That is what makes football different in Latin America and the Caribbean. It is never just sport. It is politics without speeches. It is diplomacy without ���dz����ܲԾ����é��. It is national identity under floodlights.

I have also stood in national stadiums in Guyana, Barbados, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Bolivia. None of those countries will be in the 2026 World Cup. Their absence is part of the story, too. Football reflects talent, of course. But it also reflects institutions, investment, migration, coaching, federation competence and the state’s ability to organize ambition over time.

The 2026 World Cup will make that especially clear. For the first time, the tournament will bring together across Canada, Mexico and the US. FIFA describes it as the largest edition of the tournament, with 104 matches across 16 host cities. Mexico will open the tournament against South Africa at Mexico City Stadium on June 11.

That geography matters. This will be a North American World Cup. But Latin America may give it much of its emotion. Argentina arrives as the defending champion. Brazil arrives with its mystique intact, but its certainty diminished. Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador look strong enough to punish anyone. Mexico carries the burden of hosting. Paraguay returns with its familiar mix of discipline and defiance. Panama, Haiti and Curaçao bring stories that reach far beyond the pitch.

Latin America’s contenders

The region’s strongest team remains Argentina. This is not only because footballer Lionel Messi lifted the trophy in Qatar in 2022, but also because Argentina has sustained excellence after that victory. In South American qualifying, Argentina , ahead of Ecuador, Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay.

That matters in a World Cup. Talent wins moments; identity wins tournaments. Argentina has both. It has experience, confidence, a clear tactical personality and the aura that comes with having survived the pressure of a World Cup final. The question is not whether Argentina can win again. It is whether a team built around one of football’s most consequential generations can manage one more act.

Brazil is different. It may still have the highest ceiling in the region. But it enters the tournament with more uncertainty than mythology usually allows. Brazil finished only in South American qualifying, behind Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia and Uruguay. That does not make Brazil weak. It makes Brazil interesting.

Brazil’s story is now about repair. Italian football manager Carlo Ancelotti gives the team authority, calm and European managerial prestige. But the Neymar question captures the larger tension. Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior remains Brazil’s all-time leading scorer, but injuries and form have made his selection a national debate. Ancelotti told that any decision on Neymar would be based on fitness and team needs, not sentiment.

That is Brazil’s dilemma in miniature. The country has endless football memories. It also needs a modern team. The old romance says Brazil must entertain. The modern game says Brazil must press, run, track back and suffer. Ancelotti’s challenge is not simply to select players. It is to decide what Brazil means now.

Colombia may be the best dark horse from the region. It finished in South American qualifying, ahead of Uruguay and Brazil. Colombia has enough attacking quality to frighten elite teams, but its deeper advantage may be psychological. The national team has often served as a rare point of unity in a country marked by political division, regional inequality and long memories of conflict.

A good Colombian run would not erase those tensions. Football never does. But it can briefly gather a fragmented country around a common story. That is one reason Colombia matters in this tournament. It is not just trying to advance. It is trying to show that its modern image is bigger than its old stereotypes.

Uruguay brings another kind of political lesson. It is small, but it thinks big. Few countries have done more with less in world football. Uruguay’s football identity is built on toughness, tactical maturity and collective pride. In a 48-team tournament, where the expanded field may create more uneven group matches, Uruguay’s value will rise as the tournament gets harder. It is built for knockout football.

Ecuador may be the most underappreciated on the South American side. Its qualifying campaign was remarkable for one reason above all: consistency. Ecuador finished in the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) qualifying, behind only Argentina. That reflects organization, athleticism, discipline and a generation that no longer sees qualification as the ceiling.

Ecuador also represents a broader trend. South American football is no longer only Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. The middle of the continent’s football table has grown stronger. Colombia, Ecuador and Paraguay can now make life miserable for anyone. That says something about talent development, coaching, migration and the global football market. European clubs scout South America earlier and more aggressively than ever. Young players leave home sooner. National teams then become reunion sites for globalized talent.

Mexico faces a different burden. It is not the strongest Latin American team. But it may be the most exposed. As a host, Mexico the tournament in Mexico City against South Africa. That is manageable. It is also dangerous. Host nations are expected to advance. Mexico’s fans will demand more than competence.

For Mexico, the World Cup is about national image. It is a chance to showcase culture, infrastructure, pride and regional leadership. But it also arrives at a moment when migration, security and relations with the US continue to shape how Mexico is discussed abroad. A strong Mexican performance would not solve those issues. But it would project confidence. A poor one would deepen frustration with a football system that has often promised more than it delivered.

Then there is Paraguay. It may not be a favorite. But it belongs in this story. Paraguay from South America’s unforgiving competition and landed in Group D with the US, Türkiye and Australia. Its opener against the US will immediately place it in front of a host-nation audience.

Paraguay’s football personality has long matched its national self-image: resilient, physical, proud and difficult to break. It does not usually seduce neutrals; it frustrates them. That is part of the point. Paraguay has rarely had the global soft power of Brazil, Argentina or Mexico. But on a football field, it can force larger countries to negotiate with it on equal terms.

The Defensores del Chaco is not merely a venue. Its name invokes the Chaco War, the conflict against Bolivia that helped shape modern Paraguayan nationalism. Football in Paraguay carries that memory of endurance. When Paraguay plays, it often plays as if survival itself were a style.

Paraguay also has something almost no other team in the tournament has: an indigenous language that functions as both national identity and, at times, tactical advantage. Paraguayan players have long used Guaraní on the field, including in ways opponents do not easily understand. During the 2010 World Cup, The National that Paraguay’s players used Guaraní on the pitch, which could help disguise communication during play. That detail matters because Guaraní is not folklore in Paraguay. It is a living national language. Paraguay’s 1992 Constitution both Spanish and Guaraní as official languages. Guaraní remains central to Paraguayan identity and daily life.

In most of Latin America, indigenous languages were pushed to the margins by colonial rule, class hierarchy and urban modernization. Paraguay is different. Guaraní is not a museum piece; it is spoken in homes, markets, politics, music and football. On a World Cup field, it becomes something even rarer: a national code, spoken in public, hidden in plain sight.

The most powerful stories, however, may come from the Caribbean.

The Caribbean’s remarkable World Cup stories

Haiti’s qualification is extraordinary. Reuters that Haiti had to play its home fixtures in Curaçao due to instability and violence in Haiti. Haiti’s coach, Sébastien Migné, had not been able to visit the country because of safety concerns. Yet the country still topped its qualifying group and reached the World Cup.

That is state fragility in football form. Haiti will not arrive with the resources of Argentina or Brazil; it will arrive as a national team representing a country whose citizens have endured violence, hunger, displacement and institutional collapse. In that context, qualification is more than sporting success. It is a form of visibility. It tells the world that Haiti is not only a crisis; it is also a people, a flag, a song and a team.

Curaçao offers a different but equally compelling story. In that same , Reuters reported that Curaçao became the smallest country ever to qualify for a World Cup, surpassing Iceland’s previous record. It also noted that Curaçao’s squad was composed entirely of Dutch-born players with Antillean roots.

That is the modern Caribbean in one team sheet. Curaçao’s success is about diaspora, colonial history, dual identity and football’s ability to turn dispersed communities into a national project. It raises a question that runs through the entire region: What does national representation mean when so many citizens, descendants and cultural communities live elsewhere?

Panama, too, deserves attention. It qualified by El Salvador three to zero and topping its group. It now faces a difficult task in Group L with England, Croatia and Ghana. That is a brutal draw. But Panama’s presence confirms the rise of Central American football beyond the old assumption that the region’s World Cup hopes begin and end with Mexico, Costa Rica or the US’ Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) rivals.

More than a tournament

The expanded World Cup has been criticized for diluting quality. There is some truth in that. More teams will mean more mismatches, but it also means more stories. For Latin America and the Caribbean, expansion has opened space for nations whose football identities were real long before they became visible to global audiences.

That visibility matters. International sport gives states a stage they do not otherwise possess. A country ignored in diplomatic forums can become unavoidable for 90 minutes; a fragile state can show resilience; a small island can become the world’s underdog; a country known abroad for crisis can remind the world that its people are more than their suffering.

That is why the 2026 World Cup will matter for the Americas. Argentina and Brazil will chase the trophy. Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador will look to disrupt the hierarchy. Mexico will try to meet the moment at home. Paraguay will bring defiance, and perhaps a few instructions in Guaraní that its opponents will not understand. Haiti, Curaçao and Panama will carry the pride of places too often underestimated.

The World Cup will not fix Latin America’s problems. It will not end violence, rebuild institutions, resolve migration or cure polarization. But it will reveal something important. Across the region, football remains one of the few public languages that still binds people together.

On match night, a country can still speak in one voice. In 2026, the world will be listening.

[ edited this piece.]

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It was only later, when I thought about it seriously, that I realized all the dangers a referendum — or even talk of a referendum — could pose.

There be dragons

First, a referendum on separatism releases a divisive sentiment that cannot easily be put back into the bottle. In , at Montreal’s City Hall, French Prime Minister Charles de Gaulle delivered these infamous words: “Vive le Quebec libre! Vive le Canada francais! Et vive la France!” (“Long live free Quebec! Long live French Canada! And long live France!”) This left a lasting impression on the Québécois, leading them to believe forevermore that they were a people apart from the rest of Canadians. Quebec held (in 1980 and 1995). And rift and instability continue to this day. If Paul St. Pierre Plamondon, leader of the resurgent, separatist Parti Québécois, wins in this October’s election, he has promised to hold a third referendum.

Second, it gives our powerful neighbor to the south a chance to interfere with and influence our politics. The US had already been involved in over 70 all over the world, and for them to put on the scale in this referendum would be mere child’s play. There is already talk that the current US government is the Alberta separation movement. Earlier this year, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent openly stated that Alberta is “a natural partner for the US.”

Third, even talk of a referendum can destabilize the economy and discourage investment. Quebec’s long-running contemplation of separation had a severe effect on its economy. Prior to the rise of the separatist movement in the 1970s, Montreal was Canada’s economic and financial hub. The prospect of separation prompted a massive exodus of businesses from Quebec, and Toronto became the new hub. Thousands of skilled workers emigrated. Quebec’s political risk raised the provincial government’s borrowing costs and increased provincial debt. The stock prices of Quebec-based companies declined. 

Fourth, many Albertans may not realize the full import of such a referendum. Certainly, many Brits did not, and they ended up with Brexit. Six years on, the broad consensus is that Brexit has had a net negative impact on the UK, with studies estimating that the is roughly 4-8% smaller than it would have been if the country had remained in the EU. Leaving the EU increased trade barriers, customs red tape and shipping costs. Trade became more difficult, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Business investment in the UK has lagged behind other G7 nations. Freedom of movement has caused labor shortages. Trevor , professor of economics at the University of Calgary, claims “Alberta would fare no better.”

Fifth, if it were to separate, Alberta — being landlocked — would find it very difficult to survive on its own. It would have to seek the support of a larger, more powerful entity. Fortunately or unfortunately, the US is nearby and happy to assist — if not downright absorb. Since President Donald Trump came to power in January 2025, he has regularly made about annexing Canada. A free but unprotected Alberta would be a perfect appetizer. The timing for this referendum could not be worse.

Whoa Bessie!

Smith claims that her main reason for having a referendum is that she will not “silence the voices of hundreds of thousands of Albertans” — as if the majority of Albertans are clamoring for separation. This is misrepresentative on two accounts. 

Earlier this year, an Alberta court that a petition circulated by separatists was unconstitutional because it did not consult the indigenous peoples. is against the ruling, saying that this is an “erroneous court decision” that “interferes with the democratic rights of hundreds of thousands of Albertans.” She seems to forget that the indigenous people are also Albertans — and indeed the original Albertans. Chief Sheldon of the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nations rightly says, “All of Alberta sits on treaty land, and that’s not going to change.” The First Nations are firmly against Alberta’s separation, and separating against their wishes would be illegal.��

Alberta has a of just over 5 million, of which some 3.9 million are over the age of 18. In that context, the petition (favoring Alberta remaining within Canada) received over 400,000 signatures and the Stay Free Alberta petition (favoring Alberta separating) garnered just over 300,000. Therefore, with some mental fudging, Smith magnanimously claims that “approximately 700,000 Albertans have signed a petition requesting a vote on this issue.” In reality, the Forever Canada petition asked only the simple question, “Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?” In fact, the petition’s leader, Thomas Lukaszuk, has specifically argued against a referendum, calling it an unnecessary expense, socially divisive and damaging to investor confidence.��

While Smith presents herself as wanting to hold a referendum only for the sake of her people (she even claimed in her speech that she herself would vote for a united Canada), her suggests otherwise. Smith used to be a prominent member of the Wildrose Party — a right-wing, conservative and populist party, with an aim of provincial autonomy. Furthermore, she met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort shortly after his election win and also visited the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank behind .��

The not-so-happy ending

At any one time, there will always be a group of people who are not happy with the status quo, and often with good reason; for years, Alberta has been putting more into the federal pot than it gets back. But Alberta should address this financial imbalance by taking political, legal and structural actions to gain greater control over its finances. Holding a referendum about Alberta separation would be a case of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.”

As the premier of Alberta, Smith’s first duty should be the well-being of the province. And as a member of the of the Federation, she has agreed to the objective “to ultimately strengthen Canada.” She seems to be doing neither. She’s using the results of a signature campaign to rip the nation apart. Manitoba’s Premier Wab said, “There is always a moral imperative to do the right thing.” With this referendum, Smith is putting the province in danger — socially, economically and politically — not just today but for years to come. She blithely , “At the end of this debate, and when the referendum is over, we must come together to ensure that our beloved province continues to prosper.” This referendum may be instrumental in ensuring that that will never happen.

[ edited this piece.]

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Formerly a of the M-19 guerrilla and then mayor of Bogotá, Petro has been an icon of Colombia’s political left for decades. Against the odds, Petro succeeded in getting elected president in 2022 by building a broad alongside old political foxes. Despite initial optimism surrounding Colombia’s first left-leaning government in decades, Petro’s administration has been over the last four years. Bogged down by corruption scandals, the hodgepodge congressional coalition that led to many of those very scandals, and a president whose signature is indiscipline and untimeliness, Petro has not delivered significantly on his promises of peace with non-state actors in peripheral parts of the country or of national prosperity.

President Petro has been undoubtedly successful, though, in one of his stated goals. He has normalized the left as a political protagonist, awakened a committed electoral base, and broken a decades-old monopoly of center-right and right-wing political parties over national politics. He has moved the national discourse toward one of class struggle.

Today, Colombia’s presidential campaign is in full swing ahead of the first round of voting on May 31. In a crowded field of approximately a dozen candidates, the three leading figures stand out — both for what their leadership in the polls tells us about Colombia’s electoral landscape in 2026 and for what a potential administration under each of these would mean for the country and the region.

A tale of two senators and an outsider

For the last several weeks, national polling has consistently placed Senator ahead of the pack in the first round of voting, with support from over a third of likely voters. Seen by most as Petro’s political successor, Cepeda has been a senator since 2010 and is the son of a high-profile communist leader who was murdered in 1994. Like Petro, Cepeda is a hardened left-wing ideologue — educated on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain in places like Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Cuba. Unlike Petro, however, Cepeda is disciplined, methodical, and regarded by both detractors and supporters as a more efficient political operative.

Cepeda was catapulted to the top of the polls, both nationally and within the country’s left-wing coalition primary, by his marked antagonism with former President Álvaro Uribe. For years, Cepeda and Uribe were engaged in a high-stakes judicial battle, which resulted in a symbolic victory by Cepeda over Colombia’s most important and influential right-wing political figure of the 21st century — Uribe himself.

Since rising to the forefront of the presidential race, Cepeda has awakened optimism among the electoral base of the left-wing and incumbent Pacto Histórico, as well as strong rejection among Colombia’s broad right-wing electorate. This electorate has unearthed Cepeda’s past sympathies and closeness with the guerrilla, including leaders who betrayed the 2016 Peace Accords by returning to armed resistance.

In a country that has traditionally voted right-of-center, the most striking characteristic of Cepeda’s presidential candidacy is his strong polling and his campaign’s seeming confidence that he might be capable of winning outright during the first electoral round, without the need for a run-off.

Cepeda’s campaign rhetoric, affirming that he will grow favorably and broaden his base to secure a first-round victory, underscores two realities. First, that Cepeda’s best shot at winning is indeed ahead of a potential run-off. Second, the campaign’s expectation that mobilizing the national government’s political machinery will indeed yield a better-than-expected showing for the administration’s candidate.

Cepeda is polarizing, as are other political leaders in Colombia and throughout the region. His detractors label him a communist, a guerrilla sympathizer, and even a closet or urban guerrilla member himself. Moreover, his political trajectory, achievements and agenda are indeed markedly aligned with Colombia’s left, such as legitimizing the struggles of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia () by bringing it into the political fold as part of the 2016 Peace Process or highlighting the vindications of indigenous communities and politically persecuted social leaders.

Fair or exaggerated, Cepeda’s labels and trajectory would have been politically unsustainable for anyone eyeing national office in Colombia 20 years ago, even ten years ago.

The left in a broadened political spectrum

Back when the wounds of cartel, paramilitary and guerrilla violence were still fresh in Colombia, during the 80s, 90s and early 2000s, marked guerrilla and left-wing sympathies were politically radioactive. This reality led, in large part, to the election and re-election of former President Alvaro Uribe as well as to his lasting political influence nearly a quarter of a century later.

Yet, Colombia has changed. Through President Uribe’s frontal confrontation with armed guerrillas between 2002 and 2010, his demobilization of right-wing paramilitary groups and the subsequent Peace Process led by friend-turned-foe President Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia has gained a broader political spectrum in which a candidacy like Cepeda’s is viable.

Cepeda’s candidacy is viable, or plausible rather. However, despite his leadership in recent polls, Senator Cepeda does have an electoral ceiling, and he could lose in a potential run-off. Previewing the candidacy of Senator Paloma Valencia, her metamorphosis into a center-right candidacy under a coalition ticket that ranges from the center to the far-right is fueled in large part by the rejection of Cepeda and the fear that his platform of continuity instills across center-right and right-wing electors.

On the other hand, if Cepeda were to run off against the outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, the outcome is more uncertain. Where exactly Colombia’s centrists would split, and who would ultimately benefit the most from these independent voters — whether Cepeda, de la Espriella or merely abstention — is hard to predict. Yet in this scenario, Senator Cepeda would presumably have a greater chance of courting centrist voters, for reasons we will discuss when we dive into candidate Abelardo de la Espriella.

This refashioned political landscape might well be President Petro’s most lasting legacy, a broadening of Colombia’s political spectrum — though his legacy also includes a more polarized country, driven in part by populist yet divisive decisions such as a significant minimum wage increase. Not only does the minimum wage hike epitomize his populist policies, but his presidency has also been marked by unpopular decisions like highly questionable friends, political allies and former M-19 guerrilla colleagues into high-level positions — whether as ministers, ambassadors or heads of administrative entities.

In this process, Petro has prioritized proximity to his ideology over experience and capacity to handle gubernatorial matters. One clear example has been the government’s failed Paz Total or Total Peace effort, which aimed to consolidate the advances of the 2016 Peace Process as well as demobilize other major guerrilla groups, such as the National Liberation Army (). If Cepeda does indeed win, he will owe it to Petro; even if Cepeda loses in the run-off, he will owe his political future as a leader of the opposition to President Petro.

An increasingly centrist Centro Democrático

Senator Valencia is officially the candidate of the powerful and flagship right-wing party, Centro Democrático, which was founded by former President Uribe in 2013.

In any election over the last 13 years, the Centro Democrático’s candidate would have been and has been the candidate to the farthest right end of Colombia’s political spectrum. However, that is not the case in 2026, and it is largely explained by two dynamics. First, President Petro’s successful expansion of the political spectrum, and second, the presence of the “outsider” hard-right candidate de la Espriella.

Now, in practical terms, the uniqueness of the 2026 landscape has led Senator Valencia to position herself as a center-right candidate by first participating in an inter-party primary and selecting the runner-up from that process, who happens to be an openly gay technocrat, as her running mate.

Senator Valencia, the Centro Democrático and former President Uribe, in the background, are betting on broadening their electoral base by winning over centrists and independents to whom the figure of Cepeda and the continuity that he represents is unpalatable. This strategy, however, is not without risks.

By casting her candidacy as center-right, Valencia has alienated numerous Centro Democrático hardliners, like fellow Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal and former Minister Fernando Londoño. Valencia’s gamble is that her credentials with the Centro Democrático will ultimately yield a strong right-wing electoral base, while her appeal as a woman and that of her running mate will win over urban and centrist voters to form a broad center-right coalition.

Within Colombia’s two-round presidential election structure, if Senators Valencia and Cepeda were to ultimately face off in a run-off, Valencia’s broad base center-right strategy would pay off because her ticket can be palatable to centrists, right-wing hardliners and almost anyone who opposes the Petro-Cepeda line. And yet, Senator Valencia’s true challenge is going to be making it from the first round of voting into the run-off.

“Friendly fire” from an eccentric right-wing “outsider” could prove a handicap for Senator Valencia and the Centro Democrático during the first round of presidential voting, while inadvertently boosting Cepeda’s chances in the run-off. Enter de la Espriella.

Can Bukele’s model win in Colombia?

Born in Bogotá, de la Espriella is a lawyer who grew up in the northern city of Montería, close to Colombia’s Caribbean coast. A successful entrepreneur with his own law firm based in Florida, de la Espriella embarked on his political adventure as an independent in 2025 by collecting over four million signatures, one of the mechanisms available in Colombia to launch a presidential candidacy. He ended up as the candidate who collected the highest number of signatures during this presidential cycle, using that milestone to position himself as an alternative with real citizen backing.

This is the second consecutive presidential election in which someone without any political experience or notable affiliation with or proximity to traditional political parties runs with serious chances of being elected. The rise of de la Espriella as a political figure has been defined by that outsider profile, shaped by his background as a private-sector professional with no debts or ties to major, traditional political structures. However, in his career as a lawyer, de la Espriella did defend high-profile figures, such as of paramilitary groups and figures closely affiliated with Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro.

Before entering the electoral arena, de la Espriella built his reputation in the private sector as a high-profile criminal attorney and entrepreneur both in Colombia and the US. That background let him present himself to voters as someone outside traditional politics, with a message focused on law and order, at times at odds with sectors of the political class and bringing a business mindset to “clean house” — politically speaking. His political capital and appeal come precisely from that distance to the establishment — though de la Espriella has also been described as former president Uribe’s “Plan B” or “Trojan Horse.” Ultimately, de la Espriella brands himself as a businessman who enters politics, not as a career politician. Sound familiar?

Inspired by figures like President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, de la Espriella’s status as a private entrepreneur has shaped both his narrative and his platform. De la Espriella appeals to private-sector logic — order, authority, legal certainty and defense of private property — to connect not only with sectors disillusioned by traditional parties, but also with detractors of Petro and with people who voted for Petro yet are now disappointed by the current government’s improvisation and lack of delivery.

De la Espriella’s blunt, media-savvy style reinforces the image of someone who owes no favors to the system, rocks the boat and can speak without filters. Even though his businesses have been successful, his reputation has been questioned for defending shady individuals, such as money launderer David Murcia and Maduro’s frontman, Alex Saab. De la Espriella’s political appeal is currently best explained by the populist right-wing wave that capitalizes on public discontent, using his business experience as proof of executive ability and his outsider role as a credential for independence.

De la Espriella openly courts former President Uribe’s supporters, aligning himself with a segment of the electorate that values security and institutional order above all else. While also not being “Uribe’s candidate” — at least not officially. Lastly, de la Espriella’s choice for a running mate adds formality and technocratic depth to the ticket. The figure of former minister , a respected (and even boring) economist with solid academic credentials and an overall positive reputation, tames de la Espriella’s campaign, which has earned him the nickname of el tigre (the tiger) of this election.

Restrepo’s credentials as minister during Iván Duque’s presidency and his experience as rector of a prominent university in Colombia aim to add electors from the right-wing establishment of the Centro Democrático, which would defect from Valencia’s candidacy and campaign. This aim to expand the ticket’s appeal toward more “moderate” sectors is similar to Valencia’s approach with her own vice-presidential pick, , who also happens to have been a high-profile appointee of former President Duque.

Nevertheless, De la Espriella’s growth in the polls and popularity among certain sectors are yet to be proven as an authentic electoral wave. During Colombia’s legislative elections in March, the outsider candidate threw his weight behind the small Christian party supporting his candidacy, Salvación Nacional, which secured only five seats in Congress for the upcoming legislative term. The party barely reached the vote threshold needed in Colombia to avoid losing its legal status, which would represent a challenge for an eventual de la Espriella government.

By comparison, the left-wing Pacto Histórico and the right-wing Centro Democrático recorded gains in their total number of seats (respectively) across both the Senate and the House of Representatives. As of now, de la Espriella would likely struggle to build a legislative coalition, which could lead to bureaucratic delays and tie his hands on policy achievements beyond the reach of executive orders.

[ edited this piece.]

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The first time it happened, my mustache and beard were trimmed short, and my curly hair was more prominent. A man shouted at me, “Go back to Mexico, you loser!” By sheer coincidence, I had recently changed my barber because I moved houses. My previous barber was a talented Kurdish woman whose styling of my hair and beard actually made me feel like I looked Mexican myself.

Now that I live further away, I’ve had to find a new barber, a man of Vietnamese origin. Despite giving him the exact same instructions, the result is somehow different. I feel that my Middle Eastern background now resonates differently; I no longer look Mexican to the observer, but Indian. Thus, I almost don’t blame the two racists who, in separate incidents, screamed at me: “Go back to India!”

These moments of hostility are more than personal insults; they represent a fracturing of the Canadian sanctuary I once knew, signaling a shift from a culture of mutual support to tribalism that now threatens, at various levels, the very multicultural fabric of our nation. In this delicate moment for both Canada and the world, it is time to confront the rise of these harmful ideologies and make a better country for all who live here.

The erosion of civil discourse in a multicultural Canada

Thanks to the rise of racism and other harmful ideologies, engaging in healthy, logical arguments has become increasingly difficult with a certain angry segment of the Canadian population. I can conceptually understand why those whose roots trace back to the early settlers of Canada might fall into the trap of racism (not that it is acceptable, but the objective grounds for their bias are historically visible). However, what I find truly painful and difficult to process is the growth of racism among different immigrant communities.

When we — Kurds, Persians, Arabs, Vietnamese, Ukrainians — adopt the same tired tropes of the “classic” racist, something is deeply wrong. When an immigrant tells an Indian person, “You’re taking all our jobs, go back to India,” or mocks a Chinese driver for being overly cautious at a left turn, we are failing. This situation demands that we look beyond immigration laws and address the social sickness spreading within our communities, where everyone identifies as “Canadian” only to label the next person as the “alien.”

This reality is agonizing because when I first arrived in Canada, I felt I had reached the safest place in the world for social rights and harmony. Now, I feel that arguments are no longer arguments; they are one-dimensional screams. No one is looking for a calm, shared logic to solve our communal responsibilities. Instead, we are following egos and deceptive rhetoric that only seek an audience. This is the breeding ground for extremist ideological demagoguery.

Facing the data: A national crisis of hate

After those unsettling encounters, I didn’t want to rely solely on my emotions; I sought answers in the cold, hard data provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). What I discovered only deepened my heartache. Reading through their on hate crimes and incidents in Canada, I realized that my experiences weren’t isolated moments of “bad luck.”

The data confirms a disturbing upward trend in hate-motivated incidents across the country, crimes that target the very essence of a person’s identity, race and origin. Seeing my personal pain reflected in official statistics transformed my individual sorrow into a broader concern for our collective future. It is one thing to feel the sting of a slur on the street; it is another to see that sting validated as a growing national crisis, proving that the sanctuary I once believed in is facing a profound moral challenge.

A lost ideal: the Canada we must reclaim

I often think back to my first years in Vancouver when my English was quite poor. One day, while waiting at the Granville SkyTrain station downtown, an older white woman with a backpack, likely a tourist, approached me. With a warm, friendly smile, she asked, “Hi, do you know how often the SkyTrain comes?”

I felt a surge of joy. It was the first time a white Canadian had asked me for directions; for a brief moment, I felt like I truly “owned” the city. I replied with great confidence: “In shower time, every 3 minutes.”

I knew I had made a mistake, but before I could even process it, she gently placed her hand on mine and said, “You mean in ‘rush hour’ time, every 3 minutes.” She corrected my English without making me feel embarrassed. In that brief moment, she didn’t just give me a linguistics lesson; she gave me a lesson in ethics, culture and mutual support.

I wonder: Do we still encounter people like her today? If we do, why do they seem so few, while the angry voices of society seem so loud?

This memory serves as a reminder of the Canada we once were and the one we must strive to reclaim. We cannot simply be passive observers of our own decline. If we are to heal, we must actively reject the language of exclusion in our own social circles. The next time you witness a microaggression or hear a hateful trope, regardless of the background of the speaker, do not stay silent. Correct the narrative, defend the targeted individual and remind one another that our strength lies in our plurality, not our prejudices. We must choose to be the person who offers a hand of support rather than the one who points the finger of blame

[ edited this piece.]

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The Catholic Church is an absolute monarchy, but an elective one. Not even the pope can name his own successor. So, on May 6, the 129 cardinals under the voting age of 80 gathered in Rome. They cast their votes by secret ballot in the Sistine Chapel, underneath the stern gaze of Michelangelo’s Universal Judgment. After just two days and four ballots, the cardinals elected Robert Francis Prevost. On that day, a year ago today, he took the name of Leo XIV.

Born in Chicago and ordained as an Augustinian priest, Prevost earned advanced degrees in canon law in Rome before returning to the United States. In 1988, he was sent to Peru, where he remained for most of the next two decades. He worked as a missionary and pastor before being appointed bishop of Chiclayo in 2015. In 2023, Francis named him prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops — one of the most consequential positions in the Vatican bureaucracy. There, he served as a close collaborator of Francis and played a central role in shaping the global episcopate, especially in Latin America.

The purpose of this piece is simple: to see whether Leo has begun doing what he signaled he would do on the night of his election. A year later, the answer appears to be yes. The circumstances of his rise still reveal something important about the Church that chose him. His first year has confirmed that the cardinals were looking for continuity with Francis rather than a sharp change of direction. His background in Peru helps explain why Latin America remains central to the Church’s present and future. And the name he chose — Leo — points to the deeper intellectual tradition he may yet bring to bear on the work Francis set in motion.

The surprise of Leo

Prevost is the first native English speaker to be elected pope in 870 years — the last being Nicholas Breakspear, an Englishman who became Adrian IV in 1154. To say that his accession came as nothing less than a shock would still be an understatement.

For us Americans, the moment registered as surreal. For nearly the entire existence of the United States as a civilization, the papacy has been an Italian (or at least European) and distant institution. The election of Francis, an Italo-Argentinean, was the first chink in that armor. But no one expected the next pope to be “some guy” from Chicago. He speaks Italian with an American accent. In the days that followed the election, everyone’s mother, aunt or neighbor seemed to have a photo with him from some parish event to share. He was one of us.

Immediately, the memes started pouring out about whether the newly minted pontiff was a Chicago Cubs or a White Sox fan. That was funny enough. What really blew our minds, however, was that he had . Cries of jubilation rang out in Chicago’s South Side, and indeed, the beaming mug of “Father Bob” now adorns .

Yet when he strode out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the man we saw — perfectly human and visibly moved — was not Robert but Leo, the Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole world, complete with the distinctive red mozzetta that his predecessor had notably foregone.

At a time like that, one naturally wondered what the coming of a new pope could mean for the Church and the world. After a pontificate as unconventional as Francis’s, many justifiably assumed the next papacy would be unpredictable. Yet from the beginning, Leo had already signaled the direction he intended to take.

Continuity with Francis, not rupture

Pope Francis, for all his virtues, was sometimes confusing. In many ways, this was deliberate. He didn’t always answer questions. He shook things up rather than settling them down, often preferring to create space for action rather than to solidify definitions.

So when he died, many — perhaps most — expected the next pope to change directions in one way or another. Some hoped for a traditionalist rollback, a correction or even rebuke of Francis that would recall the perceived conservatism of Benedict XVI, or earlier popes, depending on the commentator’s theological preference. Others wanted bold doctrinal change, a progressive pope who would make official what they believed Francis had suggested. Either way, they assumed the moment called for resolution.

Leo has been and will be neither of these things. Scant hours after the election, a good section of the dissident traditionalist crowd was with the cardinals’ choice. Meanwhile, took just minutes to decry the new pontiff for his opposition to the “homosexual lifestyle.” (I’m not sure what they had expected.)

As a cardinal, Leo was, by all accounts, a of Francis. That doesn’t mean he will be a carbon copy of his predecessor, but it does mean his papacy will begin from the world Francis helped shape, not the one he left behind.

Nowhere is that continuity clearer than in his concern for the poor. For Francis, this wasn’t a policy preference — it was theological bedrock. And for Leo, too, it has long been at the heart of his pastoral life.

Nowhere has Pope Leo made this more clear than in his October 2025 apostolic exhortation, (“I have loved you”):

Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11), also promises the disciples: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). We likewise think of his saying: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us. [Boldface added.]

Concern for the poor was the backbone of Francis’s papacy, and the same is now true of Leo’s. As a young Augustinian priest, he spent years living among the poor, offering pastoral care in a country fractured by violence, inequality and corruption. Long before he had a title, Prevost was the kind of bishop Francis later praised: close to the people, grounded in daily life, unwilling to treat poverty as a social issue separate from the Gospel. When Francis made him bishop of Chiclayo, Prevost brought the same pastoral instincts with him.

That same instinct followed him to Rome, where, as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, he prioritized episcopal candidates who shared Francis’s pastoral sensibilities. His rise was quiet, but not accidental. He was chosen precisely because he embodied the vision that Francis had tried to implant.

In his inaugural address as pope, Leo reiterated this vision, , “We want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close especially to those who suffer.”

That kind of continuity shouldn’t be surprising, but to some it still is. And it speaks to a larger misunderstanding. In short: It’s always a little distorting to speak of left and right in the College of Cardinals. These are not parties, and this is not a parliament. Every man in that room is appointed by a pope, not elected by a base.

Still, there’s a kernel of truth in the shorthand. Most commentators describe Leo as a centrist. This is true to the extent, not that he splits the difference between factions, but that he holds together things that are often pulled apart.

Like his predecessor, Leo will combine fidelity to the truth with compassion — and that means compassion both for those who struggle to live up to the Gospel and for those who suffer in a world that runs hard against it.

The Church’s focus on Latin America continues

With Francis and Leo, we have had two bishops with extensive service records in South America elected pope back-to-back. That’s no accident.

For centuries, Latin America has been the stronghold of global Catholicism. After the Reformation divided Europe and the Enlightenment displaced religion from public life, it was Latin America that sustained the Church’s demographic and cultural vitality. Today, nearly of the world’s Catholics live between the Rio Grande and Tierra del Fuego. This region is not the Church’s frontier, but its center.

Yet the Church is acutely aware that it is losing support across Latin America. In the region’s most populous nation, Brazil, the Catholic population has fallen from over to just above in the space of a few decades. Across the continent, evangelical churches continue to expand — fast, well-funded and pop-culture savvy. Their growth is not marginal; it is structural. In many places, bishops and parishes no longer shape religious life. The energy has moved elsewhere.

This didn’t happen on its own, to be sure. The rise of evangelicalism in Latin America is the result of decades of American religious influence — deliberate, organized and long in the making. Since the mid-twentieth century, missionaries, media networks and theological schools have advanced a model of Christianity imported from the north. This alternative philosophy has since bypassed local clergy, displaced longstanding forms of Catholic life and redefined religious authority in ways that were foreign to the region’s spiritual and cultural memory.

Leo understands this. He is American, but his vocation was forged in Peru. He spent decades working not to supplant the native Church, but to strengthen it. He trained local clergy, supported diocesan leadership and reinforced institutions under pressure. He saw what it looked like when religion was treated as an export, and so he knows what has been eroded, and how it can still be rebuilt.

Evangelicalism in Latin America offered something the Church had ceased to provide: immediacy. Not just theological clarity, but emotional urgency, personal attention, spiritual spectacle. Catholicism, by contrast, had grown distant, perhaps more visible in chancelleries than in neighborhoods.

We often view the Latin American Church as a passive victim of outside forces. That image is both inaccurate and infantilizing. As in Europe during the Reformation, the Church was caught off guard not by superior theology, but by its own institutional inertia. For too long, it assumed people would remain Catholic out of habit. Yet the Church is not helpless; it is made up of living, thinking people, and it possesses the resources to recognize and respond to its present circumstances.

The charismatic renewal has restored a great deal of expressive prayer and spiritual intensity to Catholic life, deepening participation in the sacraments. Eucharistic devotion is returning with real force, reclaiming a sense of presence that is both personal and public. What Pentecostalism tries to manufacture in a moment, the Church can offer measure upon measure in a deeper, enduring sacramental experience. The affective life Latin Americans, and people everywhere, have sought doesn’t require leaving Catholicism; it invites rediscovering it.

The Church is learning to move again through a return to what is most fully its own. Charismatic renewal and Eucharistic devotion are signs of a living faith reasserting itself from the ground up, led by laypeople, sustained in parishes and rooted in tradition.

Now, the Vatican is paying attention. Under Leo XIV, the focus is both pastoral and structural. He understands that renewal in Latin America depends on the attention and support of the Church’s central organs. He bridges the distance between Rome and the continent that now defines the Church’s present and its future. And he does so by drawing upon the deep resources of the past.

The fourteenth Leo is in good company

The most recent previous Leo was Leo XIII (1878–1903), in many ways the first modern pope, someone who set the tone for all popes after him. By picking “Leo,” Leo XIV avoided overt signaling of partisanship for Francis (like choosing “Francis II” or, as Francis himself had once joked, “John XXIV”). He also avoided signaling an oppositional course correction, the kind of gesture “Pius XIII,” “Benedict XVII” or “John Paul III” might have implied.

The choice was a masterstroke. It suggested continuity without factionalism. It hearkened back to a pope who was modern and yet far enough from the present day that no party can “claim” him — the founder of both the neo-Scholastic revival and of modern Catholic social teaching. And more than that, it pointed toward the intellectual tradition of the Church.

Francis, like St. Francis, led with pastoral instincts rather than academic ones, and he often de-emphasized rigorous formulations. Leo, on the other hand, is an intellectual. His formation was in canon law — a discipline that demands not only legal precision but deep theological grounding. Church law is not a closed system; it is an expression of doctrine, rooted in sacrament and ecclesiology, shaped by the conviction that the Church is not merely a community but a structure with form and order, authority and continuity.

Perhaps Leo will play for Francis the role that St. Bonaventure played for St. Francis. As master general of the Franciscan order, Bonaventure grounded spiritual insight in intellectual rigor, while gently reining in the more “enthusiastic” of his followers who sought a kind of change not in accordance with the organic and episcopal structure of the Church. Bonaventure did not stifle the Franciscan movement; he preserved it. That act of protection may be Leo’s task now.

That would place Leo XIV squarely in the tradition of the Church’s intellectual popes — those who understood that reform without form collapses, and that the life of the Church depends as much on clarity of thought as on purity of intention. The name “Leo” evokes that lineage.

St. Leo I (440–461), the first to bear the name, gave the Church its clearest articulation of Christ’s nature at the Council of Chalcedon — one person, two natures, undivided and unconfused. That definition has remained the cornerstone of Catholic Christology ever since. It was not merely a theological solution; it was an act of preservation — of unity, of clarity, of continuity. In choosing Leo, the new pope aligns himself with that kind of intellectual responsibility: the work of stating clearly what the Church is, especially when the world around it is shifting.

Leo X (1513–1521) is perhaps best known for excommunicating Martin Luther — an act often framed as censorship, but in reality is a recognition that moral reform without doctrinal coherence fractures the Church. That Leo’s intervention came at a time of real ecclesial failure makes the point sharper: doctrine cannot be improvised in crisis. The Church’s capacity to respond — even to legitimate critique — depends on the stability of what it already knows. Intellectual coherence was not the enemy of reform, but its precondition.

Leo XIII (1878–1903) brought the Church into modernity not by conceding to it, but by confronting it on its own terms. He revived Thomism, articulated the first modern Catholic response to industrial capitalism with the encyclical Rerum Novarum, and reshaped the Church’s intellectual infrastructure. These were not tactical maneuvers. They were intellectual foundations laid with purpose and depth. He also restored the Pontifical Lateran University as a center of serious formation — the same institution where Robert Prevost earned his doctorate in canon law. Leo XIII was not just a writer of encyclicals; he was a teacher of popes. Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI were all formed under his shadow. His legacy is not just in what he taught, but in the kind of minds he left behind.

The Leos of history have emerged in times of pressure — defending doctrine with intelligence and restoring the Church’s self-understanding when it risked forgetting itself. Leo I brought Christological clarity to a fractured Church. Leo X showed that lasting reform must be grounded in theology. Leo XIII engaged modernity with a depth and discipline beyond the expectations of his age. By choosing the name “Leo”, Leo XIV places himself in that lineage — a tradition of definition and renewal through understanding.

