Quote of the Month
“Another defeat. Maybe this what human history was: the brief illusion of happy victories in a long continuum of bitter, disillusioning defeats.”
- Salman Rushdie, Victory City, p. 138
My Recent Writing:
“It’s Not Aliens: Notes on the Great North American Balloon Shoot of February 2023”
“Kyiv Stands Strong, Proud, Tall — and Free: Russia's war against Ukraine, one year on”
What I’m Reading:
1. Why decoupling from China doesn’t equal deglobalization
Why you should read it: On his Substack, economist and blogger Noah Smith notes the fundamental distinction between various forms of economic decoupling from China and a retreat from globalization itself.
“Now, I do think there are plenty of dangers associated with decoupling, and there are bound to be costs as well (though perhaps also some under-appreciated benefits). But the way that many of decoupling’s critics are thinking about the issue just seems kind of confused; they talk as if decoupling, deglobalization, industrial policy, friend-shoring, ‘Buy American’, reshoring, and every other alternative to the trade patterns of the 2000s and 2010s are all one and the same. They are not one and the same. We are faced with a large menu of possible replacements for the old order, and conflating these options is unhelpful. Instead of wringing our hands and wishing for the world of 2015 to come back, we need to think productively about what comes next.”
“One mistake I see the critics of decoupling make is that they almost instinctively equate globalization with the sourcing of production in China… But although we might have gotten used to mentally equating globalization with ‘made in China’ over the past two decades, those are obviously different things. If Apple moves an iPhone factory from China to India, and keeps selling the phones in the U.S., has the world 'deglobalized’ at all? No, not one bit. You still have the same amount of foreign direct investment and the same amount of trade. The only thing that changed is that now the factory is in India instead of China.”
Why it matters: “Analyses of trade and industrial policy that treat all types of government interference as one and the same, or which equate trade with making things in China, cloud our decision-making more than they help. They contain the implicit assumption that there are only two directions for the global economy — back toward the old equilibrium of 2015 or forward into a dark, frightening world of protectionism and autarky. But in fact, the world of 2015 just isn’t coming back. China’s leaders have committed to capturing a dominant position in key strategic industries, and this will not change depending on whether the U.S. cancels or tightens export controls… So instead of looking back to the time when ‘free trade’ was a simple concept and an easy rallying cry, we should be thinking about how to shape the next wave of globalization in a way that encourages global economic growth while also providing security to ourselves and our allies. It won’t be perfectly optimal, but nothing ever is.”
2. Can America make good on the Biden administration’s multi-trillion dollar plan to remake the national economy?
Why you should read it: In the New York Times, climate writer Robinson Meyer warns that implementing the Biden administration’s ambitious domestic investment program will be more difficult than it might seem at first glance.
“Few Americans realize it yet, but the trifecta of the Biden-era laws amounts to one of the biggest experiments in how the American government oversees the economy in a generation. If this experiment is successful, it will change how politicians think about managing the market for years to come. If it fails or misfires, then it will greatly limit the number of tools to fight climate change or a recession. The story of the 21st-century American economy is being shaped now… But I worry that the federal government has started its experiments too haphazardly. The Inflation Reduction Act did not emerge from careful study and bipartisan consensus building, but from intraparty haggling and a harried legislative process. Even the bipartisan CHIPS Act was more of a crisis measure than a strategic intervention. These shortcomings are forgivable; in the Inflation Reduction Act’s case, it’s not like Republicans were ever going to help pass a climate bill. But these constraints have deprived the government of the strong institutions, internal expertise and administrative capacity that have made similar experiments successful in other countries.”
"For practical purposes, that means, first, that the government won’t be able to spend all this money in the right place. The U.S. financial system persistently struggles to fund projects that take a long time to turn a profit and that can expect to have only modest returns. Unfortunately, the biggest and most important physical infrastructure — factories, transmission lines — often fall under that category. In other countries, industrial policy has entailed creating an agile, entrepreneurial agency that can get money to the right companies in the right ways — as a loan, as equity, as a purchase guarantee… Second, the government may lack the ability to coordinate its own actions. Late last year, the Biden administration declined to help reopen a “green” aluminum factory in Ferndale, Wash., that was exactly the kind of low-carbon industry it wants to champion. The local union, electric vehicle makers and the state’s Democratic leadership all wanted to revive the factory. The project even has national-security relevance, since the United States currently imports aluminum from Russia. But Mr. Biden chose not to intercede with the local electricity provider, the Bonneville Power Administration, to supply the plant with enough cheap power to operate even though it is a federal agency ostensibly under the president’s control. Never mind the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing: The right hand couldn’t get the left hand to plug the cord in.”
