Media reports recently revealed that President Biden will revise the nation’s Conventional Arms Transfer Policy, with an eye to elevating concerns for the human rights implications of arms exports. Such a move is long overdue, as we have argued in the Arms Sales Risk Index reports over the past several years. Over the past twenty years, the United States has sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to governments with horrendous human rights records. Tragically, some of those weapons have been used to kill civilians and political opponents.

Congress has also been focused on the arms sales and human rights nexus. In a recent piece up at Defense One, Jordan Cohen and I analyze the National Security Powers Act, sponsored by Chris Murphy (D‑CT), Mike Lee (R‑UT), and Bernie Sanders (I‑VT). This legislation would strengthen Congress’ role in the arms sales process by requiring the White House to get congressional approval for major arms sales. The Stop Arming Human Rights Abusers Act, introduced recently by Rep. Omar (D‑MN), would provide another useful mechanism, automatically prohibiting sales to any government guilty of gross violations of international human rights or humanitarian law.

These are positive steps, but one should remain skeptical about their likely impact. First, though Biden might be willing to sign them into law, it is far from certain that the two bills will make it that far given other congressional priorities and likely Republican opposition. Second, arms sales have long been a favorite foreign policy tool of presidents. During Biden’s time in office, the United States has continued to sell weapons to pretty much whoever wants them. Thus, there is good reason to suspect that any revisions to the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy will be more rhetoric than real.

President Biden is playing hide the ball with America’s Forever Wars. In his public pronouncements, he depicts his administration as diligently rolling back the numerous post‑9/​11 U.S. military misadventures. He delivered a number of speeches declaring an end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan and specifying a timeline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops by September. In April, the administration reached a tacit agreement with the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to officially conclude the U.S. combat mission in Iraq. “There will be no U.S. military forces in a combat role by the end of the year,” says a Biden senior official.

This public rhetoric is profoundly misleading. Biden certainly knows that bringing an end to these far-flung “counter-terrorism” missions is popular with the electorate. That may explain the eagerness to portray his administration’s approach as one of ending endless wars, as the slogan goes. But it is not true.

In Afghanistan, it looks like most U.S. forces will be withdrawn soon, although a substantial contingent of forces will remain to guard the U.S. embassy. That said, officials have made clear—somewhere beneath the headlines and the prime time coverage—that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan will continue indefinitely. In withdrawing from Afghanistan, the administration sought basing access in neighboring Central Asian countries, and U.S. military assets are being repositioned just outside Afghanistan to enable continued support of the Afghan Armed Forces. Aid to the U.S.-backed Kabul regime will also continue. In other words, the United States will continue a combat role in Afghanistan to defend Kabul from the Taliban. This week, General Kenneth McKenzie put it plainly: “The United States has increased airstrikes in support of Afghan forces over the last several days and we’re prepared to continue this heightened level of support in the coming weeks if the Taliban continue their attacks.” This is not an end to America’s longest war.

As for Iraq, the lofty talk of ending the combat mission hardly seems to match the facts. The public rhetoric is therefore bizarrely contradictory. Officials emphasize that they will “formally end the combat mission and make clear there are no American forces with a combat role in the country,” but that U.S. troop levels will not change, and may even increase. The roughly 2,500 U.S. forces in Iraq will remain there in order to continue assisting Iraqi forces in fighting ISIS and facing other local threats. As a CNN report noted, these changes to the U.S. mission in Iraq “could come on paper only.” When pressed by a journalist, a senior official promises that “it’s far more than semantics” but “I am not going to get into details of what capabilities there are, what capabilities we intend to have in the training/​advisory role” and “I’m just not going to talk about numbers at all.” In short, the mission in Iraq continues and the administration believes the exact number of U.S. troops to be deployed in Iraq and what their exact mission will be is none of the American people’s business.