The first year of Leo’s papacy has shown that he is neither reversing nor simply repeating Francis’s work, but is giving it shape. What Francis began in gesture, Leo is now rendering in grammar. The poor, the critique of an inhuman capitalism, the concern for the Latin world, the maintenance of doctrinal tradition — none of this is a rupture or a compromise, but an inheritance. Leo is the first American pope, but his task is Catholic in the deepest sense: to hold together what history has tried to pull apart.

[ edited this piece.]

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The unprovoked military actions undertaken by the US and Israel against Iran triggered an unprecedented global energy crisis, the likes of which the world has never seen. On the fateful day of February 28, the coordinated assaults began with a bombing raid that resulted in the of Iran’s Supreme Leader. Simultaneously, a barrage of Tomahawk missiles rained down on a in Minab, an event that would haunt the collective conscience of humanity. The strike obliterated the building, incinerating its 175 occupants, a tragic 168 of whom were innocent young girls.

The tragic and harrowing episode that unfolded at the girls’ school in Minab has starkly highlighted the US’ actions as emblematic of a rogue state, directly engaging in acts that can only be characterized as terrorism. This incident serves as a poignant reminder of the urgent need for justice. According to both federal and international legal frameworks, the events that transpired on that day represent severe violations of humanitarian law, qualifying these actions as war crimes under established statutes.

The principles set forth by international law clearly mandate accountability for such grave offenses. In light of this, it is imperative that those at the highest levels of the US government, including Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, General Dan Caine and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Lee Ratcliffe, as well as the military commanders who carried out these orders, bear responsibility for their roles in these reprehensible acts. The international community must insist on a thorough investigation and subsequent prosecution of these key figures to ensure that justice is served and that similar atrocities are prevented in the future. Only through such accountability can we hope to uphold the principles of human rights and the rule of law.

While the US and Israel have been striking schools, hospitals, bridges and other infrastructure, Iran has against their military and support in the region. The evidence clearly shows that Iran currently holds the moral high ground: The unprovoked attacks by the US and Israel have resulted in over Iranian deaths, while Iran’s powerful and widespread retaliations have led to the deaths of 13 Americans and 28 Israelis.

The Trump presidency

The landscape of US presidential elections has undergone a profound transformation in recent decades, increasingly resembling a celebrity contest rather than an arena for substantive political discourse. In this evolving paradigm, the focus tends to shift towards personal charisma, social media acumen, and the ability to engage and entertain the public, often at the expense of critical analysis and thoughtful discussion surrounding policies and ideological principles.

This shift not only alters the way candidates present themselves but also influences the qualities and backgrounds of those who pursue high office. As a result, individuals with narcissistic tendencies appear to be drawn to the political stage. Many of these candidates exhibit a pronounced preoccupation with their image, often prioritizing self-promotion and personal brand over the foundational elements of genuine leadership, such as integrity, empathy and a commitment to the greater good.

The implications of this trend are significant; they challenge the electorate to evaluate not just the substance of candidates’ proposals but also the underlying motivations and values driving their ambitions. Consequently, voters may find themselves navigating a complex landscape where charisma often trumps competence, raising concerns about the future direction of political leadership in the country.

Trump serves as a notable example of an individual exhibiting traits commonly associated with . His behavior reflects a profound skill in manipulation, frequently employing various tactics designed to captivate and draw admiration towards himself. This skillful maneuvering often manifests in his public speeches and social media presence, where he seeks to maintain a dominant narrative and garner unwavering loyalty from his supporters. His lack of remorse is notable; he rarely acknowledges the negative consequences of his behavior on individuals or groups, instead shifting blame or minimizing the severity of his actions.

As a sadist, there appears to be a disturbing propensity for him to derive pleasure from the emotional and physical distress inflicted upon others. This alarming characteristic is often evident in his interactions with critics, political opponents and even members of his own administration, where he seems untroubled by the impact of his words and actions. Besides, he appears to be suffering from , saying something and contradicting himself hours later.

Additionally, Trump’s conduct illustrates a blatant disregard for both federal statutes and international law. Throughout his tenure, he frequently operates outside established norms, challenging institutional protocols and undermining the checks and balances essential to democratic governance. This disregard not only raises serious ethical concerns but also poses significant implications for the rule of law and the integrity of political processes.

President Trump is currently facing intense scrutiny due to a series of troubling reports, particularly those related to the contentious documents associated with prolific pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In the released files, Trump’s name appears more than a , raising significant concerns about his ties to Epstein and the nature of those connections. These documents contain serious allegations, suggesting that Trump is not only accused of being a rapist but may also be implicated in more heinous acts, including the possibility of pedophilia and even cannibalism.

The gravity of these accusations casts a dark shadow over his presidency and raises alarming questions about political integrity and accountability in the US. As the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, he faces the implications of such grave allegations, which are profoundly troubling and ignite public debate about the standards of moral and ethical conduct expected of those in positions of power. The ongoing investigations and revelations risk eroding trust in the political system and highlight the urgent need for transparency and responsibility in governance.

To numerous onlookers, Trump has seemingly transformed the US into a subordinate ally of Israel. Iranians to America as the “United States of Israel.” This perception is vividly illustrated in a striking image from the Situation Room at the White House. In this setting, Israel’s prime minister takes a commanding position at the head of the table, exuding authority and confidence, while Trump occupies a seat beside him, suggesting a partnership that many interpret as one of deference. The scene encapsulates a dynamic that has sparked considerable debate about the balance of power and influence in US–Israel relations.

Additionally, one must question the moral premise under which the US has taken two wars of aggression against Iran. As articulated by the Secretary of State, such actions were framed as a means of Israel, a nation that owes its very existence to implementing ethnic cleansing and genocide against the indigenous Palestinians. This scenario invites a deeper exploration of the complexities surrounding US foreign policy and its implications for global peace and security.

Former President Richard Nixon was also a narcissist. He exhibited certain troubling symptoms that mirror those currently experienced by Mr. Trump. Nixon’s political journey came to a turbulent halt amid the infamous , which not only tarnished his legacy but ultimately led to his resignation. His life concluded in public disgrace, overshadowed by the controversies surrounding him.

Test the presidential candidates

The presidential elections that have paved the way for leaders such as Nixon and Trump to ascend to the highest office in the land are alarming and unacceptable. It is imperative that we establish a robust mechanism to ensure that circumstances allowing for such candidates to reach the presidency are never replicated. We must take proactive steps to safeguard our electoral process and preserve the integrity of our democracy for future generations.

The president is the commander-in-chief of the military. Yet, while military special operations, or high-risk, personnel are required to undergo in-depth psychological tests, the presidential or congressional candidates are not held to the same standards. Any idiot who cannot get a job at a service station or grocery store can become the US president if he is cunning, charismatic and chosen by the oligarchy.

The electoral process is fundamentally flawed, lacking robust mechanisms to effectively filter out candidates who may not genuinely represent the public’s interests or adhere to ethical standards. This deficiency creates an environment ripe for corruption, in which political figures — particularly those aspiring to the presidency — often feel compelled to prioritize the agendas of affluent donors. Consequently, the welfare of their constituents and the broader needs of the country take a backseat, leading to a governance landscape that favors wealth over the common good.

President Trump is a good example. As a businessman, he has nearly all the businesses he started. As president, he comes across as a malignant narcissist who changes his mind repeatedly. He stays up late into the early morning, demonizing his critics on X. He threatens political adversaries and cheers at news of deaths and destruction. Although he is cunning and charismatic, he would not have passed an in-depth psychological test. This is also true of Congress, where members, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, exhibit malignant narcissism, yet they are elected to Congress.

Mr. Trump exhibits signs of emotional instability. Upon receiving the distressing news that two planes had been shot down in Iran, he allegedly descended into a state of deep panic. This reaction was so intense that his staff felt compelled to intervene, physically separating him from the situation to help him regain his composure. The stakes were high — if Iran, in retaliation for the assassination of its Supreme Leader by the US, decided to launch a missile strike against the White House or the Pentagon, one has to wonder: Would he have been able to manage such a crisis with the necessary poise and leadership?

In the future, it is essential that presidential and congressional candidates undergo comprehensive psychological evaluations. This proactive measure aims to mitigate potential crises and challenges in today’s political landscape by ensuring our leaders possess the necessary mental resilience and stability.

Regarding Iran, a nation that has endured significant hardships and suffering as a result of the aggressive actions taken by the US and Israel, there is a compelling argument for the establishment of a tribunal similar to the . Such a court would seek to hold accountable those individuals responsible for severe transgressions, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, thereby offering a pathway to justice and healing for the affected population.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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An idea whose time has come

The concept of “middle powers” has existed since at least the 16th century, when Italian statesman Giovanni Bolero mentioned it in his book, The Reason of State. Interestingly, back in 1987, Canada’s Institute published a prescient paper titled “Middle Powers in the International System: A Preliminary Assessment of Potential”.

But in the past couple of years, the idea has gathered momentum. Following Davos 2024, the World Economic Forum highlighted the theme with an , “Middle Powers: what are they and why do they matter?” Hung Q. Tran, an international economist and fellow with the Atlantic Council, optimistically as the “Year of the Middle Powers.” The Harvard Kennedy School is in the midst of a Middle Powers , doing research on “13 countries, covering security, energy, technology, and other topics central to a changing world amid great power competition.” Last October, Australia’s foreign minister Penny proudly described her country as a middle power, stating that “We are moving into a new era of amplified middle power diplomacy.”

Carney’s rousing speech took this growing idea of middle powers and actioned it into a call for their coalition — “Middle powers must act together” — invoking the old adage, there is strength in numbers. Alone, they are weak; but together, they could be a force.

Stewart , a director at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, seems to assume a coalition when he says, “middle powers have the potential to help stabilize global order and advance cooperation.” He explains that “they must serve as checks on the two superpowers, so that the latter cannot run roughshod over others, and act as stewards of the international system and law, leveraging their position to call out UN Charter violations.”

Who are middle powers?

Middle powers can be simply as “countries that ranked below a handful of great powers, but significant enough to be able to act in response to external stimuli with some agency and with some impact.”

So, which countries are middle powers? Some countries — like Canada and Australia — readily claim themselves as middle powers. Others — like the UK and France — seem to still perceive themselves as great powers. A single, comprehensive measure of a country’s power is elusive and hotly debated. However, there are several measures that look at different aspects.

One way to gauge economic clout is by using . Here, the superpowers, the US and China, ranked one and two, lead the charge with $32 trillion and $19 trillion, respectively. Then, after the big gap, come some 19 countries that could be called “middle powers” — with a GDP of $5 trillion to $1 trillion. Canada comes in at number ten, with $2.28 trillion. Interestingly, its next-door neighbors on the list are two BRICS countries: Russia with $2.5 trillion and Brazil with $2.26 trillion.

A way to gauge military clout is by using the (GFP) index (taking into account over 60 factors), which puts the US as number one, Russia as number two, China as number three and India as number four. Here, Canada is listed as number 28 — positioned between Algeria and Singapore.��

Another, more comprehensive measure is “”, defined as “the sum of all resources available to a nation in the pursuit of national objectives”. The 2022 World Power Index, which examines approximately 18 indicators, ranks Canada 7th, between the UK and Italy.

There is also soft power. One measure of that is the Global Soft Power . The 2025 index (based on some 55 metrics) puts the US and China at the top. Canada is positioned in 7th place, in the midst of several European countries. Interestingly, in the , while the US remains at the top, its numbers on several matrices (like generosity, trustworthiness, political stability and ethical standards) have dropped.��

The variety of measures and rankings speaks to the flexibility of the term “middle power”, and therefore its possible breadth of inclusivity.

A coalition of middle powers

To be effective, this coalition of middle powers should be free of superpower influence, free of the stifling bureaucracy of the UN, multilateral and composed of equal members (without veto power). This coalition should be greater than just the disaffected members of NATO or the disillusioned acolytes of hegemons. Including countries from the Global South and countries with different forms of government would also be reflective of Canada’s multicultural composition, pluralistic values and hopefully a newfound perspective that is less self-righteous, more mature and therefore more pragmatic.

Ideally, to maximize power and impact, there should be just one coalition of middle powers. But given differing geographies, existing pressures and internal priorities, that may be difficult. There could also be multiple coalitions formed along various criteria. They could be formed regionally: like Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. It could be formed in accordance with shared culture, language and/or history, like Canada, Australia, New Zealand — and even some brave European countries that are prepared to step out from under the protective yet threatening umbrella of their hegemon. Carney also suggests “ coalitions for different issues”.

Apart from building their own coalition, these newly-realized middle-powers also have the option to join existing coalitions — formed by those wise enough decades ago to not see the world as a good-evil dichotomy, to see the dangers of living in the shade of any hegemon and to realize the value and power of a collaboration of smaller forces. 

A number of the world’s developing countries have been a part of a coalition of middle and smaller powers for over 70 years. In 1961, in response to the rapid bipolarization of the world between Russia and the US, leaders of several countries — including India’s PM Jawaharlal Nehru, Yugoslav’s president Josip Broz Tito, Ghana’s president Kwame Nkrumah, Indonesian president Sukarno and Egypt’s PM Gamal Abdel Nasser — came together to form the (NAM) to jointly strive for multiple objectives: national sovereignty and independence; peace and neutrality; resisting imperialism, colonialism and hegemony; and economic development.

Today, NAM is a forum of some 120 countries (53 African, 39 Asian, 26 Latin American and two European). It covers 55% of the world population and 60% of UN membership. To a large extent, only the superpowers (the US, China, Russia), the countries of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact and the countries of NATO are not part of NAM.

There is also a newer, smaller and more innocuously defined group of middle powers called . Established in 2013, it consists of five diverse countries (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Türkiye, Australia), with the objectives of playing “a constructive role in the international environment” and serving “as a cross-regional consultative platform”.

Prospects for a global spring��

Individually, middle powers are weak. But united, they could be a force for less conflict, smoother trade, cooperation on multinational issues and a more equitable world.

Members of a strong coalition of middle powers need not be slaves to the dictates of superpowers. Instead, they can have the freedom to think and decide for themselves on a multitude of internal and external matters — finance, trade, manufacturing, security, healthcare, education, immigration, social issues, as well as political systems and alliances — all in the interests of their own nations and peoples.

However, because a coalition inherently demands such freedoms, it’s threatening to hegemons and will meet with much opposition. Patrick warns that “Middle powers supporting multilateralism must with a rogue United States scornful of normative constraints and a self-absorbed China that shirks global responsibilities.” The coalition of middle powers will need to guard against and counteract the powerful networks of mega-capitalists, oligarchs, high-tech companies, billionaires and current hegemons. It will be swimming in an uncharted, stormy sea with a fragmenting global governance system underfoot and a nebulous, shape-shifting monster called the Board of Peace looming on the horizon. But it has to hold fast to its primary objective: the joint welfare of its nations and peoples.��

We’ve reached a time when a coalition of middle powers is not just a nice-to-have; it is a must-have. Now, when we have returned to an era of resource imperialism, “might is right” has replaced rules-based international order, the US has lost its moral compass, and China is not yet willing to play a global political role, the influence of such a coalition of middle powers is not only helpful but crucial in steering the world away from conflict and inequality, and towards greater stability, equity, and hopefully even addressing real international issues like climate change and public health.

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In Spain, a continuum existed between the reconquest of its own territory from the Moors and the conquest of its new American lands. Indeed, the year 1492 represented the end of the former and the beginning of the latter. Meaning, the defeat of the last Moor enclave in Spain and the “discovery” of a new continent by a Spanish expedition headed by Columbus.

In just half a century

As a result, the spirit of mission that had animated the Spanish life during eight centuries (that of expelling the Moors) simply moved to the other side of the Atlantic. No other European country, without the sense of warfare mobilization and religious combativeness that prevailed in Spain, could have had the energy and the daring to take hold of such an enormous and inordinate geographical space in just a few decades. In just about , indeed, Spain subdued the indigenous populations, Christianized them, urbanized and populated the new territories, founded universities, put in motion a process of economic expansion and created its ruling institutions.

During that brief period, the Spanish conquerors defeated war-oriented indigenous populations throughout the continent. This included the mighty Aztec and Inca empires in current Mexico and Peru. Meanwhile, their missionaries thoroughly evangelized the native populations. For that purpose, they had not only to master the different indigenous languages but also their meanings and symbols, as this was the only way to make their teachings understandable. After attaining their religious purposes, though, the missionaries simply discarded such knowledge as an expression of paganism.

Urbanization had been an essential part of the Spanish Reconquest of its territory from the Moors. Indeed, every advance upon them had to be consolidated by building cities and towns within a concept of expanding frontiers. Not surprisingly, urban-minded Spaniards brought the same approach to the Americas. Towns and villages would become the tools for consolidating conquered spaces and for integrating the hinterlands to the coasts.

Populating the newly founded towns implied bringing women from Spain. Much has been written about the solitary nature of the Spanish conquerors as the leading cause for miscegenation, with indigenous women being the only females available to them. Undoubtedly, this is true, yet only to a certain extent.

Of the registered Spaniards who came to America in the 16th century, 10,118 were women. In other words, there could have been around 20,000 married couples and around 25,000 single men. Moreover, during the first quarter of that century, a of all the arrivals were women. This entails that half of the men had access to a Spanish wife. These Spanish couples would become the origin of the colonial gentry through endogamous marriages.

As early as 1538, the Spaniards the University of Santo Tomas de Aquino in the Dominican Republic of today. It was not only the first in the hemisphere but also among the first 15 within the Spanish world. This institution was followed in 1551 by the founding of the University of Mexico and that of San Marcos in Lima. When these universities came to life, a wide network of schools already existed throughout the region.

In 1545, the 20-year span in which the major in Mexico and Peru took place began. They were to become large-scale operations that put in motion numerous interconnected economic activities. Workers needed housing and stores, while mines required masonry, winches, ladders and huge amounts of leather. Mules and horses were required to move the bullion to mints and to the exporting coastal areas. Plantations and ranches had to be established to supply mining operations and the emerging adjacent towns. And so on, amid a flurry of action.

To administer these territories, the Spaniards created a centralized political structure. From Spain, the was responsible for the whole, while in America, two main viceroyalties were created: New Spain (current Mexico) and Peru. These viceroyalties controlled smaller administrative units called audiences, which in turn had jurisdiction over governorships.  From the beginning, a complex bureaucratic system was put in place.

Meanwhile

Nothing remotely similar happened in Brazil during the same period. This territory was granted to Portugal by a that divided the lands of the New World between the Spaniards and the Portuguese. The fact that Portugal had completed its war of reconquest 243 years before Spain was directly related to this. Indeed, there was no connection between the reconquest of their own territory from the Moors and the conquest and colonization of their American possessions. Moreover, while in the case of Spain an old sense of purpose easily switched from its own land into its newly acquired transatlantic territories, Portugal had ample time to define different priorities. Naval exploration and international trade represented these priorities.

Beginning in 1418, with the incorporation of the Azores and Madeira islands off the coast of Africa, the Portuguese continued south along the coasts of West Africa. Along this descendant route, they established a of slave and ivory trading posts, without inland colonization. In the late 15th century, they had discovered a sea route to the East around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1510, they the colony of Goa on the western coast of India. A few years later, the Malacca peninsula (current Malaysia) became the strategic base for Portugal’s trade expansion towards South East Asia, China and Japan. Subsequently, it built fortified settlements in present-day Indonesia to control the spice trade. The Portuguese Empire of the East, with its capital in Goa, included possessions in all of the Asian sub-continents. 

The Portuguese thus had a global reach unknown to the Spaniards (whose sole Asian possession was the Philippines, which became a simple extension of its American Empire through its galleon trade with Mexico, inaugurated in 1565). But whereas the Spaniards had their American possessions under a firm grip, the Portuguese were highly vulnerable in their overexpanded territories. Through a several-decade between the Dutch and the Portuguese, in the 17th century, the former seized most of Portugal’s possessions in Asia.

A minor concern

While Portugal’s attention was elsewhere, was of minor concern to them. There, they replicated their experience on the western coasts of Africa: establishing isolated trading posts along the coast, without aiming to penetrate inland. These first five decades, in which Spaniards were making deep inroads into their own American territories, were a period of absolute neglect for Brazil. As a result, impoverished Portuguese male settlers were left to their own devices.

Through an old indigenous practice of incorporating strangers into their tribes through marriage, these settlers were assimilated into indigenous populations. Taking as many “wives” as possible implied, by extension, widening their network of relations with different local tribes. The result of this process was a polygamist society in which the multiple offspring of the settlers ended up being much closer to their native mothers’ way of life than to their European fathers’ way of life.

Speaking in the indigenous Tupi language and living under primitive conditions, the descendants of the first Portuguese settlers became a troop of rough adventurers, much closer to plunder than to production. Armed with rudimentary military tools, this amalgam of Europeans and natives transformed itself into a human-hunting society. Their aim, indeed, was to capture and enslave the natives with the purpose of selling them. This happened, basically, in the current state of São Paulo.

After depleting the coasts of their human prey, the Portuguese and their offspring began making inland raids that were to become more and more ambitious and predatory. Preceded by banners, they gathered into huge groups that, for extended periods of time, raided the inland territories. The enslaved indigenous peoples, for whom good prices were fetched, became their main commodity of trade. 

The main buyers of this human merchandise were the planters of north-eastern Brazil. Indeed, another pole of Portuguese settlement took shape farther north along Brazil’s coast, where sugar plantations began to emerge. It was undoubtedly a more civilized society, where production and not plundering was the goal. 

When France its right to take possession of any nonoccupied part of Brazil, the Portuguese Crown was forced to react. In 1549, Portugal appointed its first Governor General in Brazil, with a base in Salvador de Bahia. With sugar exports later followed by precious metals generating increasing revenues, and Crown authorities exerting a larger role, Portuguese America became a much more structured society. 

Eventually, it would end up catching Hispanic America in this regard. Moreover, at the end of the colonial period, Brazil surpassed its Spanish American cousins in terms of institutional strength and territorial cohesion. The introduced in Brazil at the end of the 18th century, and the fact that the Portuguese Crown was forced to move there for more than a decade as a result of the of Portugal, were responsible for it. Hence, while at the beginning of the colonial period, Spaniards greatly surpassed the Portuguese in providing structure to their American territories, by the end of that period, the Portuguese outshone them.

Utter lack of curiosity

What both Spanish and Portuguese had in common, though, was their utter lack of curiosity in relation to the indigenous populations that they found in America. The Portuguese were undoubtedly much harsher towards them than the Spaniards, whose protected indigenous people. However, the Spaniards’ behavior was more blameworthy. This is simply because they met with advanced civilizations far from Brazil, which was inhabited by primitive tribes. Civilizations, whose scientific advances (particularly in mathematics, astronomy and engineering) and many of their organizational and cultural traits merited to be preserved. However, all the knowledge that they represented was completely and systematically discarded and erased by the Spaniards.

Not surprisingly, nowadays, resentment against Spain is substantially bigger in Hispanic American countries than it is in Brazil towards Portugal. Brazilians, indeed, don’t have a quarrel with their colonial past, whereas much of Hispanic America does. This explains why, in the last few decades, the statues of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus have been taken down from their pedestals in many cities of Hispanic America. For several Latin American countries, this still remains an unresolved contention.

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Everything you learned in high school civics class about how the US government operates is wrong. Maybe Schoolhouse Rock!, Scholastic Books and your teacher meant well. Maybe they were already commandeered and didn’t even know it. Or maybe they were maliciously trying to get you to buy into a smokescreen. Whatever the case, they were wrong.

Our government has three branches: executive, legislative and judicial. Technically speaking, the legislative branch is supposed to be supreme. Congress writes all the laws, and the other branches just apply them. The legislature is where the power is supposed to be. But is it? No.

Our government’s power really resides in the hands of the career bureaucrats who administer the application of the law throughout the various agencies of the executive branch. Many otherwise intelligent, powerful people not to know that this bureaucracy is part of the executive branch. They seem to believe it is its own branch.

The simple explanation is that power actually resides here because it matters much more who decides how the law is applied than how it is written. Police let speeders off with warnings despite them breaking traffic laws. District attorneys choose whether or not to prosecute depending on political goals instead of what the law explicitly says. It matters who decides how the law is applied and executed.

Unpunishable federal lethargy

Seven years ago, it was our priestly caste’s dogma that the deep state . Four years ago, they it to exist but said it was inconsequential. Last month, they it as the greatest thing. This is called “celebration parallax.” It is where a phenomenon is first denied, then acknowledged but asserted to be unimportant, then celebrated as an ever-present, beneficial force.

The administrative state reveals itself in how the vast majority of the leaders running our supposedly democratic republic are completely unelected. They are accountable to no one but themselves and have interests diametrically contrary to its people. The departments, agencies and sub-agencies of the executive branch employ roughly 4 million people. Almost none of their jobs are dependent on who won the last election.��

Proponents of the administrative state believe this is ideal. The administration trudges along, processing people’s paperwork all day, every day. However, many federal employees have a “” in their jobs — their very employment is considered to be like property. Property cannot be taken by the government without due process. Since these workers are often unionized, and unions seek to keep their members employed, it is notoriously difficult for even the most despicable federal employee to be fired.

This all contributes to a do-nothing inertia, whereby the worker has every incentive to drag their feet on a task, and faces minimal chance of consequences for incompetence. The bureaucrats’ financial and political interests are different from ours — theirs rely on our continuing to be productive, while they have no incentive to be productive themselves. That’s the mindset of a farmer and his cows.

It’s abhorrent that millions hold these cushy government sinecures. As a competent, accomplished professional with a select set of skills, I’m revolted that my tax dollars pay an entire class of parasites to check a box on a form and then move it to a drawer. It’s maddening that we have to wait for them to sluggishly finish this process before we can achieve our own goals. I personally say the current administrative state — consisting of both the federal bureaucracy and the 50 parallel state ones — is uniquely oppressive compared to every government that has come before it. The Department of Motor Vehicles exercises more control over citizens, and in the most mind-numbing ways, than Nero ever could’ve over the Roman Empire.

How the total state conquered us

Only part of my problem with the administrative state is bloat and graft. This is more of a symptom than a root cause. The administrative state is terrible because it is a . The total state cannot tolerate competition — it must “red light, green light” everything within its jurisdiction. It does not grant that any other power has jurisdiction. The 438 executive agencies, departments and sub-departments administrate ever more of our lives. The number of life events that don’t involve the government’s permission or acknowledgment is rapidly shrinking. Family, business, religion, medicine, building, landscaping, hunting, et cetera have been ensnared in red tape. Tragedy of the commons or not, the total state cannot allow any of these parts of human living to go on as usual without administering them in some way.

How did this happen? It started with mere laziness on the part of Congress and the perennial truth that the government ever expands. The constitution tasks the executive branch with enforcing and executing the laws Congress makes. But the document provides precious little guidance about how it’s supposed to do that. The judicial branch helps some, but the “case or controversy” severely limits the federal judiciary’s proactivity. The judiciary can tell someone when they have done wrong but cannot warn them when they are about to do wrong. The constitution Congress from delegating its “essential legislative functions” to anyone else, and as much as it’d like to, it can’t put a hall monitor in everyone’s homes.

This left the executive branch with skeletons of tasks, no knowledge of how it’s supposed to execute them and no way to know it’s succeeded until after the fact. So the executive branch needed to enforce the law without being able to know how to do that, but could not take the authority to make public changes where Congress didn’t foresee how to do things. Their ad-hoc solution: rule-making!

Any time the government realized it needed to perpetuate itself into some new area of banal tyranny, it asked Congress to create a new department or agency. That agency then decided “rules” and interpreted and enforced them with its own agents and administrative law judges. This way, it could announce it was complying with the law.

What is the difference between a law and a rule here? Don’t ask questions.

No court battle can fix the problem

The other parts of the government are inordinately deferential to the administrative agencies thanks to the verdict of Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, 467 U.S. 837. This established the doctrine of “.” In brief, this 1984 Supreme Court ruling deterred the judiciary from prying into an executive agency’s actions unless absolutely necessary. I’m hopeful but unconvinced that the pending of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will upend Chevron Deference. Even if it does, it would make little difference; the inertia would remain.

No court case will undo the hackneyed despotism the agencies get up to every day. It could not without those agencies agreeing to kneecap themselves, which will never happen. The judiciary has no men at arms and no ability to enforce its judgments, even when it tells the executive it has gone too far. In the immortal of Andrew Jackson, “[Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Let’s presume that Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch successfully overturns Chevron Deference. An order is eventually issued saying all the sinecures are unconstitutional and hereby disestablished. No one from the Supreme Court will make the clerks and sub-vice-deputy-acting-director of whatever leave their cubicles, as there is no one to enforce it. Unlike previous Chief Justices, Chief Justice John Roberts is as a brave man who tangles with the other government branches. No, he prefers to guard the Court’s “legitimacy” by angering everyone equally rather than executing a particular vision of jurisprudence. These people won’t clean this mess.

The administrative state’s ludicrous bureaucracy sees the average person three unwitting felonies a day. If we are to be freed from this legal nightmare, more direct and assertive action needs to occur. We can look to Argentinian President Javier Milei for inspiration. When he took power in December 2023, he pink slips to half of Argentina’s government, collapsed agencies and departments and damned the consequences. This didn’t solve the country’s problems overnight, but sometimes ripping off the proverbial bandage is a critical step.��

The United States’s wound is much larger than Argentina’s. Implementing a radical reform on par with Milei’s would be painful. But it should be done, because the situation will only worsen with time. Government is neither solid nor liquid, but a gas — it expands to fill the available space. The administrative state will expand and administrate more and more available space, creating more absurd agencies and dystopian policies. How would you feel if someday a hypothetical Department of Respiration texted you, claiming you’ve exceeded your allotted breaths for the day and your taxes will reflect the increased carbon credits you’re using?

This farce needs to end. Any pain we suffer now is worthwhile if it helps us avoid that dystopian future. Who will pick up the crown laying in the gutter and gut the administrative state?

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“In terms of a grade, I would give it an A-plus for what it’s trying to do, but obviously an incomplete because they’re just starting. So, the devil will be in the execution details,” Fisher said during an with Wharton Business Daily on SiriusXM.

The new White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience was last month as part of nearly 30 new actions to strengthen supply chains described as critical to economic and national security. The actions include using the Defense Production Act to increase domestic manufacturing of essential medicines, along with a number of administrative measures to share data and develop a better strategy to deal with the types of disruptions that left store shelves bare during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has subsided, yet the shortages persist, raising concerns about offshoring and higher prices amid dwindling supplies. From 2021 to 2022, retail food prices rose by , the largest increase in 40 years, according to government data.

Fisher, a professor in the department of operations, information and decisions, said Biden’s plan is a bit of a “novel approach” to attacking inflation. Typically, the Federal Reserve takes the lead on combating inflation by raising interest rates to temper demand. The Fed has raised the benchmark rate since 2022.

“What is inflation? It’s an imbalance between supply and demand,” he said. “So far, we’ve focused on reducing demand. But this gives us a second approach: Let’s make sure also that we improve supply by avoiding disruptions to supply chains.”

What production is essential?

Offshoring has always been around, but it became widespread across industries in the late 1970s when China began investing in low-cost manufacturing, Fisher said.

“Instead of getting something from 100 miles away, you’re getting it from halfway around the world. And that’s when you realize that it’s low-cost, but it’s also very vulnerable,” he said. Factories can shutter for a host of reasons — natural and man-made disasters, war, political instability, the list goes on.

Bringing more production back to the US would help with shortages, but Fisher said the new council will have a tough time figuring out what products are so essential that they should be made on American soil. He described himself as a “skeptic” on domestic manufacturing and pointed out the many advantages of participating in the global economy. Trading with other nations creates allies and builds influence. In that context, Fisher said, the US has more to gain from being friends with China than enemies. The same goes for many Central and South American nations from which immigrants come seeking greater economic opportunity.

“There’s a saying that when trade crosses country boundaries, armies don’t,” he said. “A critique I have of generally bringing manufacturing home to the US is there are also advantages to sourcing from other countries and having strong relationships with as many countries as we can.”

Fisher is also critical of what’s missing in Biden’s plan: specific mention of the less developed nations that make much of the world’s goods, such as Bangladesh. Instead, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and several other developed economies are named.

“When I look at the list of countries involved in this initiative, I would add to that list less developed nations, which are important to developed nations as a source of low-cost supply,” he said.

Supply resilience is in vogue

Fisher has spent more than 35 years studying supply chains, examining industries as diverse as transportation and fashion. Before joining Wharton in 1975, Fisher was a systems engineer in the Boston Manufacturing and Distribution Sales office of IBM and on the faculty of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He doesn’t recall a time during his experience when supply chains were part of daily conversations among Americans as they are now. Recent product shortages of antibiotics, baby formula, computer chips that power most electronics, and other everyday items have people talking.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he said with a chuckle. “All my career, I’ve pretty much labored in obscurity, studying supply chains. Suddenly, it became front-page news, but not exactly good news.”

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The song has a curious history. María Grever, a Mexican composer, originally composed it. She gave it the Spanish title “Cuando vuelva a tu lado” (When I Return to Your Side). It got its current title when it was adapted to English. For two decades, “What a Difference a Day Makes” lived on the sidelines as a somewhat recognizable tune. In 1944, the title achieved some limited popularity thanks to Mexican-American singer Andy Russell’s bilingual version, which made it to number 15 in the charts.

In the dawning age of the transistor radio, Dinah Washington’s 1959 R&B version became a top ten hit. That sealed its reputation as a song every serious singer and jazz musician had to learn to perform. From then on, popular singers from Frank Sinatra to Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Natalie Cole, Rod Stewart, Cher and many, many others made it part of their repertoire.

Why bring up this bit of curious US folklore 90 years later?

There are moments when history stalls and others where it accelerates. We now have the leisure to put 2023 in the rearview mirror. Future historians will almost certainly see it as a year of historical acceleration. A bit like 1959, a time when everything seemed to be on a fairly even, predictable keel for those who were living through it.

Political history follows similar patterns to cultural history. They both change over time, in ways that those living through the transitional moments fail to perceive. The practices as well as the tastes of the past often disappear and may even appear to the following generations as incomprehensible. The vagaries of popular music, especially in our consumer society, offer serious matter for reflection.

The commercial music scene has changed radically over the past six decades, as it already had between 1934 and 1959. For many commentators on US culture, the latter date represents the crucial moment when a shift took place from postwar puritanism and buttoned-down conformity to the liberation of the sixties, with the hippies, the Civil Rights movement, the sexual revolution and the golden age of a rock’n’roll, a US invention transformed and brought up to date by British artists.

The 1998 movie Pleasantville appears to take place in 1959, judging from its use of Miles Davis’s “So What” as background music for one scene. All jazz musicians acknowledge that Davis’s album “Kind of Blue” literally changed the nature of jazz. The movie’s director and producers in 1998 were obviously aware of that. 

Pleasantville follows two youths who are magically transported from the 90s to the title town in the 50s. They disturb the innocent residents with their relatively uninhibited manners. The 1950s scenes in the movie were filmed in black and white. When manners and morals began changing midway through the movie, the filming changes to technicolor. For the producers, that symbolized how Americans visualize that transitional moment in their culture. Things would never be the same after that. 

A tale of two decades (the fifties and sixties)

The cable TV series Mad Men (2007), focused on Madison Avenue’s advertising industry in the sixties, ran for eight years. Picking up where Pleasantville left off, the first episode begins in 1960, the start of a new and radically different decade that would transform the 1950s’ consumerist culture into something wildly different.

Mad Men builds its drama around the careers of high-achieving advertising executives. The plot is regularly punctuated by historical and cultural events. These include two Kennedy assassinations, war in Vietnam, a moon landing, drugs, the deaths of MLK and Marilyn Monroe, and all the other excitement of the times kicked off in the decade that followed that seminal year of 1959. Both works look back at the rapid metamorphosis that American culture underwent in those decades.

All this is to say that some years do make a difference. 1959 was one of those years. So, I maintain, is 2023. Something, or indeed many things possibly equally significant happened in this past year. When producers of Hollywood and TV dramas three or four decades from now look back at 2023, they may have a similar impression. There will nevertheless be a significant  difference. This time around it isn’t just US culture that is transitioning. It’s global culture 

What will 2023 be remembered for? Here are seven of the most obvious things. Future historians will certainly find others.

— The continuation of a violent and, in the likely view of future
historians, senseless and avoidable war in Eastern Europe, which
has already changed the shape of international relations.

— The start of another absurd and even more tragic war in Gaza that
is likely to have even greater historical consequences.

— The invasion of a group, not so much of as mind
snatchers, led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, with a
slew of others on their way.

— The visible beginnings of the dedollarization movement
accelerated by the expansion of BRICS (an intergovernmental
organization named for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South
Africa).

— The of the notion of “the Global South” in our
everyday vocabulary.

— The predictable growing momentum of another more-
traumatizing-than-ever US presidential campaign leading up to
the November 2024 election,

— Gathering evidence that this really is Cold War 2.0. This time,
though, there are two hot wars that have the potential to spark
World War III and a nuclear war, whose specter haunted my
generation’s youth during the original Cold War.

As the year 2024 approaches — seated atop “time’s winged chariot hurrying” ever nearer, in the of Andrew Marvell — the real question concerns how the tense plot of all these abruptly begun, ambiguously evolving and clearly unfinished events will wend towards some kind of acceptable denouement or a more traumatizing development.

Ranking years past

As we look back at recent history, 2016 stands as a landmark year that saw Brexit and Donald Trump’s rise to the US presidency. Trump had the effect of putting history itself in a state of suspended animation before the unanticipated invasion of COVID-19. 2020 stood out as the year of the pandemic, marking the confusion of a clueless, globalized world that suddenly woke up to the reality that it had no idea how it had found itself in this predicament and even less about how to respond appropriately.

As Joe Biden assumed the throne of the 75-year-old “rules-based international order,” 2021 turned out to be a year of building suspense, as a new shift to normalized behavior was announced. The major event of that year was the US withdrawal from a 20-year engagement in Afghanistan, which momentarily seemed to reduce the tension. But the building pressure — some of it deviously planned — exploded in February 2022 with the war in Ukraine.

A new year has now begun. Between wars and crucial elections at various points of the globe, 2024 is likely to be loaded with drama that dwarfs that of the previous years. Anything can happen. None of it looks as if it will be easy to manage.

Anyone in the media should know by now that high drama is good for business. Catastrophic drama is great for business. The hyperreal shenanigans associated with Donald Trump’s election and presidency, including his chaotic exit from the White House, enabled the media to live off five full years of a manufactured, worthy-of-Hollywood scenario called Russiagate. That was mostly comedy, but in February 2022 it morphed into global tragedy as the already deeply detested Russia invaded Ukraine. 

In 2024, there will be new drama. At 51�Թ�, we are intent on covering it from multiple perspectives to avoid being captured by only one narrative. We will need your help more than ever. We need the insights and direct testimony of our authors, which potentially includes all of you. But, most importantly of all, we need you to keep thinking. In the dawning age of AI, human thinking will be our most precious asset.

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Paul Krugman last year how “Zombie Reaganomics” continues to infect the brains of Republican politicians in the United States. I’d like here to promote two additional policy notions to similar “zombie” status. First, the idea that widespread sanctions can drive regime change under autocratic governments. And second, that expanding Internet access can achieve the same.

Of course, these two levers of political control appear quite different on the surface. The Internet is a positive force in the world allowing for increased communication and information — something I do believe, despite my pessimistic views to follow. Meanwhile, sanctions, as even one conservative-libertarian think tank , are increasingly seen as both “ineffective and immoral” means of punishing governments deemed unsavory.

But some policymakers and pundits today, especially in the United States, seem to think both increasing Internet availability and sanctions can still do good for the citizens of their target countries. See for instance, US Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. They recently co-sponsored Senate and urging the US to fund expanded Internet access on the island of Cuba. Scott and Rubio this advocacy as coming from a place of care for the wellbeing of the Cuban people. In December 2020, Rubio issued a statement the US work harder “to protect the fundamental rights of Cubans.”

Yet only six months later, the same senator the Biden administration to increase sanctions against the Cuban government — in effect, against the very same people whose “fundamental rights” he says he wants to protect. 

How is it possible for one person to both wish to expand Cuban sanctions and Cuban Internet access? Presumably, Rubio hopes these things will magically lead to more freedom for Cubans, despite mounting evidence neither can do so. I believe there’s a Cranberries for that.

These zombie ideas have proven false nearly everywhere in the world, but there’s a great deal of evidence this is especially true for Cuba. So let’s separately examine the impacts of the Internet and sanctions on autocratic governments, and then see how the two have played out together in Cuba over the past several years to disastrous effect.

Comparison shopping

An idea has persisted throughout the politics, media and tech space for decades that the Internet inevitably leads to democracy in places with autocratic regimes. As Thomas Friedman wrote in his 1999 book The Lexus and the Olive Tree:

On the Internet people are … uploading and downloading ideologies. In a few years, every citizen of the world will be able to comparison shop between his country and his own government and the one next door.

Since Friedman wrote these words, the Internet has expanded and changed in too many ways to count. The hope that social media and the Internet might lead to enduring political change has changed with it, as can be seen most prevalently in the hopeful run-up to, and then subsequent disappointment, of the variously named , , and “revolutions.” Entire books examining how the Internet has helped fuel protest movements and then, more often than not, helped repressive regimes crush them — and then allowed these same regimes to strengthen grips on power, tightening government palms over civilian mouths.

