A jarring split-screen reality will come into focus this week, highlighting grand American ambitions internationally amid political dysfunction back home.
As the U.S. and China compete for influence, two cabinet members are making yet another trip to the Indo-Pacific, a region with vital naval hubs and shipping lanes: it’s the 12th and eighth trip there for the secretaries of state and defence.
Meanwhile, at home, the U.S.’s notoriously bitter domestic politics is spilling into international issues in novel ways — with battles over abortion and LGBTQ issues stalling everything from U.S. military hiring and promotions, to diplomatic appointments and a new military budget.
After the Supreme Court limited abortion access last summer, the military started funding leaves to allow personnel to have the procedures in pro-choice states.
This prompted Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama to start systematically blocking Senate military confirmations.
The U.S. is looking to build alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, a focal point of its tension with China, as seen here during a U.S.-Philippines military exercise this spring. (Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)
It’s the same in U.S. diplomacy: Nearly three dozen countries lack U.S. ambassadors due to a blockade in the Senate, where Republican Rand Paul wants more information on the origins of COVID-19.
As well, an updated military budget has been paused over the above-mentioned abortion issue, as well as diversity initiatives and gender-affirming care, which Republicans want removed from the Pentagon budget.
U.S. allies vent frustrations
Aside from all this, U.S. President Joe Biden recently had to cancel what would have been a historic first trip to a Pacific island nation at the centre of the U.S.-China power struggle; he was back in Washington amid a Congressional crisis over the debt ceiling.
One Pacific ally was in Washington last week recounting his past frustrations dealing with the U.S. political system, saying it creates doubts among America’s friends.
Surangel Whipps, the president of Palau, noted that it took eight years for Congress to confirm permanent funding for a security and economic pact between the two countries as Democrats and Republicans grappled with other issues.
Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr., seen here in June, was in Washington this month. He says people in his area are worried about U.S. politics. (John Geddie/Reuters)
Whipps told a Washington audience at a Foundation for Defense of Democracies gathering that Palau is a model U.S. ally — it’s blocked plans for a Chinese casino next to a U.S. radar site, and it wants to rip up and replace the country’s Huawei cellular infrastructure.
But with the U.S.-Palau pact again up for renewal, Whipps said he hoped to avoid a repeat of last time.
“If the relationship is that important, you have to show it,” he told the audience, noting that allies don’t want to see the U.S. so caught up in internal politics that it ignores international responsibilities.
“Because I think that’s what our people at home kind of fear sometimes — you know, we see how divided [Capitol] Hill is.”
U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, in an effort to get more information about the origins of COVID-19, has stalled all confirmations to senior U.S. diplomatic posts. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
Political polarization isn’t all bad. Robust debate can reduce the risk of groupthink and related errors, and is part of what makes democracies resilient.
Generations ago, political scientists complained about the opposite problem: that U.S. political parties were too similar and they agreed too much.
But several scholars who study the interplay between domestic and foreign politics say the U.S. has swung way beyond the healthy level.
“I think it is a big problem,” said Jordan Tama, who specializes in domestic politics and foreign policy at American University.
“We are shooting ourselves in the foot — not putting in place key national-security officials … It’s troubling.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, seen during a media conference on July 14, is making his 12th trip to the Indo-Pacific region, an area of increasingly intense U.S. focus. (Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/Reuters)
Foreign policy at loggerheads is nothing new
Another type of polarization involves substantive disagreements on foreign affairs that see the U.S. zigzagging on certain policies from one administration to the next.
The Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, for example, were all policies adopted under Barack Obama and cancelled under Donald Trump. In some cases, they’re now being renewed under Biden.
One scholar of international relations joked that this is the reason Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made 12 trips to the Indo-Pacific — and probably needs to do 12 more.
Peter Trubowitz said the world is dizzy from trying to follow these U.S. foreign policy zigzags and figure out whether the country’s current positions will survive the next election.
