Douthat, think that. Second, Trump would behave the same even believing that Ukraine was the country’s most vital relationship.
The title to the column is a red herring. Does Douthat imagine Trump and his defenders carefully assessing Ukraine’s importance to the US? Only then, after making sure “the professionals” were wrong and the harm to the US would be limited, did they extort concessions? I’m sure drug lords undertake the same delicate calculations before they break the law.
16
There are a lot of good comments already posted on this piece by Douthat, who shows once again that despite his veneer of sophistication he remains an unreconstructed anti-government partisan. in this case, not Obama, the President sought to use a foreign country for his own personal benefit, not for the nations' goals, whatever those might be. That is the sin here and the strength of the Foreign Service is to know the difference between right and wrong on such simple things.
It is entirely true that the State Department, like the military, and other branches of government have done things they and we regretted, Vietnam and Iraq among them. Haven't we all. But when the government principal, the President, chooses to use his power for this own personal and political benefit we, including Douthat, have to say--"Stop".
I do see today that Barr is arguing that no one can touch Trump for anything he does. I don't know where that theory came from or how he reconciles it with democracy, not to mention the Constitution, but we are clearly at a place of maximum confusion when the Attorney General is arguing against the rule of law. And a Times columnist is arguing disingenuously for similarly bad behavior.
36
@Jeffrey Lewis
Yes, who among us hasn’t engaged in starting wars under false pretenses or defended such actions because it was a necessary part of our career? Oh well. No great harm done.
1
Sure, Ross, the majority of the American people and Congress just love it when Russia walks into Crimea. Try harder. While Americans may generally believe that we should not overextend ourselves, that is not the question here, as you admit in your opening paragraph. And so to combine the two issues into a single column--Presidential misuse of power versus a discussion of policy--even while claiming not to combine them, is just another republican debating strategy, at best.
17
"Obama fought a more civilized sort of bureaucratic war than Trump, with fewer ludicrous tweets and impeachable offenses. But it was a conflict over a similar question: To what extent should Western foreign policy prioritize democracy promotion east and southeast of the European core — as opposed to pivoting to a different grand strategy that disengages from those regions for the sake of other ends?"
Come on, Trump wasn't "disengaging" from Ukraine, he was doubling down, even creating a parallel, "irregular" channel of communication between himself and the Ukrainian president, sending his PERSONAL lawyer to start collaborating with two knowingly corrupt local officials.
That's the OPPOSITE of "disengaging".
And what was the purpose of that collaboration?
To launch a false smear campaign inside Ukraine against our OWN US ambassador.
To present this as "pivoting to a different grand strategy" would have been hilarious, if it weren't for the fact that during his eleven months of withholding military aid that he had the constitutional duty to deliver, so many people died - and America is know globally known as the country that instead of fighting against corruption, deliberately increases it ... in an allied country, that is a NATO member, and under attack.
Republicans seem to have a really hard time simply admitting to what totally unprecedented level the GOP has become corrupt. And that too is the very OPPOSITE of what happened under Obama.
18
What conservatives systematically omit here, is the fact that for more than two thirds of Obama's presidency, Ukraine was NOT a NATO member, AND was led by an utterly corrupt pro-Russian president.
THAT is why most of the time, he opposed military aid, of course. It would only have provoked Russia, and probably triggered a war much earlier than what actually happened.
Once Russia invaded Ukraine, at the end of 2014, Ukraine flip-flopped and did become a NATO member. Since then, the US send $1.4 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including under Obama.
As to Obama "conducting his own internal war against what one of his aides (...) described as the D.C. foreign policy "blob"": any concrete examples?
Did he try to corrupt Ukraines president into breaking the separation of the three branches of government and launching an investigation himself? Did he withhold crucial military aid? Did he damage Ukraine in any way whatsoever only to try to damage his political opponents at home? Did he send his personal lawyer to Ukraine (or any other country, for that matter) to team up with two corrupt (and in the meanwhile convicted by US courts) local officials to start a public smear campaign against his own US ambassador?
He didn't.
So where's the equivalency here ... ??