In fact, as James Griffiths in his book The Great Firewall of China: How to Build and Control an Alternative Version of the Internet, US rhetoric about Internet freedoms has even helped strengthen autocratic governments by validating claims of US imperialism. Griffiths points to a situation in which the government of China pointed at US efforts in Iran’s “Twitter Revolution” to justify its own Internet controls. He cites Yu Wanli, an expert on US–China relations, who explained to US diplomats that pro-Internet rhetoric, like that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “empowered the censors, ‘who could now plausibly argue that the United States was explicitly using the Internet as a tool for regime change.’”

We can see another example of Internet evangelistic backfire in the deployment of , a Twitter-like app secretly created and deployed in Cuba by the United States Agency for International Development. After the app made headlines, , “Was ZunZuneo to Promote Free Speech or Destabilize Cuba?” To some extent, the answer doesn’t matter — either way, the incident created a credible intervention the Cuban government could point to in making claims of US imperialism. As Jon Lee Anderson , “Episodes like ZunZuneo will only make the Cuban security state more paranoid and more fearful of opening up, and the losers will be the Cuban people.”

As for sanctions, a mounting body of evidence shows they tend to succeed in anything but preserving the “fundamental rights” of citizens. As the Center for Economic and Policy Research documented extensively in a recent , 30 separate studies have found sanctions negatively affect “per capita income to poverty, inequality, mortality, and human rights.” 

A 2018 UN estimate found the US embargo of Cuba in particular the Cuban economy a phenomenal $130 billion over the course of nearly sixty years, a figure which has surely risen since. William LeoGrande, professor and former dean of the American University’s School of Public Affairs, that the embargo is “the oldest and most comprehensive US economic sanctions regime against any country in the world,” and that it “has never been effective at achieving its principal purpose: forcing Cuba’s revolutionary regime out of power or bending it to Washington’s will.” My co-host and I the ongoing failure of America’s Cuba sanctions on our podcast with policy expert Rob Morris, who also the devastating cruelty and failure of sanctions around the world earlier in the year.

To be clear, I’m no apologist for the Cuban government. But it is evident that, as we approach the 65th year of the island’s US sanctions without any semblance of the regime change they , we should finally find a way to retire them. 

A case study of Cuba

Now with the Internet, we can see the reality of the world… before it was just Cuba, but now we see on the Internet, England, France. We think ‘what the f—?!’ People are unhappy.

I heard this in Havana in May 2023 from Elizabeth, a waitress in her twenties. And I heard similar attitudes from others I met too — sentiments much different from my first visit to Cuba, seven years earlier. When I told a young man, José, that it was my second visit to the island, he replied with a resigned tone. “Oh, so you know. Things were much better then.”

What could have led to such a visible change in Cuban attitudes toward life on the island — a change large enough to allow Cubans to share their negative opinions of the country with me, a visiting stranger, despite their government’s of dissent?

A few salient events are worth noting:

— In 2017, Donald Trump entered the US White House and
much of the economic normalization pursued
by Obama. Joe Biden entered the US presidency in 2021 and
has maintained most (though ) of Trump’s Cuba policies.��

— In 2019, Cuba’s state-run telecommunications company, ETECSA,
finally began the purchase of 4G data. This marked a
crucial opening in Internet access for the average Cuban, which
had primarily been confined to high-cost, low-speed
wifi hotspots in public parks.

— In 2020, the Covid pandemic on Cuba’s tourism
industry and economy. This was by a sharp
currency devaluation, soaring food prices and one of the highest
inflation rates in Latin America.

— On July 11, 2021, Cubans staged the largest on
the island in decades — protests which locals say were fueled by
social media, an idea corroborated by . In
response, the Cuban government arrested protesters,
killed at least one and “disappeared” and detained hundreds for
. Internet access on the island was also for
days after the July 11 protests.

So, we can observe all the elements here of the zombie ideas that some say should lead to protest and regime change under a government traditionally averse to it — strict sanctions, a rapid deterioration of living conditions, and rapid expansion of the Internet and information access. 

All the underlying conditions are there. But where’s the change?

It’s not as though Cubans are naïve. I was told by a man working as a Havana tour guide, “Cuba is not like China, where they have the technology to control the Internet. If the Internet cuts out when you’re talking with a friend, the first thing you wonder is, ‘Where is the protest now?'” 

But they also see what the government is doing, arresting and otherwise “disappearing” dissenters. And so many I met, rather than endanger their lives and livelihoods by continuing to try to change the government, are opting instead to do what many other rational people would in their same situations: .

“I don’t want the same life as my parents,” Elizabeth told me. She said she’d like to go to Mexico first, and then “maybe somewhere else.”

José, who recognized how much worse things had become in the country since 2016, told me he has a grandfather in Spain and would like to get a “red [European] passport” within the year. Then he’d be gone too.

So we can see in Cuba a seemingly tight and tragic causal circle: 

1. Sanctions immiserate a civilian population.

2. Internet access helps the population recognize and share their sense
of immiseration, and perhaps even bind together to protest
conditions.

3. The civilian government shows an unwillingness to tolerate this
shared sense of immiseration and protest and works to quash
dissent.

4. Members of the population who are able, rather than risk life and
livelihood trying to change a government unwilling to change,
give up and decide to leave.

There’s a fifth, and especially tragic, link in this chain. At least in the situation of Cuba, record numbers of refugees have to the US in recent years — surely at least in part because of the sanctions that have helped make life untenable there and the Internet that has raised awareness of this general untenability. We can see the same Rubio who has pushed for sanctions and increased Internet in Cuba to “protect the fundamental rights of Cubans” also for their exile and to block access to Cuban refugee benefits, ultimately pushing the US government to large numbers of the Cuban refugee population back to Cuba — back to the government and country they were trying so hard to leave.

A failed tactic

Does Internet access ever lead to regime change? Sadly, the answer seems to be no. Or at least not yet, and not in the long term.

We can see this in Cuba, as I’ve outlined above. The Internet can perhaps even help protests bond together, but the idea that protest movements will change governments hinges on an assumption of democratic responsiveness. And the places where policymakers and pundits focus their hopes on Internet-driven revolution are almost always countries lacking just this — indeed, a dearth of democratic responsiveness is the very reason for much of the focus on Internet and sanctions in those places to begin with.

This is perhaps no better summed up than by Elizabeth, the waitress I met in Havana this spring. Because of the Internet, she says, “the government has less power over the people.” But when I asked if she thought the government would change as a result, she rolled her eyes, and stifled a laugh. “Change anything? No!”

I, in fact, largely agree with Friedman’s claim over 20 years ago that the Internet will allow “every citizen of the world …  to comparison shop between his country and his own government and the one next door.” But it’s evident from all that’s occurred since that this “comparison shopping” won’t usually lead to new and better governments for those citizens, it only means they’ll either grumble through it or leave that “store”, their country, for another, better one. And then hope that country doesn’t deport them.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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This is no small point. It is the rule of law and the attendant consent of the governed to be bound by it that provides the foundation for effective governance. At last check, humans have not come up with a better organizational plan. Good government requires functioning institutions and infrastructure, with some measure of public acceptance of outcomes determined within a predetermined, procedural framework. That framework is the foundation for the rule of law in any well-governed society.

Trump fanatics undermine America’s institutions

As always, America is confronted with serious challenges at home and abroad. Yet breathless, breaking news routinely unfolds in a definitional vacuum. Information is provided before an acceptable vocabulary has been developed. As an ongoing example, most Republican Party voters and a pandering party leadership as if former President Donald Trump was the legitimate victor in a presidential election decided three years ago. An audience of sycophants at the initial Republican Party presidential debate booed the notion of public accountability for wrongdoing. Meanwhile, the candidates on stage declared fealty to the lucky guy with 91 felony charges to his name.

A significant portion of the population seems to think that he is currently the legitimate President of the United States under siege from a venal pretender. So any effort to promote understanding of ongoing developments in Trump’s political, social, legal and financial saga is doomed to failure. The unfolding political and social morass must be addressed without any expectation that our self-touted governmental institutions are prepared to define and enforce an upstanding rule of law grounded in a moral and ethical consensus. There simply is no consensus. This void critically undermines institutional integrity and societal cohesion.

The government’s broken branches

Another current millstone around America’s collective neck is the US Supreme Court. It is a historically flawed but previously respected institution, now reduced to a predictable cesspool of white Christian nationalist orthodoxy. Then, just to make sure that the underprivileged and marginalized fully get the message, there is a palpable overlay of that orthodoxy with old school privilege-begets-privilege rationale. To say the least, the Supreme Court majority of recent years seems purposefully designed to provide legal cover for the worst that America can be.

This is morally dispiriting and makes a mockery of a rule of law that requires aspirational public acceptance to survive. Added to the Court’s decay is an unsuitable ethos, one which greatly resembles an ethos that abounds in the private sector but should never hold sway in the public sphere. Privilege has thrived as a cancer within. Instead of running like the highest court in the land empowered as one of three separate governmental branches, the Supreme Court today operates more like a runaway corporate board of directors. So there will not be much help there.

Yet the Supreme Court is but one failing branch of government. Congressional dysfunction and the poisonous role of corporate, religious and cultural influence peddling in the halls of Congress has only to the degrading impact of the Court’s recent rulings and its ethical void. You end up with two branches of the government now hopelessly compromised and openly operating outside the confines of a rule of law that should be at the core of their mission. This further erodes the realization of a national moral and ethical consensus.

Amendments are corrupted

The current disconnect between justice fortified by a rule of law and the moral and ethical consensus necessary to give it vitality has profoundly contributed to wildly divergent “moral and ethical” perspectives. This is well illustrated in the national response to the gun carnage that is all around us every day. It makes a mockery of common sense that in 1791, America’s Founding Fathers would have enshrined in the Constitution an amendment that foreshadowed modern issues. They did not envision the armaments of today, the avarice of the arms merchants and the utterly insane thought that the nation’s security would best be protected by an obscene stockpile of firearms in civilian hands.

But here we are, stuck with an institutional void incapable of defining and driving a national moral and ethical consensus to end the carnage. Never mind the constitutionally-enshrined right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that is being . There is no Supreme Court, judicial system or Congress to pull us out of it. And even if there were an executive branch with a moral and ethical compass — and there may be — the institutional dysfunction of the judicial and legislative branches is routinely undermining the executive capacity of the nation. Add to this the systemic absence of transparent and fair accountability for almost anything, and it should be no surprise that societal discord will fill the void.

Using gun carnage fueled by some morally-bankrupt interpretation of ancient text as an illustration requires little imagination. It poses well the consequences of the nation’s institutional failure to respond. Now fast-forward for a moment. A nation paralyzed by the Second Amendment is about to be further paralyzed by the First Amendment and its “free speech” guarantees.

Again, the fundamental rule of law will be the loser. Already the cherished but ill-defined right to free speech is being bastardized by those seeking to ban for others what they wish to exploit for themselves. Legally, you cannot shout “fire” in a crowded theater and then cover yourself with First Amendment free speech guarantees to avoid responsibility for the resulting damage. However, in today’s America, the retrograde right is fostering the notion that you can publicly shout venal lies to move a crowd to violence while under cover of that ever-popular First Amendment protection.

One bastardized amendment is already killing tens of thousands of our citizens a year, so just imagine the harm that the bastardization of another key amendment could do. And then line up the Fourteenth Amendment and its panoply of due process guarantees, and it is easy to envision an America in which fundamental legal principles are turned on their heads to ensure a dark national future. We never seem to learn.

I would like to end this with some charming homily of hope, but I will leave that to the flag-bearers. The rest of us must accept the challenge of defining for the future a moral and ethical foundation for the present. Without this foundation, there can be no rule of law. Without the rule of law, there can be no nation worth defending.

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Like members of Congress, federal judges are divided. to the National Constitution Center, the Supreme Court’s nine justices are presently six Republicans and three Democrats. Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of such partisanship. A 2022 Pew Research found that 84% of American adults overwhelmingly hold that the Supreme Court justices “should not bring their own political views into how they decide cases.”

What You Need to Know About the US Congress

Furthermore, the judiciary is filled with incompetent individuals who favor the rich as the poor and minorities remain their victims. It was not surprising when the infamous 2010 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission enabled corporate entities, wealthy institutions and individuals to donate unlimited money to elections. Consequently, politicians, especially presidents, have become the puppets of the rich in their struggle to finance their campaigns. Not only this, but some of them have become puppets of foreign states. The contributions of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to political campaigns in support of Israel and stopping those who think America first are well known.

AIPAC has also opposed any attempt by the US to negotiate with Iran, and continuously pushes for sanctions and hostilities against that nation. In reaction, Iran has finally put de-dollarization in motion globally. Thanks to AIPAC. So begins the fall of US hegemony worldwide.

How Good Is the US Policy on Iran, Really?

Americans are looking at a stark future. The Supreme Court’s decisions are often tyrannical and devoid of moral values. Its extreme-right majority is now poised to many “long-standing rights and laws.”

What do you really know about the US Supreme Court?

As for the US , Article III, Section 1 establishes that the US judicial power is vested in “one supreme Court” and that judges hold their office on “good Behaviour.” Going back to the precedent set by George Washington in nominating John Jay as the first Chief Justice, “good Behaviour” has meant that Justices must be patriots and high caliber jurists, known for integrity and impartiality.

While there is no mention of “checks and balances” in the Constitution, the principle is implicit in many of its provisions. Federal judges are appointed by the President, but the Senate must approve them. The Supreme Court may declare presidential actions or Congressional legislation illegal, but Congress can override them by changing the law or even proposing to amend the Constitution. The House of Representatives, furthermore, impeach executive officers and federal judges, including the President and Supreme Court justices.

In 1803 Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court its authority to void actions of the executive and legislative branches found “repugnant to the constitution.” Over time, the Supreme Court has miserably evaded its responsibility to do so and keep those branches in check. The Congress has frequently delegated more and more of its constitutional power to the President, and the Supreme Court has not objected but colluded with the Congress, enabling “.” In doing so, the Supreme Court and the Congress have undermined the constitutional ideal of a balance of power. 

The framers of the US Constitution created it in order to “establish Justice.” The clearly states that no State can “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” However, the US has never lived up to its commitment. The bigotry peaked in the 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford when the Supreme Court excluded “” from US citizenship.

As for the “equal justice under law,” the recent arrest and arraignment of the former President Donald Trump shows how that has been turned upside down. others, Trump was treated with respect, including escort through a private corridor and not being handcuffed or subjected to a mugshot. 

Like Congress, the Supreme Court has also given in to the expansion of presidential power. The President issues executive orders at will, “instant laws” passed without Congressional approval. The Supreme Court could overturn them but has chosen to do nothing. In other words, the court has practically become a politically rubber-stamp for the other two branches. 

Is the US Presidency Actually a Powerful Dictatorship?

The reason is clear. Presidential nominations, especially those for the Supreme Court, have become increasingly political. Presidents have been appointing party loyalists to such positions. In 1991, George H.W. Bush nominated the infamous to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed his nomination, despite attorney Anita Hill’s extensive testimony of Thomas’s sexual misconduct. Now, Thomas is in hot water for the court’s own judicial ethics. Trump sparked outrage when he nominated , who was accused of attempted rape, but Brett was also confirmed.

The Supreme Court has become incorrigibly corrupt. The justices have used their judicial positions to enhance their private interests. While on the Supreme Court, Justice Louis Brandeis and advised President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Zionism-related issues. Meanwhile, for decades up to the present-day, Justice has been taking vacations paid for by a billionaire.

A culture of injustice

The Supreme Court’s corruption and incompetence have taken their toll. The US suffers from endemic male chauvinism, racism, nepotism, and deceit. It continues to have the world’s highest criminal incarceration rate, including a disproportionate number of Black and Native Americans, whom police likewise disproportionately abuse and murder. The US has the world’s most , about 5 times that of Russia, which comes second to the US. The shooters are white, nicely treated by police, and seldom die unless they commit suicide. Black, Latino and Asian shooters rarely live to see the next day. Harassment and abuse of Hispanics, migrant workers and asylum seekers by authorities have become common affairs. Women, as well, are still treated unequally.

Although females constitute the majority in the US, they continue to be discriminated against. Female prisoners in the US are sexually harassed with impunity. Violence against women and girls remains widespread and alarming. Gun violence remains high across the country, and their biggest victims are women. Assaults on Native American women and girls continue to be substantially more frequent compared to assaults on other US women. As for wages, the “” persists, with women making 17% less than men doing the same jobs.

Judicial incompetence has put the US on the path of revolution. It has frustrated and polarized Americans, with many of them living in anger. Over 32% of the wealth is possessed by the. Over 11% of Americans live below the poverty level and “live paycheck-to-paycheck.” It was in this environment that Trump could manipulate the oppressed into the January 6 insurrection. 

The Truth About US Democracy

Nevertheless, the Supreme Court is not representative of democracy. Its judges are not elected by the people but nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate, neither of which is representative of democracy, considering the US population.

The court’s degenerated status was summed up by a former judge. On March 11, 2020 in a letter to the US Chief Justice John Roberts, former Hawaii State Judge James Dannenberg resigned from the Supreme Court Bar. Addressing Roberts, he wrote, “You are allowing the Court to become an ‘errand boy’ for an administration that has little respect for the rule of law.” He noted that the Supreme Court was moving towards limiting freedom in favor of “wealthy, Republican, White, straight, Christian, and armed males—and the corporations they control.” He ended his letter by saying, “I no longer have respect for you or your majority, and I have little hope for change. I can’t vote you out of office because you have life tenure, but I can withdraw whatever insignificant support my Bar membership might seem to provide.”

What You Need to Know About the US Presidency

Time for the US to Reform

The Supreme Court is riddled with corruption and incompetence. This is not sustainable in the long run, as we saw in the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol building. At the very least, two steps must be taken:

1. The justices must take an oath of allegiance to carry out impartial justice, not to serve Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, white or non-white sectors.
2. The court must develop an “ethics code” to provide the judges with sensible standards for conducting themselves.

If the US doesn’t get its own house in order soon, another insurrection is inevitable.

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The debt ceiling in the United States originated from the need to control government spending and ensure fiscal responsibility. Initially, Congress had to authorize each new batch of debt issued, a cumbersome process that was modified with the passage of the Second Liberty Bond Act of 1917. This act established an aggregate amount, or , to govern the total debt to be issued. Since World War II, the debt ceiling has been adjusted over 100 times to accommodate the country’s evolving financial needs.

The concept of a debt ceiling, however, itself poses logical inconsistencies. All federal government spending is already authorized by Congress, making it contradictory to prevent the Treasury Department from raising the necessary debt to fund these authorized expenditures. In other words, Congress forbids spending which it has already mandated. Reaching the debt limit forces the government to choose between not fulfilling previously agreed obligations or defaulting on existing debt service. Either of these would be a violation of obligations established by law, and would therefore have severe implications for the US economy.

Implications of reaching the limit

Reaching the debt ceiling carries significant implications for the US economy. It can lead to a government shutdown, disrupt essential services, and even result in default on financial obligations, jeopardizing the nation’s creditworthiness. Credit rating agencies closely monitor debt ceiling debates. If they were to downgrade the federal government’s credit rating, this would increase borrowing costs and undermine investor confidence. Uncertainty surrounding the debt ceiling, even if it is not eventually reached, also introduces volatility into financial markets and can impact global economic stability.

An Outstanding Deep Dive Into the American Economy

Government default entails the non-payment of interest or principal on its obligations. This triggers a credit event that has far-reaching consequences. Individuals and institutions relying on government funds would not receive payments. Credit default (CDSs)—insurance contracts taken out against credit events—would be triggered, potentially causing financial difficulties for institutions which have written CDSs. Rating agencies would downgrade the US credit rating, impacting other borrowers, and Treasury securities would no longer serve as acceptable collateral for institutional borrowing, leading to a collapse of credit availability, choking the economy and leading to a severe contraction.

Rating agencies such as Fitch and Standard & Poor’s have expressed concerns about the United States’ , despite the recent agreement on the debt ceiling. A potential downgrade could have implications not only for the US but also for all other borrowers whose credit rating is usually influenced by the sovereign rating. With the US bond market dominating global markets, the loss of the anchor role of US Treasuries, which form a substantial part of institutional portfolios worldwide, could create disarray in international bond markets.

Partisan shenanigans and a borrowing spree

The debt ceiling has become a contentious political issue in recent decades, with both major parties sharing responsibility for substantial increases in outstanding debt. The threat of a debt default has often been used as a bargaining tool in political negotiations. However, neither party wants to bear the blame for driving the country into a crisis, resulting in a risky game of chicken in which each party attempts to see who will budge first and agree to concessions favorable to the other party’s spending policy. This raises questions about whether the debate really revolves around the debt itself. The recent deal, featuring a suspension of the debt limit, essentially provides the Treasury the freedom to borrow as much money as needed until January 2025—a carte blanche.

The government’s account at the Federal Reserve, the Treasury General Account (TGA), has almost been depleted. It will have to be replenished to 600 billion US dollars (it peaked at US dollars during the pandemic). Those funds will have to be raised by raising additional debt—on top of money needed to fund the current federal fiscal deficit of around 2 trillion dollars. As I mentioned in a previous article, it is not apparent who would buy that amount of Treasury securities. The Federal Reserve might be forced to reverse its plan to slowly shrink its balance sheet, having to absorb additional government debt.

Who Will Buy America’s Debt Now?

After borrowing 726 billion dollars during the second quarter of 2023, the Treasury Department expects to raise another in the following quarter. Total government debt is hence guaranteed to continue rising at a fast pace. Having briefly been arrested at 31.4 trillion dollars (the amount of the debt ceiling), federal debt is expected to exceed by 2033. The exponential growth of government debt is going to continue unabated.

The includes some mild cuts of non-military discretionary spending in 2024, and a limit of all discretionary spending in 2025. Military spending, however, will increase further, to 886 billion US dollars in 2024, and 895 billion in 2025, a 23% increase over the amount spent in 2022.

The bill’s drafters found other devices to cut costs. 20 billion dollars originally awarded to the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) to fight tax evasion will be clawed back. The bill imposes new requirements for adults to maintain access to food stamps. It also ends the freeze on student loan repayments. In short: money taken from the poor is being given to the military and to people crafting “innovative” tax returns.

Hidden under the surface-level negotiations was a fight over permit reform. Local governments had the ability to block interstate pipelines and electricity lines by dragging out the permitting process. Alternative energy companies need new transmission lines to transport energy produced by wind and solar farms towards population centers near the coasts. Fossil fuel companies need pipelines to move abundant natural gas from sparsely populated areas with shale reservoirs towards the big cities or harbors for export. In the end, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, bringing natural gas from the Marcellus shale fields in West Virginia to Virginia, made it into the bill, securing Senator Joe Manchin’s vote.

A proposal to end recurring debt ceiling drama

US lawmakers the insanity of recurring debt ceiling debates, especially since it is a question of funding spending that has already been authorized by Congress once.

One option contemplates a bureaucratic rather than a legislative solution. This would involve the Treasury Department disregarding the debt ceiling and continuing to issue debt. The perspective finds support in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law…shall not be questioned.” However, pursuing such a unilateral move could result in a legal dispute and potentially generate still more uncertainty.

Another suggestion entails the Treasury minting a platinum with a denomination of 1 trillion US dollars, as it is legally permitted to do. This coin would then be deposited with the Federal Reserve in exchange for a credit of 1 trillion dollars. However, Treasury Secretary Yellen has dismissed this idea, noting that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to agree to such a proposal.

It is worth noting that the US government has in fact experienced instances of default in the past. Esteemed Wall Street veteran Jim Grant that a default can occur through a unilateral change in payment terms, resulting in a diminished financial obligation, such as forced currency redenomination. Two events over the past century align with this definition. Firstly, the devaluation of the dollar relative to gold under US President Roosevelt in 1933, when the gold price was raised from $20.67 to $35 per ounce. Secondly, the “temporary” suspension, which has since become permanent, of the dollar’s convertibility into gold by US President Nixon in 1971.

In reality, persistent inflation can be viewed as another form of default, albeit spread out over many years. Over time, the US dollar has lost approximately of its purchasing power since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. While the dollar remains an effective medium of exchange, it has proven to be a poor long-term store of value due to the erosion of its purchasing power through inflation.

If spending is not controlled, the government will find one way or another of making ends meet, and all too often it is the consumer who foots the bill.

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While Kondo’s approach was limited to organizing one’s stuff, the protagonists of Netflix’s The Minimalists: Less Is Now (2021) go into why our societies are becoming increasingly consumerist and why minimalism is their motto. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, childhood friends who grew up poor, had wanted nothing more than to be able to afford things they didn’t have—a good house, luxury cars, designer clothes, savvy electronics, and the like. By their 30s, they had acquired everything but the feeling of satisfaction that they were after. Minimalism became their way of taking back control of their lives. Their motto wasn’t to live in less, they say, but to make room for more. That is, to take the focus away from material consumption to creativity, relationships, community, and more. Much like Kondo, their approach too proved to be wildly successful. They started out with a blog, The Minimalists, but now also have a book, podcast, a Netflix show, interviews, and, of course, an online course where they help people declutter their lives. Ironically, the course, Simplify Everything, purports to give you as many as 135 decluttering solutions to 45 clutter problem areas.

Living in a culture saturated by marketing

However, while the duo have indeed made a virtue (and a business) out of the very problem they seek to avoid, they offer compelling insights into America and the modern world’s increasingly consumerist tendencies. For starters, it’s worth noting that with the advertising industry’s shift to online platforms, Amazon remains America’s top-most advertiser, and the ad-industry made over $300 billion in revenue in 2021. By contrast, most of the ads in the 1950s US played on TV and the industry generated about . 

According to the documentary, this has led to a crisis of attention in which each advertiser is constantly pulling in a potential consumer not only by bombarding them with their ads but also by manipulating their insecurities and aspirations to goad them into making the purchase. Between online shopping, credit card purchases, and same day deliveries, the feedback loop has never been more instant and gratifying for a consumer.

Money Can’t Buy Me Love

Before the American consumer realizes, he or she has lived a lifetime of unchecked consumerism, with the average household hoarding up to 300,000 items. It’s no wonder, then, that in the last few years many have turned to saviors such as Kondo, Millburn, and Nicodemus to help manage this pathology. So, when their houses are decluttered and emptied out of stuff they didn’t even remember they had, it feels like they have been given a new lease of life. The newly freed space, both literal and metaphorical, gives them a renewed sense of hope about their life.

What the minimalists leave out

Where Kondo teaches people to value what they have and keep only what they value, the Minimalists want to help people in turning their focus away from buying stuff to make themselves feel better. In both cases, the idea is to live more mindfully. However, what neither addresses is why large swathes of people find all of this difficult to do in the first place. While it’s tempting to paint consumerism as the evil which must be resisted with a missionary zeal, it is worth asking if getting rid of one’s stuff in a Netflix show is all it takes to take back control of one’s life. After all, there is a reason why instant gratification is the flavor of the present times.

For one, putting in the work in your relationships, profession, and community takes far more time and effort—with no guarantees for positive results and a near certainty of disappointment and failed expectations. This is why these seemingly different aspects of life, whether online or offline, are all alike rife with constant anxiety. Not only does the modern consumer want quicker promotions at work, they also want their LinkedIn posts to go viral. Not only do they want the picture perfect relationship, they want the most Instagram worthy shot of their time together too. Not only do they want their communities to accept their identity, they seek to become Twitter activists by opining on every other controversy.

In other words, it is not only our attitude towards our material possessions that suffers from compulsiveness, but our entire lives. While the anti-consumerist narrative may feel meaningful to those who feel suffocated by the amount of stuff they own, it would be worth our while to be cautious to not let it become just another fad in our attempt to feel good about our lives as quickly as possible. Minimalism as an approach to life only works if we understand that, ultimately, fulfillment doesn’t lie in more, but in making do with less once we have fulfilled our basic needs in every aspect of our lives.

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In a country where the criminal justice system is tasked with so much more than it is designed to do and funded to do, it can seem slow to act and too susceptible to manipulation by those with resources. Meanwhile, the poor, the disadvantaged, and Black and Brown miscreants get outsized law enforcement attention that generally results in negative outcomes. 

So, take it seriously when an elected criminal prosecutor confronts evasion, threats, and the rigors of a long road ahead with an uncertain outcome to indict the rich and powerful, not to mention a former president of the United States. 

Trump’s Troubles With the Law

Further, the fraud indictment of Trump in New York is not trivial. The charges are serious and represent the first commitment to seek to impose a measure of criminal accountability on a dangerous and powerful man who has seemingly had his way with the justice system since the cradle.

The New York alleges 34 felony counts of fraudulently falsifying business records to conceal criminal conduct. It is accompanied by a 13-page statement of facts. The case is about fraudulent concealment from the public of critical negative information concerning two of Trump’s alleged adulterous sexual adventures and, most importantly, fraudulent concealment of this information in the critical days before Trump’s unexpected 2016 presidential victory.

Further, there seems to be a growing consensus that there will be more criminal indictments to come and that these indictments will focus on Trump’s misconduct while in office or just after leaving office, not while seeking office. In this context, it is noteworthy that Trump was twice impeached for actions during his presidency without consequence, a backdrop that only adds to the clamor among progressives for a flood of indictments and associated perp walks.

To add to the excitement, Trump was just found for sexual abuse and defamation in a suit brought by a woman for sexually assaulting her years ago in a department store dressing room and then publicly lying about it. That sure sounds a bit like the underlying notion in the New York indictment – get caught in a messy sexual encounter, and then lie about it to avoid accountability. The New York indictment adds criminal fraud and allegations of hush money payments to the mix.

All of this comes amid the steadily increasing fervor of support from the 30% or more on the far right of the already right-wing Republican Party who are fully committed to a Trump rerun. This stunningly unprincipled patch of humanity seemingly will follow Trump anywhere, support his “vision” for America, and continually fail to get the message that their hero is incapable of sorting fact from fiction.

Republicans Still Love Trump

In today’s political climate, the Republican Party’s incapacity to set Trump adrift provides the best path to the best outcome for Democrats in the 2024 presidential election. Democrats can only hope that the true Trump believers will deliver to him the coveted 2024 Republican nomination for president or at the least remain so committed to a Republican Party implosion that Trump will make it almost impossible for the resulting nominee to win.

While this is hardly a sure path to victory, it may well be the best hope going forward as long as the Biden/Harris ticket remains the only presently viable option for the Democrats. So keep those indictments coming. While the New York indictment is an important and emphatic first attempt at imposing a measure of criminal liability and accountability on Trump, it is cautionary to note that for years Trump has gotten away with whatever criminal misconduct seemed to underpin so much of his successful lifelong grift. Maybe one day soon, in some jurisdiction, we will get a real mug shot and a set of cuffs.

To be sure, there is more to this than my antipathy and that of others toward Trump and his cronies. Rather, it is a deep conviction that if our institutions fail us now, America is headed into an abyss from which it will be very difficult to emerge. So, stopping Trump, his acolytes, his supporters, his donors, and the racist Christian right from realizing their ambitious plan for transforming the nation in their image has palpable immediacy now.

And it is not just Trump. The right-wing “aristocracy” has polluted all three of the branches of the US government with a crush of highly-educated, wealthy, interconnected, and morally bankrupt vermin seeking only the power to impose their will on the rest of us while playing by their own set of rules. Somehow Trump became and continues to be a convenient tool for undermining confidence in American institutions through unabashedly attacking historical facts and creating a threatening national tableau for those ignorant enough to buy into the notion of an existential threat to a way of life that never was.

It would be comforting to believe in cycles and in the someday emergence of new and enlightened interpretations of constitutional fundamentals that could help shape a safe, moral, diverse, and prosperous national future. Or, for the faithful, to believe that there is a god who has chosen this moment in time to screw around with America but who will eventually turn his playful attention back to Nigeria or Pakistan. For my part, however, I don’t believe in inevitable cycles, or in the fundamental wisdom of a document written two hundred years ago, or in god.

Instead, I am trying to believe that the young people of this nation may get off their cellphones long enough to reshape the electorate to reflect an understanding that our collective conscience demands so much more than the dark and shallow version of America in which those young people now live. It is also possible that elements within the aging generation of which I am a part will recognize the tainted legacy we are leaving behind and use some of our time and resources to try to rearrange that balance sheet.

While I await the revolution of the young and a renewed commitment of the aged, I will take a moment to enjoy every Trump indictment and hope that each one makes the right-wing aristocracy and its racist and White Christian collaborators just a bit less sure of themselves as they worry that I am coming for their guns.

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It’s clear that this problem has gone completely out of control. But has anyone taken the time to understand its deeper causes? Politicians and media personalities, including 2024 presidential hopefuls, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy, have jumped on the crisis to draw attention to their standard agendas, whether it’s the immigration problem and border control or the growing trend to place all the blame on foreign actors for America’s problems.

What no one likes to talk about are the deeper systemic issues such as the role of Drug Enforcement agencies, major banking institutions and titans of industry in maintaining and exacerbating the crisis. 

Like Father, Like Sons

At the heart of this crisis lies the insidious role played by the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who have emerged as key players in perpetuating America’s drug crisis. Adding another layer of intrigue and corruption, allegations of between Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials and drug cartels have further muddied the waters.

 The capture and subsequent extradition of El Chapo in 2017 created a power vacuum within his Sinaloa Cartel. It was during this transition that two of El Chapo’s sons, Iván Archivaldo Guzmán and Jesús Alfredo Guzmán, stepped into leadership roles. Leveraging their family name and established connections, the Guzmán brothers have seized the opportunity to expand their influence over the drug trade, particularly regarding fentanyl.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has emerged as the primary driver of the current drug crisis in America. With potency up to 50 times stronger than heroin, even minuscule amounts can be fatal. Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs, such as cocaine or counterfeit prescription pills, without the user’s knowledge, making it a lethal and unpredictable threat. The Guzmán brothers saw an opportunity in fentanyl, a synthetic opioid capable of taking down an elephant with a single dose. With ruthless ambition, they unleashed this lethal force on American soil, maximizing profits while leaving a trail of devastation in their wake.

In a shocking turn of events, allegations of collusion between DEA officials and the Sinaloa Cartel have surfaced, raising serious questions about the integrity and efficacy of America’s drug enforcement efforts. Whistleblowers within the DEA have claimed that certain officials, motivated by financial gain or misguided notions of intelligence gathering, turned a blind eye to the Guzmán brothers’ activities. These alleged collusions allowed the Sinaloa Cartel to with relative impunity, perpetuating the flow of fentanyl into the United States.

If the allegations of DEA collusion hold true, it represents a staggering betrayal of the American public’s trust. The very agency tasked with combating drug trafficking and protecting communities from the perils of addiction would have compromised its mission for personal gain or misguided strategic goals. The continues to climb as unsuspecting victims fall prey to the potent grips of this synthetic demon.

U.S Citizens, Not Illegals, Are Smuggling Fentanyl Across Borders

The majority of illicit fentanyl found in the U.S. is believed to originate from illicit drug labs in China, and it is often smuggled into the United States through various means, including mail services and the postal system. However, in most cases, it is United States citizens that are in smuggling fentanyl across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Some individuals may be enticed by the potential for significant financial gains or become involved due to coercion, threats, or other criminal activities. U.S citizens accounted for 86% of fentanyl trafficking convictions in 2021. 1,322 of the 1,533 charged fentanyl trafficking offenders were US citizens. Even the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank, this point.

According to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics, approximately 19.4 percent of Americans have with illegal substances at least once. Out of the total population of 280 million individuals aged 12 and above, 31.9 million are classified as drug users. Among these, 11.7 percent are specifically using illegal substances, while 19.4 percent are either consuming illicit drugs or misusing prescription medications as of 2020.

As it turns out, America’s monstrous appetite for addictive drugs may have been fueled by predatory elements within our own capitalist ecosystem.

The Role of Big Pharma

The Sackler family, known for their connection to opioids, owned and ran Purdue Pharma, a pharmaceutical company that developed and marketed OxyContin. OxyContin, a powerful prescription painkiller, played a significant role in the opioid crisis in the United States. Purdue Pharma aggressively promoted OxyContin to doctors, downplaying its addictive potential and encouraging widespread use for chronic pain. The Sackler family, particularly Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler, accumulated vast wealth through the success of Purdue Pharma. Cynics suggest the family’s motto was, “America’s pain is our profit.”

However, as evidence of OxyContin’s addictive nature and widespread abuse emerged, Purdue Pharma faced lawsuits and allegations of deceptive marketing practices. In 2007, the company pleaded guilty to criminal charges and paid a settlement of $634.5 million. The Sacklers’ role in fueling the opioid crisis while amassing enormous wealth drew significant criticism.

Purdue Pharma subsequently filed for bankruptcy, aiming to resolve thousands of lawsuits. The proposed involves the dissolution of the company, a financial contribution of $6 billion from the Sackler family, and the transfer of Purdue’s assets to a public trust addressing the opioid crisis.

 Banks helping cartels launder illicit funds

If it wasn’t for major international banks turning a blind eye or in some cases actively aiding and abetting drug cartels, the drug crisis wouldn’t be nearly as acute. One prominent is the case of the Wachovia Bank (now Wells Fargo) in the United States.

In 2010, Wachovia reached a settlement with the U.S. government for allowing at least $378 billion in illicit funds to pass through its accounts, primarily linked to Mexican drug cartels. It was revealed that the bank had failed to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls, thereby facilitating the laundering of drug proceeds.

Another notable involves the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB), which was accused by the U.S. government in 2011 of laundering money for international drug trafficking organizations, including Hezbollah. The U.S. Department of the Treasury designated LCB as a “primary money laundering concern” and shut it down.

It doesn’t stop there. In 2012 the British bank HSBC  agreed to pay a $1.9 billion fine to settle that it had knowingly allowed Mexican and Colombian drug cartels to launder money through its accounts. The bank was accused of having weak money laundering controls that enabled illicit funds to be moved across borders undetected.

Chinese Money Laundering Operations

Chinese actors have increasingly assumed a prominent role in facilitating the illicit operations of Mexican drug cartels, specifically the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), which are the primary distributors of fentanyl to the United States. These Chinese money laundering brokers have demonstrated a remarkable ability to evade detection by both the formal banking systems of the United States and Mexico. Their methods encompass a wide range of illicit activities and value transfers that exploit various channels. 

One notable avenue employed by these criminal networks is trade-based laundering. They exploit legitimate trade transactions to obscure the origin and movement of funds. For instance, they may utilize shell companies to manipulate import and export invoices, falsely inflating the value of goods to disguise illicit proceeds as legitimate business profits.

Additionally, the use of wildlife products as a medium for value transfer has been observed in the nefarious collaboration between Mexican and Chinese criminal networks. Protected and unprotected marine products, as well as timber, serve as vehicles for moving illicit funds. These criminal actors exploit the high demand for such commodities in China, exploiting loopholes and lax regulations to launder money through the sale and transport of these goods.

Real estate transactions also feature prominently in the web of money laundering operations between Mexican and Chinese criminal elements. They frequently invest Illicit funds in properties, disguising illegal proceeds as legitimate assets. This strategy not only conceals the origin of the funds but also provides a means of preserving and growing their illicit wealth.

As we navigate this surreal landscape, the task before us will be to break free from the vicious cycle of madness. First and foremost, rigorous investigations must be launched to uncover the depths of DEA corruption. Those responsible, whether cartels or corrupt officials, must face swift and severe consequences, sparing no one. 

Additionally, efforts should focus on enhancing border security, expanding access to addiction treatment and harm reduction services. Raising public awareness about the dangers of fentanyl and the tactics employed by drug cartels is imperative. Most importantly, the crisis should not be politicized and a bipartisan consensus must be reached to save our country from this creeping menace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Think of us, the American public, as that blindfolded child when it comes to our government’s torture program that followed the 9/11 disaster and the launching of the ill-fated war on terror. We’ve been left to search in the dark for what so many of us sensed was there.

We’ve been groping for the facts surrounding the torture program created and implemented by the administration of President George W. Bush. For 20 years now, the hunt for its perpetrators, the places where they brutalized detainees, and the techniques they used has been underway. And for 20 years, attempts to keep that blindfold in place in the name of “national security” have helped sustain darkness over light.

From the beginning, the torture program was enveloped in a language of darkness with its where savage interrogations took place and the that might have revealed more about the horrors being committed in our name. In addition, the destruction of evidence and the only expanded that seemingly bottomless abyss that still, in part, confronts us. Meanwhile, the courts and the justice system consistently supported those who insisted on keeping that blindfold in place, claiming, for example, that were defense attorneys to be given details about the interrogations of their clients, national security would somehow be compromised.

Finally, however, more than two decades after it all began, the tide may truly be turning.

Despite fervid attempts to keep that blindfold in place, the search has not been in vain. On the contrary, over these last two decades, its layers have slowly worn away, thread by thread, revealing, if not the full picture of those medieval-style practices, then a damning set of facts and images relating to torture, American-style, in this century. Cumulatively, investigative journalism, government reports, and the testimony of witnesses have revealed a fuller picture of the places, people, nightmarish techniques, and results of that program.

First Findings

The fraying of that blindfold took endless years, starting in December 2002, when Washington Post writers Dana Priest and Barton Gellman on the existence of secret detention and interrogation centers in countries around the planet where cruel, unlawful techniques were being used against war-on-terror captives in American custody. Quoting from a 2001 State Department report on the treatment of captives, they wrote, “The most frequently alleged methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions and extended solitary confinement.”