The U.S. military mission in Syria—which suffers from a deeply confused strategic rationale and a genuine lack of legal authority—will also continue unabated. In the same exchange cited above, an unnamed senior official makes this crystal clear. Here’s a brief transcript excerpt:

Q: I’m wondering if you anticipate a similar kind of shift in mission [in Syria]. Or has that shift already been completed? Do you anticipate any change in the U.S. mission there?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I don’t anticipate any changes right now to the mission or the footprint in Syria…In Syria, we’re supporting Syrian Democratic Forces in their fight against ISIS…that’s something we’ll continue.

So, the Biden administration is talking a big game on ending America’s so-called endless wars. But this is little more than messaging. Below the surface, and largely outside the view of the American people, Biden is continuing the military mission in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Similarly, after declaring an end to U.S. offensive support for Saudi operations in Yemen, Biden made clear that “We’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people” from “missile attacks, UAV strikes, and other threats from Iranian-supplied forces in multiple countries.” In plain language, that means the United States will continue to be militarily entangled in Yemen. And, apparently, Biden will continue to bomb Somalia, as he did twice last week.

Putting an antiwar gloss on ongoing War on Terror policies may be good politics, but it won’t achieve what Americans, at least in part, elected Biden to do.

The Cato Institute will host a three-day, virtual, private workshop on the drivers of cyber security strategy from August 30 to September 1, 2021.

The goal of the workshop is to remove silos in cyber strategy and policy, bringing disputes and contentious views into the open for discussion and engagement. The workshop will also work to combat the negative impacts of groupthink and strategic malaise, encouraging participants to think about cyber strategy in diverse ways and expanding the aperture of policy areas that analysts should take into consideration when creating cyber strategy.

Cato seeks six graduate student volunteers to act as rapporteurs and assist with the event. Rapporteurs will be responsible for taking notes and interacting with their specified panels on the first two days of the workshop. They will also help the moderators arrange for a review session on day three and design breakout exercises on the main themes and ideas discussed in prior days. Finally, the rapporteur may assist Cato scholars with producing publications recapping the event.

Rapporteurs will be paid a one-time $500 honoraria as thanks for their volunteer service.

This opportunity is open to students enrolled in a Master’s or PhD program with an interest in cyber strategy and policy. Applicants should submit a resume and letter of interest to egomez@​cato.​org by Saturday, July 31, 2021.

On Sunday night at around 6:00 PM ET, Joe Biden became president all over again—at least by the perverse Beltway logic that holds bombing the Middle East is as presidential as it gets. At the CINC’s command, Air Force F‑15s and F‑16s pounded several facilities in Syria and Iraq used by Iran-backed militias to attack U.S. troops. The Pentagon’s press office unleashed a relentless adjective-swarm—“necessary, appropriate, deliberate”—justifying the “defensive precision” attacks, exquisitely calibrated to “limit the risk of escalation” while sending “a clear and unambiguous deterrent message.”

Presumably that message failed to hit home, given the retaliatory rocket attack at a U.S. base in Syria Monday. Still, we can take heart that no congressional authorizations were harmed in the crossfire; the president didn’t need permission from Congress, he insisted on Monday: “I have that authority under Article II.”

Meanwhile, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Congress has begun, tentatively, to signal that it might like to weigh in on war powers questions too. Two weeks ago, the House voted to repeal the now nearly two-decade old congressional resolution that authorized George W. Bush to take out Saddam Hussein. On Tuesday, it passed resolutions revoking the Authorization for the Use of Military Force that empowered Bush senior to wage the Gulf War some 30 years ago, as well as an Eisenhower-era AUMF aimed at protecting the Middle East from “armed aggression from any country controlled by international communism.”

That’s all to the good: even if these long-moribund AUMFs have no plausible current use, there’s always the danger that a future president will concoct one as cover for new foreign adventures. And you’ve got to start somewhere, after all.

But Sunday’s round of airstrikes, the second in the space of four months launched without reference to any congressional authorization whatsoever, underscores how far Congress has to go before it meaningfully reclaims its constitutional powers over war and peace.