230
@Ana Luisa If Ukraine were a NATO member, the other countries would be obligated to defend it as an attack on themselves. In contrast the Baltic countries are NATO members and invasions there would have invoke response from other members.
2
@OS
Ana Luisa is wrong about Ukraine being a NATO member, but right about conservatives' disingenuous attacks on Obama's foreign policy. I have any heard any number of Republican talking heads saying that it was Obama not Trump who withheld military aid to Ukraine.
8
I’m sure you have noticed that, almost in every column that Douthat writes about what’s wrong with Trump, he makes some kind of odd false equivalency with Obama. This is just the latest..
17
It's not just here, but I find the common description Trump's actions as "involving a political rival" to be numbed out language, at a time when we need it to be precise and pungent.
First, throughout the time that the Ukrainian manipulation was taking place Trump was losing in the polls, often by double digits, significantly behind Biden. It looked like Trump might very well be a loser.
Second, Trump was frightened. The macho man was scared.
Third, because he was frightened of Biden, and at least as far out as summer of 2019, apparently losing by double digits, he attempted to cheat the election, to rob his opponent and the electorate.
Fourth, he was iIllegally cheating Biden, who was projected to beat him, by forcing a foreign nation to smear him, by maligning Biden's role in official American foreign policy, along with the business affairs of his son.
Fifth, and not insignificantly, he was attempting to force Ukraine to cast doubt on the Mueller investigation, and particularly, by absolving Russia of its malfeasance.
Its rather opportunistic of Douthat, at this juncture, when foreign service professionals are the backbone which have so far prevented this underhanded illegality, to take this moment to push his own political views, which devalue their mission.
99
Given even the least outline of the facts in Ukraine, I think most Americans would readily agree with our nation's policy. It isn't all that complex. Russia invaded and is looking to recreate the USSR in effect if not in name. I know we are notoriously forgetful nation, but I can't believe even the least engaged Joe six-pack wants to let that push go unchallenged.
I trust our professional diplomats to understand this. It's obvious Trump cannot.
44
@Warren I am not so sure. I wonder if "most Americans" could find the Ukraine on a map.
The author is making policy excuses for something very simple. Trump's bromances with Putin and other authoritarians indicate that spreading Democracy is not Trump's goal and neither is helping Ukraine stay independent of Russia. Trump is the biggest success in Putin's Foreign policy: he got Erdogan working with Russia and still hungry to slaughter Kurds and Ukraine turning into a Trump tool.
26
Are you actually arguing that Russian annexation of Crimea is something we should, with Trump, accept as a "good" thing or "o.k.?" That the Ukrainians fighting Russian-backed separatists in the Donbass, should lay down what arms they have and let Putin annex eastern Ukraine, too? That our Ambassador to Ukraine should not attempt to obstruct obvious corruption as inimical to democracy--something we used to be in favor of?
20
@akrupat No, he wasn't.
The issues Mr. Douthat raises are ancillary to impeachment and are simply are pretext that attempts to normalize a patently abnormal president. There is little doubt that Trump tried to bribe the Ukrainian PM to get "dirt " on the Bidens. He himself said he doesn't care about the Ukraine. Everyone knows what he cares about..(hint they all start with a T.)Bribery is explicitly mentioned in the US constitution as an impeachable offense. The recision by the President of appropriated funds or materials, ie. armaments for Ukraine, must be approved by Congress within 45 days. If congress fails to act, the recision cannot be implemented. must be delivered. Attempting to commit a commit a crime and being unsuccessful is still a criminal offense according to law. Let us hope that trying to dress up an incompetent boss of a crime family will not succeed. If it does, we will need much more than a robust foreign policy to survive Trumps Tyrannies.
18
There are many good comments here already. I would only add that Douthat doesn't engage at all with just how it serves the interests of the United States to strengthen Russia. And of course, he can't even try to salvage Trump's near-continuous gifts to Putin. The coming debate will include hard questions about whether neo-isolationist giveaways to hostile interests truly serve the United States. It's fine to argue that the "Establishment" has gone too far in "the extension of American and European commitments far past what prudence and public opinion both will bear." OK, but what exactly constitutes "prudence" in a world in which Russia is successfully manipulating our democracy and China is continuing its near-inevitable rise to enormous global power?
