The Dive - 5/1/21
Your monthly compilation of what's what on global politics, American society, and an assortment of odds and ends
Quote of the Month
“But really, no day is long enough for an active person. Let’s extend our life: action is both life’s function and the proof that one is alive.”
- Seneca, Letters on Ethics, 122.3
My recent scribblings:
1. How the pandemic revealed the strengths - and weaknesses - of the three main engines of the global economy
Why you should read it: Berggruen Institute associate director Yakov Fegin surveys the ways in which the pandemic responses of the United States, China, and the European Union epitomized the strengths and weaknesses of their divergent models of political economy for Noema Magazine.
“The success of fiscal policy alongside the failure of social policy reveals that the American state is a broadsword, not a scalpel… What we can see clearly now is that the U.S. welfare state remains weak, but its fiscal and innovative state are a remarkable success… However, the pandemic triggered an effort to invest in the development of vaccines with no attention to cost or efficiency. Unconstrained government spending for the achievement of public goals used to be a driver of economic growth and innovation in the U.S., and the success of vaccinations shows that America can still use these tools if they are not politically restricted. The U.S. has more state capacity than we imagined at the start of the pandemic — it is simply that some of the muscles of the state have not been exercised, while others have not been put to use.”
“China’s successes and failures are the result of another long path dependency: its export-oriented, developmental state. China’s domestic political economy is dominated by low levels of consumption and high savings that, in turn, drive exports. This is the result of decades of policy choices to restrict the growth of consumption by wage-earners. China’s export-driven economy is built on an operational capacity designed to discipline labor…The pandemic underlined the primary weakness of the European project: its lack of a central fiscal state… At the outset of the pandemic, many had hoped that a central fiscal policy, a critical piece of state capacity, might be built, and the dream of European economic solidarity might emerge. Unlike 2008, it was difficult to blame the poorer members of the E.U. for being profligate. However, like China and the U.S., the pandemic has exposed that Europe is a hostage to path dependency.”
Why it matters: “The diametrically opposite responses of China and the U.S. have revealed that the two countries appear weak only because their strengths are asymmetric. America’s powerful fiscal state makes it capable of playing the role of an economic hegemon, stabilizing the global economy in a crisis by acting as a creditor and importer of last resort. If political constraints on spending are removed, its ability to create new productive capacity and innovation is almost unlimited. China, on the other hand, is a developmental state able to mobilize its population to compensate for more limited fiscal space and distance from the innovation frontier… Reports of the death of American power are greatly exaggerated. The U.S. still has an outsized capacity to use its fiscal state to solve big problems. Unlike China or the E.U., the willingness to use this capacity has demonstrated a real change in policy that was triggered by the pandemic.”
2. How Germany is giving President Biden the cold shoulder
Why you should read it: German foundation heads Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff and Andrea Rotter argue in Internationale Politik Quarterly that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is responding to President Biden’s fulsome trans-Atlantic overtures with sullen silence.
“When US President Joe Biden proclaimed a reset of the transatlantic relationship upon assuming office in January 2021, he too was addressing Germany, with which he intended to renew the foundations of the alliance. However, Germany, despite having greeted Biden’s presidency and the announcement of a ‘New Deal’ with an exuberant sigh of relief, has done nothing of the sort, not so far at least: no compromises, no gestures, no initiatives, no investments. No ‘New Deal' anywhere. For Biden, 100 days as president have thus far amounted to 100 days of solitude. It seems it might not be long before Germany will have snubbed its most important non-European ally and will have—once again—wasted a historic opportunity.”
“Since taking office, Biden has been setting off internationalist fireworks: the United States has rejoined all kinds of institutions and treaties, including the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization… Some of his initiatives are aimed directly at Germany. Biden halted the troop withdrawal ordered by President Donald Trump and as a bonus, he symbolically announced an increase of troops in Germany. Biden also wants to shift the focus of the sanctions against the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 from Germany to Russia—something that is viewed with skepticism by the US Congress… So how has Germany responded to America’s advances? For the first time, Germany will be sending a frigate to sail through the South China Sea, a plan that was well-received in Washington. Notably, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer had already been working on this for more than a year. As such, this ostentatious trip has nothing to do with Biden’s election. If one were to ask what the German federal government is doing that it wouldn’t have done had Biden not been elected, one would be met with silence. It seems as though Biden’s arms are wide open for a welcoming embrace while the German chancellor is simply standing there with her arms crossed in front of her chest staring at the ground.”
