Quote of the Month
Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, Who countest the steps of the Sun: Seeking after that sweet golden clime Where the travellers journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire, And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go. - William Blake, "Ah! Sun-flower"
What I’m Reading:
1. Why Putin is running out of options in Ukraine
Why you should read it: In Foreign Affairs, strategy scholar Lawrence Freedman argues that Russian President Vladimir Putin is running out of options to conclude his war against Ukraine on terms acceptable to him, and that he now finds himself locked in a test of endurance against Ukraine and its international backers.
“Putin is not close to achieving any of his war aims while the price of his gambit grows ever steeper. He may, of course, believe that at least some of his original objectives are still possible, or take some comfort from those analysts in the West who are convinced that the best Ukraine can hope for is a military stalemate. But the Russian leader has never shown himself to be satisfied with a stalemate… Were Putin to accept a cease-fire based on current positions, it would ease the threat to Crimea and allow the Russian occupation of what is still a sizable chunk of Ukrainian territory. It would, however, confirm that none of Putin’s goals have been met. This would become even more obvious if discussions around a cease-fire led to pressure for Russian forces to abandon some of the land they have taken. Being stuck with bits and pieces of Ukrainian territory with hostile populations, massive reconstruction bills, and long frontlines with an undefeated Ukraine would not look like a big win—especially when set against the many casualties incurred by Russian forces, the degradation of the Russian army, the sputtering Russian economy, and the knock to Russia’s standing as a great and influential power. As soon as the fighting stopped and troops started to come home, there would be a national reckoning, and it would not reflect well on Putin… All trends—military, economic, diplomatic—continue to point in the wrong direction, and Putin has no convincing explanation for how the situation can be salvaged. The Russian president finds himself boxed in with no good options. He may indeed already be aware that the reckoning has begun.”
“Should there be another big win for Ukraine (and nothing is guaranteed here), it is not clear what options would be available to provide Moscow with a more effective strategy. The choice would be unpalatable for Putin: he must either confirm that Russia is losing an unnecessary war or persist in waging an unwinnable war... Moscow made a more plausible argument last year, claiming that a combination of Europe’s energy crunch and concern about costs would lead the West to wind down its support for Ukraine. Perhaps Putin now hopes to achieve the same effect with food shortages, even though this will harm otherwise sympathetic countries. He may be disappointed: similar actions have yet to dent Western support for Ukraine. Over the last six months, more and better weapons have been delivered to Kyiv. In certain respects, NATO countries are subject to the same pressures Russia is; not losing is also a vital interest of the West.”
Why it matters: “Putin can simply try to hang on, but given the mounting pressures, he needs a strategy to show that Russia still has a path to victory. What Putin does should in turn shape Ukrainian actions. Kyiv can add to the anxieties in Moscow, demonstrating that no part of Russia is secure, punishing Russian forces at the front and opportunistically liberating territory even if it is not quite what military planners intended. This has become a war of endurance. Just as Putin must hope that Ukraine and its Western supporters will tire before Russia does, Ukraine and its backers must show that they can cope with the war’s demands for as long as necessary.”
2. Why it doesn’t make sense to compare Ukraine to World War I
Why you should read it: Rand Corporation analysts Raphael S. Cohen and Gian Gentile contend in Foreign Policy that the popular comparison of combat in Ukraine to the trenches of World War I isn’t accurate, and that the fighting in Normandy in the weeks after D-Day offers a better analogy.
“Today, many commentators have likened the current Russia-Ukraine war to the Western Front of World War I. Satellite images show extensive Russian trenches all along the 700-mile front, with miles upon miles of land mines and fortifications—all of which seem to hark back to a different era. As do the gray-scape images of gnarled trees and mud craters inflicted by artillery barrages, as well as pictures of soldiers, drenched and shivering in the cold, standing guard in those dreary trenches that echo scenes from more than a century ago. Latching on to this historical analogy, observers conclude that the current Ukrainian counteroffensive is doomed to failure and that the war is inching toward an inevitable stalemate.”
“Instead, a better historical precedent to understand the current fighting in Ukraine can be found in the U.S. Army’s experience in the summer of 1944, when it was fighting against Nazi forces in the hedgerows of Normandy in France… By contrast, World War II was a more fluid conflict, with periods of relative stasis followed by breakthrough. After the Allies landed on Normandy’s beaches, they hit a period of tactical stalemate. It took the U.S. Army about six full weeks of tough fighting with slow, grinding attacks through the Normandy hedgerows to push the German defenders just 19 miles beyond the beachhead toward the French city of Saint-Lô. Only when the Americans finally managed to break through Nazi lines did the Germans go into full retreat.”