By the way, that shot about "newfound Russophobia"? Like a lot of liberals, I came by my distaste for Russia decades ago, when it made up the core of the Soviet Union. Somewhat contradictorily, Douthat says that the establishment has had a "post-Cold War autopilot." But that's not true; he omits the optimism in the 1990s that the US could successfully pursue friendly relations with Russia. That "newfound Russophobia" isn't so newfound; it is the product of a now-generation-long demonstration of Russia's hostile intent toward the United States.
38
@Jeannette Rankin
The 90’s, when the US government had good relations with the Russian government, were a demographic and economic catastrophe for ordinary Russians.
Liberals used to be the people who prided themselves on being able to see the other point of view. It was always exaggerated, but nowadays jingoism seems to be the new liberal norm. For most conservatives, it was always thus.
1
Could someone please explain why those signs behind the panel are permitted to be there and to be part of the telecasts that the public is viewing? I covered Congressional hearings as a reporter for 23 years. I've never seen anything like this.
Thank you!
46
I have had longterm issues with a lot of US Foreign policy. And Ross is right that it is sometimes ironic to be defending a large bureaucracy. Renditions, Guantanamo and severe meddling, like the CIAs actions supporting Pinochet and the Shah come to mind.
But it is not as though Trump is trying to clean up our past mistakes. He is like a terrorist: destroy, destroy and destroy some more until you have nothing but chaos left behind. There is no building. There is no plan other than wreckage.
19
Oh Ross. Liberals new found “Russiaphobia”? Let’s see, Russia interfered in our election and is actively sowing discord among democracies worldwide. Our President sides with Putin against our own intelligence agencies. Phobia is defined as irrational fear. Concerns about Russia are not irrational.
One other point. Yes, many are concerned about our foreign policies that have resulted in unending wars in the Middle East. That doesn’t equate to dropping our guard against Russia’s ever increasing
Subversive actions against the west.
122
Keep the impeachment narrow and focused. The ambassador Yovanovitch marched into Washington as the straightest, most disinterested witness to truth. Since arriving the genius Trump has coaxed her into a word brawl that makes the impeachment resemble Saturday Night Live.
5
I just wrote a thank you to Marie Yovanovitch. If you’d like to write her, here’s her (not confidential) Georgetown University address: Prof. Marie Yovanovitch, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University, 1316 36th St., NW, Washington, DC 20007. I think she, our hero in trying to save democracy, would appreciate hearing from people after her harrowing experience.
26
@Citizen of the Earth
Thank you for sharing this. I've been wishing I could send her a note of appreciation and respect and admiration.
Do you by any chance know how to write Bill Taylor and George Kent?
My wife and I just signed a letter to her. I hope she gets bags of them!
9
If corruption in Ukraine figures into corruption in US politics (a pol apparently getting his son appointed to a lucrative board seat sans any qualifications) why is it not legitimate to call for a Ukrainian investigation? Granted, this would also favor Trump, and that may have been Trump's only concern. But this pales at least somewhat by comparison with the self-dealing evident in what the Bidens appear to have engaged in.
It must be that the kind of practice evident in the Biden shenanigans involving Ukraine and China is so commonplace among Washington's elites that they and the media find it hard to fathom why this might matter to the rest of the country. Just as Trump's motives are poorly masked by a supposed concern over Ukrainian corruption, official Washington's stated indignation over Trump's brand of self-dealing masks its real concern -- that DC's Biden-like sense of entitlement and self-enrichment have been exposed.
1
@Pelham This misses the point completely. It's one thing to just "call for a Ukranian investigation" by the Ukrainian government of the Bidens (perhaps questionable), but quite another to condition the release of Congressionally approved military aid on the Ukrainian government's launching the investigation (reeks of extortion/bribery - impeachable).
5
"Self-enrichment as a side benefit"? I would argue that self-enrichment is Trump's only motivation main benefit. Any foreign "policy" that may accidentally arise out of this dysfunctional White House will always have DJT as the primary beneficiary. So question one for Trump is how can I benefit? Question two is how can I finagle "policy" to get it to work in advancement of question one.