To do that, they’d need to keep repealing old authorizations until they hit the one that really matters: the 2001 AUMF, which over the past two decades has been transformed into an enabling act for far-flung, seemingly endless war. Unfortunately, the war powers debate on the Hill gives us reason to wonder whether they’re up to the task.

Consider the ongoing fight over the 2002 Iraq War resolution. It’s been more than 18 years since George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, nearly 15 years since Saddam was frogmarched to the gallows, and over a decade since President Obama announced the end of the Iraq War. Two weeks ago, in a statement supporting the House bill, the Biden administration confirmed that the 2002 AUMF is unnecessary for any “ongoing military operations.”

This ought to be the easy part of war powers reform. It’s a freebie—a solid opportunity for legislators to show their profile and feign courage without worrying they’ll be accused of abandoning Our Troops—because, alas, they’re not going anywhere.

But even this baby step is proving a bridge too far for the bulk of the GOP caucus. More than three quarters of House Republicans voted ‘no,’ on revoking the 2002 AUMF, for fear that consequence-free statutory cleanup is appeasement or something.

Repeal would tell “our enemies that they can continue attacking the United States completely unchecked,” sputtered Rep. Steven Palazzo (R‑MS); it could “prevent the U.S. from taking necessary action to counter Iranian proxies,” Rep. Liz Cheney (R‑WY) charged. These claims are demonstrably false, but they’re not “lies,” exactly; let’s just say they reflect “a lack of connection to concern with truth–an indifference to how things really are.”

As of last week, repeal is stalled in the Senate, thanks to Sen. Mitt Romney (R‑UT) who led an effort to derail a scheduled hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, demanding additional briefing, so Senators could “fully evaluate the conditions on the ground [and] the implications of repealing the 2002 AUMF.”

It’s really not that complicated, senators. The “conditions on the ground” are, we’re on the ground, getting shot at, and periodically shooting back. And the implications of this repeal are… not much. Since 2014, our presence in Iraq and Syria has mainly rested on the Obama administration’s tortured interpretation of the 2001 AUMF to cover anti-ISIS operations. If the 2002 AUMF disappears, it’s not as if we have to go home and not get shot at.

Which is precisely the problem. As Michael Brendan Dougherty recently observed in National Review, it’s a little strange to be told by repeal proponents that “this act of constitutional hygiene is a great idea precisely because it does nothing.” If that’s where the effort ends, it’s basically hygiene theater.

The point, after all, ought to be to end “ongoing military operations” in Iraq, Syria, and throughout the region, because there’s no valid national security interest served by them, and so long as we’re forward-deployed in dangerous neighborhoods, the president can always claim “constitutional self-defense” as he risks stumbling into a wider war.

“It’s time to end the forever war,” Joe Biden declared in April, announcing his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. But, as John Glaser and I wrote recently, “Ending one deployment won’t bring an end to endless war.” Neither will repealing the 2002, 1991, and 1957 AUMFs–that won’t end a single deployment. To change the facts on the ground, Congress would need to repeal–and not replace–the authorization that really matters, and on which current operations depend: the 2001 AUMF. No current threat remotely justifies our continuing presence in Iraq and Syria, much less roving presidential authority to wage war on multiple continents. To end the Forever War, end the Forever Authorization.

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote on extended deterrence in Northeast Asia under the Biden administration. The Stimson Center’s China Foreign Policy Project published the article on June 30, 2021.

Effective extended deterrence requires careful consideration of U.S. strategic goals in Northeast Asia. Developments in the region will put pressure on U.S. President Joseph Biden and his administration to strengthen extended deterrence to allies. Still, an approach that sets unachievable expectations and misinterprets the drivers of nuclear escalation could inflame arms races and damage strategic stability.

Walking the tightrope of effective extended deterrence will require the Biden administration to think carefully about how conventional military strategies can generate or attenuate the danger of nuclear escalation. As Northeast Asian states, friend and foe alike, rapidly improve their military firepower, the goal of preventing nuclear attack will increasingly depend on how states plan and posture for conventional war.