Why it matters: “To date, the Russia-Ukraine war resembles the battles in the Normandy hedgerows far more than it does those in the trenches of World War I. While there have been slowdowns in the pace of territorial gains—most notably before the battle of Kharkiv last summer—for the most part, the Russia-Ukraine war has been marked by remarkable fluidity, as impasses have been followed by rapid territorial gains, as demonstrated in last year’s battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Kherson… But the World War II analogy is an argument for patience and persistence. Nearly eight decades ago, the United States faced some of the same challenges that Ukraine faces today. But the U.S. Army persisted, and its slow, daily advances wore down the German defenders. The cumulative attritional effect proved decisive in the end. Today, the Ukrainian military is making progress, albeit slowly. Whether this halting progress ultimately grinds the Russian military down—or grinds to halt—will only be revealed in time.”
3. How NATO is trying to remember how to fight a major conventional war in Europe
Why you should read it: New York Times reporter Steven Erlanger details the ways NATO is attempting to relearn conventional war fighting skills that have atrophied in the 30 years since the end of the Cold War.
“Late last month, a German convoy of 1,000 troops with tanks, drones and armored vehicles made its way some 750 miles to a Lithuanian military compound in Pabrade in three days, using trains, ferries, trucks and planes — all NATO practice for a possible incursion by foreign (read: Russian) troops… The NATO exercise was meant to convince Lithuania and other countries bordering Russia that the promise of rapid reinforcement and collective defense was a reality. It was also intended to demonstrate the alliance’s new commitment to countering a more dangerous Russia, which argues that its war in Ukraine is a necessary response to what it considers NATO’s effort to dismantle Moscow’s sphere of influence.”
“In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, the Russians seized more territory than the entire country of Estonia… What happened on that territory, before Russian troops were forced to pull back, has become a symbol of wanton destruction and possible war crimes. Citing the devastation in the Ukrainian cities of Bucha, Irpin and Kherson, NATO’s frontline states have convinced allies that collective defense means vastly enhanced deterrence.”
Why it matters: “As it evolves strategically and operationally, NATO is moving to what the military calls ‘deterrence by denial,’ which in practical terms means more troops along the Russian border… The main point, [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg said, is that the new regional plans detail what each country must do to help defend its assigned territory, and with what equipment. Those troops will exercise regularly with allies on the territory they are assigned to defend.”
4. How Elon Musk uses Starlink to conduct his own private foreign policy
Why you should read it: Reporters Adam Satariano, Scott Reinhard, Cade Metz, Sheera Frenkel and Malika Khurana take to the New York Times to explain how SpaceX founder Elon Musk has used his Starlink satellite internet constellation to, among other things, dictate Ukraine’s war policy.
“On March 17, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the leader of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, dialed into a call to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the secure line, the two military leaders conferred on air defense systems, real-time battlefield assessments and shared intelligence on Russia’s military losses… General Zaluzhnyi raised the topic of Starlink, the satellite internet technology made by Mr. Musk’s rocket company, SpaceX, three people with knowledge of the conversation said. Ukraine’s battlefield decisions depended on the continued use of Starlink for communications, General Zaluzhnyi said, and his country wanted to ensure access and discuss how to cover the cost of the service.”
“Mr. Musk, who leads SpaceX, Tesla and Twitter, has become the most dominant player in space as he has steadily amassed power over the strategically significant field of satellite internet. Yet faced with little regulation and oversight, his erratic and personality-driven style has increasingly worried militaries and political leaders around the world, with the tech billionaire sometimes wielding his authority in unpredictable ways… In Ukraine, some fears have been realized. Mr. Musk has restricted Starlink access multiple times during the war, people familiar with the situation said. At one point, he denied the Ukrainian military’s request to turn on Starlink near Crimea, the Russian-controlled territory, affecting battlefield strategy. Last year, he publicly floated a ‘peace plan’ for the war that seemed aligned with Russian interests… Other governments are wary. Taiwan, which has an internet infrastructure that could be vulnerable in the event of a Chinese invasion, is reluctant to use the service partly because of Mr. Musk’s business links to China, Taiwanese and American officials said.”