16
@TW Frankly, I seriously doubt that Trump has ever considered "question 2" for even a nanosecond.
1
I suspect the Military Industrial Complex has a lot of influence in the Ukraine scandal. The MIC is the big winner in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The U.S. taxpayer is paying the MIC for the anti tank weapons we give to Ukraine as foreign aid. The MIC has never seen a war they didn't like or didn't want the U.S. to take sides in. The MIC lobbies congress heavily. There is a revolving door between government and the MIC. If you want to understand why the U.S. government cares about someplace like Ukraine that wasn't even a nation 30 years ago, just follow the money.
3
As is often the case with Mr. Douthat, he is being too clever by half. Ongoing disputes, over many decades, regarding the nature and extent of American foreign policy and overseas commitments have no relationship to the way national security has been conducted by the Trump mob. This is not about policy disagreements. It is about extra-constitutional malfeasance and it is absurd that Mr. Douthat cannot see this.
408
@arp
Agreed. Mr. Douthart previously described Trump as someone who "can be easily hoodwinked and flattered and bullied," hasn't changed. He has no policies, only whims and self-interests.
U.S. policy previously included defending Ukraine, if not with Javelin Missiles then with other support. Simple economics says a little bit here, on the eastern end of the EU can prevent a huge commitment if NATO nations are overrun with another Russian land grab and we're on the hook to help support them. Why is that so difficult to grasp?
The Foreign Policy page of the White House states, "The promise of a better future will come in part from reasserting American sovereignty and the right of all nations to determine their own futures."
Does Russia have the right to determine Ukraine's future?
We have finite resources to commit to foreign policy. We should be using them wisely. Considering what you yourself have to say about Mr. Trump, I'm leaning on the side of the professionals who have spent their lives in demanding and often life threatening situations, those people who have served on the frontlines inside the countries in question, and who actually know something about the countries where they are posted as opposed to our self-serving, deliberately unknowledgeable, and allergic to actual service president.
43
@arp
For Trump it has nothing to do with policy. He is a total narcissist.
For Trump’s opponents, it very much is about policy and Trump’s corruption gives them an opportunity to push those preferences as the only good and moral ones. Ross is right about that.
@arp He does never seem happy without a dissonance that is unnecessary, a sophistry that isn't really sopohisticated, just cleverly written erudition with the long Jamesian-style sentences Didion used to use in her political writing (but hers worked and did not nearly always aim to be purely 'original', which Douthat simply must have.)
2
It used to be said that “politics end at the water’s edge” because the promotion of democracy and the rule of law was understood to be in the nation’s interest.
The means by how we promoted that was open to debate, not the goal itself.
As with so much today, the GOP has sharply pivoted away from this. Perhaps it was inevitable that a party that preached self-interest over communal interest would eventually conflate the nation’s interest with what is best for them.
11
@cp
That was never true. We used the language of democracy promotion to justify whatever we wanted to do. This included support for death squads, terrorists, dictators, unjust wars, and brutal sanctions.
Trump is a sociopath or an extreme narcissist or both. One can oppose him without embracing this self serving American exceptionalist nonsense.
I’m of the opinion that it is in the interest of our nation to prevent Ukraine, like Crimea, from being annexed by Russia. Putin’s imperial ambitions are a prelude a to a USSR redux, and the start of a second Cold War. It’s bad enough that Trump sought personal favors from Ukraine’s president as a condition for financial aid, but worse knowing that he’d toss Zelensky & Co. under a bus if asked to by his pal, Putin...
18
"To what extent should Western foreign policy prioritize democracy promotion east and southeast of the European core — as opposed to pivoting to a different grand strategy that disengages from those regions for the sake of other ends?"
Douthat reveals his ignorance in this passage. He should listen more carefully to the experts on whom he is throwing shade here. I suggest he read Timothy Snyder's recent "The Road to Unfreedom," which argues convincingly that Ukraine represents to Putin the superhighway to what Douthat calls the "European core." If Putin's mix of violence, corruption, and info-warfare succeeds in establishing Russian domination over Ukraine, the European core, already softened up in Poland and Hungary, is the next target.