Why it matters: “Among the riddles of Berlin politics is why the federal government doesn’t invest in a transatlantic renewal that it itself promotes. It may well be that the French reading has supporters in Berlin, according to which the United States is irreversibly turning away from Europe and Biden is only an intermezzo, which is why one should not invest too heavily in him. Believe in this theory and your passivity will ensure that your prophecy will become self-fulfilling. And then there are those who assume that repairing the relationship is an American duty only because it was the US that damaged the relationship under Trump’s leadership. Apparently, these politicians have not heard of German failures and strategic meanders (read: 2 percent and Nord Stream 2). Finally, there are those who believe that Washington has only changed in style and tone under Biden, not on substance. One wonders what else a new administration could be expected to do in the span of its first 100 days to convince its allies of the seriousness of its efforts to repair the alliance. But maybe those who view Biden as a better-behaved Trump will tell the rest of us.”
3. Why Europe will never achieve strategic autonomy
Why you should read it: International relations scholars Hugo Meijer and Stephen G. Brooks contend in International Security that Europe’s “strategic cacophony” constitutes a practically insurmountable barrier to dreams of strategic autonomy from the United States put forward by many Europeans and advocates of an American retreat from involvement in European security.
“Determining whether Europeans could achieve strategic autonomy anytime soon if the United States were to pull back from Europe requires an examination of the historical trajectory and the current and likely future state of European interests and defense capacity… Our analysis shows that European efforts to achieve strategic autonomy will be hampered by two major constraints: profound defense capacity shortfalls that will be hard to close, and “strategic cacophony,” that is, profound, continent-wide divergences across all the domains of national defense policies, most notably threat perceptions. These mutually reinforcing constraints impose a rigid limit on the capacity of Europeans to achieve strategic autonomy anytime soon. Consequently, if the United States were to fully withdraw, the continent would become significantly more vulnerable to Russian meddling and aggression. Furthermore, if the U.S.-backed NATO were to disappear, this would undermine the only institutional framework that has fostered some degree of coordination in Europe (at the strategic, doctrinal, and capability levels) and partly contained Europe's strategic cacophony. This, in turn, would make institutionalized, intra-European defense cooperation appreciably harder.”
“Significantly, Europe's strategic cacophony greatly exacerbates a second overarching constraint on Europe achieving strategic autonomy: severe military capacity gaps that cannot be closed anytime soon… Indeed, a recent systematic study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the German Council on Foreign Relations found that, because their capability shortfalls are so significant, Europeans would struggle to autonomously undertake operations even at the low end of the spectrum of conflict (such as peace enforcement missions).”
Why it matters: “Together, Europe's strategic cacophony and its defense capacity shortfalls feed and reinforce each other. For one thing, many of the needed steps to make up for Europe's defense capacity shortfalls will require prolonged cooperation; Europeans would thus need to overcome their entrenched strategic cacophony not just for a short time, but over a very long period. Moreover, because diverging interests hamper defense industrial cooperation among Europeans, this—coupled with major capability shortfalls—deepens their technological dependency on the United States, further reinforcing the challenges to addressing Europe's capability shortfalls… Europe is characterized by profound, continent-wide divergences across national defense policies, particularly threat perceptions, as well as by a fundamental defense capacity shortfall that cannot be closed anytime soon because of a series of overlapping challenges. Given the combination of strategic cacophony and capacity gaps, which are mutually reinforcing, Europeans are currently not in a position to autonomously mount a credible deterrent and defense against Russia. This situation would likely continue for a very long time, even if there were a complete U.S. withdrawal from the continent, and all the more so in the event of a partial U.S. withdrawal, a much more likely counterfactual. If a U.S. pullback were to occur, it would leave Europe increasingly vulnerable to Russian aggression and meddling, allowing Russia to exploit Europe's centrifugal dynamics to augment its influence. A U.S. withdrawal would also likely make institutionalized intra-European defense cooperation appreciably harder. Accordingly, a U.S. pullback would have grave consequences for peace and stability on the continent.”