Why it matters: “At least nine countries — including in Europe and the Middle East — have also brought up Starlink with American officials over the past 18 months, with some questioning Mr. Musk’s power over the technology, two U.S. intelligence officials briefed on the discussions said. Few nations will speak publicly about their concerns, for fear of alienating Mr. Musk, said intelligence and cybersecurity officials briefed on the conversations… Unlike traditional defense contractors, whose weapon sales to foreign countries are typically done through the federal government, Starlink is a commercial product. That allows Mr. Musk to act in ways that sometimes do not align with U.S. interests, such as when SpaceX said it could not continue funding Starlink in Ukraine, said Gregory C. Allen, a former Defense Department official who worked at Blue Origin.”
5. Why Chinese embargoes on critical minerals aren’t as important as you might think
Why you should read it: Foreign Policy columnist Agathe Demarais lists five reasons why Chinese government threats to curtail the export of critical minerals like gallium and germanium won’t have the apocalyptic consequences Chinese officials may hope and many outside China fear.
“Chinese threats to clamp down on exports of critical raw materials have raised alarm bells in Western capitals… How serious is the Chinese threat? Here, the Kremlin’s decision to weaponize gas flows is an instructive precedent. The Russian embargo holds five lessons that should caution Chinese leaders against carrying out with their threats. In sum, these lessons suggest that curbing commodity supplies certainly inflicts short-term pain on Western economies—but comes with unintended consequences in the medium term.”
“…the monetary value of these commodities remains small. For example, the European Union’s annual import bills for critical raw materials range from $5 million in the case of beryllium (used for satellites, semiconductors, and weapons) to $4 billion for palladium (a critical component for catalytic converters), with imports for most minerals at just a few hundred million dollars. These numbers are mere rounding errors in the EU’s annual $3 trillion import bill. In other words, the issue with critical raw materials is their availability, not their price. Second, China’s domination of the sector stems from its strategy of flooding the market to depress prices—a textbook case of dumping to suppress the competition. Higher prices for critical minerals would therefore boost the competitiveness of non-Chinese producers and help them enter the market… a Chinese export ban on critical raw materials could turbocharge collaboration between like-minded allies. Already, signs of such cooperation are emerging, with the United States and Europe discussing collaboration to secure supplies of critical raw materials. Going further, the EU has proposed setting up a buyers’ club for critical minerals—a cartel that would need to include both producers and other big consumers of critical raw materials such as the United States, Japan, and South Korea to be effective… Chinese firms would bear the brunt of the embargo. Only a handful of rich economies absorb the vast majority of China’s exports of critical raw materials. Just like Russia is now swamped with gas that no one wants to buy, China would struggle to find alternative customers for its raw materials outside the advanced economies. Chinese high-tech companies would also find it difficult to import components that are manufactured in Western countries using these critical raw materials. In turn, the interdependencies between China and the West that Beijing believes act as a deterrent against sanctions and economic decoupling would decrease.”
Why it matters: “Chinese threats to weaponize critical materials have more bark than bite. Like most threats, they only have leverage when they’re not acted on. Should Beijing choose to implement an export ban, the benefits could even accrue to the Western countries that China is now targeting.”
6. Why the ancient Spartans were plutocratic losers who sucked at war
Why you should read it: In Foreign Policy, classics scholar Bret Devereaux makes the case against treating ancient Sparta as some sort of model for contemporary military and security policy, much less a democratic society.
“The Athenian historian Thucydides once remarked that Sparta was so lacking in impressive temples or monuments that future generations who found the place deserted would struggle to believe it had ever been a great power. But even without physical monuments, the memory of Sparta is very much alive in the modern United States. In popular culture, Spartans star in film and feature as the protagonists of several of the largest video game franchises. The Spartan brand is used to promote obstacle races, fitness equipment, and firearms. Sparta has also become a political rallying cry, including by members of the extreme right who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Sparta is gone, but the glorification of Sparta—Spartaganda, as it were—is alive and well… Sparta in this vision is a radically egalitarian society predicated on the cultivation of manly martial virtues. Yet this image of Sparta is almost entirely wrong. Spartan society was singularly unworthy of emulation or praise, especially in a democratic society.”
