Quote of the Month
But lay aside delay and the thought of gain, remember the black fires of death, and while you may blend a little foolishness into your plans. Folly is delightful in its place. - Horace, Odes IV.XII.25-28
What I’m Reading:
1. How the idea of a “great power” distorts thinking about geopolitics
Why you should read it: In Foreign Affairs, University of St. Andrews professor Phillips P. O’Brien contends that the idea that “great powers” exist warps the way we think and talk about international affairs—to disastrous effect when it came to pre-war assessments of Russian and Ukrainian strength.
“In the lead-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, most Western analysts saw Moscow as a great power and Kyiv as a lesser one. Diminished though it was from its Soviet heyday, Russia still retained a large conventional military and a vast nuclear arsenal, earning it a spot in the top echelon of global powers… But once Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his war machine, that narrative of Russian power swiftly unraveled. The Ukrainian army, supposedly outgunned and with little chance of resisting conventionally, fought back with brains and ferocity. And Ukrainian civilians, whom many experts thought to be divided over the question of the country’s relationship to Russia, rallied to defend their homeland. Meanwhile, Putin’s military floundered. Its weapons and doctrine proved to be lackluster at best, and its soldiers performed far worse than expected, thanks in part to corruption and poor training. Hundreds of thousands, maybe more than a million, Russian men of military age fled the country to avoid conscription.”
“This stunning revelation of Russian weakness calls into question not just Moscow’s status as a great power but also the very concept of a great power. Even realists who frequently use the term have never provided a clear and convincing definition of what makes a power great. Rather, they tend to use the term to describe everything from true superpowers such as the United States and China, which wield the full spectrum of economic, technological, and military might, to better-than-average military powers such as Russia, which have nuclear weapons but little else that would be considered indicators of great power. Such imprecision not only distorts analysis of state power and its use in war but can also make countries seem more militarily threatening than they really are. For these reasons, analysts should stop asking what makes a country a great power and start asking what makes it a ‘full spectrum’ power. Doing so would have helped avoid overestimating Russia’s might before February 2022—and will help avoid exaggerating the threat posed by China, going forward… More useful than the concept of a great power is that of a full-spectrum power, which takes into account the diverse factors that create military might, not just its outward manifestation in weapons. Few countries have ever achieved all the fundamentals on which superior military power is built and sustained; most that have been described as great powers were in fact midranking Potemkin states whose militaries served as façades for otherwise weak power bases. This was true of Benito Mussolini’s Italy, and it is true of Putin’s Russia.”
Why it matters: “Misunderstandings of state power have had dire consequences in the last few years and could have even more catastrophic ones in the future. The tendency of Western policymakers to drastically overestimate Russian power no doubt influenced their decisions to severely limit military support for Ukraine before February 2022. Many argued that the West should not arm Ukraine, since Western arms would make little difference in a war—and even make things worse by giving Ukraine a false idea of what it could accomplish… Western analysts and policymakers must not make the same mistakes in assessing Chinese power. China is certainly a full-spectrum power, with the ability to create and re-create powerful modern weapons and forces that far exceed Russian capabilities. That said, China would not fare well against a coalition of the United States, Japan, and Taiwan, perhaps supported by South Korea and Australia (with tacit or even overt backing from India and the EU). Such a coalition would boast productive capacities that are now almost twice as large as China’s, and its militaries have real experience conducting complex operations in war. It would also include societies that will want to fight for their freedom—something that would make a Chinese military defeat even more likely.”
2. Why no one can stop the “Global South” from being wrong
Why you should read it: Financial Times columnist Janan Ganesh writes that handwringing in Western capitals over the geopolitical alignment of the so-called “Global South” fails to recognize that these countries can in fact make bad decisions all on their own.
“At root here is the undying belief that, if something in the world is awry, the US and its allies must be culpable. This allows western progressives to feel their favourite emotion: ostentatious guilt. It opens the door for their favourite and perhaps only idea: financial transfers, whether in the form of aid or infrastructure investment or debt relief. Their self-criticism has a veneer of humility. But nothing could be more patrician. The thing about guilt is that it assumes one has ultimate control over things.”
