Worth Noting: Losing Sleep Over Sleeper Threats
Foreign affairs writer Nicholas Kralev says he’s been worried recently about Sleeper Threats to U.S. and Global Security – the perils “we don’t hear about.” So, for his Substack podcast “Diplomatic Notebook,” he interviewed retired diplomat Tom Countryman (34 years with the State Department), a former Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, who now chairs the Board of the Arms Control Association, a Washington think tank.
Countryman calls “the possibility of conflict between the U.S. and China…the key diplomatic and security question for the rest of this century.” Why? “Because both countries manage their diplomacy as much with bravado as with careful analysis, especially on the U.S. side, creating a risk of stumbling into a conflict more significant than any of the wars occurring today.”
Number two on Countryman’s list is the Russia-Ukraine war. “The worst that could happen would be for Russia to achieve its territorial goals in Ukraine,” Countryman says. “If Russia succeeds in returning us to Napoleonic times, when the borders of your territory are whatever you can seize by force, there will be no end to it from the Russians and potentially from others in the world as well.” He believes Ukraine will be able to retain its independence despite Russia’s aggression, “but the action that a humiliated President Putin might take against Ukraine or against a NATO state, never mind against his own people, could create very serious crises in the world.”
“The third thing I worry about,” Countryman continues, “is the increasing tendency of the Trump administration, despite the president's campaigning for [the Nobel] Peace Prize, to use force without justification, without evidence, in violation of both US law and international law. And I fear that this may extend to military attacks against Venezuela, which are not in the United States's interest.”
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Then, Countryman plunges into soft power waters: “I strongly believe that U.S. national security depends upon the strength of our democracy and upon the degree of respect for our own constitution. Without that baseline, it is extremely difficult to sustain America's and national security in an increasingly less democratic world.”
So, when “the president threatens to use force against American citizens, with the same lack of legal justification or evidence that he uses right now against citizens of South America, I worry that this is the sleeper threat that will ultimately have the greatest negative effect on America's national security.”
“In countries such as Russia, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey – countries that have the same kind of autocratic system that Mr. Trump is trying to build in the United States, respect for the U.S. under Trump is greater. But for the vast majority of countries where Americans would actually like to live, respect for the United States is decreasing.”
Kralev interjects, “So, here's the thing: Most Americans don't know how policymaking is supposed to work. They have no idea what the Interagency (process of consultation to arrive at a policy with whole-of-government buy-in) means. They hear or read about the president saying something authoritative and they see a strong guy. In other words, the administration can claim, and has claimed, that, because of the president's strength, the United States is again respected around the world. In fact, the State Department (recently) put out a post on social media that said exactly that: That ‘with strength, we are respected again.’ So, what do you say to the average American?”
“I think the primary thing is the concept of the word ‘respect,’” Countryman replies. “No matter what the State Department website might say, actual data from around the world about how ordinary citizens look at the United States shows that, with exceptions, the United States is less respected under Trump than under Presidents Obama and Biden.”
“It may not be visible,” he goes on. “National leaders, even from democratic countries, understand that in dealing with a petulant man-child in the White House, you have to speak about him and to him with respect. But that has little to do with how they actually think about him and how they actually behave.”
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Together or separately, Nick Kralev and Tom Countryman always bring a strong and informed perspective to any discussion of foreign affairs. This column focuses on only one part of their recent conversation. However, the entire 25-minute interaction is well worth a listen. Do yourself a favor and click here. (There’s a rough transcript.)
Bill Wanlund is a PDCA Board Member, retired Foreign Service Officer, and freelance writer in the Washington, DC, area. His column, Worth Noting, appears occasionally in our member newsletter Public DiplomacyToday and in this blog; it seeks to address public diplomacy and related topics of interest to all.