Why it matters: “Even if the U.S. had an agency that could finance or approve any industrial project in the exact right way at the precise right time, it would still be legitimately unclear which projects it should support… The Biden experiments bear the mark of a particular set of lawmakers and White House staff members who needed to meet a particular set of goals. They sought to stimulate the pandemic-depleted economy, reduce carbon pollution in a durable way, respond to what they saw as the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut and — perhaps above all — revitalize the American working class to prevent the next Trumpian crisis. They stumbled on a germ of an idea, a climate-friendly ‘industrial strategy,’ and after 18 months of excruciating legislative wrangling, they have somehow made it the law of the land.”
3. How U.S. deterrence failed in Ukraine
Why you should read it: In Foreign Policy, retired Special Forces colonels Liam Collins and Frank Sobchak detail the ways U.S. policy failed to deter Russia in the years leading up to its invasion of Ukraine last year.
“From President George W. Bush’s tepid response to the 2008 invasion of Georgia to the Biden administration’s antebellum halfhearted gestures of support for Ukraine, U.S. policies left the perception that the United States was not willing to make a renewed assault painful for Russia. The result was yet another war… . U.S. intransigence toward providing lethal aid seemed to confirm that Ukraine lacked the capacity to resist, further reinforcing the Russian belief that the invasion would likely be easy and quick. The recent war in Ukraine is, therefore, a direct result of the West’s lack of resolve and failure to credibly deter Russia. Moscow thought it could get away with murder—as it had in the past.”
“Most of all, the United States seemed to be convinced, as Moscow was, that Ukrainian resistance would rapidly crumble in the face of a Russian assault. Given the United States’ paltry efforts to build Ukraine’s military into one that could credibly deter Russia, it should not be surprising that both nations made this miscalculation. On Feb. 14, 2022, just prior to the invasion, the United States sent another important signal that further communicated a lack of commitment to Ukraine and a resignation that the war was already lost: It announced it was closing its embassy in Kyiv. By comparison, the United States refused to close its embassy in Paris even as Nazi Germany threatened France and maintained an embassy in Vichy after the surrender and occupation. The closure of the Kyiv embassy echoed moves by the U.S. military to withdraw the vast majority of military advisors days earlier… Publicly communicating an expectation that the invasion would be over quickly only undermined deterrence by signaling the cost would be minimal to Russia. It was only after Ukraine demonstrated capability and resolve that significant military assistance began flowing and punishing sanctions were enacted—actions that, ironically, might have deterred Russia in the first place.”
Why it matters: “The sad irony is that U.S. leaders, of both parties, chose to avoid deterrence for fear of escalating conflict—only to find themselves continually escalating their support once conflict started. Time after time, the United States chose the option that was perceived as the least provocative but that instead led to the Russians becoming convinced that they were safe to carry out the most provocative action of all: a full-scale invasion of Ukraine."
4. How China overdrafted on its “checkbook diplomacy”
Why you should read it: Foreign Policy reporter Christina Lu enumerates the ways in which Beijing has financed its signature Belt and Road Initiative on bad loans to countries unable to pay them back.
“In the span of a decade, China has emerged as the developing world’s bank of choice, pouring hundreds of billions of dollars in loans into global infrastructure projects as part of its sprawling Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)… Eager to recoup its money, Beijing is transitioning from generous investor to tough enforcer—and jeopardizing the very goodwill that it tried to build with initiatives such as the BRI. China has broken a few bones in Sri Lanka, whose financial turmoil allowed Beijing to seize control of a strategic port, and is hassling Pakistan, Zambia, and Suriname for repayment.”
"Once billed as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ‘project of the century,’ the BRI was unveiled in 2013 as an ambitious infrastructure development campaign that would crisscross some 140 countries. In practice, the initiative was less streamlined and more opaque. As Chinese lenders scrambled to administer projects under the BRI umbrella, it became a haphazardly executed mishmash of projects with shoddy lending contracts… In 2017, China overtook the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cement its position as the world’s biggest creditor, although Beijing has since scaled back its lending. But many of its borrowers—still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, alongside Beijing’s lending practices—are now battling to pull their economies back from the brink. Around 60 percent of China’s overseas loans went to financially distressed countries in 2022, compared with just 5 percent in 2010, according to Parks. Unable to pay China back, some cash-strapped governments are pushing for debt relief, forgiveness, or restructuring.”