4. How China’s economic statecraft defeats itself
Why you should read it: International security scholar Audrye Wong writes in Foreign Affairs that China’s much-vaunted economic statecraft alienates other nations more than it pulls them into Beijing's orbit.
“But a close look reveals that China’s record is far less impressive than often thought. For one thing, its attempts at economic statecraft have often sparked resistance. In many of the 60-plus countries receiving BRI investment, even in those most eager for Chinese investment, officials have complained of shoddy construction, inflated costs, and environmental degradation. Beijing has been forced to go on the defensive, with Chinese President Xi Jinping taking pains to emphasize the importance of ‘high-quality’ and “reasonably priced’ projects. Many countries have demanded reciprocal access to the Chinese market; others have bowed out of Chinese initiatives altogether and are seeking financing elsewhere.”
“What really drives China’s economic statecraft is not grand strategic designs or autocratic impulses but something more practical and immediate: stability and survival. The Chinese Communist Party’s fundamental objective is to preserve the legitimacy of its rule. China’s economic statecraft, then, is often employed to put out immediate fires and protect the CCP’s domestic and international image. China wants to stamp out criticism and reward those who support its policies. This is particularly true when it comes to issues involving national sovereignty and territorial integrity (such as Taiwan, Tibet, and the East China and South China Seas) and domestic governance (such as China’s treatment of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic)… For all the breathless talk of the geopolitical gains from economic statecraft, so far, Beijing has mostly been able to achieve transactional, short-term objectives—say, public silence on China’s human rights record from a legislator or a veto over a resolution about the South China Sea during an ASEAN meeting. Outside a small subset of countries with little public accountability, China’s long-term strategic influence remains limited. Most of the countries China has targeted have not made major shifts in their geopolitical alignment; at best, they have offered rhetorical and symbolic commitments.”
Why it matters: “Economic statecraft is never easy. Coercive measures such as sanctions often fail to convince the target, no matter whether they are imposed by Washington or Beijing. Although the lure of inducements may seem to hold more promise, they also come with risks. In China’s case, failure has been more the rule than the exception. That’s because the success of inducements depends greatly on the political dynamics in the recipient countries. During the Cold War, for example, American aid to corrupt developing countries in Africa and Latin America was successful at propping up dictators, whereas in Europe, the Marshall Plan succeeded at strengthening U.S. influence in democratic countries. Above-board Japanese aid and investment have bolstered Tokyo’s image in Southeast Asia generally speaking but made few political inroads in Cambodia, where China’s subversive approach has flourished. Beijing may find that its subversive style works well in corrupt, authoritarian states, but it will likely continue to struggle in countries where accountability matters—many of which are also strategically important… In the end, China’s rapidly expanding overseas economic presence, particularly when accompanied by subversion and coercion, may exacerbate strategic fears across the globe. Chinese officials may still think that economic development naturally promotes goodwill and gratitude among recipients, but there is good reason to believe that they are wrong. China, it turns out, cannot count on automatically converting its growing economic clout into a new geopolitical reality.”
5. Why economic superpowers focus on manufacturing
Why you should read it: Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar explains why manufacturing still matters for the United States, China, and other big economic powers.
“Part of that is down to its [manufacturing’s] disproportionate benefits to the economy. In the US, for example, although manufacturing represents just 11 per cent of gross domestic product and 8 per cent of direct employment, it drives 20 per cent of the country’s capital investment, 30 per cent of productivity growth, 60 per cent of exports and 70 per cent of business R&D, according to figures from the McKinsey Global Institute. Manufacturing’s share of the economy in many other developed countries is far higher.”
“Whether such [manufacturing] reshoring matters for national economies depends very much on the industry. A fascinating study by MGI, to be released on April 15, examines 30 main manufacturing sectors in the US. It finds that 16 of them stand out for their economic and strategic value, as measured by their contribution to national productivity and economic growth, job and income creation, innovation and national resilience. Apparel is not on the list. But semiconductors, medical devices, communications equipment, electronics, autos and auto parts, and precision tools are… The US could create more demand for domestically fabricated chips, but only if the government underwrote investment via guaranteed federal procurement of supplies, as it did for semiconductors in the 1950s and 1960s.”