“Although the west has secularised, one biblical notion lives on: that there is virtue in suffering. To be wronged is to be right. This idea needs countering at every point. That a nation is poor does not make its worldview true. That it was brutalised in the past does not validate its judgment on a separate subject a human lifetime later… It is possible that the ‘global south’—not all of us who were born there take the neologism seriously—is just wrong about Ukraine. Wrong morally, because the war is a case of imperial conquest, which former colonies profess to oppose. Wrong strategically, because there isn’t much to gain from courting Russia as an alternative patron to the US. (If Washington is high-handed, try Moscow.) Above all, wrong independently. The fence-sitters over Ukraine weren’t put there by the US. The US can’t charm them down either.”
Why it matters: “The west has engaged [the “Global South”]—as a donor of aid, as a receiver of immigrants, as an underwriter of security—since 1945. If that has failed to elicit support for its view on Ukraine, then lots of things are at work. One is sincere resentment of the west’s colonial past. Another is cold (and again legitimate) calculation: a strong Russia and China allows poor countries to drive a harder bargain with the US. Yet a third is muddle-headedness about events far away. ‘If one doesn’t want to, two can’t fight,’ said Brazil’s president, of Ukraine, in what he must have believed was an insight. The rest, I’m afraid, is bad faith, often from global South elites whose mistrust of the west exempts London real estate, Paris luxe retail and US universities.”
3. Why the global dominance of the dollar is historically unique—and hurts the United States
Why you should read it: Finance professor Michael Pettis argues in Foreign Affairs that the United States garners relatively little benefit from the dollar serve as the world’s reserve currency, and that reducing its role would require many nations who complain loudly about the dollar to confront uncomfortable questions about their own domestic political economies.
“At an April summit of the so-called BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva demanded to know why the world continues to base nearly all its trade on the U.S. dollar. To thunderous applause, he asked, ‘Why can’t we do trade based on our own currencies? Who was it that decided that the dollar was the currency after the disappearance of the gold standard?’… There is a downside to a dominant U.S. dollar, however. To play the role of linchpin of the global economy, the United States must let capital flow freely across its borders and absorb the savings and demand imbalances of other countries—that is, it must run deficits to offset the others’ surpluses and allow them to convert their excess production and savings into U.S. assets by purchasing real estate, factories, stocks, or bonds. This pushes down global demand, forcing the United States to compensate, often with higher unemployment or debt. Both the United States and the world at large would benefit from a less dominant U.S. dollar, in other words. But contrary to Lula’s expectations, adopting an alternative global reserve currency will not necessarily benefit surplus countries such as Brazil. Rather, it will force them to confront the reasons for their surpluses—persistently weak domestic demand based on a very unequal distribution of domestic income—and address them by cutting back on production and redistributing income.”
“Before the dollar’s ascent in the first half of the twentieth century, currencies and reserves that funded trade consisted mainly of specie—gold and silver coins. To the extent that central banks began to hold foreign currencies as part of their reserves in the nineteenth century, they mainly did so in the form of gold coins or currencies that they believed were convertible into specie… These are not just technical differences. Global trade and capital flows were structured very differently in the old specie-standard world than they are in today’s dollar-dominated one. In the former, trade imbalances were limited by the ability of each country to manage specie transfers. No matter how large a country’s economy or how powerful its central bank, its currency could be used to settle trade only to the extent that it was seen as fully exchangeable with specie. As foreign holdings of the country’s currency rose relative to the specie holdings of its central bank, the promise of convertibility would become less and less credible, thereby discouraging the currency’s use… The current dollar-based system is very different. In this system, imbalances are limited mainly by the willingness and ability of the United States to import or export claims on its domestic assets—that is, to allow holders of foreign capital to be net sellers or net buyers of American real estate and securities. The result is that countries can run large, persistent surpluses or deficits only because these imbalances are accommodated by opposite imbalances in the United States… As a result, deficit countries must absorb the deficient domestic demand of surplus countries while surplus countries avoid adjusting—which would entail either paring back production or redistributing wealth to workers—by accumulating foreign assets and putting permanent downward pressure on global demand.”
Why it matters: “…an indispensable dollar is not a good thing, either for the United States or for the rest of the world. The global economy would be better off if the United States stopped accommodating global savings imbalances that allowed surplus economies to dampen global demand. The U.S. economy in particular would benefit because it would no longer be forced to absorb, through higher unemployment or more debt, the effects of the mercantilist policies of surplus countries. Washington and Wall Street would see their powers curtailed, but American businesses would grow faster, and American workers would earn more… The answer to Lula’s question of who designated the U.S. dollar the global reserve currency is ironic: it was surplus countries such as Brazil and China. And despite what their leaders might say, none of them are in a hurry to upend the current system. Until these countries fundamentally transform their domestic economies—or until the United States decides it will no longer pay the steep economic cost of performing its accommodating role—they and the rest of the world will have no choice but to accept the continued dominance of the U.S. dollar.”