If Douthat thinks that the official American policy that Trump is trying to thwart is rooted in "Russophobia" left over from the Cold War, that's because he's not been paying attention.
38
Ditto on Snyder, great book.
7
As several point out, Douthat is manufacturing a 'serious' defense of Trump out of thin air. Trump requested and Congress appropriated the funds for the defense of Ukraine against Russian incursion. Trump's weird relationship with Putin might make Douthat think that Trump would prefer not to help Ukraines, but he has never said a word like that. No, the impeachment inquiry is solely about Trump's attempt to use the aid as a bribe for his own personal gain. There might be an argument for allowing Ukraine to fall under Russian control once again, but Trump is not making it, and if there is any basis for the case Douthat puts forward, he is undermining it by associating it with this episode and this president.
63
Trump is the president. He could declare tomorrow that the US would recognize Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and that it would even recognize Russia’s annexation of all of Ukraine, Finland, and any other country Putin designates, and that the US will bring home all its troops and stop sending weapons to other countries. He would be well within his rights to do so. But he hasn’t.
The stated policy of the US is still to deter/contain/reverse Russian aggression. This may well be the time to revisit the old “Domino Theory” of Communist (now Russian) influence, but until the time Trump declares an end to the US policy of containing/deterring Russia, the “professionals” are right to push back against back-channel and self-interested efforts to weaken that policy.
13
I wonder how much the people who decry the "establishment's" professionals follow this when choosing legal or health assistance.
I am reminded of the G & S Mikado: among the punishments designed to fit the crime is "His teeth I've enacted shall all be extracted by terrified amateurs".
And Mr. Douthat does not seem to much favor change from the usual in his religious practice.
5
True. Whether they agree with Trump or any other President's world view, the State Department is supposed to carry out the current administration's "policies" in each country.
The takeaway from the Schiff Show so far is that for good or ill The Resistance to this administration is highly active in all departments of the global bureaucracy.
4
What exactly is this administration’s policy towards Ukraine and how exactly have the foreign service professionals failed to follow it? I doubt you can answer this question because the administration doesn’t have a unified, coherent policy towards Ukraine.
42
@Deborah
See the quotes around policies? Trump doesn't have a cohesive or coherent policy toward anything. So. Missing the point.
2
@Carol Colitti Levine So what you are saying is that extortion is fine. Criminal and corrupt behavior are fine. Treason is fine. Asking that other governments manufacture lies about American citizens is fine. The Constitution is nothing but a piece of old paper for you, I would assume. Those foreign service officers are people of integrity who believe in this country and took a pledge to support it and its constitution. Trump may have sworn to uphold it but he treats it like used toilet paper.
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The unelected career professionals are the establishment. If they resist change when a new president is elected with a mandate for change, then he has every right to move the change resistant professionals out of their comfort zone in a cozy position some where in the government.
I agree with Ross that in a way there is a battle in our country in congress and elsewhere as to what should be our foreign policy and who should be driving it. In a way Trump is working on bringing a sea change in our foreign policy from the one that was driven by Bush and Obama and the cold war era presidents.
If one characterizes being a super power as being able to send troops to any part of the world at the whims and fancies of a president of USA to murder and bomb foreign lands, I want no part of it. I will prefer America first where a president deals with the domestic problems first before sending boots on the ground or US military operations anywhere else in the world. By not initiating any new wars and trying to wind down the Bush and Obama wars, Trump is doing great service to our military and to the nation. I will be happy if America in the future is not a super power but a country that has good working relations with all the nations of the world including Russia, China and N. Korea and resolves all conflicts by negotiations instead of by bullying. The results that Trump has got on the world scene by limiting the professionals are far better than in the first 16 years of this century.
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Yet Trump hasn’t actually done any of that. He talks a good game but just sent thousands of troops to Saudi Arabia, a place US troops mostly abandoned more than 10 years ago. The US troops haven’t left the Middle East, the number has actually increased since Trump came into office. The US has military bases in 80 countries and troops in many others using other countries’ bases. So yes, it would be a good idea if our military operations were scaled back to focus our government’s attention on America, but that hasn’t happened yet (and may not in your lifetime) despite all the talk. We can’t even close the base closest to us in Cuba (100 miles away from our closest base in Florida) where we have 6,000 personnel watching over approximately 50 detainees, so there is very little chance of us moving many troops out of Africa, Asia, or Europe. But Trump’s talk does sound good to the folks who aren’t paying much attention.