“To start with, the Spartan reputation for military excellence turns out to be, on closer inspection, mostly a mirage. Despite Sparta’s reputation for superior fighting, Spartan armies were as likely to lose battles as to win them, especially against peer opponents such as other Greek city-states… Sparta’s military mediocrity seems inexplicable given the city-state’s popular reputation as a highly militarized society, but modern scholarship has shown that this, too, is mostly a mirage. The agoge, Sparta’s rearing system for citizen boys, frequently represented in popular culture as akin to an intense military bootcamp, in fact included no arms training or military drills and was primarily designed to instill obedience and conformity rather than skill at arms or tactics. In order to instill that obedience, the older boys were encouraged to police the younger boys with violence, with the result that even in adulthood Spartan citizens were liable to settle disputes with their fists, a tendency that predictably made them poor diplomats… But while Sparta’s military performance was merely mediocre, no better or worse than its Greek neighbors, Spartan politics makes it an exceptionally bad example for citizens or soldiers in a modern free society. Modern scholars continue to debate the degree to which ancient Sparta exercised a unique tyranny of the stateover the lives of individual Spartan citizens. However, the Spartan citizenry represented only a tiny minority of people in Sparta, likely never more than 15 percent, including women of citizen status (who could not vote or hold office). Instead, the vast majority of people in Sparta, between 65 and 85 percent, were enslaved helots. (The remainder of the population was confined to Sparta’s bewildering array of noncitizen underclasses.) The figure is staggering, far higher than any other ancient Mediterranean state or, for instance, the antebellum American South, rightly termed a slave society with a third of its people enslaved.”
Why it matters: “Instead of a society of freedom-defending super-warriors, Sparta is better understood as a place where the wealthiest class of landholder, the Spartans themselves, had succeeded in reducing the great majority of their poor compatriots to slavery and excluded the rest, called the perioikoi, from political participation or citizenship. The tiny minority of Spartan citizens derived their entire income from the labor of slaves, being legally barred from doing any productive work or engaging in commerce… Sparta is no inspiration for the leaders of a free state. Sparta was a prison in the guise of a state and added little to the sum of the human experience except suffering. No American, much less any U.S. soldier, should aspire to be like a Spartan.”
7. How voter suppression laws might not actually suppress the vote
Why you should read it: New York Times columnist Thomas Edsall surveys recent academic research suggesting that Republican-led efforts to make voting more difficult may not be having the partisan effects many of their proponents hoped and many of their opponents feared they would.
“How effective has the onslaught of state-level legislation been at raising the odds for Republican candidates? The apparent answer: not very… ‘Contrary to heated political rhetoric,’ [political scientists Justin] Grimmer and [Eitan] Hersh write, “election policies have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship…’ If changes in election laws, especially those affecting voter turnout, have little influence on partisan outcomes, why should the average citizen care about these developments?”
“How about partisan gerrymandering? Did the Shelby decision open the door to disenfranchising political opponents by allowing Republican legislatures to reduce the number of ‘minority opportunity’ congressional and state legislative districts likely to elect Black or Hispanic Democrats — a process known as retrogression? Again: apparently not… ‘…there was little retrogression in formerly covered states. In sum, the number of minority opportunity districts in these states actually rose slightly. We also show that formerly covered states were largely indistinguishable from formerly uncovered states in terms of retrogression. If anything, states unaffected by Shelby County retrogressed marginally more than did states impacted by the ruling.’”
Why it matters: “What this suggests is that the American electorate is determined to exercise the franchise and is resistant to legislated hindrances — more so than many would expect. This does not bode well for a Republican Party that for the moment has applied its money, energy and strategic skill to reducing Democratic turnout and suppressing Democratic votes.”
8. How America broke its defense industry
Why you should read it: In Foreign Affairs, Yale historian Michael Brenes outlines how privatization hollowed out America’s military-industrial complex.
“But this lofty rhetoric [about a new arsenal of democracy] does not match the reality on the ground. Shortages in production, inadequate labor pools, and interruptions in supply chains have hamstrung the United States’ ability to deliver weapons to Ukraine and enhance the country’s defense capabilities more broadly… Today’s defense industry bears no resemblance to the U.S. system of military production during World War II. Back then, the industry was predominantly a government-run business. President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal emphasized economic regulation and relied on ‘alphabet agencies’ such as the Works Progress Administration to boost employment, paving the way for later wartime contracting. New Deal agencies inspired the creation of the War Production Board in 1942, which mobilized business and rationed resources for the battlefront. Weapons production was concentrated in shipbuilding and aircraft, with companies based mainly in industrial centers in the Northeast and Midwest in government-owned, government-operated facilities known as GOGO plants. The government owned nearly 90 percent of the productive capacity of aircraft, ships, and guns and ammunition. This is in contrast to today’s climate, where commercial items have made up over 88 percent of new procurement awards since 2011, and private capital invests over $6 billion a year in the defense industry.”
“When the end of the Cold War led to a discussion of a ‘peace dividend,’ and U.S. policymakers began reevaluating how much to spend on defense, military contractors felt they had to make a choice: consolidate or perish… Mergers went from being valued at $300 million in 1990 to $20 billion by 1996. The number of contractors for tactical missiles went from 13 to three, and for fixed-wing aircraft, the number went from eight to two. [President Bill] Clinton hoped consolidation would lower costs and streamline the contracting process. Neither materialized. Thousands of jobs were lost, and the Clinton administration offered meager assistance to those newly out of work.”