4. How Germany drags down Europe’s economy
Why you should read it: Wall Street Journal reporters Paul Hannon and Tom Fairless describe how Germany’s export-driven model of national economic growth has created a hole in Europe’s larger regional economy.
“Europe’s largest nation and its main growth engine has become the biggest drag on its economy… In past economic crises, Germany could rely on its factories to pull it out of any recession by tapping the world’s insatiable demand for made-in-Germany products. But a mixture of short-term and structural problems means this is no longer the case… Germany was the only member of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations aside from Russia to show a lower gross domestic product in the first three months of 2023 than a year earlier. Germany’s GDP shrank by 0.5% in the period. In the U.S., GDP was 1.6% larger. Germany’s weakness was one of the factors that tipped the eurozone into a recession at the start of this year.”
“Germany’s reliance on production and exports is unusual among large developed economies, making it look more like China, the world’s workshop, than an average European nation. Manufacturing accounted for 19% of Germany’s gross domestic product in 2021, roughly twice as much as in the U.S., the U.K. or France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the rich nations’ club… The country has recorded an export surplus for decades—it was even the world’s largest exporter of goods, ahead of both China and the U.S. for several years at the turn of the century—but that surplus has been shrinking since 2016 and last year hit its lowest level since 2000, according to the government’s statistics office.”
Why it matters: “With manufacturing wobbling, the other legs of Germany’s economy—consumption and services—haven’t picked up the slack. The country’s slide into recession this year was in part driven by declines in household spending as food and energy bills soared… Still, with the annual rate of inflation falling, and wages rising, many economists expect households to have more money to spend in the second half of the year, which they think should spare Germany a deep downturn.”
5. If it’s not one thing, it’s another: climate change comes for Iraq
Why you should read it: Yale scholar and former U.S. military adviser Emma Sky details the efforts Iraq and its Kurdistan region are taking to combat the increasingly severe effects climate change is having on the country for The New European.
“Addressing [Iraq’s] environmental crisis is a passion for [former Iraqi president and Kurdish politician] Barham [Salih]. He noted that Iraq’s population has almost doubled to 40 million since the 2003 invasion, and is expected to double again by 2050. Demographics are increasing the demand for water at a time when desertification is affecting 39% of Iraq, and 54% of agricultural lands are threatened by salination... Over the last few years, Iraq has experienced drought and the lowest levels of rainfall on record, with temperatures soaring to 50C, rising much faster than the global average. During the week of my visit, unseasonal thunderstorms set fields on fire near Kirkuk and flooding damaged the harvest across the north. The UN has identified Iraq as the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to climate change, with the World Bank warning that Iraq will face extreme water scarcity by 2030, and Iraq’s ministry of water resources predicting a shortfall of almost 11bn cubic metres of water by 2035.”
“Few political leaders have made [climate change] a priority, despite the Iraqi parliament ratifying the Paris Agreement in 2021. In its nationally determined contributions (NDC), Iraq has committed to reducing flaring at oil and gas facilities, switching from liquid fuels to natural gas, improving energy efficiency, expanding renewable energy technology, and deploying sustainable public transportation technologies. Iraq is a signatory to the global methane pledge, committing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030… Oil exports account for around 90% of [Iraqi] government revenues. It is the energy sector that is responsible for 75% of Iraq’s total emissions. While driving around, I observed gas being flared from oil production, emitting large amounts of black carbon into the atmosphere. Despite commitments to capture and utilise the gas, the World Bank reports that Iraq flares around 17bn cubic metres of gas every year, worth around $8bn (£6.4bn). And at the same time, Iraq continues to import gas from Iran.”
Why it matters: “The survival of future generations in the region requires collaboration. In recognition of the fact that the region is on track for a five-degree rise in temperature by the end of the century if it goes about business as usual, the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East Climate Change Initiative (EMME-CCI) was launched on November 8, 2022 at Cop27 in Sharm el-Sheikh. Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman and Palestine adopted a resolution to coordinate efforts on climate mitigation and adaptation, to strengthen regional cooperation, and to mainstream climate policies across all sectors. It was a moment of common sense and courage… Given its oil, rivers, biodiversity – and its central geographical location – Iraq needs to lead by example, before it is too late.”