Why it matters: “Where would this leave Europe? Sitting very uncomfortably between two economic superpowers. It does not matter much at a national competitiveness level what fast fashion purveyors and luxury retailers do about Xinjiang… But it does matter what governments do to support domestic demand or control supply chains. I suspect that those decisions will start to revolve less around simple cost and efficiency calculations, and more around a broad discussion of national competitiveness.”
6. Why the Army’s share of the defense budget should shrink and the Navy’s should increase
Why you should read it: In Foreign Policy, Blake Herzinger asserts that the Army’s share of the defense budget needs to go down to ensure the Air Force and especially Navy have sufficient funds to meet challenges from China.
“The defense world has effectively revolved around the two land wars in Asia (one of the classic blunders) for 20 years. The Army has shouldered the majority of that load, but that has led to an environment where many within the Army only understand the Navy as the organization that brings them food and spare parts, with the occasional bombing sortie or offshore cruise missile barrage. The Navy’s role in guarding the world’s sea lines of communication—and, in times of conflict, driving the enemies’ fleets from the seas—is wholly unfamiliar to a generation that has seen U.S. forces myopically engaged in grinding counterinsurgencies and wars of choice far from the public eye.”
“[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark] Milley’s remarks made clear that he expected a reprioritization of funding among the services and that the Navy and Air Force should be at the top of the pile. To be successful, this process must be bold and involve actual choices, not simply rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic by reallocating single-digit percentages… Without going too far into the esoteric world of the defense budget, the Army receives approximately 40 percent more funding than the Navy for its personnel costs and only slightly less for operations and maintenance ($57 billion to the Navy’s $60 billion). In terms of acquisitions, the Navy receives far more, but the ships being built must also serve Army requirements. They provide support for the Army’s mobility as well as its sustainment.”
Why it matters: “Put plainly, to achieve the required investment in the Navy, the Army will either need to forgo many of its modernization aims or become considerably smaller. Modernization of some key Army platforms, like the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, have been afflicted with program mismanagement and malfeasance in the same vein as those that delivered the Littoral Combat Ship to the Navy. The Army’s Future Combat System program cost American taxpayers $18 billion and produced nothing; at those rates, the Navy could purchase at least 15 hulls of its newest frigate design. In terms of manpower savings, with careful planning the Army could tighten its belt by sending identified capabilities to the reserve. But any savings at the Army’s expense places increased onus on the Navy to actually deliver. Navy leaders should understand their tenuous position as stewards of these proposed billions of dollars. The service’s track record over the past two decades has done little to inspire confidence in its abilities to acquire ships that actually work, arrive on time, and don’t blow past their planned budgets.”
7. How commercial air travel became safe
Why you should read it: Former Wall Street Journal aerospace reporter Andy Pasztor details how federal regulators, industry executives, and pilot’s unions worked together to make airline travel in the United States exceptionally safe.
“Over the past 12 years, U.S. airlines have accomplished an astonishing feat: carrying more than eight billion passengers without a fatal crash… By the end of the 1990s, the Federal Aviation Administration, plane maker Boeing Co., labor representatives and the largest U.S. airline trade association all endorsed the unified, data-driven safety agenda… The results have been remarkable. In 1996, before the safety reboot began, U.S. carriers had a fatal accident rate of roughly one crash for every two million departures. That year alone, more than 350 people died in domestic airline accidents, including 230 in the infamous fuel-tank explosion on TWA Flight 800 that sucked scores of passengers out of the fractured fuselage. Within 10 years, the fatal accident rate had been reduced by more than 80%, beating a goal set by a White House commission.”