Why it matters: “The problem for China is that nobody likes being hounded for money. Chasing down unpaid debts won’t win many friends. It complicates Beijing’s broader aspirations of extending its influence and forging new relationships through economic deals. That tension, experts say, has left Beijing facing an impossible trade-off: Can it collect its money without hurting its image?”
5. How “Buy America” policies make it more difficult for the Biden administration to make good on its domestic investments
Why you should read it: Washington Post reporter David J. Lynch summarizes the ways in which popular “Buy America” provisions - written into the Biden administration’s signature domestic investment laws - make it more difficult to realize the potential of those very initiatives.
"The ‘Buy America’ initiative that President Biden says will promote domestic manufacturing and fuel a blue-collar renaissance is running into a problem: The United States no longer produces many of the items needed to modernize roads, bridges and ports… This awkward dynamic spilled into public view this month, when the U.S. Department of Transportation denied a request by the nation’s ports to use federal infrastructure funds to purchase imported dock cranes, trucks, boat lifts and similar equipment, after industry officials argued that no domestic manufacturers exist for them. In particular, while some smaller cargo-handling units are made in the United States, all of the electric models that support the administration’s climate goals are made overseas, according to the American Association of Port Authorities.”
“With the approach of the spring construction season, Biden’s push to boost domestic production is clashing with the reality that some materials are not available from U.S. sources in the amount or time required, according to groups representing the agencies that manage projects and the industries that build them… Among the looming headaches: State and local transportation officials fear they will be unable to obtain adequate supplies of the reflective glass beads used to make safety striping for highway pavement. And materials for high-speed rail systems are almost entirely made in Japan or Europe, according to the summary of meetings last year between top DOT officials and industry representatives.”
Why it matters: “Government preferences for domestic goods enjoy wide support from politicians in both parties, despite evidence that such measures often mean added costs and project delays. The administration’s determination to increase domestic production now is colliding with the industrial legacy of decades of trade liberalization, which facilitated the relocation of factories to lower-cost locales… With many industries still facing supply chain hiccups, officials worry the new ‘Buy America’ rules will only make matters worse. Ginning up new domestic capacity to produce essential infrastructure materials can be done. But it will take time.”
6. Why the Western far right just can’t quit Putin
Why you should read it: British writer Nick Cohen argues on his Substack that American and European far right movements support Russian President Vladimir Putin out of a desire for a savior from the east, simple power worship, and money.
“Putin knows the West’s greatest weakness is the movement that once boasted that it was freedom’s staunchest defender: the US right. Come next year’s American presidential election, there’s a chance that it might take power. If Donald Trump or a politician like him wins, so does Putin – again… Looking at the dominant right-wing forces in the United States, Hungary and France, it takes an effort for those of us who remember the 20th century to adjust to a new right that wants to emulate Russian autocracy, not oppose it. The Ukraine war has revealed what anyone paying attention in the 2010s already knew. The Western far right objected to the godlessness and the communism of the Soviet Union, but not the dictatorship.”
“Like their predecessors on the far left, the far right looks to a great empire in the east for relief. Whereas deluded western Marxists in the 20th century saw Russia as a socialist hope, today’s far right sees it as the last bastion of muscular, Christian conservatism. As in the past, it’s hard to know which is worse: the malice or the self-delusion… Power worship is an under-examined phenomenon. Thousands of books have been written about conspiracy theory, but few talk about the pure pleasure that comes from watching a strongman crush your enemies. A large part of extremist politics consists of little else. Putin has the power to destroy the Western far-right’s enemies, and they love him for it… Finally, there is Russian money. We already know Moscow has directed loans to Marine le Pen’s Rassemblement National. When the Putin regime falls, we may find out that it went to many more Western politicians and commentators than naïve onlookers thought possible.”
Why it matters: “Corruption combined with a restless and vigorous extremist ideology makes a formidable force. Europeans should realise that it might yet triumph. For our own sake as much as anyone else’s, we should give Ukraine the support it needs as fast as we possibly can.”
7. Why constant cries of “climate crisis” amount to white noise
Why you should read it: The Breakthrough Institute’s Alex Trembath contends in the Mercatus Center publication Discourse that constant - but inaccurate - warnings about climate catastrophe amount to little more than white noise in our political and policy discussions.