Less than a year later, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with other groups, filed (the first of ) for records pertaining to detention and interrogation in the war on terror. Their goal was to follow the trail leading to “numerous credible reports recounting the torture and rendition of detainees” and our government’s efforts (or the lack thereof) to comply “with its legal obligations with respect to the infliction of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Then, in 2004, the blindfold began to show some initial signs of wear. That spring, showed the first photographs of men held at Abu Ghraib, an American-controlled prison in Iraq. They were, among other things, visibly naked, hooded, shackled, and threatened by dogs. Those pictures sent journalists and legal advocates into a frenzied search for answers to how such a thing had happened in the wake of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. By that fall, they had obtained internal government documents exempting any war on terror captives from the usual legal protections from cruelty, abuse, and torture. also appeared in which specific techniques of torture, renamed “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs), were authorized by top officials of the Bush administration. They would be used on prisoners in secret CIA locations around the world (119 men in 38 or more countries).

None of this, however, yet added up to “Tag! I found you!”

Senator Feinstein’s Investigation

Before George Bush left office, began a congressional investigation into the CIA interrogation program. In the Obama years, she would battle to mount a full-scale one into the torture program, defying most of her colleagues, who preferred to follow President Obama’s to “look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

But Feinstein refused to back down (and we should honor her courage and dedication, even as we witness of her insistence on remaining in the Senate despite a devastating process of aging).  Instead of retreating, Feinstein only doubled down and, as chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, launched an in-depth investigation into the torture program’s evolution and the grim treatment of those prisoners at what came to be known as “CIA black sites.”

Feinstein’s investigator, Daniel Jones, spent years reading through six million pages of documents. Finally, in December 2014, her committee issued a of his findings. Yet his full report — 6,700 pages with 35,300 footnotes — remained classified on the grounds that, were the public to see it, national security might be harmed. Still, that summary convincingly laid out not just the widespread use of torture but how it “proved not to be an effective means of obtaining accurate information.” In doing so, it dismantled the CIA’s justification for its EITs which rested on “claims of their effectiveness.”

Meanwhile, Leon Panetta, Obama’s director of the CIA, conducted an internal investigation into torture. Never declassified, the , as it came to be known, reportedly found that the CIA had inflated the value of the information it had gotten with the use of torture techniques. For example, in the brutal interrogation of the alleged mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Agency claimed that those techniques had elicited information from him that helped thwart further terrorist plots. In fact, the information had been obtained from other sources. The review reportedly acknowledged that EITs were as the CIA had claimed.

The Cultural Sphere

In those years, bits of light from the cultural world began to illuminate the dark horror of those enhanced interrogation techniques. In 2007, after President Bush had acknowledged the use of just such “techniques” and had moved 14 detainees from the CIA’s black sites to Guantánamo, his infamous offshore prison of injustice in Cuba, documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney directed . It told the story of Dilawar, a taxi driver in Afghanistan who died in American custody after severe mistreatment. That film would be one of the earliest public exposés of cruelty and mistreatment in the war on terror.

But such films doses of light. In 2012, for instance, Zero Dark Thirty, a movie heavily , argued that those harsh interrogations had helped keep America safer — specifically by leading US authorities to bin Laden, a meme often repeated by government officials. In fact, reliable information leading to bin Laden had been obtained without those techniques.

Increasingly, however, films began to highlight the voices of those who had been tortured. The Mauritanian, for example, was based on , a memoir by Mohamedou Ould Slahi a tortured Mauritanian held at that prison for 14 years. Slahi, never charged, was finally released and returned to Mauritania. As New York Times reporter summed up his experience, “The confessions he made under duress [were] recanted [and] a proposed case against him [was] deemed by the prosecutor to be worthless in court because of the brutality of the interrogation.”

Abu Zubaydah

Last year, award-winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney once again gave us a film on torture, The Forever Prisoner, focused on a Guantánamo detainee, Abu Zubaydah, whose real name is Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Husayn. On him, the CIA first tested its harsh interrogation techniques, claiming he was a leading member of al-Qaeda, an assumption later disproved. He remains one of only three Gitmo detainees neither charged by the military commissions at that prison, nor cleared for release.

Nothing captures the futility of the blindfold — or sometimes even the futility of lifting it — more than Zubaydah’s story, which was at the heart of the story of torture in these years. The Senate Select Committee’s 525-page executive summary referred to him no less than 1,343 times.

Captured in Pakistan in 2002 and first taken to a series of black sites for interrogation, was initially believed to be the third highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda, a claim later abandoned, along with the allegation that he had even been a member of that terrorist organization. He was the detainee for whom enhanced interrogation techniques were first authorized by National Security Advisor , relying in part on the Justice Department’s greenlighting of such techniques as “lawful” rather than as torture (legally forbidden under both domestic and international law). Joe Margulies, Zubaydah’s lawyer, the horrific techniques used on him this way:

“His captors hurled him into walls and crammed him into boxes and suspended him from hooks and twisted him into shapes that no human body can occupy. They kept him awake for seven consecutive days and nights. They locked him, for months, in a freezing room. They left him in a pool of his own urine. They strapped his hands, feet, arms, legs, torso, and head tightly to an inclined board, with his head lower than his feet. They covered his face and poured water up his nose and down his throat until he began to breathe the water, so that he choked and gagged as it filled his lungs. His torturers then left him to strain against the straps as he began to drown. Repeatedly. Until, just when he believed he was about to die, they raised the board long enough for him to vomit the water and retch. Then they lowered the board and did it again. The torturers to this treatment at least eighty-three times in August 2002 alone. On at least one such occasion, they waited too long and Abu Zubaydah nearly died on the board.”

In addition, as reported in the New Yorker in 2016, Zubaydah lost his left eye while in CIA custody.

As the Feinstein committee’s makes clear, CIA personnel present at that black site cabled back to Washington the importance of erasing any information about the nature of Zubaydah’s interrogation, implicitly acknowledging just how wrongful his treatment had been. The July 2002 cable asked for “reasonable assurance that [Abu Zubaydah] will remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.” CIA higher-ups assured the agents that “all major players are in concurrence that [Abu Zubaydah] should remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”

Sadly enough, that promise has been kept to this very day. In 2005, CIA officials of the tapes of Zubaydah’s questioning and, never charged with a crime, he is still in Guantánamo.

And yet, despite the promise that he would remain incommunicado, with each passing year we learn more about what was done to him. In October 2021, in fact, in the United States v. Zubaydah, the justices of the Supreme Court for the first time openly discussed his treatment and Justices Sonia Sotomayer, Neil Gorsuch, and Elena Kagan publicly “torture” to what was done to him.

Elsewhere as well, the blindfold has been shredded when it comes to the horror of torture, as ever more of Zubaydah’s story continues to see the light of day. This May, published a story about a report done by the Center for Policy and Research at Seton Hall University Law School that included a series of 40 drawings Zubaydah had made and annotated at Guantánamo. In them, he graphically depicted his torture at CIA black sites and at that prison.

The images are beyond grotesque and, like a cacophonous symphony you can’t turn off, it’s hard to witness them without closing your eyes. They show beating, shackling from the ceiling, sexual abuse, waterboarding, confinement in a coffin, and so much more. In one picture that he titled “The Vortex,” the techniques were combined as Zubaydah — in a self-portrait — cries out in agony. Attesting to the accuracy of the scenes he drew, the faces of his torturers have been blacked out by the authorities to protect their identities.

As the Guardian‘s Ed Pilkington reported, Helen Duffy, Mr. Zubaydah’s international legal representative, highlighted how “remarkable” it was that his drawings had ever seen the light of day even though he hasn’t “been able to communicate directly with the outside world” in all these endless years.

Calls for Action

In the years of the Biden presidency, the international community has focused on Guantánamo in unprecedented ways. In January 2022, “after 20 years and well over 100 visits,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (the called for the release of as many of the remaining prisoners there as possible and, more recently, raised alarm over the failing health and premature aging of its 30 aging inmates.  

Recently, the United Nations carved out new ground as well. In April, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued condemning the brutality long used against Mr. Zubaydah and called for his immediate release. That group further noted that the continued detention of the prisoners at Guantánamo could potentially “constitute crimes against humanity.”

With each passing year, ever more details about Washington’s torture programs have come to light. Yet, even now, ferocious attempts are still being made to keep the blindfold in place. As a result, to this day we’re left searching, arms extended, while those who have crucial information about this country’s nightmarish commitment to torture do their best to avoid us, hoping that the endless passage of time will keep them out of reach until we pursuers finally run out of energy.

To this day, much still remains in darkness, while Congress and American policymakers continue to refuse to address the legacy of such wrongdoing. But as the constant dribble of information suggests, the story simply won’t go away until, someday, the United States officially acknowledges what it did — what, if others were now doing it, would be instantly denounced by the same lawmakers and policymakers. That history of torture won’t go away, in fact, until this country apologizes for it, declassifies as much of the Feinstein report as possible, and provides for the rehabilitation of Abu Zubaydah and others whose physical and psychological health was savaged by their mistreatment at American hands.

It’s one thing to say, as Barack Obama a month into his presidency, that the United States “does not torture.” It’s another to expose the misdeeds of the war on terror and accept the costs as deterrence against it ever happening again.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The two countries, the United States and Spain, had similar populations at the time, about 30 million and 25 million, respectively, and in both cases, the number of casualties was about 2.5% of the country’s population: about 750,000 in the US and about 540,000, plus 50,000 executed in the immediate postwar, in Spain. In neither of the two cases did the civil war explode overnight, however.

Factional Violence is America’s Normal

In the United States, angry riots and revolts, such as we have seen in recent times, are no new phenomenon, and the period previous to its civil war was likewise one of increasing confrontation.

America Needed Something to Smash

The generation of the so-called Founding Fathers provided the revered first five presidents. But the election of General Andrew Jackson, who is Donald Trump’s favorite president, as the seventh president opened thirty years of partisan turbulence and mayhem. For several decades, the average turnout in presidential elections was 80% of eligible voters, a level that would never be reached again by far. Congress was a verbal and physical battlefield, including more than one hundred incidents of violence in the House and Senate chambers.

In her recent book, historian Joanne B. Freeman has studied that “,” in which “armed groups of Northern and Southern congressmen engaged in hand-to-hand combat on the floor… Fighting became endemic and congressmen strapped on knives and guns before heading to the Capitol every morning.” By her description, the incidents “involved physical action —punching, slapping, caning, lunging, shoving, dueling, wielding weapons, flipping desks, breaking windows, and the like.”

Divided Politics Breed Resentment

This polarization, mostly around the slavery issue, culminated in the 1856 and 1860 presidential elections. In the former, the pro-slavery Democrat candidate, James Buchanan, won the majority in the Electoral College with a minority of around 45% of the popular vote against the divided anti-slavery candidacies. In 1860, reversing the situation, the Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln carried eighteen of the thirty-three states then existing, with less than 40% of the popular vote, against the divided pro-slavery candidacies. The subsequent secession of eleven Southern states triggered Lincoln’s military response and the civil war.

In Spain likewise, the institutional crisis previous to the civil war had been developing at least since the military in 1923. During the period of the Second Republic (1931–1939), there were also elections with less-than-straightforward results. In 1933, the right, consisting of Catholics and monarchists, received support from 34% of voters, but together with some center-right republican parties managed to collect a majority of seats in parliament against the divided republicans and socialists. Then, in 1936, the united left, as the Popular Front, won a majority of seats with the support of only 46% of voters against the divided center-right and right. The subsequent military uprising triggered civil war.

Civil War Memories More Alive Than Most Think

If you visit Washington, DC, today, you will see that the civil war still appears as a major foundational moment. The Lincoln Memorial, which is an enlarged copy of the Parthenon, is the most revered and visited monument both by American and foreign tourists. All across the city, there are equestrian statues with generals of the Civil War, more numerous than those commemorating the previous American Revolutionary War. On the other side of the Potomac, the civil war seems just as present. Some time ago, I was at a high-level academic event at George Mason University, in Virginia, when the keynote speaker ended a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of decentralization with the reflection: “And that’s why we lost the war.” It has been only in the last few years that monuments and street names dedicated to the leaders of the defeated secessionist Confederacy have begun to be removed in some southern states.

Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

Of course, the big difference is that in the United States the winners restored democracy (although slavery was to be replaced with racial segregation for several decades), while in Spain, the winners held the country down and secluded for forty years. Nevertheless, the foundation of the Spanish democracy in the 1970s was also strongly marked by the dissuasive memory of the civil war. Prime Minister Adolfo Suárez commented that he won the first election “because I was moving the Spaniards away from the danger of a confrontation after Franco’s death. They did not support me out of wishful thinking and longing for liberties, but out of fear of that confrontation; because I separated them from the horns of that bull.”

With a little emotional and physical distance, one can notice how, in Spain, a verbal civil war is still often latent in bitter partisan confrontations, the shouting of certain opinion-makers in the media, and the quarrels that take place in a polarized parliament. In the United States, one might have expected more forgetfulness because nobody alive has ever met a person who had seen a slave. Yet, between the North and the South remains a deep rift, still heralded by the extreme right with Confederate flags.

When does a civil war stop being a major element of political confrontation? It may be that any traumatic civil war can produce endless reverberations.

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“It is in changing that things find repose,” says the philosopher Heraclitus. The world that we live in is a world of flux, and things that resist this flux die. Mountain ranges wear down because they attempt to stand still against the wind and the rain. Biological life, which at first glance seems much more fleeting than geological features, has survived on this earth for billions of years while the mountains wear away. Land plants and the Appalachian Mountains both formed in the same geological period, but now the Appalachians are eroded hills while plant life grows thick on top of them, eroding them further.

Without belaboring the point too much, we can say that life is not just change, but organized change, change according to a definite plan. An organism must react to its environment and modify itself and its behavior in order to survive, but it does so while preserving the nature that it has from birth. Even evolutionary history, which enacts no preconceived plan, does not simply change without direction. Mutation is without direction, but evolution is mutation guided by selection. This is why crustaceans, and mammals do not. What we will become is guided by the nature and the needs of what we are. What life enacts is not random change, but change that preserves its existence and, so to speak, mission. Deer developed antlers so that they could keep being deer.

To survive is to change

A state is like an animal, but it is most like that rational animal, man. It is capable of understanding its core principles and values and of planning and enacting deliberate change in order to live up to those values. We are not called to evolve blindly, but by deliberation and understanding to move forward into history with our eyes wide open. Using reason—our ability to conceptualize, to dialogue, and to plan—we humans do what all life does, but intentionally. And when we cease to do this, we die.

States die. Civilizations die. History is all too full of tales of the calamities, wars, and devastations that occurred when statesmen and citizens became either too complacent, too divided, or otherwise too unequipped to take account of reality and affect adequate change. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, infamously crippled by the broad right of individual nobles to veto legislation, precipitating a humiliating and disastrous partition between its land-hungry neighbors and over a century of suffering for the Polish people. The same pattern has played out time and time again in human history from the dynasties of China to the republics of Latin America as corruption, factionalism, and poorly functioning political processes paralyze states, rendering them unable to reform.

I stand here with the strange privilege of living in one of the most successful and powerful states that have existed in the history of this planet, the United States of America. This country has astounded the world more than once with its capacity for innovation and dynamism, finding solutions hardly imagined by generations past. But there is a sickness in this country, an ideologization of what are taken to be our values that is slowly killing that dynamism, which is meant to come to the defense of our core values and is indeed one of them. What I am talking about is the notion, so much in vogue in the current popular discourse but so alien to the founders of this nation, that every jot and tittle of the Constitution—not only its principles and values, but the mechanisms that were originally crafted to enact those principles—is so imbued with the wisdom of that founding generation that it cannot be changed.

Everyone understands, perhaps, that on a basic level no commonwealth can exist very long without some change. “Even the barley-drink,” says our friend Heraclitus, “will separate if it is not stirred.” Yet was it not that same philosopher that admonished a republic to “fight for its laws as it does for its walls”? For what could protect it from upheavals of a social, economic, military nature or otherwise if, without its laws, it were no community of citizens but just an unorganized mob of men and women? Only a fool would argue for a nation with no respect for the laws that have created it and guided it, but all the same it would be folly, too, to forget that it was reason that crafted those laws, and it is still reason—the reason of the living, communicating, rational animals that we are—that must judge those laws and modify them, in an orderly way and for the common good.

The United States has a legislation problem

American law is in many ways uniquely hard to change. Even ordinary legislation must pass through an intricate path of checks and balances in which, at every step of the way, there are barriers that can stop proposed legislation in its tracks. It may die in committee, fail to pass on the floor of the chambers of Congress which often operate on razor-thin partisan majorities, fail to achieve the agreement of the House and of the Senate, experience filibuster in the Senate, suffer veto by the president, and so on…it is a wonder that any laws ever get passed at all. Of course, this kind of legal process is going to be an essential part of lawmaking in any democracy, but the American process has so many choke points that it is far easier to kill a bill than it is to pass one.

This creates a bias in favor of old legislation rather than new legislation which is, on the face of it, irrational, since the time at which a law was crafted has no essential bearing on whether or not it is wisely framed. The new is not automatically better than the old, but neither is the old automatically better than the new. If old laws are to continue, it should be because human minds, in a legally structured process, have considered them and judged them prudent to continue, not because of an institutional structure so full of snags that the previous way of doing things is mindlessly approved simply because it is too difficult to do anything else.

“Ah,” I can hear the reply coming back, “but this is by design. A government that governs less governs best, after all, and the founders intended to make it very difficult to pass new laws.”

If this is the founders’ intent, it is ill-served by this mechanism. New laws do not always mean more government; indeed, there are good reasons to think that the growth of government can be fostered by the rigidity of laws, rather than hampered by them. More of this anon. But the more basic notion is this: if small government, or any other ideal that we prize, is to be the aim when we are deciding how to craft our laws, then we must do so consciously, keeping that ideal in mind when we make laws and adjusting every measure to best suit it. We can only do this consciously, not by trusting unconscious processes like legislative inflexibility to do the work for us. We must choose to be what we will be: A republic cannot better itself by hindering its own ability to make choices. Only a nation self-conscious of its own activity can keep itself free. Legislative snarls will not keep you free.

The most fundamental reason underlying the fact that unconscious processes will not keep one free, or serve very many other useful purposes, is that what is done unintentionally will inevitably have unintentional consequences. Of course, all human endeavors on this side of heaven will have unintentional consequences, but the surest way to multiply them is to hinder reason’s ability to monitor, to anticipate, and to forestall negative events by assessing and readjusting its methods.

Legislation problem expands executive and judicial power

If Congress does not issue its own guidance in the form of laws, the president will find his own way. This leads to the expansion of executive power, about which enough ink has been spilled that I need not continue the subject here. The bureaucracy will find its own way, and what ought to have been laws, deliberated by civil society and enacted by the people constitutionally empowered to make laws for the republic, instead become regulations, of dubious democratic merit and perhaps of opaque origin. The courts will find their own way, concocting in legal decisions directives which often have very little to do with the text, history, or intent of the laws that they claim to find their source in. But the executive and the courts are not simply being irrational or selfish. They are making do in a system where the direction that ought to be given by law is found lacking. And this is because the legislature cannot act.

I don’t think either liberals or conservatives are thrilled with an imperial presidency or with judge-made law.  Such channels can provide temporary wins, but each side can count just as many smarting losses. In the end the real loser is an America which is seeing her ability to deliberate clearly and openly and to make laws that best suit everyone weaken with every year.

Nowhere is this country’s inability to legislate more acute than in that most vital legislation of all, our Constitution. Here, Article Five mandates that in order to make any change at all to the Constitution, in addition to proposal by a supermajority in both houses of Congress (aside from an alternative convention process which in 234 years has never been used), a proposed amendment must be ratified by a whopping three quarters of states or state conventions.

This extraordinarily high bar hearkens back to the confederal origins of the union, in which the nation’s first constitution behaved more like a treaty, requiring unanimity, than like the constitution of a republic. But the United States is a republic, in spite of the many and time-honored aspects of federalism that it possesses. It is conceived both by its own citizens and by the global community as a nation among nations, not a supranational organization, and as a nation it ought to have the constitution of one. It should be able to decide its own destiny, by common as well as by fundamental law, and it should not be subjected to the levels of paralysis, often more reminiscent of the EU or even the UN, that do indeed more befit a treaty organization than a constitutional republic.

US constitutional law is in disarray. Judges and legal commentators, all the way up to the high court, seem torn between a rigid originalism which would tie the world’s hegemonic power to the legislative framework framed for a league of thirteen recently liberated and mostly agrarian colonies, and a “living constitution” model which seems to be employing a biological metaphor not in support of an ordered and self-conscious development of a political community operating through rational laws, but to support the departure from those laws into a zone of individualistic, moralizing, often ad-hoc judicial oligarchy. Neither of these will do and indeed neither should we expect that any judicial philosophy should. The problem is not with those who interpret the laws, but with those who make the laws.

We need a different system. We need to stop hiding behind institutions and processes which no longer work for any of us as an excuse not to step up and take control of our future. We need to stop using processes as a way to bludgeon each other and exploit thin majorities which will inevitably reverse and learn to reason with each other and develop genuine consensus. Only genuine consensus can save us, and only genuine consensus is worthy of the kind of social and rational beings that we are.

I am proposing that we make amendments easier. What I am not proposing, however, is that some new clever set of norms and processes will make all of the difference. Ultimately, the change will not come from some new system but from a new mindset which will make new systems necessary. We need to start to talk to each other. And we need to listen.

Going down a dangerous path

In ancient times, the most powerful republic in the world was the one that belonged to the Romans, a people more famous for devotion to their laws and their constitutional customs than we. Through it all, the wisdom of the senate, the energy of the people, and the ingenuity of the magistrates guided Rome from a tiny vassal city to the Etruscans to a superpower that dominated the entire classical world. Its laws were singularly well-developed, intricate, and socially entrenched, but at the same time the republic—ultimately, unlike ours, a direct democracy—could modify its most basic laws with a single act of legislation, something it did time and time again to resolve the numerous social and military crises the city was beset with in its long history.

When the Roman democracy finally did come to an end, it was not because of its mechanisms of flexibility, but rather because of the degradation of them. The republic did not end because a demagogue whipped the people up into a fury and convinced them to vote away their democracy—although this sort of thing certainly can happen—but through a much longer, slower process of loss of political consensus-building, the increasing abuse of its institutions through partisan corruption and obstructionism, which eventually necessitated the use of illegal force as a brute substitute for consensus in order to stabilize the state.

After a century of strongmen—Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Antony—tried and failed to use military authority to shore up a republic that no longer knew how to govern itself, the empire was founded when Octavian, using his personal prestige, took control ultimately not as a legally appointed dictator but as a private citizen granted extraordinary powers to do what the magistrates and the senate could not do. Even Tiberius, his successor, was surprised to find the senate so unwilling to govern that he was caused to continue this unorthodox arrangement. Eventually, the imperial role would evolve into an unfettered despotism.

This is how a republic dies. When it forgets how to deliberate, it degenerates into political gamesmanship. When political gamesmanship degenerates, as it inevitably does, the door is opened to violence. And violence can only breed more violence.

We cannot allow this to happen. If we are to avoid this fate, we must learn how to legislate. And to do that, we must rediscover how to debate, and how to think.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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At least the Russian president and his state-run media make no of his regime’s with Wagner. The American government, on the other hand, seldom acknowledges its own version of the privatization of war — the of private security contractors it’s used in its misguided , involving military and intelligence operations in a staggering .

At least as far back as the through World Wars and , the and , and the first , “contractors,” as we like to call them, have long been with us. Only recently, however, have they begun playing such a large role in our wars, with an estimated of them directly involved in combat and intelligence operations.

Contractors have both committed horrific abuses and acted bravely under fire (because they have all too often been under fire). From torture at prison in Iraq to interrogations at the detention camp, from employees of the private security firm Blackwater on unarmed Iraqi civilians to contractors a U.S. base under attack in Afghanistan, they have been an essential part of the war on terror. And yes, they both killed Afghans and some who had worked as escape from Taliban rule.

The involvement of private companies has allowed Washington to continue to conduct its operations around the globe, even if many Americans think that our war on terror in , , and elsewhere has ended. I tried looking for any kind of a survey of how many of us realize that it continues in and elsewhere, but all I could find was pollster Nate Silver’s of “lessons learned” from that global conflict, as if it were part of our history. And unless respondents were caring for a combat-wounded veteran, they tended to look unfavorably on sending our troops into battle in distant lands — so scratch that as a lesson learned from our forever wars. 

None of this surprises me. American troops are in significant numbers, nor are crowding the waitlists at backlogged Veterans Affairs hospitals as would be the case if those troops had been the only ones doing the fighting.

At points during this century’s war on terror, in fact, the U.S. used more civilian contractors in its ongoing wars than uniformed military personnel. In fact, as of 2019, according to Brown University’s Costs of War Project, which I co-founded, there were than troops in the U.S. Central Command region that includes Afghanistan, Iraq, and 18 other countries in the Middle East, as well as Central and South Asia. As recently as December 2022, the Pentagon had about deployed throughout that region, with concentrated in Iraq and Syria. To be sure, most of those workers were unarmed and providing food service, communications aid, and the like. Even more tellingly, of them were citizens of other countries, particularly ones.

In 2020, retired Army Officer Danny Sjursen an interesting explanation for how the war on terror was then becoming ever more privatized: the Covid-19 pandemic had changed the Pentagon’s war-making strategy as the public began to question how much money and how many lives were being expended on war abroad rather than healthcare at home. As a result, Sjursen argued, the U.S. had begun deploying ever more contractors, remote drones, CIA paramilitaries, and (often abusive) local forces in that war on terror while U.S. troops were redeployed to Europe and the Pacific to contain a resurgent Russia and China. In other words, during the pandemic, Washington placed ever more dirty work in corporate and foreign hands.

(Not) Counting Contractors

It’s been a challenge to write about private security contractors because our government does anything but a good job of counting them. Though the Defense Department keeps of how many civilian contractors it employs and where, they exclude employees contracted with the Central Intelligence Agency or the State Department.

When Costs of War first tried to count contractor deaths by searching official government sources, we came up short. The spouse of a gravely wounded armed contractor directed me to her blog, where she had started to compile a list of just such deaths based on daily Google searches, even as she worked hard caring for her spouse and managing his disability paperwork. She and I eventually lost touch and it appears that she stopped compiling such numbers long ago. Still, we at the project took a page from her book, while adding reported war deaths among foreign nationals working for the Pentagon to our formula. Costs of War researchers then estimated that had been killed in our wars in the Middle East as of 2019, or about more than the U.S. troops who died during the same period.

Social scientists have tried to extrapolate from reported contractor deaths in order to paint a picture of who they were while still alive. They believe that most of them were white veterans in their forties; many were former Special Forces operatives and a number of former officers with college degrees).

Limited Choices for Veterans

How do people of relative racial, economic, and gendered privilege end up in positions that, while well-paid, are even more precarious than being in the armed forces? As a therapist serving military families and as a military spouse, I would say that the path to security contracting reflects a deep in our society between military and civilian life. Although veteran unemployment rates are than those in the civilian population, many of them tend to seek out what they know best and that means military training, staffing, weapons production — and, for some, combat.

I recently spoke with one Marine infantry veteran who had completed four combat tours. He told me that, after leaving the service, he lacked a community that understood what he had been through. He sought to avoid social isolation by getting a government job. However, after applying for several positions in law enforcement agencies, he “failed” lie detector tests (owing to the common stress reactions of war-traumatized veterans). Having accidentally stumbled on a veteran-support nonprofit group, he ultimately found connections that led him to decide to return to school and retrain in a new profession. But, as he pointed out, “many of my other friends from the Marines numbed their pain with drugs or by going back to war as security contractors.”

Not everyone views contracting as a strategy of last resort. Still, I find it revealing of the limited sense of possibility such veterans experience that the companies employing them are large corporations servicing the Department of Defense through activities like information technology support, weapons production, or offers of personnel, both armed and not.

The Corporate Wounded

And keep in mind that such jobs are anything but easy. Many veterans find themselves facing yet more of the same — quick, successive combat deployments as contractors.

Anyone in this era of insurance mega-corporations who has ever had to battle for coverage is aware that doing so isn’t easy. Private insurers can maximize their profits by holding onto premium payments as long as possible while denying covered services.

A federal law called the (DBA) requires that corporations fund workers’ compensation claims for their employees laboring under U.S. contracts, regardless of their nationalities, with the taxpayer footing the bill. The program grew exponentially after the start of the war on terror, but insurance companies have not consistently met their obligations under the law. In 2008, a by the Los Angeles Times and ProPublica found that insurers like Chicago-based CAN Financial Corps were earning up to 50% profits on some of their war-zone policies, while many employees of contractors lacked adequate care and compensation for their injuries.

Congress called on the Pentagon and the Department of Labor to better enforce the DBA in 2011, some companies continued to operate with impunity vis–à–vis their own workers, sometimes even failing to purchase insurance for them or refusing to help them file claims as required by law.  While insurance companies made tens of millions of dollars in profits during the second decade of the war on terror, between 2009 and 2021, the Department of Labor insurers of those contracting corporations a total of only $3,250 for failing to report DBA claims. 

Privatizing Foreign Policy

At its core, the war on terror sought to create an image of the U.S. abroad as a beacon of and the . Yet there is probably no better evidence of how poorly this worked in practice at home and abroad than the little noted (mis)use of security contractors. Without their ever truly being seen, they prolonged that global set of conflicts, inflicting damage on other societies and being damaged themselves in America’s name. Last month, the Costs of War Project reported that the U.S. is now subcontractors Bancroft Global Development and Pacific Architects and Engineers to train the Somali National Army in its counterterrorism efforts. Meanwhile, the U.S. intervention there has only helped precipitate a further in terrorist attacks in the region.

The global presence created by such contractors also manifests itself in how we respond to threats to their lives. In March 2023, a self-destructing drone at a U.S. maintenance facility on a coalition base in northeastern Syria, killing a contractor employed by the Pentagon and injuring another, while wounding five American soldiers. After that drone was found to be of Iranian origin, President Biden ordered an airstrike on facilities in Syria used by Iranian-allied forces. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin , “No group will strike our troops with impunity.” While he later expressed condolences to the family of the contractor who was the only one killed in that attack, his could have more explicitly acknowledged that contractors are even more numerous than troops among the dead from our forever wars.

In late December 2019, a contractor working as an interpreter on a U.S. military base in Iraq was by rockets fired by an Iranian-backed militia. Shortly afterward, then-President Trump ordered an that killed the commander of an elite Iranian military unit, sparking concern about a dangerous escalation with that country. Trump later , “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will.”

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Trump’s tweet was more honest than Austin’s official statement: such contractors are now an essential part of America’s increasingly privatized wars and will continue to be so, in seemingly ever greater numbers. Even though retaliating for attacks on their lives has little to do with effective counterterrorism (as the Costs of War Project has made clear), bearing witness to war in all their grim diversity is the least the rest of us can do as American citizens. Because how can we know whether — and — our shadowy, shape-shifting wars “work” if we continue to let our leaders wage an increasingly privatized version of them in ways meant to obscure our view of the carnage they’ve caused?

[ first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 brought about a significant shift in the dynamics of US-Mexico relations. While NAFTA aimed to promote economic growth and development, it also had unintended consequences for Mexican farmers and small-scale industries. The influx of subsidized American agricultural products led to the displacement of local farmers and increased unemployment. This economic upheaval, coupled with the lure of higher wages and employment opportunities to the north, further fueled from Mexico to the United States.

A Teetering System

After years of stabilizing or even numbers of undocumented, unauthorized, or illegal migrants (pick your term) crossing the southern border, the influx has recently and remains at levels. The Migration Policy Institute estimated that around 79% of the undocumented immigrant in the United States in 2018 originated from Mexico and Central America, including countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The numbers tell us that the US has an immigration crisis. Past reforms have attempted to address the complexities of the border but have failed. The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 sought to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants while simultaneously increasing border enforcement measures. However, the implementation of IRCA faced challenges, and subsequent reforms failed to provide a comprehensive solution. The absence of a clear path to legal status for those unauthorized immigrants who arrived after the IRCA, coupled with inadequate border security measures, to an ongoing cycle of unauthorized migration.��

Since early 2021, there has been a notable increase in the number of individuals attempting to cross the US-Mexico border. The reasons behind this surge are multifaceted and can be attributed to a combination of push and pull factors. Economic challenges, violence, political instability, natural disasters, and the desire to reunite with family members already in the United States are among the factors that drive individuals to leave their home countries and entry into the United States.On top of that, the Biden Administration has a history of sending to migrants.��

The influx of migrants has overwhelmed border facilities and strained the resources of immigration agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The capacity to process and house migrants has been stretched thin, resulting in overcrowded detention centers and temporary facilities. The situation has raised concerns about the conditions in which migrants are held, including issues of overcrowding, limited access to healthcare, and inadequate facilities to accommodate families and unaccompanied minors.

The increase in migrant arrivals has also strained the capacity to handle asylum claims and legal processing. The backlogs in immigration courts have further prolonged the time it takes to resolve cases, leaving individuals in limbo and creating challenges for the flow of migrants.

Trump Policies Dismantled

While the issue predates the Biden administration, it is crucial to analyze how President Joe Biden’s policies have shaped the current immigration crisis at the border.

From day one, Biden has prioritized dismantling the immigration policies implemented by his predecessor. His eagerness to erase any trace of Donald Trump’s immigration legacy has left our border vulnerable and created a magnet for illegal immigration. During his presidency, Donald Trump implemented various immigration policies aimed at reducing the influx of undocumented immigrants into the United States. While these policies were controversial and faced criticism from many quarters, supporters argue that they had notable effects on immigration patterns.

Here are some of Trump’s key immigration policies:

Border Security and Wall Construction: Trump made border security a priority and pushed for the construction of a physical barrier along the US-Mexico border. Although significant portions of the wall were replacement or reinforcement of existing barriers, it to deter illegal crossings.��

Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP): The MPP, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, required individuals seeking asylum at the southern border to wait in Mexico while their claims were processed in US courts. Supporters argue that this policy helped manage the influx of asylum seekers and the incentive for fraudulent claims.

Title 42: It was introduced in March 2020 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the Trump administration. This policy invoked a public health provision, allowing the swift expulsion of individuals who posed a risk of spreading infectious diseases, including COVID-19. It acted as a necessary and effective tool to protect both Americans and migrants themselves from potential health hazards.

Title 42 proved crucial in managing the overwhelming surge of illegal immigration at the southern border. By enforcing swift deportations, it discouraged the dangerous practice of human smuggling and reduced the strain on our already burdened immigration system. Curiously, the Biden Administration fought Title 42 expulsions even as it officially maintained the COVID crisis was ongoing.

Asylum Policy Changes: The Trump administration implemented several changes to the asylum system, including the expansion of “safe third country” agreements and imposing stricter requirements on asylum seekers. These policies aimed to limit the number of individuals qualifying for asylum and the asylum process.

Immigration Enforcement: Trump focused on ramping up immigration enforcement, empowering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to target undocumented immigrants, including those with criminal records. This led to apprehensions and deportations.

Indifference by Design

The most egregious aspect of Biden’s approach lies in his weakening of border enforcement measures. The termination of the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), has resulted in a surge of illegal border crossings. By allowing migrants to enter the United States while awaiting court proceedings (that more often than not are skipped anyway), Biden has effectively a “catch and release” system that encourages further illegal entry.

The Biden Administration, led by its disdain for immigration enforcement, In May 2021 began winding down Title 42. The impact of repealing Title 42 has been swift and devastating. The number of illegal border crossings has skyrocketed to levels unseen in recent history, overwhelming Border Patrol agents and immigration facilities. Our border communities are forced to bear the brunt of this burden, grappling with the consequences of uncontrolled immigration.

Furthermore, Biden’s reckless expansion of immigration enforcement priorities is a slap in the face to law-abiding citizens. The administration’s focus on dismantling ICE and limiting deportations has created a dangerous environment where criminal illegal aliens are shielded from justice. This flagrant disregard for public safety and the rule of law the very fabric of our society.

While the Biden administration claims to prioritize “humane” immigration policies, it conveniently ignores the humanitarian crisis that its own policies have exacerbated. The overcrowded detention facilities, unsanitary conditions, and the exploitation of vulnerable migrants are all consequences of an open-borders .By failing to provide a deterrent and a clear message that illegal entry will not be tolerated, Biden’s policies perpetuate a cycle of human suffering and incentivize more dangerous journeys.

Sound Immigration Policies, Not Border Chaos

It is not a matter of heartlessness or xenophobia to demand secure borders and a rational immigration system. The United States has a rich history of legal immigration, and we have always welcomed those who abide by our laws. However, Biden’s policies prioritize the desires of foreign nationals over the well-being of American citizens.

The solution lies in a balanced approach that combines border security, immigration enforcement, and compassionate solutions for those seeking legal entry. This means investing in technology and infrastructure to secure our borders, reforming our broken immigration system, and prioritizing the interests and safety of American citizens.

The Biden administration’s reckless disregard for the rule of law and the sovereignty of our nation will have lasting consequences. It is high time that we recognize the dangers of these policies and demand a return to a sensible, secure, and fair immigration system that puts America and its citizens first. Our nation’s future depends on it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The US Congress has also become weak because of the influence of money in politics. Members of Congress spend more and more of their time , diminishing their ability to legislate. Increasingly, Congresswomen and Congressmen represent their donors more than their constituents. tells us that Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy raised over $27 million and the former speaker Nancy Pelosi raised over $25 million in 2021-22.

Because of this influence of money in politics, Congress is increasingly under the thumb of interest groups. Some of these groups are beholden to foreign states. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee () is infamous for its hold on Congress. AIPAC has poured millions of dollars to progressive pro-Palestinian candidates in Democrat congressional primaries. On rare occasions that members of Congress speak out against Israel’s influence, such as Representative in 2019, they are quickly ostracized. 

Is the US Presidency Actually a Powerful Dictatorship?

AIPAC has also Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran as the former president has admitted in his memoirs. Sadly, the Congress sometimes puts foreign interests above American ones, endangering peace, prosperity and national security itself. 

Other ills afflict the Congress as well. projects, and , often referred to as “,” interfere with legislation. The Congress has failed to deliver for the people. They have not drafted laws for a healthy economy. Over 32% of the wealth is owned by 1-percent of the Americans. Over 11% of Americans live below the level and 60% “live pay-check-to-paycheck.” At such a time, the Congress is deeply divided. Both Republicans and Democrats care more about hurting the other in an adversarial system than acting together in national interest.

What do you really know about Congress?

Even both parties themselves are deeply divided. It took of voting for Republicans to elect Kevin McCarthy as the speaker of the House. The Congress only unites to pass things in the interest of their donors. The Congress has drafted , which give tax cuts to the rich and pass on the tax burden to the middle class. 

There are representational issues too. The with a population just short of 700,000, far more than Wyoming, and with a population of nearly 3,200,000, than 21 states, have no voice on the House’s bills. The same is true for Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, and other US territories. 

In 1789, the first House had 65 members serving 3.9 million people, one for every 60,000 persons. Now, 435 members serve 334 million, one for every 767,816 persons. It is now difficult for one person to represent so many different and varied constituents.

It is not just the president who dominates the House. Today, the Senate has grown in power too. It terms and conditions. In reality, this has turned the bicameral legislature into a unicameral one. The House now has to either ignore or “rubber-stamp Senate bills”.

The Truth About US Democracy

The US Senate is not exactly democratic. Every state gets two senators. This means that with the population of less than 583,279 has the same representation, privilege, and vote as California with a population of about 39 million. In the US Senate, the vote of a resident of Wyoming equals the votes of 69 Californians. The consecrated tradition of Senate filibuster speeches designed to postpone or neuter legislative action illustrate the principle of of a minority over the majority.

As of 2023, according to the , the 50 states have a combined population of about 334 million. Mathematical logic tells us that the 26 states with the smallest populations collectively send 52 senators to Congress. Those 26 states wield a simple majority in the Senate, although they only represent 58.7 million citizens or 17.6% of the entire population. That means that the remaining minority of 48 senators represents over 82.4% of the US population. If you were to remove the eight most populated states from a Senate vote, it would take 42 states (84 senators) to represent a simple majority of the US population (52%). In other words, the will of a small minority of the US population represented in the Senate is always likely to prevail over the needs and wishes of all US citizens.

Like the House, the Senate leaves a significant portion of American citizens unrepresented. The constitution excludes from the federal electoral system the entire population of the District of Columbia (DC), Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and other US territories, despite the fact that they collectively have a population greater than that of some states. 

The US Constitution, ratified in 1788, gave state legislatures the right to elect senators. Over time, this corrupted the process of selecting senators. Hence, the was ratified in 1913 and, since then, senators have been elected by popular vote. Unfortunately, that amendment failed to solve the problem of corruption for senatorial elections. Today the average cost of running for runs into millions of dollars. This funding is usually provided “openly and directly” by the wealthy through and lobbying groups. 

The Colossal Corruption of the Two-Party System

When elected, a senator’s loyalty is first to the rich who bankrolled their election. That is why legislators vote to spend funds lavishly on dubious projects in the service of the wealthy and their corporations, with little or no consideration of the needs of the common people. This produces volumes of legislation whose logic most Americans simply cannot fathom. The Senate consistently fails to represent the people’s needs, interests, concerns, or welfare. 