“Leaps in technology played a role, dramatically enhancing jet engine reliability over many years. Electrical and other aircraft systems became more durable and trouble-free due to upgraded designs and components. Improvements in cockpit automation provided stronger safeguards against crew errors, while increasingly sophisticated ground-based simulators made aviator training more rigorous and realistic… The astonishing safety record in the U.S. stems most of all from a sustained commitment to what was at first a controversial idea. Together, government and industry experts extracted safety lessons by analyzing huge volumes of flight data and combing through tens of thousands of detailed reports filed annually by pilots and, eventually, mechanics and air-traffic controllers. Responses led to voluntary industry improvements, rather than mandatory government regulations.”
Why it matters: “All told, the FAA has established a total of 10 separate, voluntary reporting or data-sharing programs, covering everyone from airport workers to FAA engineers to technicians who maintain the agency’s traffic-control equipment. Voluntary changes adopted in the U.S. include, among other things, more extensive pilot training to understand warning signs when flight-control computers are set improperly or when airplanes are approaching an incorrect runway, how to adjust engine settings to prevent internal ice buildup and using cockpit radars more effectively to avoid turbulence in clear weather. Over the years, airlines also have refined data systems to help spot troublesome engine reliability trends earlier and alleviate hazards posed by pilot fatigue… Despite the sterling record of U.S. airlines, FAA chief Steve Dickson has stressed the need to expand voluntary reporting to include the design and manufacture of jetliners in order to shore up public confidence in the wake of the 737 MAX tragedies. ‘I don’t think that you ever stop trying to earn the trust of the public,’ he told reporters in September after personally test-flying the revamped MAX.”
8. How FDA’s COVID-19 vaccine pause hurt global vaccination efforts
Why you should read it: In Foreign Affairs, Global health experts Thomas J. Bollyky, Jennifer Nuzzo, and Joshua M. Sharfstein maintain that the FDA’s pause in administrating the one-dose Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine in the United States will have negative repercussions when it comes to efforts to vaccinate the world.
“On April 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a pause in the use of the J&J vaccine, and the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and several European countries quickly followed suit. Russia raced to issue a statement noting the differences between the J&J shot and the Sputnik V vaccine and asserting that it had received no reports of similar blood clots… Countries necessarily make regulatory and purchasing decisions based on the specific needs of their populations. But these decisions can have far-reaching consequences for the availability and uptake of vaccines globally—and, ultimately, for progress toward ending the pandemic for all. The apparently unique association between the adenovirus-vector vaccine platform and a rare but potentially fatal risk suggests that concerns about safety will continue. Limiting the unintended consequences of regulatory decisions will mean adopting a more equitable approach to manufacturing, distributing, and monitoring vaccines.”
“Fundamentally, to have one type of vaccine for select countries and another for the rest of the world entails risk. The United States and its allies must do more to expand the global production and availability of additional types of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly those involving mRNA technology. In most of the world, there are simply not enough doses available to meet the continuing need, much less to shift strategies when safety concerns arise. The United States' own experience has demonstrated that government support, through both policy and financing, is necessary in order to quickly ramp up vaccine manufacturing to meet the pandemic demand… Governments and development finance institutions should mobilize unused manufacturing capacity, overcome barriers to technology transfer, and convince firms to redeploy vaccine supplies and raw materials that had been reserved for projects that did not pan out. These efforts could help create a geographically distributed vaccine manufacturing network that can scale up and adjust to respond to variants of this coronavirus as well as to future pandemic threats.”
Why it matters: “The stakes of vaccine confidence are very high, with COVID-19 infections surging across the globe at a clip of more than 700,000 new cases per day. As concerns arise about side effects, public health agencies have to move quickly to access data, assess risks, make clear decisions, and explain those decisions to the public. In doing so, these agencies must work together.”
9. How meritocracy and woke ideology complement one another
Why you should read it: University of Chicago professor Blake Smith observes in Tablet that the seemingly opposed ideologies of meritocracy and wokeness “have unexamined common ground, coexisting in the consciousness of students and teachers” alike.