6. Democracy ain’t endless community meetings
Why you should read it: In his Slow Boring Substack, Matt Yglesias debunks the fashionable idea that more community meetings and increased opportunities for litigation equal more democracy.
“…is democracy about people expressing views at hearings or is it about entrusting elected leaders with the authority to make decisions on subjects of public concern? I think it’s the latter… Elected officials should, of course, listen to people. But they should also decide what they want to do and make it happen. And we should not have state or federal laws that are designed to disempower elected officials. Unfortunately, though, we live in a world where the New York State Legislature can decide in 2019 that it wants congestion pricing for Manhattan and then spend three years compiling a 4,000+ page NEPA review… But why is it good to have courts review everything? Why would you consider hollowing out state capacity and undermining elected leaders ‘democracy?’”
“I think the paradoxical circumstances of the mid-20th century left an odd dual legacy. On the one hand, there were largely successful efforts to democratize the formal political system. But on the other hand, there were efforts — also largely successful — to draw attention to the idea that ‘the community’ might not have full control over the state and might need to be specifically empowered to check the state. But I think it’s more accurate to say that protest is what the lack of democracy looks like — people denied voice through the normal process demanding to be heard through extraordinary means. A certain romanticization of protest culture, though, has led to the idea that mass mobilization in the streets is somehow more authentically democratic than a functioning political system.”
Why it matters: “Questions about pollution raise two kinds of issues: technical scientific questions about the impact of pollutants and democratic political questions about tradeoffs. Normal politics can get that kind of decision wrong for any number of reasons. But there’s no reason to think you can systematically improve on the outcome by getting more judges — who are neither technical subject matter experts nor accountable for outcomes — involved. With any given case, of course, you might succeed in stopping something bad or extracting a useful concession. But systematically, all that comes of requiring lots of review and consultation as a prelude to lots of litigation is that things happen more slowly. That’s good for extremely literal small-c conservative politics, but nobody — not conservatives and certainly not progressives — actually thinks ‘nothing should ever change’ should be a lodestar for policy… We have to trust ourselves to be able to win enough of the argument enough of the time to make the changes we want to see in the country, even knowing that sometimes democratic politics will make the wrong choice. The alternative is endless rounds of stagnation and litigation, arbitrarily advantaging the status quo and whoever has the best lawyers.”
7. Treat the Supreme Court with the same contempt it treats you
Why you should read it: In the New York Times, Georgetown law professor Josh Chafetz attacks a Supreme Court and federal judiciary that have grown increasingly imperial in recent decades and displayed nothing but contempt for the other co-equal branches of government.
“Over roughly the past 15 years, the justices have seized for themselves more and more of the national governing agenda, overriding other decision makers with startling frequency. And they have done so in language that drips with contempt for other governing institutions and in a way that elevates the judicial role above all others… Judges have long portrayed themselves as neutral, apolitical conduits of the law, in contrast to the sordid political branches. This portrayal serves to obscure the institution of the judiciary and to foreground the abstract, disembodied concept of the law. In turn, it serves to empower judges, who present themselves not as one type of political actor but rather as the voice of the majestic principles of the law… And the justices’ language in these cases, holding up judges as noble instruments of the law and denigrating other officeholders as power-grubbing and superficial, serves to reinforce and justify the notion that they are uniquely qualified to govern us.”
“In all of these areas and in plenty more, the justices have seized for themselves an active role in governance. But perhaps even more consequentially, in doing so, they have repeatedly described other political institutions in overwhelmingly derogatory terms while either describing the judiciary in flattering terms or not describing it at all—denying its status as an institution and positioning it as simply a conduit of disembodied law... It is also worth noting that this ideological project is bipartisan. Republican-appointed justices dominate the court and have for many decades, but their Democratic-appointed colleagues—while dissenting in many individual opinions—evince no desire to contest the underlying disdain for other institutions or elevation of their own. When Mr. Roberts recently refused to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, nothing stopped Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan or Ketanji Brown Jackson from volunteering to testify, but they did not. Nothing is stopping them from publicly calling for a binding ethics code or from questioning not just the correctness but also the legitimacy of their institution’s assertiveness, but they have not.”
