Halifax, a major port in the east coast
of Canada, has hosted an annual security forum for the past nine years.
This year, the event was held a week after the US Presidential elections
that delivered a stunning verdict in favour of Donald Trump.
Since most of those who attend the forum are people who deal with
security issues — officials current and retired, policy wonks, media
commentators, military officers —the subject of almost every discussion
was the forthcoming Trump presidency, and in view of his positions, the
future of NATO, Canadian-American relations, and the role of Russia.
Uniquely, the Halifax Forum hosts only people from democracies around
the world, principally the Atlantic region, but also Japan and other
parts of the world. The presence of a strong bipartisan US delegation —
comprising of luminaries like Senator John McCain, the losing Vice
Presidential candidate Tim Kaine, Senators Dan Sullivan and Jeanne
Shaheen, PACOM chief Admiral Harry Harris, the controversial head of the
National Security Agency, Admiral Mike Rogers — provided the backdrop
to the discussions.
In the fabled American policy community — the Beltway elite of
Washington DC — as it were, there is a sense of alarm, and even panic at
what the Trump presidency would be like. Some measure of it comes from
the fact that many of them opposed Trump, and some from the fact that
they may have lost possible appointments in the incoming administration.
But it is couched in laments about the coming collapse of the liberal
order.
Discussion focused on a range of issues such as the future of
democracy to whether Trump’s attack on alliance partners for ‘free
loading’ and his relationship with Vladimir Putin presaged a new and
difficult era for the US-led alliance system in the Pacific and the
Atlantic. Many issues were posed as questions: Will Trump make a deal
with Russia, getting it to back off in Ukraine in exchange for giving it
a free hand in Syria? Would the Americans walk away from the Asia
Pacific and Atlantic alliances? What would happen to the world order and
rules based international system that the US had created and led for 70
years?
The message from the top American interlocutors was that as of now,
the US was firmly committed to the alliances and that the reality of
office would push Trump back to the centre of the political spectrum.
Analysts offered a range of reasons why things may not change that much:
US has enduring interests which will not change. If Trump deviated from
fostering them, he would be brought to heel very soon by the US
Congress and the people. Other Presidents, too, speakers recalled, took
radical postures before they assumed office, but moderated their stance
thereafter.
But that almost appeared to be more by way of wishful thinking. The
appointment of outliers like Lt Gen Michael Flynn as national security
adviser, Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Mike Pompeo as CIA chief,
and Stephen Bannon as the chief strategist, signal that Trump aims to do
what he said he would do.
Host Canada expressed its worries about the upending of the deep
security and economic links between the two countries. An aggressive
protectionist approach of the Trump administration could target some key
Canadian exports like softwood, lumber and livestock. The US would seek
tighter IPR rules which would affect not just Canada, but countries
like India as well. Canadians haven’t forgotten that the US actually
shut its borders with Canada in the wake of 9/11, signalling that when
it came to security, homeland US came first. Till then, many Canadians
had believed that North American security was integrated.
Among those eagerly watching the situation are the Japanese. They are
heartened by the recent meeting between the US President-elect and the
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Trump’s attitude towards America’s
foreign commitments will have a major impact on Japan. He has given
confusing signals, alternately calling for the US to pull out from its
Japanese and Korean commitments, to suggesting — and then denying that
he did so — that Japan and South Korea ought to develop their own
nuclear weapons. The details of the Abe-Trump meeting are not known and,
as for South Korea, it has been reassured by the NSA-designate Gen
Flynn that the US valued its alliance with them and remained committed
to dealing with North Korean nuclear weapons.
But so far, there has been little on the European and North American
front. No senior leader or delegation has met Trump and the
President-elect remains silent on the issues that the Europeans fret
about. Any radical shift of policy here could actually upend the world
order as we know it, considering that it is the America-Western Europe
combine which has had preponderant economic and political clout to
enforce it.
As for other regions like South Asia, ASEAN, West Asia or Africa,
there is little talk. Trump appears to be unfamiliar of the world
outside his own country, Europe and Japan. Perhaps it is all for the
good.
Mid Day November 22, 2016
Sunday, January 29, 2017
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