“Even experts on the subject could be forgiven for holding the mistaken view that natural disasters have gotten significantly more frequent, intense and deadly as a result of climate change… Meanwhile, the intensity of some weather and climate extremes has increased, but attribution studies and science communicators use metrics deliberately designed to exaggerate the effect… And the disasters that do occur kill many fewer people than they used to, thanks to the protection provided by modern wealth and infrastructure. Annual deaths attributed to natural disasters have fallen by over 90% in the last century, even as the world’s population has increased from under 2 billion to now over 8 billion people. In recent decades, as the reality of global climate change has become more obvious, vulnerability has continued to decline. Recent research suggests that global average morality from climate-related hazards declined by a factor of 5 between the 1980s and the present, even as carbon emissions nearly doubled globally… If there’s one question I get more than any other, it’s ‘Are we doomed?’ And when I rattle off a version of the above observations—that climate risk is real but not existential, that some weather and climate extremes are getting worse but not beyond our ability to become more resilient, that the people asking me that question are members of the global 1% and therefore some of the least at-risk people in human history—I’m not always sure I’ve convinced or comforted them. And it’s not just non-experts. People who study climate change for a living seem similarly addicted to maximalist, and inaccurate, visions of climate catastrophe.”
“Scientists and science communicators have taken the weather and turned each extreme instance into evidence of the looming apocalypse. What makes this approach so powerful is that, despite the statistical slipperiness, climate change is real. Anthropogenic carbon emissions are heating the atmosphere, affecting local weather, natural disasters, sea level, agricultural productivity, ecosystems and animal life. The airborne toxic event is happening, but it occurs in the context of information overload, rapid social and technological change and scientistic propaganda… Today, the consequences of climate psychosis (er, anxiety) are all around us. And these consequences are not limited to the soup-throwers and the traffic-blockers. Wealthy governments around the world put up their own roadblocks to energy infrastructure development in poor countries, on the grounds that economic development is not worth the climate tradeoff. While most people on Earth live on less than $10 per day, some of the wealthiest among us contemplate government programs of ‘degrowth' to keep material progress they enjoy out of reach from those who have not yet achieved it. Messages of climate apocalypse have been cited by the growing number of young people who express an acute sense of climate anxiety, while some couples hesitate to have children, for fear of dooming another carbon-emitting consumer to a fiery future… Climate scientists and social scientists have constructed elaborate analyses connecting consumers’ ‘lifestyle carbon emissions’ to all manner of disaster. Our carbon emissions are, obviously, responsible for the wildfires in Australia and the floods in Pakistan. But carbon emissions are also behind the Syrian Civil War and, obliquely, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which according to the narrative has more to do with our extractivist addiction to fossil fuels than with Vladimir Putin’s ideological authoritarianism. They are implicated in burglary and assault and hate speech. The sins of our carbon emissions even transcend space and time. A 2009 analysis, widely cited in activist circles, concludes that the decision to have a child ‘adds about 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female, which is 5.7 times her lifetime emissions.’ We are not just responsible for our own emissions, but the emissions of all our descendants combined, and all the hypothesized catastrophic climate impacts of those emissions.”
Why it matters: “…it has become difficult to distinguish climate metaphor from climate reality. When media figures and political leaders remind us that natural disasters are becoming radically more frequent and severe—even though the empirical trends tell a different story—it can be all too easy to cast ourselves in their apocalyptic narrative. So even for those of us who sit in the comforts of modern wealth and infrastructure, with a calming scientific summary of our relative climate safety only a few clicks away, when someone says ‘climate catastrophe,’ we fall to the floor and take cover… Information overload is a hazard of any large, curious, educated, technological and fractured society. And our institutions may or may not be able to evolve to produce and amplify this information in a more responsible way. In the meantime, it’s up to each of us whether we let the white noise drive us insane.”
8. How San Francisco became such a mess
Why you should read it: In the New York Times, San Francisco-based venture capitalist and media owner Michael Moritz holds dysfunctional local government responsible for the City by the Bay’s decline.
“Like it or not, San Francisco has become a prize example of how we Democrats have become our own worst enemy. Causes that we have long espoused — respect for human rights, plenty of housing that’s within reach for most people, care for the mentally ill, fair pay, high-quality public education, a dignified retirement — have all been crippled by a small coterie who knows how to bend government to its will. This astonishing city that I have been lucky enough to call home for more than 40 years has become subject to the tyranny of the minority…San Francisco’s problems didn’t occur overnight. And they don’t bode well for other cities, long considered Democratic fortresses, where the consequences of the fentanyl epidemic, homeless encampments, housing that is unaffordable for most, deteriorating school systems and high tax rates are also evident. Here, janitors, nurses, teachers and bus drivers are forced to endure 90-minute commutes; two-income couples cannot afford to start families; young children have become increasingly rare sights; and the Police Department cannot fill its ranks.”