Why it matters: “Recognizing the justices’ ideological project also points to the beginning of the solution. We ought to begin talking about the justices the way we talk about other political actors—recognizing that their first name is not Justice and that they, like other politicians, should be identified by their party... In recent years, the judiciary has shown little but contempt for other governing institutions. It has earned a little contempt in return.”
8. Inside Volkswagen’s hunt for critical minerals
Why you should read it: Wall Street Journal reporter William Boston shows how German automaker Volkswagen aims to secure new sources of critical minerals for its electric vehicle manufacturing enterprise—and reduce its dependence on China in the process.
“PowerCo, a subsidiary VW created last year, is leading the company’s search for natural resources and other critical battery ingredients. Ultimately, VW wants to secure its own supplies for battery plants outside China and not have to rely on Chinese suppliers for battery materials, most of whom are in China, VW board member and technology chief Thomas Schmall told The Wall Street Journal… Other western automakers also are trying to build batteries independent of China. The efforts underline how multinational companies are adapting as the West strives to reduce its dependence on China, both as a market and as a supplier of critical components.”
“For carmakers, the need to rely less on China is particularly pressing because the battery accounts for a large portion of the value of an EV. By making their own batteries with components they source themselves, European and U.S. carmakers can capture a bigger share of the profits for every EV they sell… The U.S. and the European Union are pouring tens of billions of dollars into catching up with China and breaking its dominance on core resources that are needed for everything from high-tech weapons to smartphones and electric cars.”
Why it matters: “Over the past decade, China has secured key sources of lithium, cobalt and nickel and built a homegrown industry for processing and refining the materials. Although the country possesses a fraction of the world’s supply of lithium, China dominates global production of refined battery materials used in EV batteries, according to industry estimates… That strategy ultimately gave Chinese battery manufacturers control over more than half of the global market for EV batteries, according to analyst estimates.”
9. How India has become a real player in the Middle East
Why you should read it: Council on Foreign Relations scholar Steven A. Cook observes in Foreign Policy that India has become a real player in the affairs of the Middle East over the past decade, from closer relations with Israel to greater energy imports from the Gulf and beyond.
“While U.S. officials and analysts are obsessed with every diplomatic move Beijing makes and eye Chinese investment in the Middle East with suspicion, Washington is overlooking one of the most interesting geopolitical developments in the region in years: the emergence of India as a major player in the Middle East… The Indians and Emiratis have also developed their ties through what in Washington is called I2U2—a grouping of Israel, India, the UAE, and the United States—which seeks to leverage the combined technological know-how and private capital to address alternative energy, agriculture, trade, infrastructure development, and more.”
“It is tempting for U.S. policymakers and analysts to view India’s growing role in the region through the prism of great-power competition with China. At a level of abstraction, playing the ‘India card;’ seems like a wise move in the new great game. The Indian and Chinese governments have a history of enmity, border disputes, and even armed conflict. An additional counterweight to Beijing in the Middle East would be helpful as the Biden administration shifts from de-emphasizing the region to regarding it as an area of opportunity to contain China… For all the positive vibes of U.S.-India relations, it seems unlikely that New Delhi wants to be the strategic partner that Washington imagines. The kind of relationship some in Washington seem to have in mind is not a natural place for India, which has long guarded against entangling itself with the United States, most recently on Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
Why it matters: “Washington should temper its expectations about what the expansion of India’s economic and security ties to the Middle East means. It is unlikely that India will line up with the United States, but it is also unlikely that New Delhi will undercut Washington as both Beijing and Moscow have done… If the United States’ Middle Eastern partners are looking for an alternative to Washington, it is better that New Delhi is among the choices. The United States may no longer be the undisputed big dog in the region, but as long as India expands its presence in the Middle East, neither Russia nor China can assume that role.”
Odds and Ends
How climate change is washing away the D-Day beaches in Normandy…
Archaeologists at Pompeii uncover what pizza’s ancient ancestors might have looked like…
How our canine companions are helping scientists cure cancer in humans…
Star Trek: Picard actors Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Gates McFadden describe their early days on Star Trek: The Next Generation and the emotional reunion on the bridge of the starship Enterprise in the Picard finale…
Why that post-Moon landing quarantine for Apollo 11 almost certainly didn’t work…
What I’m Listening To
I’ll spare you the Taylor Swift that’s been on constant rotation and give you a trio of sounds from the 1960s instead:
“Hold On, I’m Comin,’” by Sam & Dave.
“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” by Jimi Hendrix.
“Nowhere to Run” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
Image of the Month