The rest of the article can be found on the Stimson Center’s website: https://​www​.stim​son​.org/​2​0​2​1​/​w​a​l​k​i​n​g​-​t​h​e​-​t​i​g​h​t​r​o​p​e​-​u​-​s​-​e​x​t​e​n​d​e​d​-​d​e​t​e​r​r​e​n​c​e​-​i​n​-​n​o​r​t​h​e​a​s​t​-​a​s​i​a​-​u​n​d​e​r​-​p​r​e​s​i​d​e​n​t​-​b​iden/. 

Competition with China is dominating America’s foreign policy discourse in a way reminiscent of Cold War hysteria. Our politics haven’t descended into McCarthyite crusades to purge federal departments of alleged communist infiltrators, but there are already examples of making policy out of paranoia.

In addition to fueling wasteful defense spending, fear of China has led policymakers to push for cuts to Chinese immigration. Senator Tom Cotton (R‑AR) believes dramatically reducing immigration from China is necessary to protect against Chinese spies stealing American secrets. Senator Ted Cruz (R‑TX) went so far as to block a bill allowing for Hong Kongers to get work permits and become refugees because he’s afraid of spies. President Biden has maintained the anti-Chinese immigration policies adopted by the Trump administration.

To the extent that China poses a serious threat to the United States, policymakers should be clamoring to liberalize immigration with China rather than restrict it. At the beginning of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, American politicians ignored the Know-Nothings of their time and encouraged refugees from communist countries.

Starting with President Truman, who ordered the admission of 80,000 refugees from Soviet-occupied Poland, the Baltic countries, and from areas of Southern Europe where communist insurgencies were active in 1945, and ending with the Lautenberg Amendment of 1990, the U.S. government consistently liberalized refugee and asylum policy for those fleeing communism. They let in millions of refugees and asylum seekers from countries as varied as Hungary, China, Greece, the Soviet Union, and Cuba – the birthplace of Senator Cruz’s father.

Welcoming immigrants from communist countries produced important economic, political, moral, and propaganda victories during the Cold War that showcased the superiority of individual liberty and capitalism over communism. But modern policy makers are ignoring those victories today.

U.S. policymakers are worried about Chinese technology. One obvious response is to channel the most productive and educated Chinese citizens to our shores. Why don’t today’s policymakers learn from the past and liberalize Chinese immigration? Espionage is the main excuse, but immigration restrictions would do little to mitigate this threat and would produce negative unintended consequences down the road for America’s competition with China.

From 1990 to 2019, there were 1,485 people convicted of espionage or espionage-related crimes spying on U.S. soil. Of those, 184 were from China. Chinese-born spies stole economic secrets or intellectual property from private firms two-thirds of the time. Of the 46 firms that were the victims of economic espionage committed by Chinese spies on U.S. soil, 16 were the victims more than once – meaning that they decided that their expected espionage-related costs of hiring Chinese workers were lower than the benefits of hiring them.

Rarely were the stolen secrets related to national security. Chinese immigrant Xiaorong You was indicted for stealing a formula for a coating for the inside of Coke cans. Last year, Xin Wang, a Chinese-born visiting researcher at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) was arrested for the espionage-related crime of visa fraud because he did not inform U.S. immigration officials that he was still a medical technician in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said that Wang’s case “is another part of the Chinese Communist Party’s plan to take advantage of our open society and exploit academic institutions.” At UCSF, Wang was researching obesity and metabolism, not weapons.

Some instances of espionage are serious, but many don’t have a connection to Chinese immigrants. American-born John Reece Roth, for instance, exported data on specialized plasma technology for use in drones that he had developed under a U.S. Air Force contract. We shouldn’t let the occasional case of Chinese espionage blind the government to the benefits of liberalizing immigration for those fleeing Communist China.