Why it matters: “This 70-year history of consolidation, privatization, outsourcing, job cuts, federal inaction, and a hunt for larger profits has created a perfect storm that now hobbles security assistance for Ukraine, and potentially for future conflicts, as well… The United States cannot rectify these problems in the short term or reverse this history overnight. Comprehensive solutions require government involvement and stronger control over the industry in the immediate and long terms. Defense reform must go beyond acquisition or auditing—although changes are needed on both fronts. Congress must reimagine defense reform, drawing lessons from the last time the United States truly was an arsenal of democracy. A key takeaway from this time is that greater federal intervention in the defense industry is needed if the industry is to produce otherwise ‘unprofitable’ weapons.”
9. How a failed attempt to rein in Big Tech shows that Congress can’t perform basic legislative functions any more
Why you should read it: Former business and economics correspondent Steven Pearlstein writes in the Washington Post that failed efforts to impose some sort of regulation on Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook don’t just show the power of money and lobbying but reveal even more basic failures with Congress as a legislative body.
“Corporate power, however, is only part of the story. A bigger factor is that members of Congress and their staff have lost the instinct and ability to legislate. Over the past 30 years, the processes and norms that once allowed Congress to discover what the country wanted and needed have so badly eroded that few members can remember how it’s done. Failure has become the expected and accepted outcome. The instinct to turn any issue into a partisan battle, the lack of urgency, the fixation with and fear of social media, the refusal to accept even modest political risk, the reluctance to engage in serious debate and compromise, and the almost complete abdication of power to party leaders — all of these have become deeply ingrained in the life and culture of the Capitol. And it is all made worse by a self-imposed schedule that has members in Washington only three days a week, 30 weeks a year.”
“Once a staple of political life in the Capitol, that kind of serious committee investigation is rare these days. With extreme partisanship making it unlikely that any legislation will be passed, there’s little incentive to investigate anything that doesn’t serve some partisan purpose. Instead, committees have turned into permanent partisan messaging machines, their hearings into nothing more than political theater… Suddenly, [Reps.] Cicilline [D-RI] and Buck [R-CO] were face to face with the paradox at the root of congressional dysfunction: On most issues, both parties prefer gridlock because both believe it reduces the risk of losing the next election… Previously, each senator served on only one major and one minor committee — a limitation that allowed them to develop a familiarity with issues, and with each other, and made it more likely that some consensus might be reached. But beginning in the 1990s, Senate leaders began doling out extra assignments to win support from members who saw the added assignments as a way to enhance their stature and raise campaign funds from a wider array of special interest groups. As a result, senators now typically serve on three and sometimes four committees, and any number of subcommittees, making it nearly impossible for them to sit through an entire hearing or a multiday markup, let alone develop much expertise or relationships with other members. The average committee now has a quarter of the entire 100-member Senate as members, with Finance and Commerce at 27 and Appropriations with 29. All of this has had the perverse effect of reducing the power and relevance of committees and the influence of individual members.”
Why it matters: “In the end, [Sen. Amy] Klobuchar [D-MN] and Cicilline were able to get two initiatives included in the omnibus appropriation that passed on the final day of the 2022 session. One paved the way for an additional $1.4 billion in funding over the next five years for antitrust enforcers at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department. Another gave state attorneys general the right to try federal antitrust cases in the district courts of their choosing. The rest fell by the wayside… Klobuchar and Cicilline headed home for the holidays feeling deeply disappointed by the experience and frustrated by a system incapable of dealing with long-term challenges absent some immediate crisis.”
Odds and Ends
Explore a Victorian-era dinosaur park in London as it receives a bit of a sprucing up and learn what we thought dinosaurs once looked like…
Paleontologists reveal the most significant dinosaur fossil bone bed unearthed in the eastern United States in over a century just outside the Washington Beltway…
How ancient Roman attempts to redirect water for entertainment purposes in Pergamon ultimately backfired and resulted in catastrophic flooding…
Why Taylor Swift’s success, popularity, and campaign to re-record her first six albums make her unprecedentedly weird…
How a recently-launched European Space Agency weather satellite aims to track lightning strikes around the world…
What I’m Listening To
Some tracks from Ludwig Göransson’s score to Christopher Nolan’s new film Oppenheimer:
Image of the Month
