Author: Desp(e)rat(e) measures

28-1-19

Dear Partners in thought,

I would like to talk to you about some aspects of “The Diversity Delusion”, a book by Heather McDonald, which is focused on a highly sensitive topic in America today which gradually is becoming one in different and local ways throughout the Western world. McD looks at the shortcomings of the diversity drive from different angles notably race and gender and what she sees as the pandering that corrupts the university and culture in America. Admittedly this is an “engaged” book and McD is a well known conservative writer so will take a rather negative view of diversity drives and their evolutions as the book title suggests. Peggy Noonan who wrote McD’s book cover praise is indeed a well known critic of anything liberal and Hillary Clinton in particular, setting the stage for the reader. McD was known as the author of “War on Cops”, another title underlining her position on policing in America at a time when there was a debate on this matter following the death of individuals, especially African Americans, in clashes with police throughout America. She is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributor to City Journal, an American public policy magazine. A self-described former aspiring academic with roots in deconstruction and post-modernism, she has been the target of violent protests from student activists for her work on policing. A New Yorker, she is an accomplished student herself with a BA from Yale, an MA in English from Cambridge and a JD from Stanford Law while her writing has appeared in a vast array of publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic and Partisan Review. In other words, while her work is clearly divisive she is no light weight and is well grounded, which should provide prima facie for solid material to be discussed.    

In her own words, “The Diversity Delusion” is an attempt at understanding the rise on campuses in the demand for “safe space” and expressions, often violent, of reflexive accusations of racism and sexism, mixed with “a contempt for the Enlightenment values of Reason and due process which increasingly infuse businesses, government and civil society” through a total refusal to let opposite views being aired. McD sees the roots of this evolution in a set of ideas (she opposes virulently) dominating higher education that individuals are defined by their skin colour, sex and sexual preference and that discrimination based on these characteristics has been the driving force in Western civilisation, making America a deeply bigoted place, where heterosexual white males rule and continue to deny opportunity to everyone else. She believes that these ideas that can be called diversity or identity politics have remade the university in America and shaped future leaders through new fields focused on race, ethnicity, sex and gender identity. Not supporting what she sees as campus self-pity, McD feels on the contrary that American college students are among the most privileged human beings in history, benefitting from great institutions and unparalleled access to knowledge, who otherwise act as spoiled brats. She feels that the claim of ubiquitous racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia is now firmly part of the non-academic world as well, where it is being used to silence speakers and ideas with which favoured victim groups disagree, thus creating a shrinkage of civility and endangering civil peace as well as free speech itself.        

I was hesitant to write a Book Note about “The Diversity Delusion”. Anyone doing this is open to be whipped one way or another given the topic at hand. It takes a balanced mind to address such a sensitive topic even if one will already or eventually side more or less on one side of the fence based on values and societal beliefs. Such a topic needs if at all possible some distance to be reflected upon, preferably from Mars, in order to be discussed serenely which is not to say that distance will erase for some the trauma associated with the absence of diversity. Distance will not erase the racism or sexism to call things by their name or will lead others to accept the direct and indirect regrettable consequences that too much focus on diversity may have brought on society and, given the book angle, university campuses and culture in America. It is debatable if one can take a view on matters of racism and sexism that there is a grey area and it is not a back and white matter. However it may be possible to find some grey area in reviewing diversity and whether it is a deluded concept as a way to correct the ills of racism and sexism and their various mild and awful expressions. I thought that it was useful to air some thoughts in as a dispassionate way as possible, which arguably may not be possible, also realising that some radical left ideas need to be opposed, all the more as they give rise to populism and their opposite extreme right features, sometimes shaping election results within a democratic context. It should also be clear that opposing radical left ideas when they should be opposed should not lead to pandering to their opposite radical right stances.  

Diversity is inextricably linked to a dual phenomenon that started in the late sixties and seventies again in the US and found a fertile ground there, called Affirmative Action and Political Correctness or PC-ness to use its current appellation usually not by its promoters. Affirmative Action arose from the fact that minority students (then, at the time, African Americans as what the blacks in the US were gradually called) were under-represented in college based on admission that favoured standard testing and a traditional academic path often not achievable by them for social reasons. While there were clear cases of societal imbalances in colleges that were clearly white, things changed as minority student college applications started being looked at with less stringent requirements. After a few years, the inevitable backlash came as with the famous case in California where a Jewish American student stated that he had been rejected for the benefits of African-Americans even though he had achieved much higher standard SAT test scores. Political correctness then was noticed in the language and ways of America, all driven by a goal of not offending minority groups in a majority white America. 