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Your statement “when a new president is elected with a MANDATE for change” from whom or where did this mandate originate?
trump lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, hardly a mandate for change.
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@Tony from California. Maybe Trump sent troops to decimate ISIS which was worthwhile since ISIS was becoming a threat to the world. With regard to the troops sent by the Trump administration to defend the oil refiners of Saudi Arabia and the oil refiners in Syria which is a source of revenues to the Kurds that happens to be a strategic interests in keeping the oil flowing.
Whoever attacked the 2 major oil refineries in Saudi arabia exposed the impotence of Saudi Arabia to being able to defend itself against Iranian allied forces. I am paying attention and there is not much not to like with Trumps' foreign policies including making the allies pay adequately for their own defense.
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I see a deep long-term danger to American democracy by Douthat's assertion that many Americans are all for abandoning the 70-year post WWII order.
When did Putinism seem so mild, so tolerable, from France to the US to Britain immersed in confining its influence at the Channel's shores?
The new isolationism, not to raise such a cliche, reminds me of the world in the 20s. Malign powers not contained have a way of breaking out, and in today's world, so much faster becaues of social media and online disinformation tools.
Although Republicans seem cool with Trump's love of autocrats--they grumble in private, but hey, that stock market!--they might wake up one day to see a "new world order" taking shape in ways they never expected.
Russia continues to seek revenge for Reagan's victory. Will Trump be the anti-Reagan happy to make that happen?
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Foreign Policy. I’m not an educated professional, but I read, read, read. Notice: I didn’t mention TV. I take a stand against the foreign policy changes Trump has foisted on us. I agreed with President Obama’s push for us to join the Trans Pacific Partnership; it gave us an entré into a part of the world where business contacts would foster understanding and interdependence. I admired his ability to work out a plan that would restrain Iran’s development of nuclear weapons for some years during which time conditions could improve.
Most recently Trump’s decision to abandon the Kurds, a longtime ally, to the Turks, proved his love of expediency and chaos. Not so long ago we were hoping for peaceful balance with China. Too bad cooler heads were unable to figure out how to share a peaceful world. I approve of loyalty to the European Union, Britain and other longtime allies who share many of the same values and hopes for peace. Trump’s friendships with dictators is an unproductive stance.
Boyish bullying, breaking the rules, preferring golf to the study of complex issues, have strained democratic principles to the breaking point.
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@MGL Just a point. Here in New Zealand, a lot of people were adamantly opposed to the original TPP. It was seen as another broadside of US imperialism. For example, it would have, among other things, forced New Zealand to rewrite its very reasonable and generally copyright laws to come in line with the ridiculous US system, entrenched due to Sonny Bono.
There were fears that a small nation like New Zealand would be subsumed under regulations that would adversely affect local business as well as labor protections.
You can read some of the differences with the new CPTTP here:
https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/trade/free-trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements-in-force/cptpp/understanding-cptpp/tpp-and-cptpp-the-differences-explained
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Included in that critique, but not mentioned by Douthat, is the remarkable assertion of Ms. Yavanovich, repeated several times, that a (or perhaps "the") prime responsibility of our embassies is to promote the interests of private American businesses. This, on the taxpayer dime.
How this mercantile imperative might conflict with our purported interest in democracy and human rights was never explained.
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@jrd
It's not the only prime responsibility of embassies (of ALL countries) of course. Promoting US culture and values (such as anticorruption) is equally important.
And yes, selling more products made in the USA overseas tends to be a good thing for taxpayers, remember? Or are you an anti-capitalist?
And since when is more trade reducing democracy and human rights? History shows that in general, it increases both ...
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@Ana Luisa
How is it a "good thing" for American businesses, when they off-shore both their workers and their profits?
And if my tax dollars are promoting their interests, where's my share?