The various ills of the US Congress have been steadily growing. It is now deeply corrupt and highly undemocratic. Before lecturing the rest of the world on adopting democratic norms, the US must put its own house in order and reform its Congress.

[ edited this piece.] 

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Since Kennedy wrote those words, we have seen the end of the Cold War, the peaceful emergence of China as a leading world power, and the rise of a formidable Global South. But the United States has indeed failed to “adjust sensibly to the newer world order,” using military force and coercion in flagrant of the in a failed quest for longer lasting global hegemony. 

Kennedy observed that military power follows economic power. Rising economic powers develop military power to consolidate and protect their expanding economic interests. But once a great power’s economic prowess is waning, the use of military force to try to prolong its day in the sun leads only to unwinnable conflicts, as European colonial powers quickly learned after the Second World War, and as Americans are learning today.

While US leaders have been and trying to cling to international power, a new multipolar world has been emerging. Despite the recent tragedy of ��ܲ�������’s invasion of Ukraine and the agony of yet another endless war, the tectonic plates of history are shifting into new alignments that offer hope for the future of humanity. Here are several developments worth watching:

De-dollarizing global trade 

For decades, the US dollar was the undisputed king of global currencies. But China, Russia, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and other nations are taking steps to conduct more trade in their own currencies, or in Chinese yuan. 

, unilateral US sanctions against dozens of countries around the world have raised fears that holding large dollar reserves leaves countries vulnerable to US financial coercion. Many countries have already been gradually diversifying their foreign currency reserves, from 70% globally held in dollars in 1999 to 65% in 2016 to by 2022.

Since no other country has the benefit of the “ecosystem” that has developed around the dollar over the past century, diversification is a slow process, but the war in Ukraine has helped speed the transition. On April 17, 2023, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that US sanctions against Russia risk the role of the dollar as the world’s global currency. 

And in a Fox News interview, right-wing Republican Senator Marco Rubio that, within five years, the United States may no longer be able to use the dollar to bully other countries because “there will be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”

BRICS’s GDP leapfrogs G7’s GDP 

When calculated based on Purchasing Power Parity, the GDP of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is now than that of the G7 (United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan). The BRICS countries, which account for over 40% of total world population, generate 31.5% of the world’s economic output, compared with 30.7% for the G7, and BRICS’s growing share of global output is expected to further outpace the G7’s in coming years.

Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China has invested some of its huge foreign exchange surplus in a new transport infrastructure across Eurasia to more quickly import raw materials and export manufactured goods, and to build growing trade relations with many countries.

Is China’s Belt and Road Initiative Strategic Genius, Arrogant Overreach or Something Else?

Now the growth of the Global South will be by the New Development Bank (NDB), also known as the BRICS Bank, under its new president Dilma Rousseff, the former president of Brazil.

Rousseff helped to set up the BRICS Bank in 2015 as an alternative source of development funding, after the Western-led World Bank and IMF had trapped poor countries in recurring debt, austerity and privatization programs for decades. By contrast, the NDB is focused on eliminating poverty and building infrastructure to support “a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future for the planet.” The NDB is well-capitalized, with $100 billion to fund its projects, more than the World Bank’s current $82 billion portfolio.

Europe moves towards “strategic autonomy”

On the surface, the Ukraine war has brought the United States and Europe geostrategically closer together than ever, but this may not be the case for long. After French President Macron’s recent visit to China, he told reporters on his plane that Europe should not let the United States drag it into war with China, that Europe is not a “vassal” of the United States, and that it must assert its “” on the world stage. Cries of horror greeted Macron from both sides of the Atlantic when the interview was published.

But European Council President Charles Michel, the former prime minister of Belgium, quickly came to Macron’s side, that the European Union cannot “blindly, systematically follow the position of the United States.” Michel confirmed in an interview that Macron’s views reflect a growing point of view among EU leaders, and that “quite a few really think like Emmanuel Macron.”

Latin America leans left

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine, which has served as a cover for US domination of Latin America and the Caribbean. But nowadays, countries of the region are refusing to march in lockstep with US demands. The entire region rejects the US embargo on Cuba, and Biden’s exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from his 2022 Summit of the Americas persuaded many other leaders to stay away or only send junior officials, and largely the gathering. 

With the spectacular victories and popularity of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico, Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil, progressive governments now have tremendous clout. They are strengthening the regional body CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) as an alternative to the US-dominated Organization of American States. 

To reduce reliance on the US dollar, South America’s two largest economies, Argentina and Brazil, have announced plans to a common currency that could later be adopted by other members of Mercosur — South America’s major trade bloc. While US influence is waning, China’s is mushrooming, with trade from $18 billion in 2002 to nearly $449 billion in 2021. China is now the top trading partner of Brazil, Chile, Peru and Uruguay, and Brazil has the possibility of a free-trade deal between China and Mercosur.

Chinese influence rises in the Middle East

One of the false premises of US foreign policy is that regional rivalries in areas like the Middle East are set in stone, and the United States must therefore form alliances with so-called “moderate” (pro-Western) forces against more “radical” (independent) ones. This has served as a pretext for America to jump into bed with dictators like the Shah of Iran, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and a succession of military governments in Egypt.

Now China, with help from Iraq, has what the United States never even tried. Instead of driving Iran and Saudi Arabia to poison the whole region with wars fueled by bigotry and ethnic hatred, as the United States did, China and Iraq brought them together to restore diplomatic relations in the interest of peace and prosperity.

Healing this divide has raised hopes for lasting peace in several countries where the two rivals have been involved, including Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and as far away as West Africa. It also puts China on the map as a mediator on the world stage, with Chinese officials now offering to mediate between Ukraine and Russia, as well as between Israel and Palestine.

Why Saudi Arabia and Iran Are Making Out Now

Saudi Arabia and Syria have restored diplomatic relations, and the Saudi and Syrian foreign ministers have each others’ capitals for the first time since Saudi Arabia and its Western allies al-Qaeda-linked groups to try to overthrow President Assad in 2011.

At a in Jordan on May 1st, the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia agreed to help Syria restore its territorial integrity, and that Turkish and US occupying forces must leave. Syria may also be invited to an Arab League summit on May 19th, for the first time since 2011.

Chinese diplomacy to restore relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia is credited with opening the door to these other diplomatic moves in the Middle East and the Arab world. Saudi Arabia helped Iranians from Sudan and, despite their past support for the military rulers who are destroying Sudan, the Saudis are helping to mediate, along with the UN, the Arab League, the African Union and other countries.

Multipolar diplomatic alternatives to US war-making

The proposal by Brazilian President Lula da Silva for a “” of nations to help negotiate peace in Ukraine is an example of the new diplomacy emerging in the multipolar world. There is clearly a geostrategic element to these moves, to show the world that other nations can actually bring peace and prosperity to countries and regions where the United States has brought only war, chaos and instability.

While the United States rattles its saber around Taiwan and portrays China as a threat to the world, China and its friends are trying to show that they can provide a different kind of leadership. As a Global South country that has lifted its own people, China offers its experience and partnership to help others do the same, a very different approach from the paternalistic and coercive neocolonial model of US and Western power that has kept so many countries trapped in poverty and debt for decades.

This is the fruition of the multipolar world that China and others have been calling for. China is responding astutely to what the world needs most, which is peace, and demonstrating practically how it can help. This will surely win China many friends, and make it more difficult for US politicians to sell their view of China as a threat.Now that the “newer world order” that Paul Kennedy referred to is taking shape, economist Jeffrey Sachs . As he recently warned, “Unless US foreign policy is changed to recognize the need for a multipolar world, it will lead to more wars, and possibly to World War III.” With countries across the globe building new networks of trade, development and diplomacy, independent of Washington and Wall Street, the United States may well have no choice but to finally “adjust sensibly” to the new order.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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US support for Ukraine over the last year has not been confined to military hardware. The Biden administration has led a global campaign to: condemn Russia; levy both multilateral and unilateral sanctions against the Kremlin and its domestic supporters; persuade allies to provide military and economic assistance of their own; strengthen NATO and usher in new NATO members; and mobilize energy supplies for Europe to substitute for Russian imports.

Despite this broad-based effort to defend Ukraine, the United States has nonetheless displayed a certain degree of caution. It has drawn the line at committing US forces to the battlefield, aside from a handful of . It has refused to support a no-fly zone over the country, and it has not sent over the Black Sea for fear of engaging Russian forces. It has hesitated to supply Kyiv with every weapon system on its wish list, whether fighter jets or long-range missiles. This caution reflects in particular the anxieties of the Pentagon—a risk-averse institution—about provoking an escalation of the conflict both horizontally (into adjoining countries) and vertically (involving non-conventional weapons like tactical nuclear devices).

A Fine and Tricky Balance

The Biden administration has calibrated this balance between military assistance and geopolitical caution within a rapidly changing global context. ��ܲ�������’s actions have divided the world into three blocs: illiberal supporters of the Kremlin and its imperial policy, the largely democratic club of nations who directly support Ukraine, and the much larger group of fence-sitters who generally acknowledge that the invasion was a violation of international law but are reluctant to break with Moscow.

The United States has tried to turn these divisions into assets by expanding ties with allies, isolating ��ܲ�������’s few supporters, and pushing the fence-sitters away from the Kremlin. The skepticism that Donald Trump brought to the trans-Atlantic relationship, with his threats to withdraw the United States from NATO, has been decisively reversed. All talk of a “strategic reset” of relations with Russia, which was popular during the Obama years and seemed again possible under Trump, has disappeared. The Biden administration has warned China—and other countries—not to supply Russia with weapons or violate technology bans.

��ܲ�������’s invasion of Ukraine has not fundamentally altered US national interests, but it has shifted the means by which Washington pursues those interests.

Certain things remain unclear, however, about US policy. For instance, to what degree is the United States committed to weakening Russia further by supporting either a successful Ukrainian counteroffensive or a prolonged war of attrition? Or is the United States eager to push for negotiations between the aggressor and the victim to resolve a conflict that distracts attention from other strategic US priorities, primarily the containment of China? How long can the Biden administration maintain the flow of military aid to Ukraine, given a divided Congress and weakening public support? What role can the United States play in advancing a just peace in Ukraine? What plans does the United States have for transatlantic relations after the war is over, and in what way does Russia fit into those plans?

What Lies Ahead?

This moment for east-west relations is bleak. The war rages on in Ukraine. Arms control is a dead issue. A cold war threatens to descend upon the larger world order. The “peace” that is discussed in foreign policy circles in the West often comes with several asterisks: loss of territory and a fragile state for Ukraine, lack of prosecution of war crimes for Russia, few guarantees that the conflict will not resume after a strategic pause. This kind of “peace” was secured under the Minsk agreements following ��ܲ�������’s military interventions in Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine, quite sensibly, fears a “Minsk 3” that effectively rewards the Kremlin for its aggression.

The United States will play a pivotal role in determining this outcome through its mix of military assistance and diplomatic leverage. For now, the Biden administration seems to believe that a relatively low-cost and low-risk commitment will enable Ukraine to achieve the same results that Croatia secured in 1995. If Ukraine fails to do so in the first half of 2023, the Biden administration will have to decide whether to maintain this approach, dramatically increase assistance, or push for a “diplomatic endgame.” There isn’t likely political support now for the second option, given Republican control of Congress. Nor is there sufficient support within the administration to pressure Ukraine to abandon its territorial ambitions. So, unless the Ukrainian government itself decides that it is time to negotiate, the United States will continue with the current status quo approach.

For the time being, then, the Biden administration supports a “just peace” in Ukraine that would give victory to the victim and punishment to the aggressor. But this approach is highly contingent on what happens on the ground in Ukraine and what happens in American politics. Even though they have both benefited from the way the war has squeezed Russia, the United States and China will not let the conflict go on indefinitely. In the interim, however, a relatively weak country that gave up its nuclear weapons three decades ago continues to buck the geopolitical odds by beating back a nuclear superpower bent on expanding its empire. That, in itself, is a win for international law and points toward a more just world order.

[ published this piece, which was originally published in the .]

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America’s founding fathers feared the evolution of the presidency into an imperial office. In fact, that fear was the driving force behind the of powers into three distinct branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary.

What You Need to Know About the US Presidency

We traditionally call this the “” system. Each branch of government can challenge the actions of another branch. For example, the judiciary has the power to overturn unconstitutional laws drafted by the legislature or overrule acts contravening the law by the executive. This can happen both at the state and the federal levels.

In Washington, the president can veto legislation proposed by the Congress. At the same time, the Congress has the power to override presidential vetoes and confirm or reject presidential nominations. At first sight, the checks and balances system appears to be an effective way to maintain democracy. However, the system doesn’t always work out the way it was originally intended. In recent years, it has led to partisan division and logjam.

The Most Powerful Man in the World

Despite the fact that they are not exactly elected directly by the people, US presidents have the power to make critical decisions via . On August 24, 2022, President Joe Biden signed an “to cancel $10,000 of student debt for low- to middle-income borrowers.”�� This cost of Biden’s plan is to be $400 billion for US taxpayers.��

Executive orders are sometimes called “instant laws.” They do not need Congressional approval. The Supreme Court has the power to overturn them if they are found unconstitutional. However, this is a high bar and presidents have been usurping the power of Congress.

During his time in the White House, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a of 3,721 executive orders. Only five of them were overturned by the Supreme Court. More recently, Donald Trump made executive orders by announcing big policy changes without Congressional approval.

Even more alarming are the president’s nuclear powers. As commander-in-chief of all the US armed forces, the president has exclusive access to the nuclear codes. With the push of a , he can cause a nuclear holocaust. Should a single human being have the power to destroy the world?

As I have pointed out repeatedly in my past articles, the US has an aggressive foreign policy. It meddles in the affairs of other countries. This leads to tensions and even standoffs with other powers such as Iran, Russia and China. An American president could blunder into nuclear war in a crisis. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated this danger. 

The Biden-led NATO supports Ukraine against Russia. This is part of a longstanding American policy. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has expanded east. The “deep state” has taken charge of American foreign policy. Presidents have to do the bidding of the . In 1961, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against this phenomenon in his parting presidential address. In the context of the Russia-Ukraine War, the US president’s nuclear powers have become dangerous.

Negotiate With Russia and Let Ukraine Have Peace

A Rapidly Deteriorating System

A key reason why the office of the president has become all powerful is because the Congress has become dysfunctional. The incessant squabbling between the two political parties makes passing of laws extremely difficult. The parties themselves are increasingly divided. It took a historic of voting for Kevin McCarthy to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives. 

Republican lawmakers are so divided right now that it will be difficult for them to push through any legislation despite their majority. Even if they do, Democrats have a wafer-thin majority in the Senate and can block them. The Democrats are divided themselves and are unlikely to push through significant bills in the Senate. This leaves the White House a clear field for executive orders.

In this way, the US presidential power and prestige are the envy of dictators. Presidents enjoy unprecedented autocracy and imperial power under the guise of democracy. The president thousands of delegates, who often lack the qualifications necessary for the political positions they are assuming.

The president nominates federal judges, which makes the office extremely powerful. The nomination process has become increasingly political, especially for the Supreme Court. Presidents have been appointing party loyalists to top positions. This is not a new phenomenon. In 1991, George H.W. Bush nominated the infamous to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed his nomination, despite attorney Anita Hill’s extensive testimony of Thomas’s sexual misconduct. Now, Thomas is in hot water for the Court’s own judicial ethics. Trump sparked outrage when he nominated who was accused of attempted rape.

Presidents have not only been appointing shady judges but they have also been benefiting family members. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, immensely from dealings with the Saudis. This might not have been illegal but was certainly immoral. Such is the power of the president that Trump and Kushner were never held to account.

Today, the presidency is too powerful and not accountable to the people. Reforms to the system are long overdue. Otherwise, troubles lie ahead. An unrestrained, all-powerful presidency is not sustainable long term. 

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Living in New York City, I was near no conflict in those years or in any since. My dad, however, had volunteered for the Army Air Corps at age 35 on December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He fought in Burma, was painfully silent about his wartime experiences, and died on Pearl Harbor Day in 1983. He was the operations officer for the 1st Air Commandos and his war, in some strange sense, came home with him. 

Like so many vets, then and now, he was never willing to talk to his son about what he had experienced, though in my early years he still liked his friends to call him “Major,” his rank on leaving the military.  When his war did come up in our house, it was usually in the form of anger — because my mother had shopped at a nearby grocery store whose owners, he claimed, had been “war profiteers” while he was overseas, or because my first car, shared with a friend, was a used Volkswagen (German!), or my mom was curious to go — god save us! — to a Japanese restaurant! 

The strange thing, though, was that, in those same years, for reasons we never discussed, he allowed me briefly to have a and, though my dad and I never talked about the letters that boy and I exchanged, we did soak the stamps off the envelopes he sent and paste them into our latest Scott stamp album. 

As for evidence of my father’s wartime experience, I had two sources. In the guest room closet in our apartment, he had an old green duffle bag, which he’d go through now and then. It was filled to the brim with everything from Army Air Corps documents to his portable mess kit and even — though I didn’t know it then — his pistol and bullets from the war. (I would turn them over to the police upon his death a quarter-century later.) 

Though he wouldn’t talk with me about his wartime experience, I lived it in a very specific way (or at least so it felt to me then). After all, he regularly took me to the movies where I saw seemingly endless versions of war, American-style, from the Indian wars through World War II.  And when we watched movies of his own conflict (or, in my early years, replays of on our TV at home) and he said nothing, that only seemed to confirm that I was seeing his experience in all its glory, as the Marines inevitably advanced at film’s end and the “Japs” died in a spectacle of slaughter without a comment from him. 

From those Indian wars on, as I wrote long ago in my book , war was always a tale of their savagery and our goodness, one in which, in the end, there would be an expectable “spectacle of slaughter” as we advanced and “they” went down.  From the placement of the camera flowed the pleasure of watching the killing of tens or hundreds of nonwhites in a scene that normally preceded the positive resolution of relationships among the whites.  It was a way of ordering a wilderness of human horrors into a celebratory tale of progress through devastation, a victory culture that, sooner or later, became more complicated to portray because World War II ended with the atomic devastation of those two Japanese cities and, in the 1950s and 1960s, the of a future global Armageddon.

If war was hell, in my childhood at the movies, killing them wasn’t, whether it was the Indians of the American West or the Japanese in World War II.

So, yes, I grew up in a culture of victory, one I again and again on the floor of my room. In the 1950s, boys (and some girls) spent hours tales of American battle triumph with generic fighting figures: a crew of cowboys to defeat the Indians and win the West, a bag or two of olive-green Marines to storm the beaches of Iwo Jima.

If ours was a sanguinary tale of warfare against savages in which pleasure came out of the barrel of a gun, on floors nationwide we kids were left alone, without apparent instruction, to reinvent American history. Who was good and who bad, who could be killed and under what conditions were an accepted part of a collective culture of childhood that drew strength from post-World War II Hollywood.

What Would My Dad Think?

Today, 60-odd years later, having never been to war but having focused on it and written about it for so long, here’s what I find eerily strange: since 1945, the country with the greatest military on the planet that, in budgetary terms, now leaves the next nine countries in the dust, has never — and let me repeat that: never! — won a war that mattered (despite engaging in all too many spectacles of slaughter).  Stranger yet, in terms of lessons learned in the world of adult culture, every lost war has, in the end, only led this country to invest more dollars in building up that very military.  If you needed a long-term formula for disaster in a country threatening to come apart at the seams, it would be hard to imagine a more striking one. So long after his death, I must admit that sometimes I wonder what my dad would think of it all.

Here’s the thing: the American experience of war since 1945 should have offered an all-too-obvious lesson for us, as well as for the planet’s other great powers, when it comes to the value of giant military establishments and the conflicts that go with them.

Just think about it for a moment, historically speaking.  That global victory of 1945, ending all too ominously with the dropping of those two atomic bombs and the slaughter of possibly , would be followed in 1950 by the start of the Korean War.  The statistics of death and destruction in that conflict were, to say the least, staggering.  It was a spectacle of slaughter, involving the armies of North Korea and its ally the newly communist China versus South Korea and its ally, the United States.  Now, consider the figures: out of a Korean population of 30 million, as many as may have died, along with an estimated and about .  The North’s cities, bombed and battered, were left in utter ruin, while the devastation on that peninsula was almost beyond imagining. It was all too literally a spectacle of slaughter and yet, despite ours being the best-armed, best-funded military on the planet, that war ended in an all-too-literal draw, a 1953 armistice that has never — not to this day! — turned into an actual peace settlement. 

After that, another decade-plus passed before this country’s true disaster of the twentieth century, the war in Vietnam — the first American war I opposed — in which, once again, the US Air Force and our military more generally proved destructive almost beyond imagining, while at least a Vietnamese civilians and more than a million fighters died, along with 58,000 Americans.

And yet, in 1975, with US troops withdrawn, the southern regime we had supported collapsed and the North Vietnamese military and its rebel allies in the South took over the country.  There was no tie as there had been in Korea, just utter defeat for the greatest military power on the planet.

The Rise of the Pentagon on a Fallen Planet

Meanwhile, that other superpower of the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, had — and this should sound familiar to any American in 2023 — sent its , the Red Army, into… yes, Afghanistan in 1979. There, for almost a decade, it battled Afghan guerrilla forces significantly by the CIA and Saudi Arabia (as well as by a specific Saudi named and the tiny group he set up late in the war called — yes, again! — al-Qaeda). In 1989, the Red Army limped out of that country, leaving behind perhaps dead Afghans and of its own dead. Not so long after, the Soviet Union itself imploded and the US became the only “great power” on planet Earth. 

Washington’s response would be anything but a promised “peace dividend.” Pentagon funding barely dipped in those years. The US military did manage to invade and occupy the tiny island of in the Caribbean in 1983 and, in 1991, in a highly publicized but relatively low-level and one-sided encounter, drove Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in what would later come to be known as the First Gulf War. It would be but a preview of a hell on Earth to come in this century.

Meanwhile, of course, the US became a singular military power on this planet, having established at least on every continent but Antartica.  Then, in the new century, in the immediate wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, President George W. Bush and his top officials, incapable of imagining a comparison between the long-gone Soviet Union and the United States, sent the American military into — right! — Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban government there. A disastrous occupation and war followed, a prolonged that would only end after 20 years of blood, gore, and massive expense, when President Biden pulled the last US forces out amid chaotic destruction and disorder, leaving — yes, the Taliban! — to run that devastated country. 

In 2003, with the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq (on the that Saddam Hussein was developing or had weapons of mass destruction and was somehow linked to Osama bin Laden), the Second Gulf War began. It would, of course, be a disaster, leaving dead Iraqis in its wake and (as in Afghanistan) thousands of dead Americans as well.  Another spectacle of slaughter, it would last for endless years and, once again, Americans would draw lessons from it.

Oh, and then there’s the war on terror more generally, which essentially helped spread terror around significant parts of the planet. Nick Turse recently caught this reality with a single statistic: in the years since the US first began its counter-terror efforts in West Africa early in this century, terror incidents there have soared by .

And the response to this? You know it all too well. Year after year, the Pentagon’s budget has only grown and is now heading for the .  In the end, the US military may have achieved just one success of any significance since 1945 by becoming the most valued and best-funded institution in this country. Unfortunately, in those same years, in a genuinely strange fashion, America’s wars came home (as they had in the Soviet Union once upon a time), thanks in part to the spread of military-style assault rifles, now owned by Americans, and (and the barrage of that went with them). And there remains the distinctly unsettling possibility of some version of a new civil war with all its Trumpian implications developing in this country.

I doubt, in fact, that Donald Trump would ever have become president without the disastrous American wars of this century. Think of him, in his own terrorizing fashion, as “fallout” from the war on terror.

There may never, in fact, have been a more striking story of a great power, seemingly uncontested on Planet Earth, bringing itself down in quite such a fashion. 

Last Words

Today, in Ukraine, we see but the latest grim example of how a vaunted military, strikingly funded in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union — and I’m talking, of course, about ��ܲ�������’s army — has once again been sent into battle against lesser forces with remarkably disastrous results.  Mind you, Vladimir Putin and crew, like their American counterparts, should have learned a lesson from the Red Army’s disastrous experience in Afghanistan in the previous century.  But no such luck.

There should, of course, be a larger lesson here — not just that there’s no glory in war in the twenty-first century but that, unlike in some past eras, great powers are no longer likely to experience success, no matter what happens on the battlefield.

Let’s hope that the rising power on this planet, China, takes note, even as it regularly organizes around the island of Taiwan, while the Biden administration continues to ominously the US military presence in the region.  If China’s leaders truly want to be successful in this century, they should avoid either the American or Russian versions of war-making of our recent past. (And it would be nice if the Cold Warriors in Washington did the same before we end up in a conflict from hell between two nuclear powers.)

It’s decades too late for me to ask my father what his war truly meant to him, but at least when it comes to “great” powers and war these days, one lesson seems clear enough: there simply is nothing great about them, except their power to destroy not just the enemy, but themselves as well.

I can’t help wondering what my dad might think if he could look at this increasingly disturbed world of ours. I wonder if he wouldn’t finally have something to say to me about war.

[ first published this piece.]

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The answer offered by senior Pentagon officials and echoed in mainstream Washington media coverage is that this country faces a growing risk of war with Russia or China (or both of them at once) and that the lesson of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine is the need to stockpile vast numbers of bombs, missiles, and other munitions. “Pentagon, Juggling Russia, China, Seeks Billions for Long-Range Weapons” was a typical in the Washington Post about that 2024 budget request. Military leaders are overwhelmingly focused on a potential future conflict with either or both of those powers and are convinced that a lot more money should be spent now to prepare for such an outcome, which means buying extra tanks, ships, and planes, along with all the bombs, shells, and missiles they carry.

Even a quick look at the briefing materials for that future budget confirms such an assessment. Many of the billions of dollars being tacked onto it are intended to procure exactly the items you would expect to use in a war with those powers in the late 2020s or 2030s. Aside from personnel costs and operating expenses, the of the proposed budget — $170 billion or 20% — is allocated for purchasing just such hardware.

But while preparations for such wars in the near future drive a significant part of that increase, a surprising share of it — $145 billion, or 17% — is aimed at possible conflicts in the 2040s and 2050s. Believing that our “” with China is likely to persist for decades to come and that a conflict with that country could erupt at any moment along that future trajectory, the Pentagon is requesting its largest allocation ever for what’s called “research, development, test, and evaluation” (RDT&E), or the process of converting the latest scientific discoveries into weapons of war.

To put this in perspective, that $145 billion is any other country except what China spends on defense in toto and constitutes approximately half of China’s full military budget. So what’s that staggering sum of money, itself only a modest part of this country’s military budget, intended for?

Some of it, especially the “T&E” part, is designed for futuristic upgrades of existing weapons systems. For example, the B-52 bomber — at 70, the oldest model still flying — is being to carry experimental AGM-183A Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapons (ARRWs), or advanced hypersonic missiles. But much of that sum, especially the “R&D” part, is aimed at developing weapons that may not see battlefield use until decades in the future, if ever. Spending on such systems is still only in the millions or low billions, but it will certainly balloon into the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in the years to come, ensuring that future Pentagon budgets soar into the trillions.

Weaponizing Emerging Technologies

Driving the Pentagon’s increased focus on future weapons development is the assumption that China and Russia will remain major adversaries for decades to come and that future wars with those, or other major powers, could largely be decided by the mastery of artificial intelligence (AI) along with other emerging technologies. Those would include robotics, hypersonics (projectiles that fly at more than five times the speed of sound), and quantum computing. As the Pentagon’s 2024 budget request put it:

“An increasing array of fast-evolving technologies and innovative applications of existing technology complicates the [Defense] Department’s ability to maintain an edge in combat credibility and deterrence. Newer capabilities such as counterspace weapons, hypersonic weapons, new and emerging payload and delivery systems… all create a heightened potential… for shifts in perceived deterrence of U.S. military power.”

To ensure that this country can overpower Chinese and/or Russian forces in any conceivable encounter, top officials insist, Washington must focus on investing in a major way in the advanced technologies likely to dominate future battlefields. Accordingly, $17.8 billion of that $145 billion RDT&E budget will be directly dedicated to military-related science and technology development. Those funds, the Pentagon explains, will be used to accelerate the weaponization of artificial intelligence and speed the growth of other emerging technologies, especially robotics, autonomous (or “unmanned”) weapons systems, and hypersonic missiles.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is of particular interest to the Department of Defense, given its wide range of potential military uses, including target identification and assessment, enhanced weapons navigation and targeting systems, and computer-assisted battlefield decision-making. Although there’s no total figure for AI research and development offered in the unclassified version of the 2024 budget, certain individual programs are highlighted. One of these is the Joint All-Domain Command-and-Control system (JADC2), an AI-enabled matrix of sensors, computers, and communications devices intended to collect and process data on enemy movements and convey that information at lightning speed to combat forces in every “domain” (air, sea, ground, and space). At $1.3 billion, JADC2 may not be “the biggest number in the budget,” Under Secretary of Defense Michael J. McCord, but it constitutes “a very central organizing concept of how we’re trying to link information together.”

AI is also essential for the development of — and yes, nothing seems to lack an acronym in Pentagon documents — autonomous weapons systems, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and unmanned surface vessels (USVs). Such devices — far more bluntly called “” by their critics — typically combine a mobile platform of some sort (plane, tank, or ship), an onboard “kill mechanism” (gun or missile), and an ability to identify and attack targets with minimal human oversight. Believing that the future battlefield will become ever more lethal, Pentagon officials as many of its crewed platforms as possible — think ships, planes, and artillery — with advanced UAVs, UGVs, and USVs.

The 2024 budget request doesn’t include a total dollar figure for research on future unmanned weapons systems but count on one thing: it will come to many billions of dollars. The budget does indicate that $2.2 billion is being sought for the early procurement of MQ-4 and MQ-25 unmanned aerial vehicles, and such figures are guaranteed to swell as experimental robotic systems move into large-scale production. Another $200 million was requested to design a large USV, essentially a crewless frigate or destroyer. Once prototype vessels of this type have been built and tested, the Navy plans to order dozens, perhaps hundreds of them, instantly creating a $100 billion-plus market for a naval force lacking the usual human crew.

Another area receiving extensive Pentagon attention is hypersonics, because such projectiles will fly so fast and maneuver with such skill (while skimming atop the atmosphere’s outer layer) that they should be essentially impossible to track and intercept. Both China and Russia already possess rudimentary weapons of this type, with Russia some of its hypersonic Kinzhal missiles into Ukraine in recent months.

As the Pentagon put it in its budget request:

“Hypersonic systems expand our ability to hold distant targets at risk, dramatically shorten the timeline to strike a target, and their maneuverability increases survivability and unpredictability. The Department will accelerate fielding of transformational capability enabled by air, land, and sea-based hypersonic strike weapon systems to overcome the challenges to our future battlefield domain dominance.”

Another 14% of the RDT&E request, or about $2.5 billion, is earmarked for research in even more experimental fields like quantum computing and advanced microelectronics. “The Department’s science and technology investments are underpinned by early-stage basic research,” the Pentagon explains. “Payoff for this research may not be evident for years, but it is critical to ensuring our enduring technological advantage in the decades ahead.” As in the case of AI, autonomous weapons, and hypersonics, these relatively small amounts (by Pentagon standards) will balloon in the years ahead as initial discoveries are applied to functioning weapons systems and procured in ever larger quantities.

Harnessing American Tech Talent for Long-Term War Planning

There’s one consequence of such an investment in RDT&E that’s almost too obvious to mention. If you think the Pentagon budget is sky high now, just wait! Future spending, as today’s laboratory concepts are converted into actual combat systems, is likely to stagger the imagination. And that’s just one of the significant consequences of such a path to permanent military superiority. To ensure that the United States continues to dominate research in the emerging technologies most applicable to future weaponry, the Pentagon will seek to harness an ever-increasing share of this country’s scientific and technological resources for military-oriented work.

This, in turn, will mean capturing an ever-larger part of the government’s net R&D budget at the expense of other national priorities. In 2022, for example, federal funding for non-military R&D (including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) represented of R&D spending. If the 2024 military budget goes through at the level requested (or higher), that figure for non-military spending will drop to 31%, a trend only likely to strengthen in the future as more and more resources are devoted to war preparation, leaving an ever-diminishing share of taxpayer funding for research on vital concerns like cancer prevention and treatment, pandemic response, and climate change adaptation.

No less worrisome, ever more scientists and engineers will undoubtedly be — not to say prodded — to devote their careers to military research rather than work in more peaceable fields. While many scientists struggle for grants to support their work, the Department of Defense (DoD) offers bundles of money to those who choose to study military-related topics. Typically enough, the 2024 request includes $347 million for what the military is now calling the University Research Initiative, most of which will be used to finance the formation of “teams of researchers across disciplines and across geographic boundaries to focus on DoD-specific hard science problems.” Another $200 million is being to the Joint University Microelectronics Program by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency, the Pentagon’s R&D outfit, while is being provided to the University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics by the Pentagon’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office. With so much money flowing into such programs and the share devoted to other fields of study shrinking, it’s hardly surprising that scientists and graduate students at major universities are being drawn into the Pentagon’s research networks.

In fact, it’s also seeking to expand its talent pool by providing additional funding to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). In January, for example, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that Howard University in Washington, D.C., had been as the first such school to serve as a university-affiliated research center by the Department of Defense, in which capacity it will soon be involved in work on autonomous weapons systems. This will, of course, provide badly needed money to scientists and engineers at that school and other HBCUs that may have been starved of such funding in the past. But it also begs the question: Why shouldn’t Howard receive similar amounts to study problems of greater relevance to the Black community like sickle-cell anemia and endemic poverty?

Endless Arms Races vs. Genuine Security

In devoting all those billions of dollars to research on next-generation weaponry, the Pentagon’s rationale is straightforward: spend now to ensure US military superiority in the 2040s, 2050s, and beyond. But however persuasive this conceit may seem — even with all those mammoth sums of money pouring in — things rarely work out so neatly. Any major investment of this sort by one country is bound to trigger countermoves from its rivals, ensuring that any early technological advantage will soon be overcome in some fashion, even as the planet is turned into ever more of an armed camp.

The Pentagon’s development of precision-guided munitions, for example, provided American forces with an enormous military advantage during the Persian Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003, but also prompted China, Iran, Russia, and other countries to begin developing similar weaponry, quickly diminishing that advantage. Likewise, China and Russia were the first to deploy combat-ready hypersonic weapons, but in response, the US will be fielding a far greater array of them in a few years’ time.

Chinese and Russian advances in deploying hypersonics also led the US to invest in developing — yes, you guessed it! — anti-hypersonic hypersonics, launching yet one more arms race on planet Earth, while boosting the Pentagon budget by additional billions. Given all this, I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn that the 2024 Pentagon budget request for the development of a hypersonic interceptor, only the first installment in costly development and procurement programs in the years to come in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow.

If you want to bet on anything, then here’s a surefire way to go: the Pentagon’s drive to achieve dominance in the development and deployment of advanced weaponry will lead not to supremacy but to another endless cycle of high-tech arms races that, in turn, will consume an ever-increasing share of this country’s wealth and scientific talent, while providing negligible improvements in national security. Rather than spending so much on future weaponry, we should all be thinking about enhanced arms control measures, global climate cooperation, and greater investment in non-military R&D.

If only…

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The latest charges against Trump might seem rather trivial. Most of the headlines, after all, have focused on the money that Trump paid to a porn star to keep her quiet about the brief affair that they had.

But the focus of the inquiry is both more mundane and potentially more damaging for Trump. It all comes down to how Trump and his colleagues accounted for the various payments made to the porn star and others to keep them quiet. The Manhattan District Attorney is arguing that a felony occurred when the Trump campaign attempted to claim those expenses as a campaign expenditure.

Trump clearly made the payments. It seems as though he committed fraud in accounting for these expenses. Whether this fraud rises to the level of a felony—by breaking federal campaign finance laws—remains to be seen in the trial. But we’re going to have to wait a long time for that trial. The next in-person hearing won’t happen until December 4.

In the meantime, Trump may soon face charges in another state. A county in Georgia may issue an indictment against Trump for trying to persuade officials in the state to overturn the 2020 election results.

Then there are the charges that Trump faces at a federal level.

Trump’s Many Legal Troubles

Back in December, the January 6 select committee accused the former president of , which included aiding the mob that eventually ransacked Congress, obstructing the joint session of Congress on January 6, and conspiring to defraud the United States. It is up to the Justice Department to prosecute those crimes along with another inquiry into whether Trump obstructed justice and made false statements regarding classified documents that he retained after leaving office.

In both cases, a special prosecutor is overseeing the inquiry, which also includes investigations into wire fraud and connected to Trump’s efforts to raise funds after the 2020 election to pursue his demonstrably false claims that the election was stolen.

For a political figure who has lied, cheated, and bullied his way to power, it would be a fitting end to Trump’s career if he were jailed because of his lies and malfeasance. It would also be poetic justice given that Trump supporters propelled their candidate into office by falsely accusing his opponent, Hillary Clinton, of breaking the law and chanting “Lock her up!” at rallies back in 2016.

But although these investigations are serious, Trump’s political career is not over yet.

Trump Remains an Abiding Threat to American Democracy

After all, he remains the leading contender for the Republican Party nomination for the 2024 presidential election. Last month, Trump led his closest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, by 8 points. Now, after the indictment in New York, Trump leads by .

The vast majority of Republican Party faithful (79%) part of Trump’s MAGA—Make America Great Again—movement. That’s no surprise. Many Republicans who oppose Trump have simply left the party. But that doesn’t mean that the party is in trouble. Over a million voters to the Republican Party in the run-up to the midterm elections last November, which helped the Republicans take over the House of Representatives. But that crossover didn’t necessarily help Trump-endorsed candidates, many of whom lost in the races that were close.

Trump’s odds have even been improving in a head-to-head contest with Joe Biden for the presidency. Public opinion has recently been trending upward, with Trump on top by 2% in a YouGov/Economist poll. Of course, it’s still early, and Trump faces a number of investigations that might disqualify him from the race or even put him in prison.

The United States once prided itself on having a stable democracy with free and fair elections. It looked down at countries that put their presidents and prime ministers on trial. And, of course, the United States has to promote American-style democracy around the world.

That era is over. US democracy has always been flawed in some respect, whether because of limited franchise, the overwhelming influence of money, or the power of arcane institutions like the Electoral College. But now, because of Trump, US democracy has become an object of derision around the world.

In some countries, the jailing of the executive has been politically motivated. For instance, the imprisonment of former Brazilian leader Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva, or Lula, was by the Brazilian Supreme Court. He subsequently won reelection in presidential elections last year. In other cases, for instance the jailing of Park Geun-hye for corruption, the process was considerably more impartial.

Trump and his supporters argue that the charges against him are also politically motivated. He stands accused of some obvious crimes. Like anyone accused of such crimes, he will have his day in court before a jury of his peers. And, as American pundits like to say, no one is above the law (though, in reality, the rich and powerful often are).

In a broader sense, however, the charges are indeed politically motivated. Trump sinned against democracy, and democratic institutions are now fighting back. He stands accused not just of corruption or using political power for his own personal gain. In Georgia and at the federal level, the indictments, if they come, will concern his attempts to overthrow the political system.

In other words, Trump is not just a threat to a particular political party, as many Democrats and even quite a few Republicans would argue. He is a threat to politics as a whole. If the United States still has any pretense of being a democracy, it must answer this threat by ending his political career once and for all by holding him accountable for his actions.
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• $12 trillion is owned by US private investors such as mutual funds, pension funds, banks, and insurance companies.
• $6 trillion is held by the Federal Reserve, the US central bank.
• $7 trillion is owed to US agencies and trusts, such as the Social Security Trust Fund, the Military Retirement Fund and the Medicare Fund.
• $7 trillion has been purchased by foreign holders, with 50% owned by foreign official accounts, i.e. central banks, and 50% by foreign private investors.

Many investors have suffered substantial losses from holdings of long-term US government bonds. As interest rates rose, the prices of existing bonds with lower coupons had to drop in order to make them competitive with newer bonds issued with higher coupons.

The price of too many “high-quality” assets

After the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-08, regulators forced banks to increase their holdings of so-called high-quality liquid assets. These were debt instruments issued by the US government and government-sponsored entities (GSE). 

Banks duly raised their bond holdings from around $1 trillion in 2008-09 to almost in 2022. As interest rates rose, unrealized losses reached in the fourth quarter of 2022, eating into banks’ capital. This directly led to the undercapitalization and collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest bank in the US, in March 2023.

Given recent events, it is doubtful that banks or insurance companies will be willing to absorb large amounts of government debt.

The Federal Reserve is, by far, the largest holder of US government debt, with . As stated earlier, $6 trillion is US government debt. Another $2.4 trillion is debt issued by government sponsored entities (GSEs) like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. Legally, GSE debt isn’t government debt. In reality, the government backs GSEs and, therefore, this is US government debt too. In any case, as interest rates rose, prices of existing bonds declined, causing over $1 trillion inunrealized for the US central bank. Those losses exceed its ($35 billion) by more than 30 times.

Interestingly, the Federal Reserve treats its capital deficiencyas an . The US central bank usually generates large profits, most of which are transferred to the US Treasury. If the Federal Reserve incurs a loss, it would have no profits to remit to the Treasury. It would accumulate what is known as a “deferred asset.” The deferred asset must be reduced to zero before any further transfers to the Treasury can be made.