“At the University of Chicago, where I have taught for three years, I see students combine meritocratic and identitarian ideas in ways that reveal these two apparently antagonistic modes of thought to be not only compatible, but complementary symptoms of our collective failure to think honestly about the real purposes of education. Notions of meritocracy and social justice alike direct our attention away from the way our schools do not simply reward competence or resist inequality, but also shape the character of our elites and our very nation… Our elite universities have long had as a primary (although not always explicit) mission to nurture this kind of personality, in which intelligence and ambition are smilingly hidden by a ‘well-rounded’ and not apparently mercenary interest in sports and art. An ingratiating human touch has been part of admissions criteria to elite universities since the early 20th century, when notions of ‘character’ were developed to keep the children of Jewish immigrants from getting into the Ivy League on the basis of mere brainpower. Since then, generations of immigrants have taught their children that their intellectual acumen won’t get them far unless they can also mimic the ideal personality of the American elite. This image of the smart, athletic, sociable individual who sheathes his competitive edge in good humor has likewise shaped our national culture, in which the aim of mass education has been conflated with preparing children for college. University admissions, particularly at the most exclusive schools, is thus not only a matter of finding the worthiest candidates, but of telling young Americans what kind of person they ought to be. Debates about college admissions standards are debates about the moral character of our elites and the nation they rule.”
“What is new about education’s turn to woke identity politics is not the fact that administrators and faculty are influencing students’ sense of self, but rather the sort of values that the new ideal personality is supposed to uphold. The contemporary ideal, increasingly, is no longer someone so charmingly personable that others forget he is in fact a ruthless competitor, but a person who so convincingly narrates her having overcome some kind of social injustice that others forget she is in fact a beneficiary of systems of privilege… Stories of heroically overcoming discrimination help us collectively reconcile the apparently antagonistic values of meritocracy and wokeness, but they are no less useful for individual students, who are able to imagine themselves as singular, isolated subjects who have triumphed over vast ‘structural’ inequities. The story of a self that resists hegemonic forces of racism and sexism may seem to oppose, but in fact confirms, the self-image of a successful meritocratic individual. Such a person speaks of herself as the bearer of internal, personal talents, which she deploys through hard work to win the recognition and compensation that are the fair due for her accomplishments. Narratives of triumph over oppression similarly position the subject as winning for herself—this time against a hostile and unfair system—the just rewards of her work. The teller of such a story does not need to—and perhaps, telling such stories so often, loses the ability to—understand herself as the beneficiary of several kinds of privilege or good fortune.”
Why it matters: “Young people whose self-understandings are organized by narratives about their heroic resistance against racism and sexism, and excellence in the face of adversity, are rewarded by the university—and will be rewarded by employers, media, and other sources of legitimation—for their deft combination of meritocratic and woke discourses. They will have no reason to notice that they are kicking down open doors—that, far from racism and sexism holding back their access to elite spaces, they are being invited in on the basis of their ability to perform triumph over oppression… Elites whose character has been shaped by the apparent conflict, and inner coherence, of meritocracy and wokeness, may not be immoral or incompetent. I can offer no evidence that elites with a different sort of education would be better people or more effective leaders. I can only observe that every system of education aims, whether anyone acknowledges it or not, toward producing and privileging a certain human type, and that every society has an elite. Beyond the noisy conflict between defenders of meritocracy and their woke opponents, our society has chosen, and continues to choose, to educate its children with the apparent aim of making a class of leaders who are disconnected from any real solidarity to others but unable to think for themselves, combining the worst qualities of individualism and conformism. Students’ test scores and racial demographics dominate our public debates, but ultimately matter less than the implicit moral ideal towards which our institutions teach them to aspire.”
Odds and Ends
Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins died on April 28 at the age of 90…
How giant pterosaurs with giraffe-sized necks managed to fly the friendly skies of the late Cretaceous…
How the presence of an elderly dog buried in a collective tomb uncovered by archaeologists in Saudi Arabia sheds light on our relationship with our canine companions…
Why a tiny, as-yet-undetected subatomic particle known as a muon may well upend our understanding of the laws of physics…
How NASA’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity made the first powered flight on another planet…
Music of the Month
A cover of the Soundgarden classic “Black Hole Sun” by Norah Jones on her recently-released live album …Til We Meet Again.
Rush’s rendition of Buffalo Springfield’s “Mr. Soul” from their 2004 covers EP Feedback.
“Cosmic Day,” a previously-unreleased song by Prince on the 2020 super-deluxe edition of 1987’s Sign O’ The Times.
Image of the Month