How Is it capitalism to provide services to America's major corporations not available to anyone else (does the government *my* business ventures?), and not get a share of the profits?
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@jrd
That's a different question.
Promoting our businesses abroad doesn't necessarily mean outsourcing US jobs, it often means trying to sell more US products/services.
Apart from that, I don't think that moving job abroad, as wealthiest country on earth, is a problem in itself.
It's the lowest paid jobs that are being outsourced, whereas the best are still in the US.
The problem is inequality, created by politicians who pass bill after bill hammering the middle class and enriching the wealthiest. Or as you say yourself: the problem is that Republicans pass bills that make it impossible for employees and workers to get a fair share of the profits. THAT is the main problem.
Embassies don't have a lot to do with that though. Their job is to intensify bilateral relationships, and make sure that conflicts get solved before they even arise - and peacefully.
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There is absolutely zero policy question underlying impeachment. There is absolutely zero policy question underlying what Trump wanted from Zelensky. There have been absolutely zero policy questions driving the leadership of the State Department since Rex Tillerson.
Tillerson began his tenure at State by destroying its civil service, the transparency that used to be the norm (even under Nixon), and corporatizing it further than it already was. Since Tillerson, the continuation of the destruction hasn't abated. The only difference is that Trump really runs foreign policy through appointments that are outside the chain of command and purview of the department itself.
Crooked orders are what got Trump to this impeachment. There is no defending extortion. There is no defending treasonous behavior. There is no foreign policy that normalizes blackmail.
There is no real professional who remains in the civil service and carries out orders that are illegal.
It isn't Trump against the professionals. It's oligarchy against democracy in a functioning state, rather than a failed one.
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@Rima Regas: Excellent, Ms. Regas. You carved through Mr. Douthat's nonsense with a surgeon's precision. What the columnist is attempting to do is to criticize Barack Obama's foreign policy initiatives as being responsible for Donald Trump's. And he trots out, does Mr. Douthat, his usual denigrations of "liberals." He tries to have it both ways: knotting migration angst in Europe with Trump's brand of populism with post-Cold War realpolitik. And he is disrespectful of the American citizen who is keenly aware of the corruption in the apparatus of the Trump administration. Republicans see all of this, of course, but as oligarchs themselves, or representatives of oligarchs, everything outside of the Trump halo is simply irrelevant.
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@Rima Regas - so good to see you here, and this so brilliant: It isn't Trump against the professionals. It's oligarchy against democracy in a functioning state, rather than a failed one.
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@Rima Regas
Trump is a deeply corrupt President, possibly the worst in that department that we have ever had.
But when you say no professional remains in the service and carries out illegal orders, this seems obviously wrong.. Given the long sordid history of US foreign policy under both parties, how exactly were the policies carried out? I have seen clips of professionals defending Obama’s support for the Saudi War in Yemen, which Trump has extended. There were officials who worried that we were guilty of complicity in war crimes.
Where were the long lines of foreign policy professionals resigning over that? Is it legal to participate in supporting a genocidal war? If so, then fine, I guess.
But people can be professional in carrying out tasks when the moral decision would be to resign.
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Military aid was already earmarked for Ukraine. All Trump was interested in was using that aid as a bribe to get the Ukrainians to do his bidding against a political rival, and doing a favor for his BFF Putin by possibly getting Russia off the hook for interference in the 2016 election. Beyond that, Trump had no deep, intellectual thoughts about the relationship between Russia and Ukraine.
Russia isn't interested in friendly relationships with any other countries beyond using puppet Presidents such as ours to further Russia's global agenda. Putin is certainly not Gorbachov, and Trump is definitely not Ronald Reagan.
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When countries are free from corruption, economically prosperous, and able to determine their own destiny, the world is a better more peaceful place. Whether we like it or not, we are part of the world.
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November 16, 2019
Truth as universal - as such never foreign to humanity. Living for human rights and liberty is very much becoming the universal political stance via the world wide internet connective force worthy for protection and leaders of world governments to offer support with honor and pride - Citizens of the world means democratic protection and will / must have it defends with 24/7 media coverage.