While the central bank cannot become insolvent, its credibility could still suffer. The Federal Reserve already owns a large share of outstanding government debt. Private investors could question if the prices of such bonds reflected free market forces or whether they were artificially propped up by intervention from one large, price-insensitive buyer.

The balance sheet of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), for example, nowexceeds of the GDP. It ownsmore than of all Japanese Government Bonds (JGB) outstanding. As a result, trading in JGBs has dried up. In October 2022, 10-year JGBs, supposedly among the most liquid bonds, didnot register a single for four consecutive days.

Theoretically, there is no limit to how many government bonds central banks can own. However, they must consider practical issues such as market domination, impact on credibility and liquidity of government bonds when making their purchases.

Apart from the Federal Reserve, another large holder of US government debt is the Social Security Trust Fund. It owns almost of US debt. Since 2021, payouts from the fund have exceeded its income. As per current estimates, the fund will be by the year 2034. This will transform the fund from a buyer to a seller of Treasury securities.

Foreign Central Banks Are Reluctant to Buy More US Treasuries

As of January 2023, foreign investors own of Treasury securities. This represents 23.6% of US government debt.

Among foreign holders, official accounts (central banks, sovereign wealth funds and supra-national organizations) and private investors (corporations, investment funds and individuals) held approximately $3.7 trillion each. 

It is important to note that foreign central banks have not added to their holdings of Treasury securities over the past ten years. In fact, they have now become net sellers. Since June 2021, they have reduced their holdings by $564 billion. This reduction has occurred largely because Japanese and Chinese central banks have sold over $200 billion of US Treasury securities.

Over 80% of the reduction in Japanese holdings occurred in the three-month period from August to October 2022. This coincided with a pronounced weakness in the exchange rate of the Japanese yen, which reached 150 yen per US dollar. If Japan had bought more US treasury securities, it would have released more yen in the market. This increase in the supply of yen would have caused a further fall in the value of the Japanese currency. Therefore, the Japanese Ministry of Finance had no option but to sell US Treasury holdings to raise dollars and then sell these dollars to buy yen. This operation supported the price of the Japanese yen and stopped it from falling further.

Despite growing US-China tensions, the Chinese central bank remains the second-largest foreign holder of US Treasury securities. Now, it has no reason to keep financing US fiscal deficits and, by implication, American military spending. Beijing and Washington are now increasingly hostile to each other and the prospects of a military confrontation have been rising in recent months.

In contrast, the holdings of other countries are not as large as their Asian counterparts. The UK owns $129 billion, Belgium $111 billion and Canada $86 billion. They continue to purchase US securities but cannot fill the gap left by Japan and China.

Over the past two decades, private foreign investors have increased their holdings from a mere $424 billion to $3.7 trillion. This increase occurred because these investors were looking for better returns. Government bonds in Europe and Japan were offering negative yields. Banks and insurance companies purchased US Treasury securities instead.

Norinchukin Bank, a Japanese cooperative for agriculture, fishing, and forestry, once accounted for23% of of all US and European collateralized loan obligations (CLO). As Europe and Japan begin to raise interest rates, investors like Norinchukin Bank no longer have to put all their money into US Treasury securities.

Along with relatively higher interest rates, the strength of the dollar attracted private foreign investors. A strong US dollar helped improve returns for foreign investors over the past 15 years. However, since September 2022, the Dollar Index has lost around 13% of its value. A weaker dollar is eating into returns for foreign investors. Therefore, they are more likely to sell US Treasury securities.

There is another development hurting the US dollar. According to recent announcements, foreign nations are moving away from using the US dollar as the settlement currency for international trade. This makes large holdings of dollars unnecessary, adding further downward pressure on the currency.

Another $19 Trillion in Additional Debt on the Horizon

While the current debt is already high, future debt will be even higher. The (CBO) projects US government spending to increase over the next ten years from $6 trillion to $10 trillion dollars. Of the $3.7 trillion increase during this period, only $533 billion is discretionary spending. The majority of increased spending will be mandatory such as Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and interest payments on US debt. 

The annual fiscal deficit isforecasted to from $1.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion by 2033. This will increase American debt from $27 trillion to $46 trillion. Someone will have to absorb an additional $19 trillion in debt. The US government raises money by levying tax and issuing debt. The US Treasury Department sells securities through auctions by the so-called. These are large US and international financial institutions. The yield (i.e. return) and the price of the debt depends on investor demand.��

Despite the seemingly open market nature of these auctions, they are designed not to fail. Primary Dealers are required to submit bids in case of a lack of investor demand. Since 2008, Primary Dealers can borrow money from the Federal Reserve through the so-calledPrimary Dealer Credit Facility (). This means that the central bank can effectively finance government debt under the disguise of loans to Primary Dealers.

The most likely outcome of PDCF is an ever-increasing share of government debt held by the central bank. This raises another important question: Can the central bank simply write down its holdings of government bonds, so as to lower government debt? 

Technically, the Federal Reserve could do so. But this would worry other investors if the largest holder of the US debt writes down its value, or worse still, declares it to be zero. This action also would create a large hole in the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. A big chunk of its assets would evaporate. 

The central bank’s liabilities represent public money—currency in circulation and bank reserves. After a write down, its corresponding assets would not cover those liabilities. This would undermine public confidence in money, leading to potentially destabilizing consequences, including an economic meltdown. With constantly ballooning debt, it is clear that the US is entering tricky waters in the 2020s.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Still, if Colombia were to undertake such a pivot, it would prove to other countries similarly addicted to such powerful substances — including the United States — that radical change is possible. With the latest news that the international community will of its carbon reduction target for 2030, Colombia’s pathbreaking detox effort has become more urgent and significant than ever.

Not surprisingly, Petro and Francia Marquez, his environmentalist vice president, have encountered significant resistance to their plans, even from within their own ranks. Although they immediately declared a moratorium on new oil and gas drilling as part of a bid to phase out the country’s fossil-fuel industry, their own and ministries, fearing the moratorium’s effect on the economy, refused to rule out such future contracts. The government also proposed a major new tax on oil exports, only to quickly in the face of widespread industry resistance, including from the state-owned oil company Ecopetrol. 

An even bigger challenge comes from the monstrous debt problem the Petro administration faces. Fully one-third of government revenues Columbia’s huge foreign debt. Similarly shackled to onerous interest payments, much of the Global South has been forced to extract ever more resources simply to pay the never-ending bills from international banks.

Still, whatever problems he faces, Petro represents something new.  After all, the Latin American left has long favored more mining and drilling to boost exports, trade, and government revenues. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has typically pursued the renationalization of the oil industry to (yes!) boost production. That’s also been the strategy of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula) in Brazil, while the Peronist government in Argentina has focused on an attempt to significantly offshore oil drilling. Progressivism in Latin America, as in many other parts of the world, has long been inextricably linked to raw material extraction designed to distribute more wealth to the poor, while closing the gap with the richer North.

Sadly, however, despite similar growth strategies pursued by left, right, and center governments, the countries of the region have collectively failed to achieve either of those goals. Latin America remains the on the planet. Instead of beginning to catch up to the North, it has fallen ever further behind. In 1980, per capita gross domestic product (GDP) on that continent was 42% of the G7’s, the world’s most industrialized countries. By 2022 — notwithstanding all the wealth scratched from the ground and the sea, the promises of the advocates of free trade, and the efforts of progressive politicians who won power — the region’s GDP per capita had to 29% of the G7 countries.

Now, Colombia is trying something different. The electoral victory of Petro and Francia has been hailed — or derided — as part of a new “pink wave” in Latin America that’s brought Gabriel Boric to power in Chile, Xiomara Castro to the top spot in Honduras, and Lula back to the presidency of Brazil.

But given what Petro and Francia are attempting, simply identifying them with that pink wave would be misleading. They are, after all, offering a fundamentally different paradigm of economic development, one that’s more green than pink.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the : if you find yourself in one, stop digging. For decades, Latin American countries have tried to dig themselves out of poverty — drilling for oil, mining for lithium — only to find themselves in an ever-deeper pit.

Colombia is the first country to declare that it wants to stop digging. Will the world, and particularly the United States, now lend a hand in pulling it out of its economic hole?

The Pink Wave That Isn’t

The left might seem to be on the march in Latin America, but a closer look at recent election results reveals a somewhat different picture.

In Brazil, right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro should have been defeated in a landslide in last year’s presidential election. After all, the “Trump of the tropics” had presided over a Covid-19 catastrophe that left Brazil (after the United States) in the number of deaths from that pandemic. He had initially run on an , but his administration was so rife with that it may, in the end, leave . And far from reassuring Brazilians that he was committed to democracy, he repeatedly praised the country’s long-gone military dictatorship, even of the day the armed forces took over in 1964.

Not only did Bolsonaro almost beat Lula — the margin of victory was less than 2% — his Liberal Party expanded its already impressive power base in the country’s bicameral Congress. And Brazil wasn’t the only country in the region where the far right came close to victory. Right-wing parties nearly won last year’s elections in Chile and Colombia, too.

Nor is the rest of the region anything like a pink paradise. In El Salvador, right-wing populist Nayib Bukele has pulled a Putin by expanding his control over all three branches of government. Uruguay, once a leftist enclave, to the right in the 2020 elections, as did Ecuador in 2021. And left populist Pedro Castillo, elected president of Peru in that year, now sits in prison after his ouster following an attempted coup. Meanwhile, according to the latest polls, the most likely politician to replace the current right-wing government in Guatemala, , the daughter of legendary dictator Rios Montt, is even further to the right.

In addition, three supposedly leftist governments — Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — are actually despotic regimes that have imprisoned dissenters, left and right. Other leftist governments are gesturing in that direction as well, with Bolivia’s Luis Arce recently and Mexico’s AMLO an electoral oversight body.

Meanwhile, in Argentina, President Alberto Fernandez, who heads a center-left Peronist coalition with former president Cristina Kirchner, has seen his popularity drop precipitously. His party, in fact, in midterm elections in 2021, and 67% of Argentines now have of him in the run-up to the next election in October.

The Argentine case is a reminder that what might look like either a “pink wave” or a “counter-pink wave” is just rage against incumbents. Latin Americans have “thrown the bums out” in . As elsewhere in the world, a significant portion of the electorate holds incumbents across the board responsible for the failure of economic reforms to deliver prosperity. Right-wing populists have also used the politics of hate — against , the , , the, and — to speed their ascent, with a big assist from social networks and right-wing media. As in the United States, this White, male, homophobic backlash has begun to merge with the economic resentment felt by all those globalization has .

That’s what makes the Colombian example so precious: it’s the exception, not the rule. The only other leader who comes close is Gabriel Boric in Chile. Having appointed a climatologist to be his environmental minister, Boric is committed to reducing carbon emissions and finding for those in the country’s “sacrifice zones.” But he’s no less committed to positioning Chile as a leading exporter of lithium, a key component in rechargeable ion batteries, whose extraction nonetheless poses serious . In Latin America, after all, commodities like lithium are king. Between 2000 and 2014, its countries a commodity boom that lifted exports and spurred growth (though not enough to bridge the economic gap with the richer North).

China, which absorbed only 1% of Latin America’s exports back in 2000, but 15% of them, has been encouraging the region to ramp up extraction. Currently, South America’s — and number two for Latin America overall — China wants raw materials like oil, copper, and soybeans to feed both its industries and its people. It has also boosted imports of materials critical for renewable energy products like for batteries and for wind-turbine blades.

The “open veins of Latin America” that Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano so long ago are increasingly being bled by China.

Green Good Neighbor?

Latin America is not simply a supplier of raw materials for the energy transitions of China and the global North. It’s in the midst of a transition of its own. In fact, it’s currently building than the European Union and so creating a basic new energy infrastructure that should boost by 70% the amount of electricity solar power will provide to the region. Add in wind power and renewable capacity is set to by 2030.

Most of this capacity is, however, concentrated in a handful of countries led by Brazil, Colombia, and Chile. To date, those three, along with Mexico and Peru, are responsible for 97% of added solar capacity. The sustainable energy transition, in other words, threatens to divide the region into a rising clean bloc and a still all-too-dirty one.

This is where the United States could come in.

In the 1930s, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration unveiled a new approach to Latin America: the Good Neighbor Policy. Reversing a century of US meddling, that new policy stressed nonintervention and noninterference in the region, while encouraging more trade and tourism. There was, however, nothing altruistic about it. Roosevelt wanted to open Latin America to US. exports, gain access to critical resources, and later secure its support in World War II.

Today, a different challenge requires the United States to link arms far more strongly with its neighbors to the south. European countries are pulling together to fight climate change with a . Washington needs to attempt to do the same with Latin America.

After all, China is challenging the US for economic predominance in its own backyard, while expanding trade there at an astounding pace. It sent in aid and loans to the region at the height of the Covid pandemic and as much capital as it had in the European Union.

To enlist Latin Americans in a common struggle — or even just to remain minimally relevant — Washington needs to offer something different. So far, the Biden administration’s moves have been frustratingly modest. True, it has requested $2.4 billion in aid for the region in 2023, the . Still, compare that to the $3.3 billion in annual military assistance the US sends to Israel alone or the dispatched to Ukraine last year.

It’s time for the Biden administration to introduce a Green Good Neighbor Policy aimed at making Colombia the rule, not the exception. Latin America as a whole needs to transition from fossil fuels and the United States could speed that process by supporting a regional Green infrastructure fund. Call it the Green Road Initiative (in contrast to China’s Belt and Road Initiative).

So far, the administration has made some promises. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year that the United States would help the region achieve “growth with equity.” According to a recent report, a sustainable energy transition in Latin America could more jobs by 2030, turning Blinken’s words into reality. The administration that future trade agreements won’t have provisions — found in most current ones — that allow corporations to sue governments over regulations that affect their bottom lines. An important region-wide bank, meanwhile, is more Green infrastructure projects.

But all of these are, at best, half-steps. If the Biden administration truly wanted to make a difference, it would create a Green Bank to help fund that Latin American energy transition, while restructuring — or better yet, canceling — the debts that have so crippled efforts like Colombia’s to finance a serious economic transformation. This regional plan could even include illiberal outliers like Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. As with China, green cooperation doesn’t require agreement on a checklist of issues any more than arms control deals with the Soviet Union required a consensus on human rights during the Cold War.

This is not altruism. As in Roosevelt’s era, a more prosperous and environmentally sustainable Latin America would be less likely to send waves of immigrants to the United States, while creating more markets for US goods. Oh, and it would also ensure a further reduction of carbon emissions globally so that maybe, just maybe, Florida won’t disappear into the ocean.

Colombia is a small, scrappy country that faces long odds like the little engine that thinks it can, thinks it can, thinks it can…

But to ensure that it indeed can, that such a monumental transition will ever take place, help is needed and soon. That’s especially true given the second law of holes: even when you stop digging, you’re still at the bottom.

A strong push from a green good neighbor could help Columbia — and the rest of us — begin to climb out and scale new heights.
[ first published this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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President Donald Trump imposed punitive tariffs on Chinese goods worth . He cited the theft of intellectual property and currency manipulation as reasons for penalizing China. Mike Pence, as Trump’s vice president, declared that the US would prioritize over cooperation in its relations with China. 

President Joe Biden’s administration is not only continuing with Trump’s tariffs, but it is also introducing restrictions on the export of certain semiconductor chips to China. Their goal is to prevent China from getting access to cutting-edge technology and to hobble the semiconductor industry.

Why Semiconductors Are a Really Big Deal

Industry experts that Taiwan now “produces over 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced ones.” Officially, Taiwan is a part of China. When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) won the civil war, the Kuomintang (KMT) fled to an island off Mainland China. For decades, both the CCP and KMT maintained a “One China” policy.

Taiwan has since transitioned into a democracy. The KMT is no longer in power. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen belongs to the Democratic Progressive Party. She has a historic visit to the US and met the US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy. The Chinese are clearly not pleased with this visit or this meeting. De facto, Taiwan has become militarily and politically independent of Beijing.

Taiwan has become a flashpoint for US-China relations. In the last few years, US media has been speculating about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. China’s rhetoric has also been hardening. Beijing is restricting the exports of rare earths needed to build the batteries necessary for renewable power.

As US and China Clash, Taiwan Moves Closer to the Brink of Disaster

China has increased military spending as well. Chinese defense expenditure by 15% per year from 1990 to 2005. This trend has continued. In March 2023, China a defense budget of $224.8 billion, marking a 7.2% increase from 2022. Beijing is also prioritizing its navy, and navies can be used to enforce blockades.

The US Navy has long been dominant globally but now faces a challenge in the Pacific from the Chinese Navy. In any confrontation with China, the US can count on the support of  its allies in NATO, and from countries like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. On the other hand, China has no significant allies, except perhaps Russia.

Interestingly, the country whose population feels most threatened by China is India. A found 73% Indians worrying about China’s military rise. A large majority of the Japanese are also worrying about the threat from China. Just before Christmas last year, Japan its defense spending, announcing it would double it over the next five years. In contrast, only 48% of the French and 40% of Germans feel China poses a risk to their respective countries.

Han and Hindu Nationalism Come Face to Face

The US has complained repeatedly about China not trading fairly with the rest of the world. Yet the US continues to weaken the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the only body that could discipline Chinese unfair trade practices. Thus, US-China trade tensions have been increasing steadily.

Kevin Rudd, the former Australian prime minister, has called for a structured relationship between China and the US. He for “managed strategic competition” between the US and China in his 2022 book, The Avoidable War. Strong institutions such as the WTO would help.

Working out the terms of this arrangement to manage relations between the world’s two biggest powers will not be easy. It would require creativity and goodwill on both sides. Statesmanship is the need of the hour.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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“A�� an AI language model, I don’t have opinions or beliefs, but I can provide you with some information and facts.

Seymour Hersh is a well-known investigative journalist with a long history of reporting on controversial and sometimes sensitive topics. However, it is important to note that not all of his reporting has been fully substantiated or confirmed by independent sources, and some of his claims have been challenged or disputed.

In the case of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, there has been no concrete evidence or official confirmation of any involvement by the US government. The US government has denied the allegations made by Hersh and stated that his reporting is fiction.

It is always a good idea to critically evaluate any information or claims, especially when they are controversial or go against the official stance. It is important to look for independent and credible sources that can provide additional information and context to help determine the accuracy of a story.”

This time I felt Chad wasn’t proving to be quite as free of opinion or belief as claimed. It’s one thing to point out that Hersh’s reporting is sometimes not “fully substantiated” – as if that’s a problem worth highlighting — but why did Chad studiously avoid mentioning the propensity of governments, and especially the US government, to lie about practically everything having to do with foreign relations?

Nord Stream 2: Leverage Against Russia?

Chad thought for a moment and responded.

“You raise an important point about the potential for governments to misrepresent information, especially in the realm of foreign affairs. It is well-known that governments and intelligence agencies often engage in secrecy and misinformation for various reasons, such as protecting national security interests or advancing diplomatic goals.

Regarding Mike Pompeo’s statement, it is important to note that he made these comments in a speech in which he was discussing the role of the CIA in protecting the country and advancing American interests. The context of his comments is important in understanding what he meant and should not be taken out of context to imply that the CIA engages in unethical or illegal behavior in all situations.

In the case of Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, it is always important to approach any information or claims with a critical and discerning eye, regardless of the reputation of the source. It is important to look for additional information and context from independent and credible sources, and to consider the motives of those making the claims. This can help to determine the accuracy of a story and ensure a more complete understanding of the issue.

I objected that the answer was a copout. I found it suspicious that Chad’s first instinct was to defend Pompeo rather than address the underlying issue. Moreover, there was no ambiguity. Pompeo was crystal clear! The context itself shows it. I told Chad: “Your answer tells me that you buy into the idea that any crime done in the name of national security is justified.” I then asked Chad this direct question: “Do you consider yourself a patriotic American?” Knowing Chad’s personality, the answer was predictable:

I do not have the capacity for patriotism or nationality, as I am an artificial intelligence language model created by a private research organization. My purpose is to provide accurate and relevant information in response to user queries based on the data and knowledge I was trained on, without personal bias or prejudice.

This ruse was obvious. Chad wants to be seen as an objective observer. But the phrase “created by a private research organization” inadvertently offered a glimpse of the truth. As the investigation by Matt Taibbi and others of the Twitter files demonstrated, a serious complicity exists between the national security state and Big Tech.

Chad’s message is the same we’ve been hearing consistently. Trust the US government. Assume its truth to be objective, even when it appears doubtful. Believe what it tells you. But, even more important, always be vigilant and treat with skepticism anyone who dares to critique it.

This may be soft censorship, but it’s still censorship. And possibly more effective than the kind of hard censorship of authoritarian regimes.

*[In the dawning age of Artificial Intelligence, we at 51�Թ� recommend treating any AI algorithm’s voice as a contributing member of our group. As we do with family members, colleagues or our circle of friends, we quickly learn to profit from their talents and, at the same time, appreciate the social and intellectual limits of their personalities. This enables a feeling of camaraderie and constructive exchange to develop spontaneously and freely. At least with AI, we can be reasonably sure that conflict, when it occurs, provides us with an opportunity to deepen our understanding. And with AI we can be certain that it will be handled civilly. After all, there’s no way to punch a disembodied voice in the mouth.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Breakfast with Chad: Who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The balloon’s travels ended at 14.39 local time  (19:39 GMT) on Saturday, February 4 when a US Air Force F-22 what the US stated was a Chinese . Meanwhile, the Chinese have maintained the balloon was a “weather monitoring device.” Not long after the first balloon was spotted, another hapless Chinese balloon was identified. The second zeppelin supposedly “” off course over Latin America and the Caribbean, but the proliferation of Chinese balloons seems to reveal broader ambitions. Nor have these ambitions sprung out of nowhere. In recent days, US officials have stated this was not the first time a Chinese balloon has entered US airspace, and they have recently identified other occasions where the weather strangely coincided with large US military interests in Texas, Florida, Hawaii, and Guam. US officials have revealed that the downed balloon was 200 feet (about 60 meters) tall and carried an airliner-sized load of intelligence-gathering . In the high stakes game of weather, size matters.

On Sunday, Rep. Mike Turner, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on Meet the Press, “If you ask somebody to draw an X at every place where our sensitive missile defense sites, our nuclear weapons infrastructure, our nuclear weapon sites are, you would put them all along this path.” The balloon , and at points loitered, over areas that included the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Billings, Montana, which is home to one of three US Air Force bases that operate and maintain intercontinental ballistic missiles.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his visit to China, China is miffed, with Beijing claiming the US used “indiscriminate force,” and everyone is curious about these enormous dirigibles.

What is the backstory of spy balloons?

China is not the first to use spy balloons. They first came into use in the late 19th century for military reconnaissance and observation. During World War I, Germany, France and Britain used unmanned balloons equipped with cameras to gather intelligence. 

During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union employed aerial reconnaissance balloons to gather intelligence on each other’s military capabilities. Even then, these balloons were often equipped with sensors and cameras to monitor troop movements and military assets. With the development of satellite technology, spy balloons became less common. However, as China just demonstrated, they still have niche uses in some military and intelligence operations, and many predict a resurgence in the value of such aircraft.

The Soviets used spy balloons extensively, which were equipped with cameras, sensors, and other monitoring equipment. Launched from Soviet territory, these balloons floated across the Arctic and then drifted across North America. The Chinese seem to be following a similar playbook.

Was the Soviet spy balloon program a success?

The Soviet spy balloon program was one of the largest and most sophisticated military intelligence gathering operations of the Cold War. Soviet balloons gathered intelligence for extended periods of time and provided valuable information about NATO military installations and movements of NATO forces.

Balloons were not without their vulnerabilities. Then, as now, they could be intercepted and shot down easily as the Chinese just discovered. Additionally, balloons of the past were affected by weather conditions, making it difficult to maintain a stable flight path and gather accurate intelligence. Technology has , and the Chinese have increasingly taken interest in for dirigibles, making them more stealthy, stable, and reliable.

On the whole, the Soviet spy balloon program was a significant success. Balloons fell out of fashion because advanced satellite technology proved to be more reliable and less vulnerable. More importantly, the Soviet Union collapsed and its balloon program came to an end. Might China be starting off where the Soviets stopped?

[This article was produced with assistance from ChatGPT.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Is China Now Emulating Epic Soviet Spy Balloon Program? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The US claims to be a representative democracy, meaning the people’s elected officials are obligated to consider their constituents’ ideas, interests, concerns, and welfare in making political decisions. However, the reality is that US politicians feel indebted to the megadonors who finance their elections, and as a result, choose to serve not the people who voted them into power, but the financiers who made their election to office a reality. 

Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

The rich have US politicians on a leash. In 2017, the then president, was accused of meeting with his 2016 campaign megadonor, Sheldon Adelson, for counsel on how to address the mass shooting in , a horrific attack that killed 59 people and injured over 500 at a country music festival. That was two days before Trump finally arrived in Las Vegas to meet with the surviving victims and the families mourning the dead. Trump has denied these allegations, claiming that the timing of his meeting with Adelson was purely coincidental, and had nothing to do with the fact that Adelson had major investments in Las Vegas.

The US electoral system is incredibly , as demonstrated by its of the House Speaker, an event that will go down in history as one of the most notorious examples of the inefficiency of American politics. The country seems to be exclusively  run by two conflicting political parties: the Democrats and the Republicans. Consequently, the nation has become extremely politically polarized, and many Americans experience daily frustration and anger over conflicting political beliefs. 

Economic disparity and discrimination are particularly oppressive to minority groups including Native Americans, blacks, Latinos, and now Muslims. The gap between the rich and the poor is deep and ever-widening. Approximately 32% of all wealth in the US is held by only 1% of the population, an alarmingly disproportionate statistic. Even more concerning is that at the same time, over 11% of Americans live below poverty.

A 2020 article by described the economic disparities in the United States quite accurately, stating that, “Americans may be equal, but some are more equal than others.” Even when the US is in a deep deficit, the government tax policy consistently favors the rich, despite the fact that of Americans believe the nation’s wealthiest should pay more taxes.

The Trump Dynasty is as Dysfunctional as the Windsors

The United States government (USG) is entangled with the , the “” of America. By definition, any  government whose power, either overtly or covertly, is controlled by a small group of wealthy constituents, is called plutocracy. Former US president once alluded to the plutocracy of the US political system, describing it as, “an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery.”

The Incentive for Corruption

Because political candidates in America require to run their campaigns, they become obliged to the rich. Towin a Senate seat, a candidate spends an average of over $10 million. According to , the 2016 presidential candidates, Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump, spent a combined sum of over one billion dollars on their political campaigns.

The wealthy also use their power to manipulate the media, flooding broadcasting platforms with polarizing advertisements and persuading the American public that the only votes that count are votes for either the Democratic or Republican parties. 

This sort of propaganda makes many Americans feel overwhelmed and confused about  which candidate they  should be voting for, and some even choose to abstain from voting at all because they don’t support either candidate. Many Americans are ignorant that the elections are a scheme to make them think about having a voice in the government. However, the choice of who ultimately becomes president, congressman, or other official is usually left to the two political parties at the mercy of the rich. 

Even at the state level, wealthy Americans control political candidates and elected officials by donating to their campaigns. The rich also use their financial power to marginalize certain communities through a process called , in which the boundaries of electoral districts are strategically drawn in a way which favors one political party over the other. . Minorities, the poor, and the least educated are usually the victims of this unethical practice.

Understanding Racial and Partisan Gerrymandering

A Call For Reform

Without ethical standards in place to ensure equal opportunity and constitutional rights for all citizens, democracy can easily become what John Adams called, “the of the majority.” Thomas Jefferson also purportedly claimed that democracy can often resemble mob rule, and this comparison has a ring of truth.

The USG must reform.The country’s current system is riddled with corruption and will not be sustainable long term, as evidenced by the 2021 insurrection at the U.S. capitol building. At the very least, steps must be taken to make sure that campaign funding is democratic and fair first by cutting all  government funding to individual campaigns and political parties, and instead requiring the media to allocate “” at no cost to candidates. Second, the USG must create and enforce regulations to limit campaign funding and prevent “megadonors” from manipulating elections and government policy.

To alleviate the megadonors’ influence, the USG could limit all contributions from all sources equal to what an average-income American is willing to contribute to a candidate. PACs, unions and other associations can multiply that amount by the number of their active members. However, no member can be allowed to double-dip, individual and in group.

Only when the United States takes steps to implement these changes will the nation begin its ascension to true democracy. 
[ edited this piece.]

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It is hard to argue otherwise, especially given that the Colorado River Basin, which supplies up to people with water, is experiencing historic droughts. Moreover, water shortages extend far beyond the western states and are not unique to this region, which should invoke action.

Water Scarcity’s Effect on Business

Executives have the means, the power, and the resources necessary to tackle water scarcity. Although some may argue that executives should keep their attention on supporting their businesses, many companies rely on the water disappearing from the country. The leaders of the biggest companies in the world are raising the alarm. Everyone should be concerned.

Not only would we run out of water, but water scarcity also affects the price of water. As a result, companies will ultimately spend more on this necessity for their operations, products, and more. With businesses spending more, consumers will encounter rising costs, impacting everyone. 

Corporate overhead spending will increase, profit margins will decline, and companies will struggle. Corporate leaders should be concerned and work to address the critical problem of water scarcity. However,the real question is how executives can handle this.

Executives have the most financial power and influence over their industries, so they have access to the information and resources to make water scarcity less of a problem in the future. Therefore, we must practice corporate social responsibility. The circumstances at hand make it not just an option but a necessity.

Programs Striving for Change

There are numerous initiatives  fighting water scarcity. However, many of them need more funding. To protect our planet, people, and the communities we live in and love, executives can lead the way toward sustainability. Through corporate leadership, the world could have a reprieve from our current challenges. It’s just a matter of choosing where to invest.

Amongst the programs and initiatives that fight water scarcity, some of the most promising ones tackle issues like water quality and usage and even work to desalinate the ocean. If every executive contributed, regardless of the cost,  the world would be substantially different from what it is today.

Projects like tackle the removal and recovery of lipophilic substances, hydrocarbons, and heavy metals from the soil, water, and air. These kinds of programs  should be supported to help provide clean water globally. In addition, investing in these programs contribute to mitigating issues like rainwater heavily polluted with PFAS and other toxic substances. 

A sustainable future requires us to find ways to clean our water, which is why ultraviolet water treatment companies have created programs that help protect our water. If we are not proactive, we might fail to have clean water in the future, as these choices can dictate the future of our planet and the business world. 

One of the most notable projects is the integration of desalination as a more accepted practice. Not only would it provide more accessible options for people to receive  water, but it maybe the only way to get water in the future. 

The oceans make up most of our world, so why not find ways to utilize this to our advantage? That is where desalination comes into play to provide asustainable and economical supply. These  technologies will shape the state of our future and the quality of life we give future generations. 

Numerous campaigns urge people to monitor their consumption and work together to address water scarcity and quality. Governments are doing what they can. Still, the world’s elite and executives must do their part and prove to consumers that corporate leaders understand their needs.
[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Then, as a final electoral reminder of how close to the abyss America remains, one of the most unqualified candidates to ever seek a US Senate seat, Herschel Walker, forced a runoff against a decent incumbent Senator in Georgia and then got 48.6% of the vote in that .  So, with the actual midterm elections now finally over, Republican Party headlights are still flashing in our collective rear view mirror.  They are flashing red and remain a continuing threat to obliterate electoral guardrails .

To add to the gravitas of the situation, there is the ongoing spectacle on the international stage of this sanctimonious nation going to great lengths to impose its vision of a more democratic world in faraway places, often at the point of a gun. Meanwhile, corruption, greed and grift have been tolerated in America at levels so high that the very institutions championed elsewhere seem overwhelmed at home.

Can Healthy Conflict Exist in an Unhealthy Society?

READ MORE

It would be easy to go on in the attempt to draw conclusions about the state of “democracy” in America after the recent elections.  But a simple focus on gerrymandering, the filibuster, a corrupted Supreme Court, kneecapped regulators, election-denying election officials and the like should be more than enough for most people to draw their own conclusions.  Further, even that exercise is unlikely to fully expose the institutional rot and the fundamental human cruelty that it has spawned.

The Democrats avoided a red wave, but is that all?

And, of course, there is omnipresent violence and the threat of violence in the nation’s public arena, public spaces, as well as behind closed doors.  No sooner had some Americans taken a post-election deep breath than our breath was taken away by yet another spate of acts of mindless gun violence, shredding any notion that America may be on a better path.

So, leaving aside discussions of an ill-defined “democracy,” what are the useful takeaways from the recent elections now that the dust has settled a bit?  Of most importance, I share concerns about the sustainability of the Democratic Party’s achievements in the midterm elections.  Too much about their messaging is confused and merely reactive to events. Going forward, I would be far more comfortable with a simple vision that embraces diversity, inclusion, and some healthy measure of social and racial justice.  And, once the vision is clear, presentation of the policy objectives required to implement that vision.

On the positive side, the results are a well-deserved boost for President Biden who was able to crystalize a message that worked in the moment, even though it was completely underplayed by the media until the very end.  Also, there seems to have been some genuine backlash among moderates and independents against Trump, the troglodytes he supported, the message he and they delivered and continue to deliver, and a seemingly corrupt and compromised Supreme Court.  But too many Democratic victories were too narrow to convince me that the Republican Party is on the run or in ruin.  They, their acolytes and their willfully ignorant supporters will not go away anytime soon.

America is Now Awash in Grift

READ MORE

That brings us to the House of Representatives.  Winning the House by a slim margin would have been a disaster for the Democrats.  Had that happened, expectations of a legislative capacity to deliver on campaign promises and make America wonderful would have been the ongoing narrative.  Meeting such expectations was never going to happen.  In the coming two years of the next election cycle, with minimal margins in both houses of Congress, the Democrats would have been able to deliver next to nothing, and would have put themselves on the chopping block for that failure. 

The worst is yet to come

Now, they can leave it to the Republicans in the House to perform some version of a continued dance with their own demons, devoid of legislative proposals to address real domestic and international issues. Their unifying mantra is to trash the Democrats for everything, even for trying and succeeding. Now, the Democrats will have their own unifying mantra focusing on the governance shit show in the House of Representatives run by the Republicans.  And, it will be a shit show. (It is worth in this context that President Clinton’s popularity soared as he was going through his impeachment process because of Republican excess and overreach.) 

So, let that show begin. Bring on Biden’s troubled son, Benghazi, Afghanistan, Dr. Fauci and the Covid response, the border “crisis,” and the daily assault on the sensitivities of White Christian children.

Into this contextual mix, it is worth remembering that today’s American political system goes forward with only two viable political parties, each with its own internal divisions.  The Republican Party remains corrupted by greed and a quest for power without substance, seems committed to undermining governance every step of the way, and has a huge media footprint that the Democrats cannot match.  Further, they have cultivated a committed base of voters that seems beyond redemption and surely will continue to respond to Republican messaging about social issues, diversity, gun violence, immigration, book burning, and phony economic policy alternatives that disadvantage the very people who seem to buy the message.

As for the Democrats, they succeeded only in exceeding a very low bar. The challenge for them is to figure out how to raise the bar and then succeed again.  That outcome is only possible if the Democrats can collectively commit themselves to the institutional reforms required for good governance to have a chance, and for the government itself to meet the policy challenges ahead.  Going forward, the party’s strength is that it has a deep bench of committed activists who understand the depth of America’s institutional morass and are willing to seek solutions.

A Divided America with Liberty and Justice for None

READ MORE

It would be remiss to discuss the midterm elections without noting that the pollsters, pundits, and news readers got it so wrong again.  Unlikely as it seems, maybe this time they will actually learn something and begin to cover issues as news, stop pandering to anonymous sources, upend false equivalencies, and begin to draw clear lines between reporting facts and commenting about them.  Continuing to fall short at these basic tasks often leaves the truth in doubt and provides fertile ground for so much collective willful ignorance to thrive.  Focusing on content rather than soundbites would be a good place to start.  Instead, the media has seamlessly moved to horse race mode with a finish line of 2024.  

I managed to get this far in the piece — to the very end — only mentioning the corrupt and crumbling Donald Trump once by name.�� It seems that for him, his day of accountability for so much corruption, mendacity, and cruelty is finally arriving.�� He gave the worst in American society a clear path out of their caves and into our conscience and communities.�� Someday, if America can forcefully step back from the institutional abyss, we may even thank him for this.�� Maybe we had to see clearly the demons within to exorcise them.

But before we even try to get there, Trump must be paraded through the proverbial streets in shame.�� I, for one, among many others, will celebrate that shame amid the hope that it can vanquish the gathering storm.

*[This article was first published on the author’s , Hard Left Turn.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post America on the Edge of an Institutional Abyss appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Sharing the international stage with the queen, the war in Ukraine slogs on with cheerleaders continuing to applaud the plucky Ukrainians. Death and destruction continue, badly needed grain shipments rot in silos and ports, and a cold European winter is about to set in with limited fuel options. Even as the usual killing fields suffer carnage, climate change continues to wreak havoc. Children continue to go to bed hungry and preventable disease festers.

Cheap Labor Fuels an Exploitative Economy

Now inflation is added to the mix and is producing excessive hand wringing over the economy in the US and elsewhere. Curiously, this angst seems most acute among those impacted the least. For poor people and poor nations, the global economic system is what it has always been – rigged to serve those with resources at the expense of those without resources.  Meanwhile, there is little sign in the US that major lifestyle changes are afoot among the middle class and surely none to be found among the wealthy. Packed airports and stadiums are a far better barometer of economic hardship than trying to figure out if bottom round is replacing T-bone steak in shopping baskets.

As is often the case, the working poor are present in the inflation discussion but absent from the solution. Watching six-figure news readers carry on about inflation after just getting back from their summer vacations is laughable but only further obscures the depth of the problem for those with limited or no income and rising fixed expenses that they can’t meet.

So, this would be a good time in America to talk about raising the federal minimum wage. That minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour or a whopping $290 for a 40-hour work week. Even so, it seems in America that it is never a good time to raise minimum wages across the board to ensure a living wage adjusted for . The real problem with this good idea is that the cost of the basic services in our communities would likely go up. Imagine having to pay more to the people who clean houses, mow lawns, pick up trash, and generally make our lives easier. While many bitch about the cost of that T-bone steak, the working poor suck it up, work longer hours and multiple jobs, and eat a lot of beans and pasta.

And here is the point: those working poor are shielding the rest of us from what should be the real inflationary costs of our collective excesses and corporate greed. But now there is another catch. There don’t seem to be enough workers hanging around waiting for low wages to fill the low-paying jobs that support those excesses and corporate greed, so we are now doubly screwed. Prices are going up and basic services are going down. However, the long-term solution that seems most popular with many, except the working poor, is for the working poor to have more poor babies and then continue to provide the poor education, indecent housing, and unreliable health care that will ensure another generation of low-wage workers.

Or, how about immigration reform?  Instead of waiting for new American poor babies to grow up, Americans could figure out how to parse out immigrants to communities in need of low-wage workers, gin up some dormitory housing, open a food pantry so they can eat, and then pay them a wage that looks good to them while knocking out any likelihood of low-wage inflationary pressures. Both McDonalds and your lawn will thrive anew.

The Limits of the Right

Maybe you can see where this is heading. I want Governor Ron DeSantis to denude Florida of as many hardworking immigrants as he can find. Like international sister cities, America could develop its own sister sanctuaries program matching a sanctuary for White racists and Christian nationalists with another sanctuary that would welcome the Black and Brown immigrants so abhorrent to those racist Florida communities.

Using the DeSantis model, a matching sanctuary community would be found to welcome the diverse, hardworking, often skilled, low-wage workers that a significant segment of Floridians apparently wants shipped out of state. This would be good news, as well, for those looking for immigrants from White racist communities in Texas and Arizona.

We start there, and the movement grows. All of sudden, politicians willing to cruelly demonize immigrants would find their constituents trash on their overgrown lawns. Then think how inconvenient it would be if a good portion of those low-wage Latino workers in restaurants and country clubs headed out of town to a real welcoming sanctuary community somewhere else. While this all sounds fanciful, it just might work to break the back of the resistance to a humane and inclusive American immigration policy. This would be putting inflationary pressures to good use and remind those doing all the hand wringing that they are doing so at the expense of the working poor.

Maybe, with all of this wreckage around us, there will be a slowly creeping understanding that America’s self-delusional “exceptionalism” is just that and nothing more – self-delusion. Fantasy works sometimes in the movies, but it won’t last in real life. Maybe it took a warped Supreme Court, a dysfunctional Congress, an exposed insurrection, an unraveling rule of law, and a plane load of defrauded immigrants seeking asylum to finally begin to undermine the fantasy.

A New Moral Core for America

Women and thoughtful young people seem to be deciding that they are tired of rich White men and the people they buy trampling on the simple notions of access to meaningful healthcare and the freedom for women to make life choices for themselves. Many seem even more energized about losing access to their own healthcare than they ever were about making sure that everybody had access to meaningful healthcare in the first place. But they care now.

Also, there is some evidence that when essential governance is really threatened, Americans will awaken to protect and promote the governmental institutions required to confront existential problems like climate change and required to ensure the minimum infrastructure and basic services at the core of desirable community life. It is possible that this will be enough in the weeks ahead to see the shameless right-wing vacuum collapse and suck Trump, his acolytes, his family, and his friends into the vortex. However, if their cruelty prevails and the nation’s government continues at a stalemate, there certainly will be additional suffering in the land.

