The Internationalists - Alexander Ward

Last updated Sep 22, 2024

• Author: Alexander Ward
• Full Title: The Internationalists
• Category: #books

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. —C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Location 36)

He joined Democrat Amy Klobuchar’s Senate campaign, impressing the boss and his colleagues with a strong work ethic and an uncanny ability to quote Billy Joel lyrics and Saved by the Bell lines. (Location 163)

Even at thirty-four, Sullivan had a manner that impressed Clinton. He was wise beyond his years, she and her team believed, and he had a knack for asking the right questions at the right time. (Location 170)

In 2012, President Obama asked Sullivan to lunch during a trip to Myanmar. Obama wanted to know about the country’s history, and it gave the nearly thirty-six-year-old a chance to impress the big boss with his preparation and skill as a briefer. (Location 181)

Sullivan told University of Minnesota graduates his own mantra for success. “Reject cynicism. Reject certitude. And don’t be a jerk,” (Location 185)

But a flaw emerged: while the United States and other global economies flourished over the decades, gains proved unequal not only among countries but also within them. (Location 193)

They had failed to connect the high-minded ideals and practice of foreign policy to the very real needs of everyday Americans. (Location 201)

Defeating Trump, a man Sullivan considered a unique danger to the world, in four years, required the next Democrat facing him to be armed with a better lexicon. (Location 221)

Their main pitch was simple: Trump’s foreign policy was a profound emergency for the United States, and NatSec Action was the only place working every day to counter it, forging a winning message for the coming presidential election. (Location 279)

Sullivan’s counterargument to the current administration’s foreign policy successes was that it had “taken the United States in an undemocratic direction while abandoning our core allies, which makes us weaker,” (Location 287)

The group invited over one hundred of the Democratic Party’s brightest minds for an off-record, four-day session at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa near Albuquerque, (Location 298)

A two-party democracy couldn’t function if one party elects someone like Trump and solely aims to block the agenda of the other. (Location 320)

Sullivan and his colleagues were, in effect, trying to translate the language of normal conversation for an elite audience that had long lost the ability to speak plainly. (Location 354)

As a freshman in the Senate, Biden cared less about his nation’s moral obligations and more about what he considered to be in the cold, calculated interest of the United States. (Location 378)

That experience seemed to turn Biden from a hard-nosed realist into an interventionist, citing human rights and morality as his rallying cries. (Location 404)

It was one thing to have a well-reasoned foreign policy. It would be another to sell it to the American people as Biden debated Trump. (Location 439)

Biden felt strongly that the way to contrast himself with Trump— and give his presidency an overarching theme— was to say that the world’s greatest challenge was one of autocracies versus democracies. (Location 446)

If Obama was guided by his head, Biden was guided by his gut and by a rock-ribbed belief that the average American needed a champion in Washington. (Location 462)

The job now wasn’t just to save the world from Trump. It was also to save America from the forces he had unleashed. (Location 482)

Any new administration had the most flexibility to act in its first twelve months. (Location 497)

Pisar’s life story instilled in Blinken the belief that the United States could be a force for good as long as it promoted human rights. (Location 600)

Pisar was not Blinken’s only role model— he often labels his biological dad, Donald Blinken, a U.S. ambassador to Hungary, as his “hero.” But Pisar instilled in Blinken a set of principles that colored how he saw America’s role in the world. (Location 607)

Blinken developed a more moderate, centrist approach to consensus building across the government. He shared the general attitudes toward world affairs that modern-day Democratic leaders from Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama shared: protect the rules-based international order, build economic ties wherever possible, and promote democracy. (Location 620)

“superpowers don’t bluff,” a statement that American rhetoric couldn’t go further than what officials in Washington were really willing to do. (Location 624)

“Our relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be. (Location 693)

Trump was supposed to say: “We face many threats, but I stand here before you with a clear message: the U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance and to Article 5 is unwavering.” But Trump didn’t deliver that sentence. He omitted the line, seemingly all on his own and for reasons that still remain unclear. (Location 711)

“While smaller pull-aside meetings are common, it is strange that a pull-aside with someone like Putin— especially Putin— would not include at least another national security official and a translator.” (Location 725)

Blinken particularly wanted Beijing to leave the meeting understanding that the United States was on the move, swaggering on the world stage once again. A stronger America at home made a stronger America abroad, (Location 774)

Movements like these weren’t for an exercise, they concluded; they were for an invasion. (Location 837)

Zelenskyy wasn’t rated highly by the new Biden team. (Location 853)

Biden was going to award Putin— the man with troops perched on Ukraine’s border— with a summit. Making matters worse, Biden’s desire to meet Putin one-on-one would surely kill the weapons package. (Location 893)

Military and civilian officials at the Pentagon wanted more troops and resources sent to Afghanistan and worked tirelessly to convince the new president to accept their recommendations. Obama remained skeptical of an escalation, but he had yet to hear an alternative he liked. (Location 926)

