Bonjour, I am to be your resident foreign policy expert here in Richmond. Why? Because caring about what is happening in the world is central to your survival in the age of Donald Trump, and is a nice addition to our general preoccupation with live music, roof-top bars, and restaurants that serve the same bacon infused fried brussels sprouts.
Bonjour, I am to be your resident foreign policy expert here in Richmond. Why? Because caring about what is happening in the world is central to your survival in the age of Donald Trump, and is a nice addition to our general preoccupation with live music, roof-top bars, and restaurants that serve the same bacon infused fried brussels sprouts.
Not that I am trying to take anything away from the newest craft brewery opening, but there is a lot happening in the world these days: war, coup d’état, populism, humanitarian crises, and what feels like never-ending conflict. From a certain perspective, one might even observe that the conditions for permanent instability are here to stay.
Gaining some perspective on how this might impact us in Richmond might be a tall order since we tend to believe nothing outside of 295/64 really impacts us. I suppose we are fortunate that way, but it is a curious phenomenon when you consider that the center of the universe is only a mere car ride up the road in Washington D.C.. Even more so, now that one of our own is campaigning to be the second most powerful person in said universe.
Nonetheless, our ability to decipher global events and how they connect to our lives has been overshadowed by a political climate that has gone completely insane. Making sense of the world is almost impossible when entertainment news channels (you know who you are) masquerade perspective as fact and opinion as truth. Oh, and 87% of all statistics are also made up.
There is no good solution to this conundrum right now, but here are a few facts about what has happened in the world this past week.
We have bombed Libya a total of nine times since the start of August – NINE TIMES. Once again we have delivered death from above, after supporting the overthrow of long time dictator Colonel Moammar Gaddafi in 2011. Fortunately our objective is to target the Islamic State, which metastasized in the chaos that followed the removal of the good Colonel.
But like all well laid American plans for regime change, we had no real plans for regime change – resulting in the bedlam and carnage that we see today.
There has been no formal “authorization for the use of military force”, ratified by Congress to go to war in Libya. Some might even opine (including myself) without the consent of the American people. Hillary Clinton in her sporting wisdom sees no problem in this, and believes that blanket authorizations from the time of 9-11 covers this kind of military intervention. Local hero and soon to be second most powerful person in the universe, Tim Kaine, strongly disagrees with this. Going so far as to call military authorization without Congressional approval “unconstitutional”.
So a big high-five to Tim Kaine, our champion from Richmond for believing that sometimes war still requires Congressional approval and purchase from the American people.
We should pivot to terrorism next, because we can’t really talk about global events while glossing over the recent surge of terror attacks in Europe.
Modern terrorism now appears omnipresent, but not for the reasons you might think. Gone are the days of complex attack cycles, agent provocateurs plying their tradecraft, and clandestine networks of terrorist cells coordinating operations.
Nowadays it is just a crazy man in Belgium who, last Saturday, decided to attack two policewoman with a machete while shouting in Arabic before being shot and killed by a third. How is this terrorism and not just violence crime? And why is this even important?
Because the threat from violent extremism is evolving – meaning – terrorism no longer has to be a complex operation like 9-11 or the November 2015 Paris attacks. It can simply be a guy running over people with his truck in France or a kid with a hatchet on a train in Germany.
Each scenario is equally terrifying, but from a certain perspective almost more alarming because anyone can conduct a terrorist attack like this. While the details are still emerging – this attack – has joined a long list of recent attacks, which were ‘inspired’ as opposed to ‘directed’ by terrorist groups. Inspired how? By the proliferation of propaganda and extremist media which now lives on various social media channels.
Maybe some of you remember, but over a year ago a woman in Richmond was arrested by the FBI for providing support to the Islamic State. She was running multiple Facebook accounts for people looking to join and travel to Syria
And as groups like the Islamic State continue to lose territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya they will look to vicariously project force elsewhere to show that they are still in the proverbial “game”. One way they are doing this is by inspiring attacks like this. All a would be terrorist has to do is pledge allegiance, post to Facebook, and sacrifice themselves to the cause.
The intersection of social media and radicalization is becoming the mainstay of modern terrorism and can materialize just about anywhere, even here.
And finally, we now have an independent candidate who has just declared for President. Who is he? Why it is Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative and former chief policy director of the House Republican Conference. Does he have a chance at winning? Of course not, but he offers an alternative for the stalwart Republican establishment who is despondent, nay suicidal, at the potential of a Trump presidency.
This also comes on the heels of 50 (50!) senior GOP national security advisors issuing an open letter stating that Trump would, “risk our country’s national security and well-being”.
In foreign policy and intelligence circles this is a tectonic event that has all but seceded the national security debate to Hillary Clinton – a hard good-bye for some Republicans, but entirely indicative of the civil war being waged in the GOP. Obviously this sentiment is shared by the majority of foreign policy, intelligence, and world leaders everywhere – except maybe Russia who is apparently content to hack the email servers at the Democratic National Convention in an attempt to influence our election. Naughty.
Why is this important to us in Richmond? Do I really need to list all the ways in which a Donald Trump presidency might affect us all?
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by Landon Shroder is an intelligence analyst and threat management specialist that spent 12 years in the field between the Middle East & Africa. He also runs the AP Math Labs Foundation RVA, which specializes in countering online extremist media. Email him at information@apmathlabs.com
RVA Magazine has always been an open platform for ideas and this week we are inviting local people to present them. If you are interested in writing something send us an email at hello@rvamag.com. The opinions expressed are solely the authors and not necessarily the opinions of RVA Magazine or our staff.