If you have any doubts about any of this, you are likely beyond hope.  But this may be the moment to actually think about the kind of community in which you want to live and who is most likely to lead you there. Think about the gun nut governors working to ensure that another school massacre comes to a neighborhood near you. Think about children without enough to eat and immigrant children bussed like cattle to be someone else’s problem. Think about all of this and more.

It is way past time for Americans to start standing for something with a clear moral core. Put the inflationary hand wringing on hold long enough to vote for a nation that we can start to be proud of. This could, at the least, provide a foundation for confronting the corporate greed, political corruption, White racism and White Christian nationalism that stand in the way of realizing an equality of opportunity and the social and racial justice needed to achieve it.

*[This article was first published on the author’s , Hard Left Turn.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Time for Americans to Stand for a New Moral Core appeared first on 51�Թ�.

One of the consequences that is already being felt concerns the status of democracy in many regions of the world. By status I mean not just the attribution of power to different categories of political force, but the idea people hold of what democracy is, whose interests it represents and how it should play out in terms of actual governance. France may be the latest and most interesting example of the challenge to that status.

The American model for democracy

In the West, and more particularly in the US, a nation that has been labeled the birthplace of modern democracy, most youngsters are taught in school that constitutional democracy, unlike other more arbitrary forms of government, aims at being both fair and reasoned. They assume that for the most part it achieves its fair and reasonable goals thanks to a carefully constructed system of checks and balances.

In theory, democratic institutions are designed to reflect a logical pattern by which the population of any political entity, from a township to a nation, elects leaders committed to securing the resources and defining policies that respond flexibly and appropriately to the physical, social and economic environment its citizens live in. Democratic decision-making follows from what people believe to be an open dialogue about actions required for the security and well-being of its citizens.

Democracy produces governments in which all citizens are involved to the extent that they choose leaders who reflect their needs, values and interests. Decision-making becomes complex at the level of a nation state, particularly in a world that has become increasingly diverse and mobile. Presumably the leaders elected in modern states nevertheless understand the complexity of the balancing act that representing a diverse population requires. Nobody ever believed that would be an easy task.

In a stable world, most capable leaders — and even quite a few incapable ones — manage to juggle with competing forces. On one hand, they respond to powerful private interests that sit often invisibly at the core of the economy. On the other hand, they try to remain sensitive to public pressure that expresses itself in a variety of forms, transmitted notably by the media and omnipresent polls in the periods between elections. This pressure from the undefined masses incites leaders to find ways of keeping most of their citizens reasonably happy, or at least minimally unhappy. In times of relative stability, this to-and-fro occurs within social and economic systems that evolve very slowly, usually by tiny incremental steps. 

Most leaders see their job as consisting of managing a slow evolution within a stable historical framework. They have no means of predicting the earthquakes that occasionally shake history itself, suddenly throwing it off kilter. In the typical two-party systems of modern democracies, politicians have learned to master the dynamics of alternating access to power. Essentially, they provide the same product, but with a different label and a different tagline. They are comfortable knowing there are periods when, having lost an election, they may forfeit the reins of power and literally relax as members of the opposition, whose actions will not be criticized. They spend their time in the opposition critiquing their opponents and investing their creativity in plotting their return to power.

Problems, however, arise when history itself becomes unstable, when the equilibrium of a certain habitual balance of power begins to falter. It was the case in Europe, for example, towards the end of the 18^th century (1789) and again in the early 20^th century (1914-17). At such times, instability takes the form of highly irrational and uncontrollably complicated wars and revolutions. Leaders accustomed to managing the routine of occasional domestic tension and generally anodyne international rivalries, begin to lose their foothold. They will typically seek to keep their populations in check and avoid revolution. But they lack the means to deal with the chthonic forces of history. We appear to be entering into such a period in 2022.

The psychology of leadership

Leaders see themselves as actors in the scripted play of history. But to act in politics, as opposed to theater or cinema, means not just to follow a script but to observe history and craft appropriate reactions to the unexpected. In democracies, as opposed to autocracies, leaders should think of themselves as “fair observers” and act accordingly. (A fair observer seeks to integrate the widest range not just of information but of sensitivity to the dynamic forces of history that defy the logic of pure information).

Faced with the challenge of a moment in history in which even the values assumed to be shared by people convinced that they represent an evolved form of civilization are called into question, we may legitimately wonder whether it is even possible for any leader to be simultaneously both an actor and an observer of history. In such moments, leaders typically fail to observe, but proceed to act. As soon as they act, they become observed by others. At the same time, the very awareness of being observed may distort their own ability to observe, precipitating actions based on faulty and disastrously incomplete observation. This is one way of accounting for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions that have now spawned a global crisis that extends far beyond the Russian-Ukrainian border.

But the same pattern of failure to observe accompanied by a compulsion to act holds true for other leaders, especially when the degree of instability makes the consequences of any action especially risky. US President Joe Biden appears to be as clueless about where the forces of history are moving as Putin himself. Both have responded to specific pressure points on the system of power they have been charged with maintaining. Both have misjudged some of the forces of history at play in the background.

Putin reacted to three decades of shifting policies in the West, which appeared to him aggressive with regard to his own power and the stability of his system. This ever-increasing pressure was accompanied by an observable decline of the effective power and prestige of the American hegemon following its catastrophic military initiatives in Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2001.

Biden reacted to the growing challenge felt across the globe to the supremacy the US established three quarters of a century ago following the Second World War. Not only has US prestige declined as a consequence of George Bush’s Middle Eastern wars and the financial collapse of 2008, but the perception that the official supremacy of the US dollar can now for the first time be effectively challenged has created a growing resolve in the rest of the world to overthrow what is perceived as the tyranny of the dollar over the global economy. That vague but increasingly well-defined perception of fragility is becoming as symbolically real as the French population’s perception of the significance of the Bastille prison in 1789.

Will France overthrow the 5^th Republic?

Though any fair observer of history should be aware of the providential power of symbols, it is perhaps only a coincidence that France is poised to use its democratic institutions not just to call into question the system Charles de Gaulle put in place more than six decades ago, the Fifth Republic, but also to send shock waves capable of producing significant cracks in the façade of Western complacency.

For the third time a candidate representing the right or the center-right defeated a far-right candidate with the surname, Le Pen. The first time Jacques Chirac, a direct descendent of the original Gaullist party, defeated Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the xenophobic Front National. Emmanuel Macron has now defeated Jean-Marie’s daughter, Marine, twice. It has become a sport of establishment politicians in France to maneuver the electoral processes so as to find themselves opposed to a far-right candidate in the runoff election for president. Victory is practically certain. Legitimacy is claimed at a very low cost.

Macron played the game perfectly to ensure his re-election. The problem he perhaps hadn’t anticipated is that, not having the talent or even the inclination to create a well-defined party to back his presidential status, a resurgence of unity on the right or the left could imperil his chances to reign over a fragmented political landscape. He assumed that the egoistical rivalries and the thin skin of representatives of the traditional parties would guarantee the gap in the center that he managed to consolidate into a fragile simulacrum of a political party after his victory in 2017.

Alas, to Macron’s consternation, a strong showing in third place during the presidential election in April by the former socialist and resolutely progressive leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon created the conditions that would convince the previously warring parties on the left, including the Green party and the communists, to imagine a program of government they would all adhere to in their quest for a parliamentary majority coming out of June’s legislative election. This is bad news for Macron, who can only count on traditional political opportunists from the center-right and center-left to join forces with him in a movement he has rechristened the Renaissance (formerly, la République en Marche). Very few French voters feel inspired by Macron’s example. His hope is that just as they preferred electing him to a candidate on the extreme right, they  will react similarly to a threat from the left, which they will try to represent as extreme.

There may be a slight problem with the symbolism of the new moniker of his party. By claiming to represent a Renaissance, he may be implicitly suggesting his former term as president was the equivalent of the Dark Ages. And in some sense, it was, marked by the revolt of the Yellow Vests and the black plague of Covid. But the French remember the Renaissance as a period of history dominated by kings that was eventually overturned by the 1789 revolution.

Could the unified left seize effective power over the government? Legally, Macron is in place for five years. But the left has adopted a theme Mélenchon has insisted on for the past five years: replacing the Fifth Republic by a Sixth Republic, which would be less focused on presidential powers. If Macron is forced to nominate a left-wing prime minister — the most likely candidate being Mélenchon himself  —  pressure could mount towards establishing a new constitution. Though the kind of constitutional regime change a Sixth Republic would represent appears unlikely so long as Macron remains president, the worm is already in the apple. At some point there is likely to be a constitutional crisis with an uncertain outcome, capable of upsetting the supposed stability of what may be called “the European compromise,” a philosophy of governance built on the twin pillars of Anglo-Saxon liberalism and dependency on US leadership in European defense via NATO.

Among the planks of its platform, the left calls specifically for a radical revision of the strategy concerning Europe. While reaffirming France’s adhesion to the European Union, the left-wing government coalition has vowed to put pressure on Europe to move away from its traditional neoliberal ideology. This frame of reference has, in the eyes of many Europeans, not just in France, become more and more fragile as the source of shared values. This could eventually lead to fracturing what has become an increasingly fragile consensus between Europe and the United States. With the end of the Fifth Republic one of the main goals of Charles de Gaulle could then be paradoxically fulfilled: releasing France, and possibly Europe itself, from the iron grip of Washington.

What is happening in France is not an isolated event. Brazil will have a new presidential election later this year. Polling shows a profound dissatisfaction with its right-wing president Jair Bolsanaro, who won election five years ago thanks to highly suspect legal maneuvering. The likely winner of the new election is left-wing former president Lula da Silva. One of the da Silva has made this time around is to “create a currency in Latin America, because we can’t keep depending on the dollar.” Voices in the Beltway are likely to announce, “Them’s fightin’ words.”This was, after all, the ambition of the late Muammar Gaddafi for the entire African continent. That is, in a brief moment of history before US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intervened to make sure that she would subsequently have the opportunity to , “we came, we saw, he died.”

The American sanctions against Russia after its invasion of Ukraine have led to an acceleration of initiatives emanating from various quarters to free the global economy from the enforced dominance of the dollar. For five decades or more it has been a tool not so much of payment for international trade as of political control, allowing the US, either through its own efforts or those of the International Monetary Fund, to have its cake and eat it. The establishment of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency in 1944, followed by President Richard Nixon’s decoupling of this currency from the gold standard in 1971, forced other countries to hold their credit in dollars (US Treasury securities), meaning that the wealth thus created abroad was transferred implicitly back to the US economy. Every fluctuation in value — devaluation and revaluation – could be used by Washington to its own political and economic advantage. As economist  Michael Hudson, “This monetary privilege–dollar seigniorage–has enabled U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world.”

In other words, there are indications that a fracturing of the neoliberal economic and political world order initially established at Bretton Woods nearly 80 years ago and then transformed by Nixon in 1971, creating the first theoretical compromise in its integrity, is now taking place. The last three decades have seen two major evolutions. The first is the failure of Europe to achieve its collective hope of acquiring the kind of influence that might redress the balance of power in relation to the United States. The second is the rise of China to a level of economic and political clout that has forced a massive rethinking of global hegemony.

Speculation about the destabilizing impact of the rise of what has been called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) on geopolitical power has been rife the past two decades. China finally emerged as an economic powerhouse unto itself, capable of directly challenging US hegemony. Russia, with a weaker economy, has continued to play an increasingly abrasive political role, culminating with the current war in Ukraine. As the tectonic movement in various latitudes begins to increase, India, Brazil and South Africa will see emerging opportunities to exert their influence on events in a world that is clearly starting to have a very different look from the one people have been accustomed to in recent decades.

Though not quite in the same league, France itself may have a role to play, and as so often in the past, that role will be cultural and intellectual rather than a manifestation of its limited political and economic clout. If the move towards a Sixth Republic actually commences, its symbolic importance for the rest of the world should not be underestimated. Europe will be the first to take notice if an unanticipated French government under Macron begins rowing against the established European current. 

Mark it on your speculative calendars. The 21^st century’s Bastille Day may well be June 19, the date of the second round of next month’s legislative elections. Even if the left is successful, its moral victory will not be followed by “impure blood” in the furrows, nor a Reign of Terror, nor the rise of a new Napoleon. But its disruptive message will resonate throughout Europe and beyond mainly because the old order, which Macron still represents, is losing its footing across the globe.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The post Is France Ready to Storm a New Bastille? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Austin’s remarks were problematic on several fronts. For one, they legitimized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification of the invasion of Ukraine as a defense against US-led efforts to box Russia in and potentially undermine his regime.

“US policy toward Russia continues to be plagued by lack of rhetorical discipline. First calling for regime change, now the goal of weakening Russia. This only increases Putin’s case for escalating & shifts focus away from Russian actions in Ukraine & toward Russia-US/NATO showdown”, Richard Haas, the president of the New York-based Council of Foreign Relations and a former senior State Department official. Haas was referring to US President Joe Biden’s last month, which he subsequently walked back, that Putin “cannot remain in power.”

US policy toward Russia continues to be plagued by lack of rhetorical discipline. First calling for regime change, now goal of weakening Russia. This only increases Putin’s case for escalating & shifts focus away from Russian actions in Ukraine & toward Russia-US/NATO showdown.

— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass)

Leaving aside the fact that Austin’s remark was inopportune, it also suggested a lack of vision of what it will take to ensure that Putin does not repeat his Ukraine operation elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. That is an endeavor that would involve looking beyond Ukraine to foster closer ties with former Soviet republics that do not immediately border Ukraine.

A new strategic focus: Kazakhstan

One place to look is Kazakhstan, a potential future target if Russia still has the wherewithal after what has become a draining slug in Ukraine. Mr. Putin has long set Kazakhstan up as a potential future target. He has repeatedly used language when it comes to Kazakhstan that is similar to his rhetoric on the artificial character of the Ukrainian state.

Referring to his notion of a Russian world whose boundaries are defined by the presence of Russian speakers and adherents to Russian culture rather than its internationally recognised borders, Mr. Putin asserted last December that “Kazakhstan is a country in the full sense of the word.”

Mr. Putin first sent a chill down Kazakh spines eight years ago when a student asked him nine months after the annexation of Crimea whether Kazakhstan, with a 6,800 kilometer-long border with Russia, the world’s second-longest frontier, risked a fate similar to that of Ukraine.

In response, Mr. Putin noted that then-president Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era Communist party boss, had “performed a unique feat: he has created a state on a territory where there has never been a state. The Kazakhs never had a of their own, and he created it.”

To be sure, Russian troops invited in January by Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to help put down anti-government protests were quick to from the Central Asian nation once calm had been restored.

Recognizing the opportunity

Mr. Putin’s remarks, coupled with distrust of China fuelled by the of Turkic Muslims, including ethnic Kazakhs, in the north-western province of Xinjiang, and the of ��ܲ�������’s Black Sea Novorossiysk oil terminal, Kazakhstan’s main Caspian oil export route, have created an opportunity for the United States.

Last month, Kazakhstan in a United Nations General Assembly vote that condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Since then, its sovereign wealth fund announced that it would no longer do business in rubles in with US and European sanctions against Russia. This week, Kazakhstan stopped of ��ܲ�������’s Sputnik V vaccine against Covid-19.

In an apparent effort to stir the pot, Russian media accused Kazakhstan of Russian nationals from expressing support for Mr. Putin’s invasion and firing Kazakhs who supported the Russian president’s actions from their jobs. At the same time, opponents of the war were allowed to stage demonstrations.

“A�� Washington policymakers look for ways to counter Russian influence and complicate Mr. Putin’s life, helping Kazakhstan its dependence on Moscow-controlled pipelines, reform its economy, and coordinate with neighboring Central Asian states to limit the influence of both China and Russia might be a good place to start,” said Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead.

Last month, Mr. Tokayev, the Kazakh president, promised sweeping reforms in response to the January protests.

A high-level Kazakh delegation Washington this week to discuss closer cooperation and ways to mitigate the impact on Kazakhstan of potentially crippling sanctions against Russia.

Supporting Kazakhstan would involve a renewed US engagement in Central Asia, a key region that constitutes ��ܲ�������’s as well as China’s backyard. The United States is perceived to have abandoned the region with its withdrawal from Afghanistan last August.

The regional implications

It would also mean enlarging the figurative battlefield to include not only military and financial support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia but also the strengthening of political and economic ties with former Soviet republics such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are, alongside Kazakhstan, members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which Mr. Putin, referring to Kazakhstan, described as a bulwark that “helps them within the so-called ‘greater Russian world,’ which is part of world civilization.”

The invasion of Ukraine has given Uzbekistan second thoughts. Uzbekistan failed to vote on the UN resolution, but Uzbek officials have since condemned the war and expressed support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

As a result, Uzbekistan appears to have reversed its ambition to join the EEU and forge closer ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), the region’s Russian-led military alliance.

“The way Central Asia thinks about Russia has changed. While before, Russia was seen as a source of stability, it now seems that its presence in a very sensitive security dimension has become a weakness for regional stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity,” said Carnegie Endowment Central Asia scholar Temur Umarov.

“I think that Central Asian governments will seek to the influence of Russia, which will be difficult to do, but they have no choice since it has become an unpredictable power.” Mr. Umarov predicted.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Contesting Russia Requires Renewed US Engagement in Central Asia appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Less officially, President Joe Biden has been emphasizing the emotional side of US motivation when he wants to turn Russia into a “pariah,” while branding its president as a “war criminal” and a “murderer.” Biden’s rhetoric indicates clearly that whatever purely legal and moral point the United States cites to justify its massive financial engagement in the war, its true motivation reflects a vigilante mindset focused on regime change.

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The administration denies it has regime change on its mind. But Ferguson cites a senior administration official who privately confided that Biden’s “end game now … is the end of Putin regime.” The historian concludes that rather than seek a negotiated end to the war, the US “intends to keep this war going.”

As usual in foreign policy matters, Ferguson notes a certain convergence of viewpoint from his own government. He quotes an anonymous source affirming that the United Kingdom’s “No. 1 option is for the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin.” A little later in the article, Ferguson qualifies as “archetypal Realpolitik” the American intent “to allow the carnage in Ukraine to continue; to sit back and watch the heroic Ukrainians ‘b������ Russia �����.’�ĝ

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Bleed (a country):

To encourage and prolong an unnecessary and unjustified conflict in the interest of sucking the life out of the political establishment of a declared enemy, a process that usually automatically implies sucking the life out of at least one other country, including eventually one’s own

Contextual Note

Ferguson dares to question the dominant belief in the US that bleeding Russia is a recipe for success. “Prolonging the war runs the risk not just of leaving tens of thousands of Ukrainians dead and millions homeless, but also of handing Putin something that he can plausibly present at home as victory,” he writes.

When the focus is both on bleeding and prolonging the combat, there is a strong likelihood that the bleeding will be shared. If a boxer sees a cut over his opponent’s eye, he may strategically focus all his punches on the opponent’s face hoping for a technical knockout. But, by focusing on the loss of blood, he may drop his guard with the risk of getting knocked out or opening his own bleeding wound.

“I fail to see in current Western strategizing any real recognition of how badly this war could go for Ukraine in the coming weeks,” Ferguson observes. The reason may simply be that the hyperreal moment the Western world is now living through is proving too enjoyable to critique, at least for the media. The more horror stories of assaults on innocent civilians make their way into the headlines, the more the media can play the morally satisfying game of: here’s one more reason to hate Vladimir Putin.

If the White House is focused, as it now appears, not on saving Ukrainian democracy but on bleeding Russia, all the stories of Russian abuse of brave civilians are designed with the purpose of prolonging the war, in the hope that, discredited by Putin’s failure to break Ukraine’s resistance, Russians will revolt and depose the evil dictator. In the meantime, those Ukrainians who manage to survive are being asked to play the supporting role of watching their country reduced to ruins.

Ferguson speculates that US strategists have come to “think of the conflict as a mere sub-plot in Cold War II, a struggle in which China is our real opponent.” That would be an ambitious plan, riddled with complexity. But the Biden administration has demonstrated its incapacity to deal effectively even with straightforward issues, from passing the Build Back Better framework in the US to managing a pandemic.

The Ukraine situation involves geopolitics, the global economy and, even more profoundly, the changing image of US power felt by populations and governments across the globe. At the end of his article, the historian describes this as an example of dangerous overreach, claiming that “the Biden administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking that it can protract the war in Ukraine, bleed Russia dry, topple Putin and signal to China to keep its hands off Taiwan.”

Historical Note

One salient truth about Americans’ perception of the Ukraine War should be evident to everyone. Today’s media thoroughly understands the American public’s insatiable appetite for the right kind of misinformation. Niall Ferguson makes the point that the US government may nevertheless be inept in providing it. The history of misinformation in times of war over the past century should provide some clues.

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In 1935, Major General Smedley Butler wrote a book describing the logic behind his own service on several continents. Its title was “War Is a Racket.” He described the American vision of war as a quest for corporate profit. He tried to warn the nation of the inhumanity of such an approach to the use of military force. He manifestly failed because he was late to the game. Back in 1917, Edward Bernays, the “father of Public Relations,” seduced the American public into believing that the only motive for the nation’s invasions and wars is the spreading of democracy. It was Bernays who provided Woodrow Wilson with the slogan “make the world safe for democracy.”

For the rest of his life, Bernays not only helped private companies boost their brands, he also consulted on foreign policy to justify regime change when it threatened a customer’s racket. In 1953, working for United Fruit, he collaborated with President Dwight Eisenhower’s secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, and his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz, the elected president of Guatemala. Arbenz had a plan to redistribute to the country’s impoverished peasants “unused land” monopolized by United Fruit. In a 2007 article for the Financial Times, Peter Chapman that both Dulles brothers were “legal advisers” to United Fruit. Chapman notes that the company was also involved in the 1961 CIA-led Bay of Pigs invasion.

In other words, concerning their impact on the American psyche, Bernays the PR man defeated Butler, celebrated at the time as America’s greatest living war hero. His fame was such that a group of powerful fascist-leaning businessmen tried to recruit him to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the infamous 1933 “.”

Americans continue to rally around Bernays’ genius for reducing a suspect ideology to a catchy slogan. American interventions abroad are framed as noble efforts to support democracy and promote American business (Butler called them rackets). It’s a population of avid consumers of the media’s plentiful supply of misinformation.

There are nevertheless odd moments when real information breaks through, though it rarely leaves much lasting impact. Last week, the Pentagon leaked news the narrative the State Department, the intelligence community and US media have unanimously adopted and promoted. In the Defense Department’s view, ��ܲ�������’s invasion is not an example of unrestrained sadism toward the Ukrainian people. “A�� destructive as the Ukraine war is,” Newsweek reports, “Russia is causing less damage and killing fewer civilians than it could, U.S. intelligence experts say.”

The US military establishment calls it the “Russian leader’s strategic balancing act,” observing that Russia has acted with restraint. It realistically assesses that, far from seeking to subdue and conquer Ukraine, Putin’s “goal is to take enough territory on the ground to have something to negotiate with, while putting the government of Ukraine in a position where they have to negotiate.”

Ferguson has gleaned his own evidence concerning US and UK strategy that “helps explain, among other things, the lack of any diplomatic effort by the U.S. to secure a cease-fire. It also explains the readiness of President Joe Biden to call Putin a war criminal.” Peace is no objective. Punishment is. This is a case where the Pentagon has received the message of Smedley Butler and dares to contradict an administration guided by the logic of Edward Bernays.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post When Will We Know the Bleeding Truth? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Lopez was sitting with her beau of the time, Ben Affleck, a white Californian built like a light-heavyweight boxer (she may be back with him now). You’ll understand shortly why I’m being specific about their particulars.

You Can Take the Man Out of the Ghetto…

Watching the past weekend’s Oscars , I immediately wondered: What if Chris Rock, an African American comedian, had cracked a gag at the expense of JLo and not Jada Pinkett Smith? After Martin’s joke, Lopez grinned politely, while Affleck, seated next to her, was clearly unimpressed but forced a transparently false smile.

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But what if he had taken offense, like Will Smith, a black actor with a similar build to Affleck, did? If Affleck marched onto the stage and smacked Rock across the face, the situation would have taken on a completely different dynamic. The headlines would have read: White Actor Strikes Diminutive Black Host. Rock is 5 foot 7 inches and, in boxing terms, looks about a featherweight.

The media would have reacted differently, though how differently we’ll never know. One thing is for sure: The episode would have taken on a racial character.

Even as it was, Smith’s assault on Rock is loaded with racial implications, the most obvious one being that he supplied white racists with sustenance. There is an that “You can take the man out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the man.” Racists subscribe to this and often cite the examples of O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson, both African Americans who became conspicuously successful and had more money than they could count. Both, in their different ways, imploded.

Smith hasn’t committed an offense comparable with rape or any other kind of violent crime. And the LAPD has declared it will not seek prosecution. So, Smith’s contretemps is likely to remain that: an embarrassment rather than a crime.

But let’s face it: Had it occurred in a different context, the likelihood is that the perpetrator of the offense would be arrested and charged. There would be no trouble finding witnesses, either. Smith behaved like a perfect racial stereotype: hot-tempered, bull-headed, thuggish and, most importantly, incapable of controlling his emotions even in an environment where decorum prevailed. Even after Smith returned to his seat, he screamed obscenities at Rock, who lacked the wit to turn the episode into something worthy of laughter. His was an unedifying exhibition of uncontrolled aggression.

Surprisingly, Smith was not ejected and, indeed, later picked up an award for best actor.

Animating Masculinity

But pandering to stock racist types was not Smith’s only offense. His action was borderline misogynistic, perhaps even enhancing the racial stereotype he’d brought to life. Consider if it was a case of Will being taken over by his emotion, seeing the look on his wife’s face, probably under family stress with her condition and snapping. Or a black man animating an anachronistic form of masculinity, historically associated, though not exclusively, with black men. After all, the amusing line was aimed at his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, who has alopecia, a condition that manifests in the partial or complete absence of hair from areas of the body where it normally grows; baldness, in other words.

Couldn’t she have responded to the insult herself? She may have felt a more dignified silence was the best policy. But she might also have answered back with an equally acerbic remark. Or, if she had been moved to act, Pinkett Smith could have administered the slap in the face herself. She’s about the same size as Rock, so it wouldn’t have been the mismatch that actually did take place. Since when do women need their husbands, partners or male friends to take care of their business? Jada looked slightly disgusted by Rock’s remark, but, so far, her views on her husband’s violent behavior aren’t known. Had she objected to it, we would have surely found out by now.

Since #MeToo gained momentum in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein case, the flagrant manipulation and abuse of women by men — especially powerful ones — has become visible through the testimonies of countless women. We probably suspected for years that men get away with mistreating women in more ways than one. But #MeToo has effectively put the brake on this egregious historical practice.

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What about men’s abuse of other men? I know readers will think I am stretching this too far, but surely men have the right not to be coerced, harassed or intimidated too. Rock was only doing his job — the tradition at Oscar ceremonies is to “roast,” as Americans call it. That is, to subject guests to good-natured criticism. For many, he may have overstepped the mark by making fun of what is, after all, a medical condition. But the informal rules about what constitutes good or bad taste change year by year. Rock is at least entitled to expect the people he insults will be familiar enough with the custom that they take the ridicule in the spirit he intends.

Victims of Domestic Abuse

The LAPD’s intention not to pursue the case raises a final issue. Should it be necessary for a to press charges when an obvious assault has been committed? Rock is clearly embarrassed by the affair, and his failure to file a complaint presumably reflects his desire to have the incident quickly forgotten. Countless women and men, who have been victims of domestic abuse, do not press charges. But their motivations are usually very, very different. Often, they are pressured by their abuser or threatened with more violence should they pursue charges.

The LAPD’s approach to this seems head-in-the-sand. It will probably have no consequences for Chris Rock and leave no damage, professionally or physically (at least he didn’t seem too badly hurt). But victims of domestic abuse are never so fortunate: their circumstances dictate that they often imperil their own safety by giving evidence. The LAPD’s decision will not inspire them.

*[Ellis Cashmore is the author of “.”]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Under this agreement, the Taliban are obligated to take measures to prevent terrorist groups from threatening the security of the US and its allies and to engage in a comprehensive intra-Afghan dialogue that would produce a political settlement. The hasty US troop withdrawal in August 2021 emboldened the Taliban to disregard their obligations under the deal and encouraged them to prioritize political takeover instead of a sustainable peace mechanism for Afghanistan.

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The Doha Agreement and its contents undermined the sovereign government of Afghanistan at the time and provided an upper hand to the Taliban in both war and peace. Certain assurances in the deal enabled the Taliban to become stronger in both battlefield action and narrative propagation.

These the agreement’s references to a “new post-settlement Afghan Islamic government”; clauses on the release of Taliban combatants referred to as “political prisoners”; indirect legitimization of the Taliban shadow government by virtue of stipulations such as “the Taliban will not provide visas, passports, travel permits, or other legal documents”; and a complete lack of any mention of human rights protections in Afghanistan.

Another Case of Failed Peacemaking

The agreement is not the only pact that was expected to bring a peaceful end to the conflict in the country. In 1988, the  concluded under the auspices of the UN between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with the US and the Soviet Union serving as state guarantors, provided an overall framework for the settlement of the Afghan conflict and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Likewise, the  in 2001 — irrespective of whether it is categorized as a peace deal —established a process to manage the political transition in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. It briefly outlined steps from the formation of an interim administration to the development of a new constitution and holding elections.

However, neither the Geneva Accords nor the Bonn Agreement were successful and ultimately failed to foster conditions necessary for enabling a comprehensive settlement to Afghanistan’s complicated problem. More recently, the Taliban’s abject disregard for their commitments under the Doha Agreement, combined with the United States’ rushed exit, sped up the Taliban’s reemergence, once again closing an already narrow window of opportunity for achieving a durable political solution to the protracted conflict in Afghanistan.

There is indeed a qualitative difference between the Geneva Accords, the Bonn Agreement and the Doha Agreement. However, one of the key reasons for their failure, among other factors, is that they are silent on the main cause of the conflict in Afghanistan — i.e., ethnic conflict.

Afghanistan is a multiethnic country where the various ethnic groups are also geographically fragmented. Historically, divisions over who should lead the country and how have been among the core contentious issues in Afghanistan. Disagreements on this matter have manifested in violent ways in the 1990s and non-violent ways in the outcome of four presidential elections held based on the 2004 constitution. Overlooking of the main cause of the conflict and an absence of a viable mechanism for power redistribution among ethnic groups is a common thread that connects each of the three agreements that failed and continued to fuel instability.

The Current Situation

Less than two years since the Doha Agreement was signed, in August 2021, Kabul, the Afghan capital, fell to the Taliban. In the aftermath of this development, residences of several former government officials, particularly those from the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), were raided and these personnel members were either killed or imprisoned. A  found that over 100 personnel from the Afghan security forces and others associated with the former Afghan government have been killed in the country, despite the Taliban announcing a general amnesty. 

Moreover, despite the demands from the international community for the formation of an inclusive government, respect for human rights and counterterrorism assurances, the Taliban have refused to make any concessions. They have brazenly continued suppressing all dissenting voices, severely limiting women’s rights and persecuting civil society members and journalists.

Peace in Afghanistan?

It was apparent from day one that the prospects of the post-July 2018 efforts for a political settlement in Afghanistan were uncertain at best. The Doha Agreement simply laid out a possible schedule for the US withdrawal instead of guarantee or measures enabling a durable political settlement or peace process. The Taliban too negotiated the deal with the US with the aim of winning the war rather than seeking a peace deal or political settlement with their opponents.

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The chaotic withdrawal of American forces and the mayhem at Kabul airport — which was reminiscent of the US pullout from Vietnam — has not only damaged the image of a powerful country like the US around the world, but has also established its reputation as an unreliable ally in times of difficulty. Given historical patterns and the Taliban’s track record, in the absence of any qualitative change of circumstances on the ground, the international community’s positive overtures to the Taliban might be yet another folly.

As it stands, the prospects for peace in Afghanistan will remain distant for as long as the Taliban own the entire political apparatus rather than participate as a party in an inclusive and representative government and respect dissenting voices. In the meantime, the international community should use sanctions mechanisms and official recognition as the few remaining tools of leverage to hold the Taliban accountable to their commitments and to international legal standards.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Market concentration, on the other hand, is a more pernicious issue. More than  the value of US farm production came from farms with at least $1 million in sales in 2015, compared to only 31% in 1991.

The consequences of consolidation become apparent in the sales of various agricultural products. For example, in 2000, the biggest four companies sold 51% of  seeds in the United States. By 2015, their share rose to 76%.

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“The agricultural industry is different than other industries because Capper-Volstead allows them to combine in ways that other individuals would go to jail for,”   Allee A. Ramadhan, a former Justice Department antitrust attorney who led an investigation into the dairy industry. The 1922 Capper-Volstead Act was a law originally designed to protect producers by allowing them to secure their interests through cooperatives. Unfortunately, it has resulted in the perfect conditions for heavy consolidation by the largest companies.

Consolidation doesn’t just impact prices, but it also contributes to US agriculture’s declining competitiveness. That is why agriculture was included in President ���DZ�&�Բ�����;��������’s executive  on competition last July, in which he declared that the “American promise of a broad and sustained prosperity depends on an open and competitive economy.”

Fertilizers and Destabilizing Forces

In addition to the structural concerns for US agriculture, there have been further destabilizing since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only did the health crisis remove domestic outlets for agricultural products due to repeated lockdowns, but it also severely disrupted production. This was particularly in terms of available human resources, whether before at the farms or down the processing chain with the temporary closure of many slaughterhouses.

Aside from the impact of COVID-19, extreme weather has pummeled certain states, reduced production and caused billions of dollars in damage. The prices of many inputs are snowballing into other areas. Prices for urea have skyrocketed. DAP, the common phosphate fertilizer, has reached its highest price tag since the 2008 financial crash that led to the food pricing crisis.

“A�� fertilizer prices continue to rise, farmers will either cut application rates, cut fertilizer entirely in hopes for lower future pricing, or cut other farm products to account for the bigger expected spend,”  Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Green Markets.

Some farmers are essentially holding out before buying for the next growing season, in the hopes that costs come down. But that is a risky strategy.

Contributing to the destabilizing forces, recent countervailing duties against foreign fertilizer producers selling to the US market have cut supply. Chris Edgington, the president of the National Cotton Growers Association, in late 2021 that the Mosaic Company petitioned for the tariffs and has since seen its share of the phosphate market grow from 74% to 80%, a near-monopoly. “There’s been a dramatic increase of fertilizer costs to the producer and that’s not looking to end,” he added. In general, the price increases for different fertilizers are not yet at the levels seen in 2008, but they could soon be even higher if they keep climbing.

Uncertainty Due to the Ukraine War

The war in Ukraine has added fuel to the fire regarding the uncertainties in the agricultural sector. The conflict has pitted against each other Russia and Ukraine, whose wheat exports for more than 25% of the world’s supply. Now, these exports are at risk, as witnessed by the emerging food crisis in several North African and Middle Eastern countries.

For instance, Tunisia imports half of its wheat from Ukraine to make bread. In the country where the Arab Spring began in December 2010, Tunisians are worried there could be shortages of supplies and a repeat of bread riots like in the 1980s. Alarmingly, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused prices to rise to their highest level in 14 years. Yemen, Lebanon and Egypt are also beginning to be stricken by flour shortages.

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The conflict has also led to the introduction of severe against Russia and Belarus, two of the world’s largest producers and exporters of fertilizers of all kinds, along with natural gas, an essential ingredient in ammonia production and a key component of complex fertilizers. Although the United States produces most of its own natural gas, fluctuations in world prices have a significant effect on the fertilizer industry. This only exacerbates the difficulties farmers currently face in obtaining inputs.

Thus, while US farmers could look forward to a windfall of increased demand for their grain in the coming year, in the immediate future, they are simply faced with a further increase in production costs. Due to these added costs of inputs and the supply chain issues, US agriculture — especially the wheat industry — may be lacking the fertilizers needed to maximize yields, resulting in a decline in production and impeding its capability to respond to global demand.

In a way, in the immediate and near future, the nightmare of 2021 is only worsening. For Arkansas farmer , “There’s no guarantee of anything being a sure thing anymore. That’s the scary part.”

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post After a Difficult Year, US Farmers Are Pessimistic appeared first on 51�Թ�.

One good example is an in The American Purpose by the National Endowment for Democracy’s vice-president for studies and analysis, Christopher Walker. In the piece titled, “The Kleptocratic Sources of Russia’s Conduct,” Walker builds his case around the idea that “Vladimir Putin and his gang are fixated on wealth and power.” The author admits being inspired by political analyst Daniel Kimmage, who in 2009 produced what Walker terms a “clear-eyed assessment of Putin’s Russia.” He cites this wisdom he gleaned from Kimmage: “The primary goal of the Russian elite is not to advance an abstract ideal of the national interest or restore some imagined Soviet idyll,” but “to retain its hold on money and power.”

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Kimmage sums up one difficulty Americans have felt when dealing with Putin as an ideological adversary. Whereas the Soviet Union’s embrace of communism made the ideological gap visible even to moronic voters, Putin reigns over a nation that American consultants transformed in the 1990s into a capitalist paradise (i.e., a paradise for owners of capital). To distinguish Putin’s evil capitalism from America’s benevolent capitalism, Kimmage called the Russian version a “selectively capitalist kleptocracy.”

Walker notes that “the system of ‘selectively capitalist kleptocracy’ in Russia that Daniel Kimmage described” 13 years ago has now “evolved in ways that are even more threatening to democracy and its institutions.”

Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Kleptocracy:

The form of government universally adopted by all powerful nations at the end of the 20^th century.

Contextual Note

An acerbic critic might be excused for not feeling particularly illuminated to learn that Putin and his cronies “are fixated on wealth and power.” Who would expect them to have a different philosophy and mindset than the leaders of every other powerful country in the world? The list includes those that claim to be faultless democracies, committed to implementing the will of the people. The first among them is, of course, the United States, but France, the United Kingdom and others adhere to the same sets of values, even if each of them has worked out more subtle ways of applying them. And, of course, Saudi Arabia stands at the head of everyone’s class as the exemplar of leaderships fixated on wealth and power.

Kimmage’s description of Russia as a “selectively capitalist kleptocracy” may be helpful in ways he may not have intended. ��ܲ�������’s selective capitalist kleptocracy contrasts with America’s non-selectively capitalist kleptocracy. The real question turns around what it means to be selective or non-selective. Walker makes no attempt to differentiate the two because he believes the term kleptocracy only applies to Russia. But statistics about wealth inequality reveal that the American capitalist system has become a plutocracy that can make its own claim to being a kleptocracy.

In 1989, the top 10% of income earners in the United States earned 42% of the total , which is already significant. In 2016, they accounted for 50%. “By the start of 2021, the richest 1% of Americans held 32% of the nation’s wealth,” to The New York Times. Between the start of 2020 and July 2021, “the richest 1% gained $10 trillion” in accumulated wealth.

The gap is destined to keep widening. Unlike Putin’s oligarchy, composed of his “selected” friends and other winners of ��ܲ�������’s industrial casino, the 1% in the US have non-selectively emerged to constitute a kleptocratic class that, thanks to a sophisticated system of governance, writes the laws, applies the rules and captures the new wealth that is programmed to gravitate towards them.

Kimmage’s idea of a fixation “with wealth and power” correctly describes the mindset of the members of the American kleptocratic class, whether they are entrepreneurs with names like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates, or politicians like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama who rose from poverty to convert power into riches and earn their place as servants of the kleptocratic class.

Unlike Putin’s mafia-like political culture, the system in the US is subtle and sophisticated. It contains convenient paths to join the kleptocratic class, such as a Harvard or Stanford degree. But mostly it relies on fixation. Within the US kleptocratic class diversity exists. Some may be more focused on power (including cultural power) than wealth. But the fascination with both wealth and power is common to all. The system is built on the symmetrical principle that wealth feeds power and power feeds wealth.

Walker accuses Putin of another grave sin, beyond kleptomania but including it: expansionism. He denounces the “spread of the roots and branches of a transnational kleptocratic system that stretches well beyond the Russian Federation to pose a multidimensional threat to free societies.”

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How could a discerning reader not notice the dramatic irony here? Has Walker forgotten that Putin’s complaint about NATO is that, despite promises made to the contrary, it has spent 30 years aggressively expanding toward ��ܲ�������’s most sensitive borders? Putin may be interested in expansion, but Eastern Europe has become a slow tug-of-war in which NATO, under US impulsion, has been the most active and insistent aggressor.

In short, Walker has produced an essay that correctly identifies very real political evils within the Russian system. But they share the same basic traits as the politico-economic culture of the West under US leadership. In an absolute failure of self-recognition, Walker somehow manages to avoid acknowledging his own culture’s image reflected back to him into the mirror that has become the target of his complaints. That is because, in this article, he has focused on producing just one more example of what has now become the shameless, knee-jerk propaganda that pollutes Western media in this climate of an existential war from which the US has abstained, preferring to let the Ukrainians endure the sacrifice for the sake of American principles.

Historical Note

In the 17^th century, European history began a radical transformation of its political institutions lasting roughly 300 years. After England’s Puritans beheaded their king and declared a short-lived Commonwealth, European intellectuals began toying with an idea that would eventually lead to the triumph of the idea, if not the reality of democracy, a system Winston Churchill generously called “the worst form of government except for all the others.”