McChrystal’s request made it into the hands of The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward in September 2009. If Obama didn’t follow McChrystal’s advice, the novice president would look like he was disregarding the counsel of his seasoned generals. (Location 947)

As the U.S. national security adviser, it was Sullivan’s responsibility to run meetings, gather the best information, and give Biden the tools he needed to make the final call. (Location 984)

“Trump’s whims would outweigh the actual process.” Sometimes, he’d give an order via Twitter, sending officials throughout the government scrambling to retrofit developing policy to his needs. It didn’t help that some senior officials often freelanced and took matters into their own hands, whether on immigration or overthrowing regimes in Latin America. (Location 992)

he rarely, if ever, let his true opinions on an issue be known when he was chairing an NSC meeting. In effect, Sullivan tried to be an “honest broker” during any discussions, (Location 997)

Once U.S. and Western troops started to pack up, local Afghan commanders would make deals with the Taliban to either join their ranks or be left alone. They and their cadres would fight for their own survival, not the survival of a country that was barely pieced together. (Location 1044)

After Biden’s experience watching generals trying to box in Obama, the new commander in chief wanted a defense secretary who would never be a bureaucratic infighter and who had shown loyalty to the Biden family. (Location 1074)

Blinken, representing the State Department, had a more bureaucratic argument, which some took as his subtle way of disagreeing with Biden without provoking the president’s ire. (Location 1082)

Any decision to leave Afghanistan would severely impact thousands of government officials who’d spent the last two decades living and breathing the perils and promise of Afghanistan. (Location 1083)

The Pentagon’s resistance helped kick-start another conversation: Would the U.S. troops in Afghanistan be better used elsewhere? (Location 1091)

Biden, in that and other meetings on Afghanistan, was more interested in the effect staying or leaving would have on the country’s neighbors. Not just Iran or Pakistan but also Russia and China. (Location 1094)

Some of the most important memos weren’t about the best reasons for staying or leaving Afghanistan but about how to execute whichever option the president chose. (Location 1099)

The White House wanted to see if the groups were people they could work with, and the activists wanted to assess how serious Biden’s team was about engaging with them. (Location 1115)

congressional Republicans block more funding for embassies while they blamed President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for the tragedy. (Location 1138)

The letter was embarrassing for the Afghan leader, who not only realized his power was slipping but now had to contend with the world knowing how the Americans spoke to him. (Location 1163)

Ghani kept appointing loyalist generals for political purposes, not because they were the right people to lead troops into battle. (Location 1182)

Yet what Blinken heard loud and clear, mainly from the Germans, British, and Italians, was that the United States should continue the war. The administration shouldn’t peg a withdrawal to the Trump-brokered deadline but to actual conditions on the ground. The best outcome, which America’s allies felt was still possible, would be for U.S. and NATO troops to leave once Kabul and the Taliban struck a power-sharing deal. (Location 1195)

the Europeans might not stand with the United States if America withdraws without their buy-in. (Location 1205)

Khalilzad had learned early and often in his career that he saw trends others didn’t and that often those without his innate expertise were missing the bigger picture. (Location 1226)

“If you go a day beyond May 1, all bets are off,” the Taliban told the envoy, a U.S. official recounted to me later. “No wiggle room.” (Location 1234)

Biden wanted to know if there was any chance, twenty years on, that thirty-five hundred American service members could help usher in a democratic Afghanistan. After weeks of discussion, it was clear the president hadn’t heard a convincing argument to dissuade him from his yearslong views. (Location 1267)

Biden’s decision was about ending a war that had outlived its sell-by date, but it was also about accepting America’s limits. (Location 1338)

he had promised just a month earlier that no decision about the withdrawal would be made without Europe’s input. They were consulted throughout the process, but not when the president was prepared to end it. (Location 1357)

in 1973, during his first overseas trip as a senator from Delaware, the thirty-year-old Biden met with then Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. (Location 1378)

With the words of his father and Meir echoing in his ears, Biden turned into a pro-Israel force in the Senate. (Location 1388)

“Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.” (Location 1409)

Zionism is the ideology that holds that Judaism is a nationality as well as a religion, and that Jews deserve their own state in their ancestral homeland, Israel. (Location 1420)

in 1967, after the Six-Day War, Israel controversially annexed East Jerusalem and since then has evicted some of the Arabs living there, making way for Israeli settlers. (Location 1435)

“Biden reserved his most strident criticism for Netanyahu for behind the scenes,” (Location 1447)

A far-right Israeli group, Lehava, sent armed men through the streets of Palestinian neighborhoods on April 22. “Death to Arabs” rang out as they approached the Damascus Gate. (Location 1470)

Hamas took advantage of the mayhem. (Location 1512)

Telling Israel— the far stronger power— to calm down publicly would embarrass Netanyahu and open Biden to questions about whether he was pro-Israel enough. (Location 1534)

Kerry saw much of his time and his priorities derailed when he was secretary of state as he struggled against the weight of history in the Israeli– Palestinian conflict. (Location 1598)

It was vintage Biden: speaking candidly but kindly in private, making his own points but hearing the other side, and making commitments to find common ground. (Location 1627)

