Questions and Answers #4
An Ask Me Anything post
And we’re off …
John J. Brown
If Putin, pushes the US around for more favorable conditions on the Ukraine ceasefire…should Europe go along or begin to isolate the US more?
I don’t think it’s a matter of isolating the US more, but rather of going their own way in supporting Ukraine and, by doing so, effectively replacing the US as Kyiv’s primary patron.
If the goal is to both stand up to Putin and piss off Trump, then standing behind Ukraine in the face of US pressure to settle is the best path they can take, in addition, of course, to stepping up on military aid to Ukraine and military spending on themselves.
This is almost like the Marshall Plan moment was for Truman back in the day: Europe either steps up or steps aside. I think they’re too smart to allow the latter.
Such a we-got-this approach would be isolating, in the end, to Trump, marginalizing the US. I am really hoping they will — for everyone’s sake. Trump is promising nothing and threatening everything. That sort of negotiation tactic should not be rewarded.
Thomas Leto
Sorry, this comment is more than a sentence long: I’ve been a follower of yours since 2010 when you were a guest on Hugh Hewitt’s radio program to discuss your “Great Powers” book. I’m saddened to see your blog gone and your domain name bought out / transferred to a Vietnamese company. I’m tempted to ask what happened but its none of my business.
I let the old blog archive disappear, after downloading it for my “records” (honestly, who wants to go back and wade through all that?). I wanted to commit to Substack, and I’m happy I did.
The most important thing I’ve ever written is what I wrote this morning — every single day of the year.
I’m just glad you’re back in action and my question is : Wouldn’t Liberia be a natural entry point for Americans to enter Africa in an economic and cultural capacity given our historic ties and not cede that continent’s burgeoning middle class to the Chinese, Indians and Europeans; could it possibly be a star on our flag?
I had to go look up Liberian-US relations, it’s been so quiet for so long.
Relations stretch back to an 1862 diplomatic recognition, which is fitting, since we had such a hand in promoting its founding as a landing point for enslaved African Americans who were freed across our Civil War.
Solid relations throughout the 20th C, with two civil-war rough patches (1989-1997 and 1999-2003), but smoother sailing since Sirleaf started as president in 2006. She settled things down considerably and became quite the African stateswoman.
Annual foreign aid seems to have been in the $100m range, with a quarter billion in infrastructure funding via Bush’s Millennium Challenge Corp. That total of $360m seems to have completely disappeared with Trump/DOGE, which will likely stress the government quite a bit and sour relations. I am quite certain that MAGA could care less about that outcome … Liberia, a country that nobody’s heard of ….
But here’s the bottom line: Liberia has never sought that route and shows no inclination for it.
For me personally, it’s hard to imagine anything in the Eastern Hemisphere when there’s so much possibility and logic for integration with our West Hem neighbors first, something else Trump 2.0 seems destined to push deeper into the future than it otherwise would be — completely on style points.
Matthew Conrad
When discussing the possibility of a 51st (or 143rd) state, do you see that form of "merger" more or less likely than an EU-like alignment (same currency, freedom of movement, but distinct governments and national identities)?
We already have a number of designations besides statehood:
Unincorporated Organized Territories that are populated areas with local government structures (PR, Guam, US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands)
Unincorporated Unorganized Territories that generally lack permanent residents, except for American Samoa (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Midway Atoll, Navassa Island, Wake Island)
Incorporated Unorganized Territory of Palmyra Atoll partly privately owned by the Nature Conservancy (!) and partly owned by the federal government.
So 14 total territories (five inhabited, nine empty), plus DC, plus our 50 member states, plus 574 federally recognized tribal nations.
If I were to bundle them up as potential states, I would pair PR with nearby USVI in Caribbean (or accept PR on its own), and then kluge the Pacific trio of Guam, N. Mariana and American Samoa.
In US history, the route of territory-becoming-state has been the closest thing to an accession pathway that we’ve had. Some republics have directly joined the US (Vermont, Texas), but the territorial route prevailed in our westward expansion and could constitute a sort of semi-confirmed-candidate status if an existing republic sought admission. That would place the state in question under some congressional governing authority and allow for gradual integration.
So, think of Greenland for example: it could swap out being autonomous within Denmark to being unincorporated but locally organized under the US.
Right now, Greenland is itching to go independent from Denmark, but I don’t think the people there realize how fraught with vulnerability that route would be. So, if the potential “upgrade” can be signaled from our side in a respectful overture (yet to be seen from Trump), then it’d just be like a valued client state switching from one governing agency to another (We were signed up with Denmark for 150 years but then negotiated a better deal with the US!).
Not crazy at all and it could be done in a way that Greenlanders preferred to the old school method of being attached to Denmark — its former colonial master. After all, we share that heritage of being former colonies to European powers, do we not?
Going the European Venn diagram route of join-this-but-not-that is probably too complex and subtle for us. We’ll want that star.
Michael Moran
What Trump is doing feels like intentional stock market manipulation to benefit his very rich supporters selling short with his economic strategy of on and off again tariffs. Am I giving him too much credit here?
Yes, you are.
Trump sets tariff and market freaks. Trump backs off. Counterparties announce their own tariffs, infuriating Trump, so he puts them back on at an even higher level. But then the markets freak out some more and Trump wavers/backs off.
No need to read anything deeper than that in this behavior. Trump is just supremely erratic.
Now, when SEC Commerce Lutnick does damage control? That’s trying to calm the market, but that’s not manipulation.
Jeffrey Itell
Vietnam's new government is pushing hard to avoid the middle income trap by leaping from textiles to AI tech. The US Commerce Secretary is pushing tarrifs to return towel making to American producers. My question: Huh?
It does seem like a crazy back-to-the-future vision, does it not? Everybody wants to move up the ladder of production from simpler projects to more high-end products but Trump wants to re-industrialize America by encouraging more low-end manufacturing here.
Dominating the global towel market is not a pathway ahead; it’s a retreat from reality.
As I wrote in the book:
Worst, in its rosy memorializing of the “good old days,” nostalgia is social escapism bordering on emotional disorder. It is unhealthy and un-American.
Nostalgia goes against who we are as a people. The nostalgia types don’t migrate here; they stay home.
Making my case even better, a wise man once blurbed:
“Building on Pentagon’s New Map and its sequels, Barnett greatly expands our understanding of global dynamics in America’s New Map. His clarion call for EU-style integration of the Americas in the face of five-headed superpower competition and climate-fueled migration pulls America out of its nostalgic doldrums and into a future it deserves. Barnett convincingly urges America to burnish its brand and manifest its destiny.”
—Jeffrey Itell, former senior analyst for Special Inspector, General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
Re:Canadian integration: Wouldn't a simple(!) treaty allowing for the free movement of goods/people, single currency and a NATO-like military structure accomplish the same benefits as incorporation into the US but without the loss of sovereignty?