Axis of Evil

Michael Flynn, a Top Trump Adviser, Ties China and North Korea to Jihadists
By EDWARD WONG

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the choice of President-elect Donald J. Trump for national security adviser, speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July.

What if someone were to tell you that China and North Korea are allied with militant Islamists bent on imposing their religious ideology worldwide?
You might not agree. 

After all, China and North Korea are officially secular Communist states, and China has blamed religious extremists for violence in Muslim areas of its Xinjiang region.
But such an alliance is the framework through which retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the pick of President Donald J. Trump for national security adviser, views the two East Asian countries. 

To the list of pro-jihadist anti-Western conspirators, General Flynn adds Russia, Cuba and Venezuela, among others. (Never mind that he has recently had close financial and lobbying relationships with conservative Russian and Turkish interests.)
By appointing General Flynn, Mr. Trump has signaled that he intends to prioritize policy on the Middle East and jihadist groups, though the Obama administration seems to have stressed to Mr. Trump the urgency of dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program. 

General Flynn is an outspoken critic of political Islam and has advocated a global campaign led by the United States against “radical Islam.” 

He once posted on Twitter that “Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL.”
General Flynn is about to take on what many consider the most important foreign policy job in the United States government. 

He is expected to coordinate policy-making agencies, manage competing voices and act as Mr. Trump’s main adviser, and perhaps arbiter, on foreign policy.
General Flynn’s peers in the Army have praised him for his work gathering intelligence in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

But senior officials have criticized him for being a poor manager as director of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. 

After being forced from the job in 2014, he began denouncing the Obama administration in public, saying the White House refused to acknowledge important intelligence on growing jihadist threats and their ideological foundations.
He then wrote a book, with a co-author, on his military career and the need to intensify the campaign against Islamic extremists. 

The book, “The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies,” published in July, is one of the few places where General Flynn has discussed his views on China and North Korea. 

The mentions are infrequent, but they give some clue as to how he views the Asian nations.
Here are the most relevant passages. 

In the introduction, General Flynn says one of his goals in writing the book is: “to show you the war being waged against us. 

This administration has forbidden us to describe our enemies properly and clearly: They are Radical Islamists. 

They are not alone, and are allied with countries and groups who, though not religious fanatics, share their hatred of the West, particularly the United States and Israel. 

Those allies include North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, and Venezuela.”
He tries to further explain that alliance through a vague mention of a common ideology:
“There are many similarities between these dangerous and vicious radicals and the totalitarian movements of the last century. 

No surprise that we are facing an alliance between Radical Islamists and regimes in Havana, Pyongyang, Moscow, and Beijing. 

Both believe that history, and/or Allah, blesses their efforts, and so both want to ensure that this glorious story is carefully told.”
Early in his career, General Flynn served with the 25th Infantry Division in the Asia-Pacific region. He writes: “This opened up my eyes to the type of enemies we saw across a wide swath of the Asia-Pacific rim. 

There were many, and still are.”
General Flynn also gives a bit more detail on how he sees this global alliance:
“The war is on. 

We face a working coalition that extends from North Korea and China to Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. 

We are under attack, not only from nation-states directly, but also from Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, ISIS, and countless other terrorist groups. (I will discuss later on, the close working relationships between terror groups and organized criminal organizations.) 

Suffice to say, the same sort of cooperation binds together jihadis, Communists, and garden-variety tyrants.
“This alliance surprises a lot of people. 

On the surface, it seems incoherent. 

How, they ask, can a Communist regime like North Korea embrace a radical Islamist regime like Iran?”
General Flynn goes on to discuss reports that North Korea has cooperated with Iran and Syria on nuclear programs and trade. 

He asserts that Iran is the “linchpin” of the global anti-Western network. 

He writes: “The mullahs have already established strategic alliances in our own hemisphere with Cuba and Venezuela, and are working closely with Russia and China; a victory over the ‘Great Satan’ in Iraq will compel the smaller Middle Eastern countries to come to terms with Tehran, and make the region much more inhospitable to us and our friends and allies.”
Finally, General Flynn writes that if the United States loses the global war, one result will be living under “the grim censorship we see in groups such as the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban or from nations like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.”

John Delury, a scholar of Chinese history and the Koreas at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, shared these thoughts after reading General Flynn’s book:
“General Flynn seems to be all about one thing — fighting ‘radical Islam’ — and that means Asia goes on the back burner. 

Obama was trying to ‘pivot’ from costly wars in the Middle East to economic opportunity in Asia, a strategy that was still in-progress and that Hillary Clinton would have stuck with. 

But Flynn has no concept of the importance of Asia. 

For him, America needs to become single-minded in the top priority — destroying radical Islam, at home and abroad.
“Flynn’s obsession with eliminating radical Islam is likely to color his view of everything else — including key strategic questions facing East Asia like the rise of China, resurgence of Japan and nuclear breakout of North Korea. 

Running the National Security Council is all about juggling priorities, keeping your eye on the ball while maintaining strategic balance. Flynn doesn’t come across as much of a juggler. 

For him, there is only one ball out there.
“If Flynn is able to press his global war on radical Islam, America’s rivals in Asia will seize the opportunity to further their interests. 

China can speed up its march to displace the U.S. as the architect of Asian security. 

North Korea can finish its drive to joining the nuclear club. 

Life will also change for America’s Asian allies, who will no longer be able to count on U.S. commitment to their development and defense. 

And America’s role as a promoter of human rights and liberal values — a contested and problematic mission, albeit a noble one — could become a thing of the past.
“Here’s an example of how Flynn’s global war on radical Islam could have unanticipated side effects on Asian security. 

In his book, Flynn links North Korea to his ‘enemy number one,’ the Islamists, by citing Pyongyang’s military and economic ties to Syria and Iran. 

Well, what if the North Koreans promised an envoy from Trump — who said he’s willing to talk to Kim Jong-un — that they would cut their links to radical Islam and even give the Americans some intel based on their years of cooperation? 

Nonproliferation guarantees, which the North Koreans put out as bait throughout the Obama years, to no effect, could serve as a starting point for resumed U.S.-D.P.R.K. negotiation under a Flynn foreign policy. 

The old dictum stands — my enemy’s enemy is my friend. 

Flynn is crystal clear who the enemy is, radical Islam. 

Anyone who shows eagerness to fight the Islamists buys a seat at Flynn’s national security table.”