In contrast, Chinese immigrants are making huge contributions to research and development that will unlock economic and technological innovation going forward. In all STEM fields, there are around 46,000 Chinese undergraduates, about 41,000 master’s students, and an estimated 36,000 PhD students at U.S. universities. Immigration restrictions to deal with the manageable threat of espionage guarantees that many of them will return to China and that fewer will come in the future.

The federal government should use the Cold War immigration playbook to liberalize immigration with China. Congress should update the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974, which liberalized trade with non-market economies if they allowed emigration. That would end the Trump-era trade restrictions on China in exchange for the Chinese allowing the free emigration of Uighurs, other persecuted ethnic and religious minorities like Christians and Tibetans, and Hong Kongers. For the long term, expanded asylum options, green cards for all Chinese graduates of American universities, and allowing all educated Chinese immigrants to come here without restriction should all be on the table.

Liberalizing immigration with China is a net benefit for the United States and may even give America an edge in its competition with Beijing. Moreover, providing a safe haven for those fleeing totalitarian communism in China will be a tremendous moral victory for the United States.

Americans understood this during the Cold War. It’s time their children applied that lesson today.

In U.S. foreign policy debates, Europe gets short shrift. Not without justification, the continent is seen as mostly at peace, a place where people in well-tailored suits and dresses can convene various boring panels about bureaucracy and cooperation in beautiful buildings. To be sure, Russia gnaws away here or there at parts of Ukraine or Georgia, but the large industrialized democracies of Western Europe are wealthy, strong, and at peace. It is understandable that the Middle East and Asia-Pacific win more attention in Washington.

At the same time, the United States maintains large, costly commitments to Europe decades after the Cold War. Why?

One answer Cato scholars have been giving for decades is that Washington used its leadership of NATO to smother European security cooperation because it wanted to maintain outsized influence over decisions involving European security. This was viewed, to the extent it was considered at all, as a fringey, revisionist opinion.

So let me welcome to the fringe the authors of the most recent report from the Center for American Progress’ national security team, titled “The Case for EU Defense.” In it, the authors don’t just call for more EU defense cooperation, but admit that “Since the 1990s, the United States has typically used its effective veto power to block the defense ambitions of the European Union.”

But how can this be? After all, aren’t American officials constantly complaining about low and inadequate European defense spending? Don’t American officials want more European defense capability, not less?

Of course they do, until the Europeans look like they might get their act together, at which point we make clear to the Europeans that if they “duplicate,” “diminish” or “discriminate” against NATO capabilities, they jeopardize the future of NATO. When the Europeans looked like they might be getting their act together in the early 2000s, for example, the US sent Ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns to make clear that European cooperation that didn’t include the United States would pose “one of the greatest dangers to the transatlantic relationship.” Not to NATO, mind you—to the transatlantic relationship. Washington wasn’t in the mood to devolve European security to Europe. 

Keeping the United States in charge of European security is foolish for a number of reasons. First, they can defend themselves from external dangers. Russia has an economy less than one-ninth the size of Europe’s, and a population less than a third of Europe’s. There is a scholarly debate about how well Europe could defend itself, but the fact that it’s at least plausible they could do so today after decades of ineffectual efforts and American subversion suggests with a minimum of effort, they could bring themselves together quite nicely.

There is also no internal threat to Europe. The first secretary-general of NATO, the British General Lionel “Pug” Ismay, famously pronounced that NATO’s purpose was to “keep the Soviets out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” The problems today are an increasingly impotent Germany and an overburdened United States. Nobody should be trying to keep the Germans down, and the only people who should want the Americans in are taxpayers in European countries.

The CAP report emphasizes it still sees NATO as the lodestar of European security, and EU cooperation as a vehicle for burden-sharing, not ending the alliance. Baby steps.

But next week as the NATO summit tells you about how NATO is going to deal with China, or that its “door remains open” to Georgia and Ukraine, or some other whimsical fantasy, remind yourself: if the United States stopped discouraging them, the Europeans could defend Europe. In international politics, it is better to set an achievable goal you can attain than dream big and fall short.