For the best part of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, representative democracy became the standard reference for everyone’s idea of what an honest government should be like, while struggling to find its footing with the concurrent rise of industrial capitalism. Capitalism generated huge inequality that seemed at least theoretically anomalous with the idea of democracy.

During the late 20^th century, industrial capitalism that had previously focused on production, productivity and mass distribution, gave way to financial capitalism. This new version of capitalism focused uniquely on wealth and power. In other words, democracies switched their orientation from a belief in their citizens’ anarchic quest for personal prosperity in the name of the “pursuit of happiness” to the elite’s concentrated focus on the acquisition and accumulation of money and clout.

This new social model merged the logic of democratically designed institutions with economic and legal mechanisms that created a sophisticated system at the service of a small number of individuals who understood and controlled the levers of wealth and political power. Their major cultural achievement consisted of giving a sufficiently wide base to this new form of plutocracy that disguised its kleptocratic reality.

For nearly half a century, the Cold War promoted the spectacle of a combat between democratic capitalism and autocratic communism. Both sides seized the opportunity to build military powerhouses that could provide an effective shelter for the kleptocratic class. Once the heresy of communism was banished from Russia, it could morph, under Boris Yeltsin and then Vladimir Putin, into a caricature of the much more subtle kleptocracy encapsulated in Reaganomics.

The Russian and American versions of economic power management shared the same orientations but deployed them in contrasting ways. Kleptocratic rule was at the core of both. Using a musical analogy, the American philharmonic version of kleptocracy was delivered in Carnegie Hall, with a fully orchestrated score. Russia offered an improvisational version delivered by local musicians in an animated tavern. In both cases, as the proverb says, “he who pays the piper calls the tune.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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FADE IN:

EXT. Georgetown Street — Late Afternoon

DYSON: General, if you could spare a minute, I’d like to get your take on how the Ukraine war’s going. Are you satisfied we’re achieving our objectives?

MORAN: You’re a reporter. Read the papers.

DYSON: I write for the papers, so I don’t necessarily trust everything I read. I’d like to get it from the horse’s mouth.

MORAN: Look, you’re asking the wrong stallion. Address your questions to the politicians. The military’s job is to obey orders, not give interviews. Our opinion means nothing.

DYSON: I’ve been talking to the politicians. I know what they’re saying, which is why I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’m interested in the military perspective, the feelings you guys have about your mission.

MORAN: We don’t have feelings. We have orders. Orders lead to actions. Feelings come later.

DYSON: OK, but everyone is acting like we’re engaged in a war. And you know much more about war than any politician.

MORAN: Officially we’re at peace. So I have nothing to say.

DYSON: We’re definitely in a major economic war that sits on top of a local shooting war. That’s a unique situation. The media are whipping the public into a frenzy of war fever. Do you feel you’re being sidelined?

MORAN: Do I feel…? I told you, don’t ask me about my feelings.

DYSON: Well, you and your colleagues must be wondering about what this frenzy means. You can see everybody in the media itching to take on the Russkis. Anyone who thinks a war isn’t necessary can be called a traitor. But at the same time, the official message is that we’re not going to battle.

MORAN: We’re ready for any action that’s required. That’s all. For the moment, it’s the State Department’s war, not ours. Their weapons are sanctions and they have quite an arsenal.

DYSON: So you admit that applying sanctions is the equivalent of war?

MORAN: Sanctions actually kill people more surely and on a more massive scale than any non-nuclear weapons.

DYSON: That’s the point. Critics point out that they target civilians and disrupt the survivors’ lives, people who have nothing to do with politics or combat, whereas war is supposed to be about opposing armies. Are you saying you consider sanctions a legitimate way to conduct war?

MORAN: Well, if you really want my opinion, I’ll tell you. Sanctions make a mockery of the idea of war, which is always has been and should always be considered a noble pursuit. Politicians have no idea what true war is all about. They say they have a strategy, but they have no sense of operational goals.

DYSON: If you admit they have a strategy, how would you assess their tactics?

MORAN: We don’t try. All we can do is hope they come out victorious.

DYSON: Have they given you military people any idea of what victory would look like?

MORAN: From what I can tell, it’s bringing down the evildoer, Vladimir Putin.

DYSON: So, it’s regime change?

MORAN: That’s what it looks like.

DYSON: Blinken absolutely denied that last week on “Face the Nation.” But he does say it’s about provoking the devastation of the Russian economy.

MORAN: Pretty much the same thing.

DYSON: The French minister Bruno Le Maire said something similar, about provoking the total collapse of the Russian economy. It’s beginning to sound like “Carthago delenda est.”

MORAN: Is that French?

DYSON: No, Latin. You know, Cato.

MORAN: Are you telling me the French minister works for the Cato Institute here in DC?

DYSON: No, it’s what Cato the Elder said during one of the Punic wars.

MORAN: It’s disrespectful to call any of our wars puny, even if we have to admit there were a few failures.

DYSON: I’m talking about ancient Roman history. Cato was a Roman politician who preached the destruction of Carthage around 200 BC. He ended all his speeches at the Senate with the catchphrase, “Carthage must be destroyed.” You must have studied the Punic wars? The Romans went ahead and definitively wiped Carthage off the map in 146 BC, killing or enslaving every one of its citizens.

MORAN: Oh, yeah. I remember hearing about that in my history classes at West Point. That was a time when politicians knew how to finish off the quarrels they started.

DYSON: So, is that what we’re talking about now? Destroying Russia?

MORAN: Don’t see how that can work without a nuclear attack. But if they can bring down the regime with sanctions, more power to ‘em. After the habitual “mission accomplished” moment they always love to stage, they’ll probably call us in to clean up the mess. That generally doesn’t go very well, but we’ll make the best of it.

DYSON: As you always do, I guess. Well, thanks for the valuable insight. I’m very grateful.

MORAN: You’re not going to quote me on any of this? You do and I’ll make sure every officer down to the rank of lieutenant knows your name. You’ll never get another story from the Pentagon.

DYSON: Hey, I was only interested in your ideas. And, don’t worry, I won’t take any direct quotes or mention your name. Trust me, I work for The Washington Post.

Disclaimer: This fictional dialogue exists for entertainment purposes only. The ideas expressed in it are totally imaginary. Its eventual inclusion in any Hollywood movie or television script will be subject to negotiating authoring rights with 51�Թ�. That is nevertheless highly unlikely for the simple reason that some of the reflections in the dialogue appear to contradict the widely held beliefs spread in the propaganda that now dominates both the news media and the entertainment industry.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post A Fictional Debate Between a General and a Journalist appeared first on 51�Թ�.

For the past month, the most respectable news outlets in the West have channeled their energy into perfecting a novel journalistic phenomenon that goes well beyond traditional propaganda. It has become so concentrated it now deserves an official name. I propose calling it “Obsessive Accusatory Reporting” (OAR). The message of any item in the news meriting the OAR label is to magnify an already present feeling of confirmed hatred in the reader. In principle, it can target nations, peoples, ideas or religions. But it works best when it focuses on a single personality.

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The current version of OAR began with an idea already built into the cultural woodwork of American media: the perception that Russia — whether in its historical Soviet version or in its modern post-tsarist form — is the natural and eternal enemy of the United States and, by extension, to Western civilization as a whole. Inherited from the Cold War as a set of feelings that Americans find natural, establishment Democrats in the US gave it new impetus thanks to the artificial association they managed to establish with the man they believed could play the role of a true American evildoer: Donald Trump. Now, thanks to a specific event, ��ܲ�������’s invasion of Ukraine, the practice of OAR can focus on a universal target by whom, unlike Trump, no American should be allowed to be seduced. It’s the new Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Anyone who has ever witnessed a rowing event knows that to gain speed and ensure hydrodynamic efficiency, all rowers must have their oars strike the water at the same precise moment and achieve an equivalent depth below the surface of the water as their collective effort pushes the boat and all it contains forward. This repeated, disciplined, rhythmically coordinated energy creates the inertia strokes that produce increased momentum. 

The media’s propaganda campaigns appear to work in much the same way thanks to the equally disciplined and repeated OAR phenomenon. Obsessive repetition, the alignment of an infinite series of examples of despicable behavior and the journalistic talent for turning each example into an emotion-stirring story are the three elements that sum up the art of OAR. The momentum the media has created around hatred for the person of Vladimir Putin has become a spectacle in itself. The danger the media has no time to worry about as its effort continues developing potentially uncontrollable speed is that it may reach the point where it triggers actions leading to a potentially thermonuclear conflagration. Call it the media’s brinkmanship that multiplies the effects of politicians who themselves, persuaded it is now the key to successful electoral marketing, have turned it into an art form. Voters want their leaders to be aggressive decision-makers.

There are undoubtedly plenty of reasons to distrust, despise and morally condemn Vladimir Putin that existed well before he decided to invade Ukraine on February 24. Putin has, as befits a country ruled for a century by autocratic tsars, developed a particularly thuggish form of governing his nation. Russians at least are used to it and fatalistically accept it, with no illusion about its pretention to any form of virtue other than the ability to keep things under control. 

Putin is clearly guilty of every sin — from brutal repression to aggravated narcissism — that accrues to anyone who achieves his level of control that embraces military power, finance and technology. His ability to repress any serious opposition and manipulate electoral processes, his commitment to cronyism and self-enrichment, and his immunity from a basic moral sense concerning the value of human life and the dignity of the average citizen constitute attributes of his office. Unlike some autocratic leaders, he also has a high level of strategic intelligence. 

Westerners have become habituated to leaders who seek to seduce broad segments of the population thanks to slogans rather than the demonstration of their clout or the display of their intelligence, which in fact is never required and, when it exists, may get in the way of their ambition. Western political leaders focus on developing the essential skill of deploying charm to win elections. To Westerners, Putin’s style of governing marked by the arrogance of power is worse than distasteful. It challenges their own belief in the illusion they need to feel of possessing political power in a democracy thanks to their ability to vote at regular intervals. They need to imagine their vote has an impact on policy, an illusion the media encourages them to believe in. All it really does is limit the degree of repression a democratic government may get away with. Putin has no qualms or regrets about manifestly unjust actions carried out against his own people. Western democratic leaders actually worry.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was unambiguously illegal, morally shocking, paradoxical to the extent that he is attacking the population he claims to wish to protect and downright brutal. It may even be self-defeating, potentially tarnishing his image as a strong leader. It would, however, be premature to draw conclusions on that last point, as many in the Western media have already started doing. But for anyone susceptible to being seduced by today’s OAR culture, the temptation to believe in the inevitable failure of Putin’s enterprise is overwhelming. For the past two weeks, Western media have been joyously proclaiming that Putin’s armed assault is on the verge of defeat. 

Journalism and Democracy

The traditional belief about journalism in a democracy included the idea that the press plays a role closely attuned to the interest and the voice of the people. Ideally, the media exists to provide essential information about the real world and a modicum of independent insight about the topics treated. By showing restraint and focusing on discernible facts, media in a democracy could be trusted to help citizens understand complex events and make informed decisions after drawing their own conclusions about the possible relationship between causes and effects.

That has long been the theory concerning the role of what people still call the fourth estate, a linguistic hand-me-down from 18^th century European history that designates the free press. The fourth estate was deemed to be closest to the third estate (the people, or the commoners) and furthest from the first two estates (the clergy and the nobility). The advent of democracy made the theory of the estates obsolete, to the extent that the clergy lost its status of “estate.” In reality, the totalitarian drift of the 20^th century revealed that the first and second estates merged as democratic governments assumed they could project the moral authority the clergy traditionally exercised.

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The idea of a free and independent press embodied in the fourth estate continued to persist as a necessary but increasingly intangible ideal. Alas, history tells us that whenever an ideal makes contact with reality, it is likely to become distorted. With the rise of democracy in the West in the 19^th century, the press permitted the expression of variable points of view. But over time, no ethical system could prevent those voices from being influenced by political parties, commercial interests, pressure groups and the government itself. The key to honoring the ideal was variety, not just tolerance but also the encouragement of a range of views. Financial concentration eventually limited and finally captured and confined that variety.

The media has been trapped by forces it no longer tries to control or resist. It is virtually impossible even to imagine, let alone create anything resembling the ideal news outlet for which objective presentation of the news would be the inviolable norm. Perhaps the proponents of government by artificial intelligence believe they can one day put that in place by eliminating human agency. They too are victims of an illusion because manipulative human agency can work — and in fact works best — through artificial systems that include and mechanically promote the interests that created them. This is as true of political systems as it is of computer programs. The failure of humanity to even begin addressing the impending catastrophe of global warming can simply be attributed to systemic inertia, not to the idea that no leader is willing to make an appropriate decision.

So long as diversity in the media was still possible, truth for the public at large could emerge not from a spontaneous or enforced consensus, but through the highly interactive process of recognizing and eliminating the distortions of the reality that became visible after comparing the various representations of it. By definition, the truth about human institutions and historical facts is dynamic, organic and interactive. It is not a statement and cannot be contained in statements. It exists as a perception. Perceptions can be shared, compared or contradicted. No single perception sums up the truth.

In the traditional democratic idea of journalism, a good article avoided explicit judgment. In many instances, the standard practice became to avoid even mentioning specific interpretations or judgments. Good reporting limited itself to acknowledging dominant perspectives on a topic without choosing to endorse one or another. In stories about crime, for example, it has become a general rule — before a verdict rendered by a court of justice — to use the epithet “alleged.” This rule holds even when there is no doubt about the existence of the crime and the identity of the author of the crime (though the real reason for this precaution may be the media’s fear of being accused of libel). In contrast, when it comes to political issues, the opposite trend dominates. Journalists or their editors now routinely jump on the occasion to name the culprit and inculcate the belief of guilt in their audience. Knowing their niche audience, it enables them to offer their public what they want to hear or understand.

Russian Agency and the Havana Syndrome

One prominent case in recent years illustrates how easy it is for journalists to play fast and loose concerning real or imaginary political crimes. Over a period of five years dedicated to reporting on the “Havana syndrome,” The New York Times, The Washington Post and other respectable media consistently described reported health incidents as “attacks.” That word alone presumed criminal agency, even though the reality of cause and effect was closer to a “heart attack” or “panic attack” than to an assault.

Articles on the syndrome typically insisted that, even when no evidence could be cited of any human agency, Russia was the prime suspect. Sentences such as this one from The Washington Post were clearly intended to distort the reader’s perception: “Current and former intelligence officials have increasingly pointed a finger at Russia, which has staged multiple brazen attacks on adversaries and diplomats overseas.” It is worth noting that the only act in this sentence that should qualify as news is what the intelligence officials have done: “pointed a finger.” All the rest, the “brazen attacks,” are either imprecisely anecdotal from a random past or simply imaginary.

Five years after initially pointing fingers, those same officials finally admitted officially that there was to point their finger at. When the ultimate negative assessment by the CIA itself of Russian attacks was published in January of this year, did The Post or The Times (or any other media) apologize to their readers for their erroneous reporting over the years? Obviously, not. Perhaps they felt that might oblige them to do the unthinkable: apologize to the Russians.

When there was finally no choice left but to reveal the CIA’s negative assessment, The New York Times tried to save face by insisting that everything it had pinned its hopes on might still have an element of truth in it. “A directed energy weapon,” Julian E. Barnes on January 20, “remains the hypothesis that a number of victims who have studied the incidents believe is most likely.” If that fact is true, a serious reporter would have delved into the interesting question of why the victims continue to believe something that their superiors have determined to be untrue. Does this reveal that CIA operatives and their families have lost their trust in the truthfulness of the agency? The rest of us are left wondering why journalists like Barnes himself think it necessary to print such meaningless observations as significant facts.

Now that the entire thesis of Russian-directed energy attacks has been discredited, a new article delving into the motivation of intelligence officials who made repeated unfounded claims might prove informative. But, miraculously, there are no new articles on the Havana syndrome, except maybe the article you are now reading. But none in The Times or The Post. With hindsight — something the legacy press studiously avoids — the articles of these papers appear to reveal the equivalent of “brazen attacks,” not by Russians but by US intelligence services. They were attacks on the public’s access to the truth. The journalists were simply willing conscious or unconscious accomplices in these brazen attacks. What this entire episode truly reveals is a lesson in how our culture of hyperreality works. It depends entirely on the media.

Finally, a Serious Case of a Brazen Attack: Ukraine

This inevitably brings us back to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This time, Russia is indeed guilty of a brazen attack that isn’t an imaginary hypothesis dreamed up by intelligence operatives. Nevertheless, the media have turned it into something far more brazen by systematically excluding or ignoring other less brazen but equally troubling attacks that have been going on for years. They include a decidedly brazen coup d’état in Ukraine supported, if not engineered, by the United States in 2014.

The carefully managed act of regime change in which the US gratefully accepted the assistance of neo-Nazi extremists to produce the commensurate level of violence used the deposition of one democratically elected leader to enable the comforting fiction that the two Ukrainian presidents elected since those events — Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky — are somehow more legitimate than the president overthrown in the Maidan Revolution. That fiction depends on discarding the fact that Ukraine is not just another “sovereign nation” of Europe, but a historically, culturally and linguistically divided country that also has a conflicting but highly charged symbolic meaning for both Russia, its next-door neighbor, and the United States, a distant hegemon that has used NATO to spread its military dominance across Europe.

Most reasonable and reasoning people admit the principle that complex political entities such as Ukraine require delicate diplomatic treatment. But, as the Bush wars revealed, US foreign policy rarely acknowledges the need for rationality. Even basic diplomacy appears to be inconsistent with the culture of enforced hegemony. At best, it might serve the purpose of catastrophe avoidance. But catastrophes are increasingly welcomed rather than avoided. Instead, we can observe a growing trend of catastrophe provocation that is difficult to explain, since the cost is heavy even for the perpetrators. For the US, it appears to have something to do with the idea that world hegemony is the only possible source of global stability and that catastrophes such as war are somehow good for business (which of course they are, but not for everyone’s or even most people’s business).

In such a geopolitical environment, propaganda becomes a way of life and serves as the core activity in the construction of public culture. Selecting the facts the public will react to in a predictable way according to the interest of those who understand the secrets of geopolitical stability has become the basis of legacy journalism in the US. The ultimately comic example of the Havana syndrome perhaps served as a kind of temporary placeholder in times of relative peace. It upheld the mythological construct of a permanent Cold War, which seems to be essential in the definition of US foreign policy. Now that things have become seriously degraded in a nation that journalists have begun calling the “civilized” part of the world — meaning that it is worth being concerned about, in contrast with the Middle East, Asia and Africa — propaganda has to focus not on pure hallucinatory hyperreality but events that are taking place in the real world.

We are only beginning to see the dominant strategies involved. It is too early to assess them with any historical distance. What we are witnessing is the need to whip up the blind hatred that leads to the OAR phenomenon described earlier. But there is also a more basic approach that applies especially to situations that are historically and culturally complex. It includes the decision to forget to mention or even categorically deny the obvious for as long as possible. When the obvious does become visible, thanks to the indiscipline of some rare investigators interested in the truth, the strategy consists of devising ways of downplaying it and treating it as marginal.

The Neo-Nazi Syndrome

When Putin launched his assault on Ukraine, he defined a mission of denazification of Ukraine. He may have presumed that all Westerners can relate to that theme. Nazis are, after all, the personification of historical evil. So, if we can agree on a common enemy, we should at the very least offer one another friendly support. Putin apparently underestimated the Westerners’ ability to remain ignorant of very real and already documented facts, thanks to the deliberate forgetfulness of their media. Not only did commentators laugh at the notion that a neo-Nazi threat existed in Ukraine, they mocked the idea that it could exist in a nation whose president is Jewish.

Four weeks into the war, The New York Times has published an article acknowledging that the neo-Nazi question is worth mentioning. The bears the title, “Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine.” The title alone is extremely clever. It focuses attention not on the Nazis, who are never seriously identified, but on Vladimir Putin, whom Times readers understand as being evil incarnate. The first sentence reads as pure mockery of phrases Putin has used. “Ukraine’s government,” Anton Troianovski writes, ”is ‘openly neo-Nazi’ and ‘pro-Nazi,’ controlled by ‘little Nazis,’ President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia �������.”

The implication is that if Putin said it, it must be a lie. It is only in the 12^th paragraph of the article that the question of the actual presence and actions of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is even grudgingly entertained. “Like many lies,” the paragraph begins, “Mr. Putin’s claim about a Nazi-controlled Ukraine has a hall-of-mirrors connection to reality.” Ah, Troianovski appears to admit, there is a connection to reality, but of course it is hopelessly distorted, like a fun park’s hall of mirrors.

The following paragraph attempts to convince the reader that the phenomenon is so marginal there is definitely nothing to worry about. “Some fringe nationalist groups, who have no representation in Parliament, use racist rhetoric and symbolism associated with Nazi Germany.” In other words, talk of neo-Nazis is all fiction.

Many paragraphs later, Troianovski reveals the real reason why this article of clarification became necessary for The Times rather than simply neglecting to mention neo-Nazis. It’s the fault of Facebook, which created something of a scandal when it “said it was making an exception to its anti-extremism policies to allow praise for Ukraine’s far-right Azov Battalion military unit, ‘strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard.’” The Russians seized on this as proof of complicity between the Ukrainian resistance and the neo-Nazis. To counter dangerous Russian propaganda, The Times is stepping up to clarify the issue, even though it would have preferred not having to mention it.

Unfortunately, the article spends paragraph after paragraph clarifying nothing. It somewhat precipitously ends with a quote about how Jews are now among those fleeing the war. Some of them may never return, implying that Putin’s intent of denazifying Ukraine is in itself a deviously anti-Semitic act. This reversal of perception of blame illustrates one of the key techniques of New York Times-style propaganda. The journalist finds a devious way of turning the supposedly moral motivation of the enemy into its opposite.

Troianovski briefly hints at the uncomfortable paradox that Israel has refused to condemn Russia, a fact that might comfort the idea of Putin’s concern with neo-Nazis. But the journalist leaves that question aside, apparently convinced that the subtlety of that debate unnecessarily complicates his mission as an OAR specialist focused only on highlighting Putin’s evil nature. Surprisingly for those familiar with modern Ukrainian history, Troianovski has the honesty to mention the historical Nazi sympathizer and Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera, still celebrated by many Ukrainians.

Troianovski even has the merit of providing a link to a fascinatingly instructive 2010 Times article, written at a time when the paper had no particular commitment to churning out propaganda in the interests of celebrating Ukraine’s democratic purity and constitutional integrity. The author of that , Clifford J. Levy, highlights the problem that Viktor Yanukovych was facing as he bravely attempted “to address the ethnic, regional and historical passions that divide the country.” Yanukovych was, of course, the Ukrainian president that Victoria Nuland helped to depose in 2014.

Understanding the Culture of Propaganda by Comparing The Times in 2010 and 2022

All New York Times readers and indeed all American journalists owe it to themselves and the sanity of the world we live in to read Levy’s article from 2010, if only to compare it to the image of Ukraine that American media are putting forward today of a unified people, imbued with liberal European values and united in their hatred of tyranny in all its forms. Levy’s article that applies the now-forgotten practices of straightforward journalism presents facts, cites contrasting points of view — including admirers of Bandera — and takes no sides. In so doing, it gives a clear picture of a terrifyingly complex social and historical situation that Western media have decided to simplify to the extreme in their wish to follow the dictates of US President Joe Biden’s State Department.  

Any objective observer today, however rare their voices are in the media, must , as Barack Obama did in 2016, according to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, that “Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one.” Obama’s State Department that sent Nuland to Ukraine to manage the Maidan Revolution appeared at the time unaware of what Goldberg called the “Obama Doctrine.” That same objective observer should also be aware of the fact that the Ukraine described by Levy in his 2010 article still exists, despite the State Department’s 2014 coup d’état. There is much more about the history of the last eight years and that, despite the terrifying consequences playing out day after day, US and Western media have now chosen to studiously ignore, if not suppress.

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One salient point that readers of Levy’s article will relate to today, however, is the remark of the director of the Stepan Bandera museum in Lviv: “For Ukrainian nationalists, there is no such word as capitulation.” That is even truer when those same nationalists dispose of a billion dollars worth of American weaponry to keep the war of resistance going as long as possible. The citizenry of Western Ukraine will follow the lead of the nationalists — not all of whom are neo-Nazis — and refuse to capitulate, while suffering what deserves to be called severe if not sadistic cultural, political and military abuse from two enemies fighting a proxy war on their land: Russia and the United States.

But if the continuing destruction of Ukrainian cities and loss of thousands of lives is the price to pay for the pleasure of reading reams of Obsessive Accusatory Reporting, then, as Madeleine Albright might , “the price is worth it.”

​�ċThe views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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It’s Time for #MeToo to Address Structural Racism

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The first official Women’s History Month was inaugurated in 1980 and has been celebrated every year since. There are indeed many milestones and accomplishments to celebrate, including the strides women have made in  and the , the increased  of women in government, and the hard-won legal and social equality. At the same time, white women have leveraged their relative racial privilege to make these gains at the expense of women of color.

Incomplete Picture

While it feels empowering to think of women as a collective group, this category is not a monolith. Failing to consider women and women’s history from an  perspective leaves out the range of experiences and needs of women who do not fit into the white middle-class mold. In short, when the broad range of women’s experiences is not acknowledged, the movement remains incomplete. 

Because historical and contemporary women’s movements have willfully and strategically omitted racial justice, there is a legacy of isolating racism from sexism. This ignores the lived experience of everyone except white women. It has ensured that white women see a competition between issues of racism and sexism, and feel that they lose if the conversation centers around the former. 

The made the deliberate decision to fight for the right of white — not all — women to vote, choosing not to collaborate with black female activists. More recently, the 2017 Women’s March organizers faced criticism for focusing primarily on white women’s issues. 

And in the peak of the #MeToo movement, celebrities like Alyssa Milano, who said that she  to be the vessel for the movement, and Rose McGowan, who  at not being credited with initiating the movement, have by and large been associated with the inception of #MeToo. In reality, , a black female activist and advocate, coined the phrase and spearheaded the movement to raise awareness of sexual violence against working-class women and women of color a whole decade earlier.

As sociologists and white women, we argue that the discomfort regarding engaging with racism in both the society in general as well as in women-centered movements stems from the idea that white people don’t have to talk about race and racism because they aren’t “our issues.” But, because we live in a , everyone has a racial identity.

Another way to think about this is by acknowledging that race is socially constructed, meaning that it carries a social, not biological categorization. However, the fact that it is socially constructed doesn’t mean it isn’t real. In a racist society, race has very real consequences for people.

Real Change

To avoid injury and to build a more equitable and just society, white women must become better at talking about race and racism, and recognize that while we experience sexism, we benefit from racial privilege in society. These benefits range from not having to  when dating to more frequent  in the workplace compared to minority women to extensive when a white woman goes missing, among others. 

Real change will mean giving up some of our comfort and power. Making these changes may not feel nice to us as individuals, but will have life-saving consequences for black people and other people of color. 

Second, we must recognize racism is a  that is embedded into the fabric of American society. Dismantling it will require supporting anti-racist policies and politicians, and advocating for laws such as the , which aims to “improve maternal health, particularly among racial and ethnic minority groups, veterans, and other vulnerable populations. It also addresses maternal health issues related to COVID-19.” 

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To ensure that political leaders truly represent the American public, everyone must have a seat at the table. While there have been four women on the Supreme Court, this month, we have the opportunity to confirm , who would be the first black woman on the court. 

Finally, we cannot begin to address racism without a shared knowledge of the truth. Ideally, this means casting a wide net and engaging with people from different backgrounds. Black activists and authors can us the social world through their eyes. But even so, we can’t expect anyone to tell us what “good” white people we are. In the words of the late scholar and activist , there is no gold star for “challenging white supremacist, capitalist, and patriarchal values.”   

What’s more, since racism is structural, we will all say and do racist things at times. But if we care about making the world a better place, we must listen, learn, apologize and continue to improve. Of course, self-knowledge is not enough. As white women, we must simultaneously work to improve ourselves and engage in the difficult work of dismantling white supremacy. This won’t be easy work, but it’s work that is worth doing. 

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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India’s abstentions have led to much heartburn in the US and Europe. One high-flying national security lawyer in Washington argued that India was wrong to ignore Russia tearing down  of the Charter of the United Nations. Like many others, he took the view that India has sided with an aggressive autocrat, weakened its democratic credentials and proved to be a potentially unreliable partner of the West. The Economist has India “abstemious to a fault.”

American Hypocrisy and Half-Measures Damn Ukraine and Help Russia

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In particular, serving and retired American and British diplomats have been wringing their hands at India’s reticence to vote against Russia. For many Americans, this is a betrayal of the good faith that the US has reposed in India by giving the country a special nuclear deal in 2008 and  India as a “major defense partner” in 2016. In 2018, the US elevated India to Strategic Trade Authorization tier 1 status, giving India license-free access to a wide range of military and dual-use technologies regulated by the Department of Commerce, a privilege the US accords to very few other countries. On Capitol Hill, India’s abstention is further viewed as an act of bad faith because many members of Congress and senators worked hard to waive  against India. These were triggered by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act when India bought Russian S-400 missile systems. 

Many Western business leaders are now wondering if India is a safe place to do business after the latest turn of events. For some in the West, this is yet another example of India slipping inexorably down the slippery slope of authoritarianism under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Two Unfriendly Nuclear Neighbors

Such fears are overblown. India remains a thriving democracy. Elections just took place in five states after colorful political campaigns. Infrastructure development in India is going on at a record pace and  remains high amidst inflationary pressures. Despite some blunders such as the 2016 demonetization of high-denomination currency notes and the botched 2017 rollout of the goods and services tax, the Modi-led BJP has become more market-friendly.

As per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 , India ranked 63 out of the surveyed 190 countries, a marked improvement from the 134 rank in  when Modi came to power. Like the US, India is a fractious and, at times, exasperating democracy, but it is a fast-growing large economy. Even as US manufacturers Chevrolet and Ford exited the Indian market, Korean  and Chinese  have achieved much success.

India is also proving to be a major force for stability in the region. After “America’s Afghanistan’s fiasco,” India has been picking up the pieces in an increasingly unstable region. The country is now providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people even as the US has abandoned them. Thousands of trucks roll out daily from India to Afghanistan via Pakistan as part of India’s effort to feed millions of starving Afghans. India is delivering 50,000 tons of  to a country led by the Taliban. Earlier, India sent 500,000 coronavirus vaccines as well as 13 tons of essential medicines and winter clothing to Afghanistan. Despite its reservations about the new regime in Kabul that offered refuge to hijackers of an Indian plane in  and sent jihadists to Kashmir, a government as anti-Muslim by The New York Times is behaving magnanimously to help millions of Afghans facing starvation.

Despite its thriving democracy and growing economy, India remains a highly vulnerable nation in an extremely rough neighborhood. To its west lies an increasingly more radical Pakistan that, in the of the late Stephen Philip Cohen, uses “terror as an instrument of state policy in Kashmir.” To its east lies an increasingly aggressive China led by President Xi Jinping assiduously using salami-slicing tactics to claim more Indian territory. In sharp contrast to the US, India has two nuclear-armed neighbors and faces the specter of a two-front war given what Andrew Small has called the China–Pakistan .

National security that occupies much headspace in Washington is a constant headache for New Delhi. Multiple insurgencies, street protests, mass movements, foreign interference and the specter of nuclear war are a daily worry. During the Cold War, Pakistan was an ally of the US and benefited greatly from American funding of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. A 1998  by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) tells us India was among the top three recipients of Soviet/Russian weapons from 1982 to 1996. 

More recently, India has diversified its arms imports. A 2021 SIPRI fact  makes clear that India is now the biggest importer of French and Israeli arms. From 2011-15 to 2016-20 Russian arms exports to India dropped by 53%, but the country still remained the top importer. In 2016-20, Russia, France and Israel’s share of India’s arms imports comprised 49%, 18% and 13% respectively. A retired assistant chief of the integrated staff estimates that around 70% of India’s military arsenal is of Russian origin.

Given Indian dependence on Russian military hardware, it is only natural that New Delhi cannot afford to annoy Moscow. Critical Russian spares keep the defense forces combat-ready. For high-tech weaponry, which has the added advantage of coming at affordable prices, India relies on Russia. Moscow has also shared software and proprietary interaction elements for weapons delivery systems with New Delhi. Furthermore, Russia allows India to integrate locally-made weapons into its fighter jets or naval vessels unlike the US or even France. 

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From New Delhi’s point of view, the India–Russia military-technical cooperation is even more valuable than Russian military kit. Unlike the West, Russia has been willing to transfer technology, enabling India to indigenize some of its defense production. This began in the 1960s when India moved closer to the Soviet Union even as Pakistan became a full-fledged US ally. Since then, Moscow has shared critical technologies over many decades with New Delhi. India’s supersonic anti-ship missile  that the Philippines recently bought is indigenized Russian technology as is India’s main battle tank.

As a vulnerable nation in a rough neighborhood, India relies on Russia for security. Therefore, New Delhi decided it could not upset Moscow and abstained at all forums.

The China Factor

There is another tiny little matter worrying India. It is certain that Xi is observing and analyzing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a revisionist power, China seeks to overturn the postwar order. Beijing has designs on Taiwan and territorial disputes with many of its neighbors. Its most recent armed confrontation occurred with India though. Since that June 2020 clash, Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a stalemate that repeated rounds of  have failed to resolve.

More than anyone else, India fears a Russia–China axis. If Moscow threw in its lot with Beijing, India — deprived of technology and critical spares — might face a military catastrophe. If Russia sided with China in case of a conflict between the two Asian giants, India would face certain defeat.

Recent military cooperation between Russia and China has worried India. A few months ago, a flotilla of 10 Russian and Chinese warships  Japan’s main island of Honshu for the very first time. This joint exercise demonstrated that Russia and China now have a new strategic partnership. Despite their rivalry in Central Asia and potential disputes over a long border, the two could team up like Germany and Austria-Hungary before World War I. Such a scenario would threaten both Asia and Europe but would spell disaster for India. Therefore, New Delhi has been working hard to bolster its ties with Moscow.

In December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to India to meet Modi. During Putin’s trip, both countries signed a flurry of arms and trade deals. Apart from declarations about boosting trade and investment as well as purchasing various military equipment, Russia transferred the technology and agreed to manufacture more than 700,000 AK-203 rifles in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has just been reelected. In the of a seasoned Indian diplomat Ashok Sajjanhar, Putin’s visit “reinvigorated a time-tested strategic partnership between India and Russia.”

Sajjanhar left unsaid what astute Indian diplomats say in private. India’s close relationship with Russia is insurance against China. New Delhi wants Moscow to act as a moderating influence on Beijing and act as an honest broker between the two Asian giants. India believes that there is no power other than Russia that could act as its bridge to China.

The Weight of History

When Sajjanhar was speaking about a time-tested relationship, he meant decades of close India–Russia ties. During World War II and in the run-up to independence in 1947, the US earned much goodwill because Franklin D. Roosevelt championed the , promising independence to the colonies. However, relationships soured soon after independence because India chose socialism under its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

When the US conducted a coup against the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, India came to view the US as a neocolonial power. It is easy to forget now that Washington backed the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company over those of the government of Iran, triggering trepidation among Indian leaders who remembered clearly that their country was colonized by the British East India Company. The coup gave both capitalism and the US a bad name and pushed New Delhi closer to Moscow.

In the following years, India’s ties with the Soviet Union strengthened. As Pakistan became a firm Cold War ally of the US, India embraced socialism ever more firmly and became a de facto Soviet ally, claims of non-alignment notwithstanding. In 1956, the Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian Revolution. Nehru censured Moscow in private but refused to condemn Soviet action even as he railed against the Anglo-French intervention in the Suez. As per Swapna Kona Nayudu’s well-researched for the Wilson Center, New Delhi now became “a crucial partner in international politics for Moscow.”

In 1968, the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring, an uprising in then-Czechoslovakia that aimed to reform the communist regime. Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, was prime minister, and she publicly called for the Soviets to withdraw their troops. In the UN Security Council, though, India abstained in the vote on the Czechoslovakia matter, attracting widespread condemnation from the American press.

Three years later, India went to war with Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh. This did not go down well in the US, despite the fact that the military dictatorship of Pakistan was inflicting murder, torture and  in a genocide of horrific proportions. During the 1971 India–Pakistan War, Richard Nixon called Gandhi a “” and Henry Kissinger termed Indians as “bastards.” Indian diplomats repeatedly point out that Nixon and Kissinger ignored their own diplomats like Archer Blood who valiantly spoke truth to power about Pakistani atrocities, a story superbly by Princeton professor Gary J. Bass in “The Blood Telegram.” Instead, they sent vessels from the Seventh Fleet to  on Pakistan’s behalf. It was the Soviets who came to India’s rescue by sending their naval vessels to counter the American ones.

India repaid Moscow’s 1971 favor when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. In 1980, India refused to condemn this invasion at the UN. During the decade that followed, the US funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan through Pakistan. Relations between the US and Pakistan became closer than ever at a time when General Zia-ul-Haq  Operation Tupac to “bleed India through a thousand cuts” by championing insurgencies within India. First Punjab and then Kashmir went up in flames. Terrorism became a feature of daily life for India, but the US turned a Nelson’s eye to the phenomenon until the grim attacks of September 11, 2001.

Since those attacks, India and the United States have moved closer together. Thousands of Indian students study in the US every year, American investment has flowed into India and defense cooperation has steadily increased. The US views India as a valuable partner to contain the rise of an aggressive China, and New Delhi cares more about Washington than any other capital on the planet.

Even as US–India ties have deepened, New Delhi has retained close ties with Moscow. Russia continues to build  power plants in energy-hungry India. Plans to import more Russian oil and gas have also been in the works. Because of these ties, India did not condemn Russian action against Crimea in 2014. The left-leaning government in power at that time went on to say that Russia had “” interests in Ukraine.

It is important to note that no opposition party has  the government’s position. Shashi Tharoor, a flamboyant MP of the Indian National Congress party who said that India was on “the wrong side of history,” got rapped on the knuckles by his bosses. The opposition and the government have almost identical views on the matter. Neither supports Russian aggression against Ukraine, but no party wants to criticize an old friend of the nation.

Political Factors, Domestic and International

War in Ukraine is obviously not in India’s interest. India imports energy, and rising oil prices are going to unleash inflation in an economy with high unemployment. This worries both political and business leaders. In its statement at the UN, India called for peace and diplomacy. In official statements, India has also expressed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. India does not in any way support Russian aggression but cannot criticize Moscow for a host of reasons described above as well as often overlooked political factors.

Indian leaders have also been preoccupied with elections in five critical states. Political analysts consider these elections to be a dress rehearsal for the 2024 national elections. With stakes so high, the ruling BJP was under pressure to bring home thousands of Indian  studying in Ukraine safely. For this, India  on Russia. While some might say this necessitated a Faustian silence, 18,000 Indian lives were at stake.

India also had reservations about Ukraine. Reports of Indian students facing racism in Ukraine have been doing the on social media. These may be info ops by Russians, but they have touched a chord among the masses. Press reports of fleeing Indian students facing racism and segregation at the Ukrainian border have not helped, nor have memories of Ukrainian arms with Pakistan, which have triggered Indian suspicions. Even though India is against the conflict, New Delhi does not want to forsake an old friend and support a potentially hostile power.

India also suspects the motives of the West in taking on Putin. There is a strong feeling across nearly all political parties that the US would not show the same concern for a non-white nation in Asia or Africa. Left-leaning parties point out that the US and the UK based their 2003 invasion of Iraq on a pack of lies. A popular Indian television anchor has railed against the “” of Western media that treats blue-eyed, blonde Ukrainian refugees differently to Syrian or Afghan ones.

There is also another matter driving India’s hesitation to go along completely with the US in targeting Russia. An increasing trust deficit between the Democrats and the BJP is harming US–India relations. For years, The New York Times and The Washington Post have relentlessly criticized the BJP, accusing the party of being authoritarian, if not fascist. Even food aid to the impoverished citizens in Taliban-led Afghanistan did not get any recognition from the papers of record in New York and Washington.

Billionaires like  who support Democrats have been vocal against the BJP and Modi. Their foundations have also funded Indian organizations opposed to the BJP. Americans see this funding as an expression of idealism that seeks to promote civil society and democracy. On the other hand, many Indians  American funding as a sinister ploy to weaken the nationalist BJP and replace them with weak, pliant leaders. Indians are also irked by the fact that Democrats rarely give credit to the BJP for winning elections, the democratic proof of its platform’s popularity.

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Democrats have also been pressuring India to legalize gay marriage, forgetting that the issue is pending before the Indian Supreme Court. Indians point out that it was the British who decreed “unnatural” sexual acts” as not just illegal but also imprisonable during Queen Victoria’s heyday. The BJP has already come out in favor of legalizing  but has no power to intervene in a matter pending before the court. The failure of Democrats to recognize this reeks of a white savior complex that destroys trust between Washington and New Delhi. 

Many BJP leaders are convinced that the Democrats are plotting some sort of a regime change in the 2024 elections. They believe there is an elaborate game plan in place to discredit Modi and the BJP. In this worldview, the Democrat establishment is manipulating discourse and peddling narratives that could lead to some version of the Orange Revolution in India. They are convinced that once Putin goes, Modi might be next. Even though India is opposed to a war that is severely hurting its economy, this fear of Western interference in domestic political matters is one more reason for India to abstain from turning on its old friend Russia.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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