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November 16, 2019
Truth as universal - as such never foreign to humanity. Living for human rights and liberty is very much becoming the universal political stance via the world wide internet connective force worthy for protection and leaders of world governments to offer support with honor and pride - Citizens of the world means democratic protection and will / must have it defends with 24/7 media coverage.
"All the people testifying believe that propping up Ukrainian democracy and supporting Kiev’s struggle against Russian irredentism is an essential goal for U.S. foreign policy."
Swing and a miss. The reason this theme keeps coming up again and again isn't a policy difference. The US policy is, with bipartisan support, supporting Kiev's struggle against Russian irredentism. Trump's own White House stated this aim and Congress appropriated money to fund that exact policy position at Trump's budgetary request.
What the witnesses are establishing is actual physical harm has been committed. You eliminate the "no harm, no crime" defense by establishing the President's actions were in fact harmful. According to testimony, his actions created victims both within US diplomacy and within the Ukrainian government as both seek to achieve a stated and funded US foreign policy aim.
There's no kabuki theater here. We're talking about legal minds who recognize the need to establish the victim in a crime. Guess what? The victim ain't Trump.
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It is appropriate that the Republican Party would lead the critique of the notion that American foreign policy should be dedicated to the spread of democracy. After all, as the party of gerrymandering, voter suppression, and win at all costs, the GOP plainly is opposed to democracy in the United States.
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@Victor James
this trumpublican attitude is as disorienting and bizarre as much of the rest of their world view, given that the Reagan administration introduced democracy-building initiatives as a specific, overt category of US foreign aid assistance.
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@Victor James - Never mind Douthat ignoring that the Executive Branch does not get to ignore what the Congress funds, especially since the Pentagon had already determined that Ukraine was not too corrupt to receive the appropriated funds.
POTUS doesn't get to override Congress's decision(s) on foreign policy funding, nor lie to Senators (even from their own party) about why funding is being held up, as even Sen. McConnell was lied to about why the White House was holding up funds Congress appropriated to support the nation's foreign policy agenda and national security.
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It's interesting that, on the subject of Trumpian self-interest, Douthat neither mentions nor speculates upon the Trump-Putin bromance. It's a tale awash with rumors of money-laundering and kompromat and kakocracy which Trump's behavior does nothing to mitigate. Trump takes Putin at his word and that should be enough for all Americans. The other G-7 countries blackballed Putin's Russia but Trump wants him back in. Trump holds a tete-a-tete with Putin to which translators are forbidden. And Republicans can only look at it all and marvel as if they're watching the last rays of a glorious sunset.
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I believe Douthat makes an unfounded claim when he says that "supporting Kiev's struggle against Russian irredentism" is not something that "many" voters and politicians across party agree on.
Since the Cold War ended, Americans have been distracted by other bogeymen than Russia, but that does not mean Americans are ready to see Russia expand to anything like its former glory. I look around Congress and see only a handful of isolationists and outright Russian sympathizers who don't agree with America's current and longstanding policy stance. We know what happens when totalitarian regimes are allowed to grow unencumbered: world wars begin.
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@Mford
As Obama pointed out, Russia is fundamentally a weak and weakening power, with few strengths other than an oil sector, basically a colder Saudi Arabia. The future of Russia and its European neighbors will determine little of importance in the 21st century. The future of China, India, and Indonesia, on the other hand, will be where 21st century histories will begin and end. The obsession of the foreign policy establishment with Europe and the remnants of the cold war do not serve the US well.
Forget Trump; this is an area where Obama was trying to move the needle, with limited success. Douthat makes a good point.
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@Tom Meadowcroft
Good comment. My relatives who live in Germany and are surrounded by Turks, Poles (Just look at names on doorbells) and others can attest that the Europe that American Foreign Policy establishment is obsessed with no longer exists. We are always fighting the last war diplomatically.
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@Tom Meadowcroft And yet Russia undermined our last election, and might undermine our next one. They had a thousand computer specialists constantly working to do so. And they have continually worked to weaken our society via the internet in other ways. Such that we feel it all around us.
Seems like a significant enough problem to me, although North Korea and China are potentially even more threatening in cyber warfare.
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