You cannot claim to support human rights and peace on Earth and continue to back the extremist Netanyahu regime, it’s that simple,” (Location 1663)

The U.S. got the other six nations to sign on to a Build Back Better World plan, providing $ 40 trillion to developing countries by 2035. (Location 1742)

Russia had gained access to government agencies through the SolarWinds hack, in which Russia used at least a thousand engineers to infiltrate government and Fortune 500 company systems. (Location 1860)

his language indicated that he viewed the U.S. and Europe as vulnerable enough for him take action. COVID and political divisions had the U.S. reeling, while Germany was going through an election season to replace longtime chancellor Angela Merkel. (Location 1911)

The only time the president could make it work was the end of August— when Congress was out of session and the capital was a ghost town. Kyiv pushed back. (Location 1958)

The Taliban had been preparing for the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan to end for two decades, (Location 2001)

On August 15, only eleven days after the start of the militants’ offensive, they had overthrown the government America and its allies had spent billions of dollars and lost thousands of lives to support. (Location 2040)

Retreat exposed the military; it was always more dangerous to leave a country, because troops were neither defending nor attacking— they were leaving. (Location 2072)

both the defense secretary and the general made a passionate case that defending Bagram while trying to leave the country would prove too difficult and risky a task. (Location 2077)

He understood that the Trump administration had abandoned the SIV program, leaving Biden’s team to rebuild it during a complex time. But if that program was lagging, were other aspects of the withdrawal behind schedule? (Location 2106)

What the U.S. intelligence community was bad at was assessing the will of a nation’s military to fight. (Location 2382)

Good foreign policy rarely made a presidency, but bad foreign policy moments could certainly break one. (Location 2463)

Go, some family members would say, taking the pressure off their loved one. I’ll never see you again, but I know you’ll be safe. (Location 2607)

To ensure that the vehicles could make it past the wall of Taliban members, the U.S. would have to provide the militants with lists of the passengers’ exact names, passport numbers, and other identifying information. (Location 2654)

But no one offered to resign, in large part because the president didn’t believe anyone had made a mistake. (Location 2915)

Biden, who long touted the personal touches of diplomacy, believed what Burns was saying. There were no views he trusted more than those of people who had engaged in one-on-one interactions. (Location 3290)

Austin Powers (Location 3297)

If the invasion starts, he told Finer, what would we have wished we’d done? (Location 3299)

Biden administration officials couldn’t help but notice that the strategic leak was the kind of bold move they hadn’t taken seven years earlier when Russian troops invaded Crimea. (Location 3395)

Sherman shot back that NATO’s “Open Door” policy could never be closed, and especially not by force. (Location 3644)

if the information could be downgraded and made public. The intelligence leaders had no problems doing so, as long as enough was stripped out that it wouldn’t hurt sources and methods. (Location 3723)

The U.S. was using intelligence not to start a war but to prevent one. Sullivan’s eyes lit up. “That’s it,” he said, his voice rising in excitement and relief. That would be the line he and other officials would use going forward whenever they had seemingly outrageous intelligence on Russia. (Location 3907)

Germany, which only decades earlier had its eastern territory run as a Soviet satellite, was now contemplating working in concert with the United States to thwart Russian imperial designs. Sometimes history echoed, but it didn’t rhyme. (Location 3953)

Whether the Chinese premier endorsed the idea of an invasion or warned Putin against doing it was unclear, but few U.S. officials I spoke to at the time thought Xi was comfortable with the plan. (Location 3996)

The playbook, really an online document shared across the government, was honed during the Tiger Team process. It featured guidelines on the order of sanctions, talking points for statements, military positioning, ideas for intelligence downgrades, and acceptable security assistance for Ukraine. (Location 4188)

Russia threw away any advantage it had at Hostomel. Instead of consolidating its gains at the airport, making it safe for supplies, equipment, and troops to flood in, Moscow’s forces spread out into the nearby towns of Bucha and Irpin. (Location 4229)

Perhaps wanting to look tough during a moment of weakness, Putin issued a thinly veiled nuclear threat: “To defend Russia and our people, we doubtlessly will use all weapons resources at our disposal,” he said. “This is not a bluff.” (Location 4420)

Blinken offered an idea: What if the U.S. said it would send Abrams tanks to Ukraine in the future, especially because of all the logistical issues? “That might be enough to give the Germans what they need,” (Location 4495)

And now with Biden, it was changing back: America would be internationalist without being interventionist. (Location 4540)

Implicitly, Sullivan said the main assumptions undergirding America’s foreign and economic policy had been wrong for decades. China, and the Washington belief that liberalized markets would eventually lead to democracy within the halls of power in Beijing, was the most glaring example. (Location 4632)

To my grandma Ann, who first instilled in me (by force) a love of reading. (Location 4744)

Everything reported in this book is sourced, but not everything is attributed. Some people would only speak to me on deep background, meaning I could use the information provided but I couldn’t cite from whom it came or someone’s position, even vaguely. (Location 4844)