“For the past three decades there has been consistent tinkering with the armature of government by officeholders and their staffs, many of whom do not seem animated by a sense of great purpose but rather by doing whatever it takes to maintain power and influence. Others peddle radicalism: One city supervisor is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (whose nationwide membership would fail to fill the larger Big 10 stadiums). These crafty legislators have the time and resources to deceive voters with what, on the surface, might appear like insignificant tweaks to the city’s operating instructions or by rule changes written in language that seems to be deliberately opaque… Even Superman equipped with a light saber would not be able to govern San Francisco.”
Why it matters: “The state of San Francisco — mirrored by conditions in other cities around the country — has much to do with the way machine politics, with its many defects, has given way to a splintering of power in City Hall. This makes it much harder for there to be old-style fights between a well-defined machine and an equally animated reform movement. The hollowing out of city newspapers, in our case The San Francisco Chronicle, also contributes to poor governance. And San Francisco, like a growing number of blue cities, suffers a dearth of minority, middle-class voters who could offer steadying influences… There are plenty of reasons to believe that Democratic San Francisco can again become a bellwether for the nation — this time by turning around a city that’s been held hostage by the political classes."
9. How the Republican Party lost its mind
Why you should read it: New Republic columnist Timothy Noah charts the decline and fall of conservative ideology, to the point where the Republican Party has become a vessel for political nihilism.
“We have arrived at the end of GOP ideology… The GOP no longer even pretends that its pursuit of power is rooted in any such commitment. The conservative ideas that came to fruition four decades ago during Ronald Reagan’s presidency didn’t stand the test of time, either because they were faulty from the start or because circumstances and public opinion changed, and the few new ideas taken up by some Republicans in recent years inspire too much disagreement, within either the party or the broader electorate, to rise to the level of party doctrine. The Republicans’ failure to produce a party platform in 2020 proved beyond a doubt that there was no such thing as a GOP ideology. There remains none today. Instead, we have what is commonly, and accurately, described by political observers, including many conservatives, as GOP nihilism: a party’s self-perpetuation for its own sake driven by an opportunistic indifference to fact and reason, expressed through coarse and incendiary rhetoric.”
"The word ‘nihilism,’ invented by nineteenth-century Germans and Russians, originally described a revolutionary’s idealistic rejection of outmoded beliefs. Friedrich Nietzsche fixed its present, more sour definition as a conviction that one’s beliefs and actions have no meaning or purpose. The earlier definition may help explain why contemporary political nihilists often claim to be ushering in a glorious new order. But ask this nihilist what that new order might be, and the answer is going to be gibberish. (A more colloquial synonym for nihilist is ‘bullshit artist.’) For about a century, the word ‘nihilism’ has been associated with decline. The nihilistic turn of the GOP is very much a sign of the party’s broader decline. It didn’t happen overnight. Trump was the parasite, but the host had been weakening for decades… But the end of GOP ideology didn’t start with Matt Gaetz any more than it started with Newt Gingrich. It began with the real world’s refusal, starting in the 1980s, to conform to the heady ideas that Pat Moynihan praised Republicans for generating. Republican ideology had its moment. Then it reverted to the irritable mental gestures that Lionel Trilling observed in 1950. The only surprise is that it took four long decades to hit rock bottom.”
Why it matters: “Today, Donald Trump is no longer president, and his prospects for returning to the White House look bleak. Republican officeholders remain wary of crossing Trump, but Trump’s influence over the Republican Party was weakened by the GOP’s disappointingly small gains in the midterm elections. Still, the Republican Party continues to believe, like Trump, in nothing.”
Odds and Ends
How Microsoft’s Bing AI resembles nothing so much as a “moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine…”
Why geophysicists think they’ve found the Earth’s innermost inner core…
How Japanese paleontologists uncovered the first preserved dinosaur larynx and discovered that dinosaurs sounded like birds…
An interview with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation ahead of their on-screen reunion in the final season of Star Trek: Picard…
A kayaking journey to Lake Superior’s Apostle Islands…
What I’m Listening To
“Mysterious Ways (Perfecto Mix)” from the 2021 deluxe edition of U2’s Achtung Baby.
“Adia,” the fourth track on Sarah McLachlan’s 1997 album Surfacing.
A re-recording of “If I Ever Lose My Faith In You” off of Sting’s 2019 album My Songs.
Image of the Month