“America’s allies need to be reassured,” said Trubowitz, an American and director of the U.S.-focused Phelan Centre at the London School of Economics.
“One of the reasons they need to be reassured is because the United States is so deeply polarized.”
At Clemson University in South Carolina, political scientist Jeffrey Peake has tried charting one reason this matters: a collapse in frequency of U.S. international treaties.
Between the Second World War and the presidency of George W. Bush, Peake counts an average of 16 treaties per year submitted for approval by the U.S. Senate. That dropped to four per year under Obama.
During the last two presidencies, it’s eroded to one a year.
Because it’s gotten harder to pass a treaty through Congress, Peake says presidents just sign agreements that aren’t entrenched in law, making it easy for a successor to simply cancel them. As Trump did, for example, with the climate accord.
Foreign policy paralysis has happened before. When Woodrow Wilson, left, tried creating the League of Nations in 1919, the U.S. Senate blocked American participation. Some analysts say the current level of partisanship is without precedent since the U.S. became a global superpower. (Reuters)
Global implications
These types of actions have major global implications, according to Peake. “The world doesn’t really address climate change without the U.S. on board.”
And bitter disagreements about international affairs aren’t new. In one famous example from 1919, the U.S. Senate rejected Woodrow Wilson’s plan for the precursor to the United Nations; the idea lay dormant for another three decades, through another world war.
The Senate later rejected the UN’s genocide convention for four decades, arms-control treaties and various climate accords. The chamber has also often blocked appointments over disputes.
But Peake says what’s happening in Washington right now is not a foreign policy disagreement — it’s about foreign policy becoming hostage to domestic disputes.
And it’s triggered separate blockades of senior military and senior diplomatic confirmations.
Former football coach Tommy Tuberville, now a U.S. senator for Alabama, says a policy to fund abortions for military personnel has no basis in law. So he’s launched a blockade against senior military appointments in hopes of forcing a reversal of the policy. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
“This is not something you see typically in U.S. history,” Peake said, noting that in normal times, Alabama voters would punish Tuberville for blocking the confirmations.
Instead, because the U.S. is so polarized, they’re more likely to reward him for standing up to Democrats.
The benefits of messy debate
There are many examples throughout U.S. history where a little more argument might have helped matters.
In 2003, for example, there was little opposition to the Iraq war in Congress. Or McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s, abetted by bipartisan groupthink.
The catastrophic war in Vietnam is another example. In 1964, after only 40 minutes of debate, Congress voted to increase its military involvement in Vietnam — the vote was 416-0 in the House of Representatives and 88-2 in the Senate.
“Bipartisanship is not a cure-all,” Trubowitz said. “Too much of anything can be a bad thing.”
There are many examples in U.S. history of time when vigorous debate would have helped matters. Including during the Vietnam war, when the U.S. voted to increase its military action after almost no discussion and a 416-0 vote in Congress. (Reuters)
Jim Carafano, a national-security analyst who served on Donald Trump’s presidential transition team and has a long military and history background, said the unfilled positions are not ideal.
“It is problematic,” Carafano said of the military vacancies, which he says create inconveniences and planning problems, but he doesn’t think they’re debilitating. Besides, he says there’s no example of an urgent foreign crisis where the U.S. was prevented from acting.
“Is it hamstringing the [American] giant, you know, tying us down like Gulliver with the Lilliputians? I don’t see that.”
His bottom-line view: democracy is resilient.
The current logjams, Carafano says, will eventually clear, voting coalitions will eventually undergo one of their transformative realignments and the parties will look different.
It’s a view as old as American history.
When he visited the U.S. at the dawn of the republic, French writer Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that autocratic rule looks stable — until it isn’t. Democracy, he wrote, looks messy but it’s sturdy.
Then again, he also wrote that democracies are bad at handling foreign affairs.
Now, the U.S., the world’s self-described oldest democracy, seems determined to test both theories at once, confronting great foreign challenges while there’s so much squabbling in the household.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