A recent poll showed that 75% of Americans were tired of political correctness, which sounds like a large majority. It is clear that the numbers don’t tell the whole story and should be analysed closely. There is no doubt that the PC-ness drive as it was felt by many and for many years in the white middle working class led “to some extent” to the Trump ascent to the White House. To be sure Trump’s core voting base was driven by a rejection of the bi-coastal elite and the perceived effects of globalisation but the anti-PC drive and the rejection of measures to favour minority groups out of of a sense of societal guilt and correction also mattered to the “left outs” as these moves were never designed to help them either. It was not the only reason, also noting that PC-rejection is well spread across the political landscape outside of the activist and true believer groups, but it was an additional element that was associated in the American heartland and the white (male) “left outs” with the bi-coastal cosmopolitan elites that liked and could afford to be supremely liberal to the point of expiating for all the ills suffered by the minorities, starting with slavery and its mutations for the vocal elements of the black minority. 

Great achievements have been noted in minorities reaching the top echelons of American society in all walks of life, very often distancing themselves from their ethnic group. American suburbs count many African-Americans who are medical doctors, lawyers and bankers. Hollywood is full of minority actors across races. However there is no denying that many in the black community feel trapped and see no access to the social mobility elevator in a parallel with the white left outs of many Trump-supporting middle America states for different reasons which obviously do not include race. It is hard to simply rejoice about the few who have made it outside racial determinism or despair for those who have not though improving their conditions in spite of an early poor deck of cards looks possible even if a daunting process at times. It is difficult to point to affirmative action as the driver behind the societal rise of the Asian-American communities – and are they a struggling minority today? – as many have done very well in terms of ensuring their children have reached the higher echelons of society, creating the unusual problem that if only tests mattered, elite colleges might have too many of them, this incidentally leading to some form of reverse discrimination and unofficial quotas to law suits like with Harvard in 2018 of the same nature as the one in California by the white Jewish student protesting against affirmative action decades ago. What is more surprising today may be the activism on campus emanating from minority students, African-Americans (many the children of those doctors in the suburbs) and their supporters in particular, who display often violent opposition, defining primarily themselves through campus activism, to what they do not like to see and hear, feeling empowered to fight for causes that relate to race.                    

McD’s book covers four major parts, each divided into a few sub-parts. The key parts are Race, Gender, the Bureaucracy and the Purpose of University. This is a very wide and far reaching book and as such I wanted today, while encouraging to read the whole book which is clearly not without a very conservative and divisive viewpoint, to focus on the Race part not so much as it is about race but as it deals with free speech or its organised ban and the reconstructing of history on American campus and beyond.    

McD talks about what she describes as “the hysterical campus” and the violent demonstrations that took place on various campuses in the last two years like at Claremont McKenna, UCLA, University of Missouri, Yale or Emory. She describes in detail those demonstrations (including two involving her) staged for different reasons against speakers – silencing tactics – or professors, courses and administrators whose topics or views were not liked by groups of student activists, most of whom being minority students finding those views and talks offensive to their beliefs or simply as they fought for existence as a self-described oppressed minority in an adverse environment. Screams of “Black live matter” and “Let’s stop the fascist” abound and the rejection of any dialogue is the rule in what McD sees as an attack on free speech and founding American and Enlightenment values (and indeed the First Amendment). She also stresses that in many if not most cases the university administrations and certainly a large section of faculty side with the protesters, when not encouraging them and while some protesters are punished when there is destruction of property others receive special statuses, and even prizes, upon graduation for taking a stand to defend what values they believe in. McD stresses that these “oppressed” students actually are staying in very good conditions at very well endowed colleges. As an example of business being infected by these new diversity ideas, McD covers the well-publicised case of James Damore, a Google engineer who had published a paper criticising Goggle’s diversity focus which he deemed to be harmful for the overall Google quality as a firm. Interestingly McD talks about Proposition 209 which in 1998 was a California vote on stopping affirmative action drives on California campuses which passed but was fought back by university administrations and admission committees who wanted to have student bodies that would represent society at large, this instead of what would result from standard admission requirements and other usual tests like the SATs.   

In her book McD covers well-organised groups opposing the expression of free speech via talks by visiting speakers on campus in the name of their right to free speech though allowing no discussion in a very terminal way as would be the case in dictatorships. It is often the expression of the strongest as the modus operandi is to disturb often violently the organisation of talks albeit on sensitive topics that were initially allowed by the administrations of universities. These groups are driven by a righteous cause of correcting historical wrongs that would have led to societal stagnation for members of minority groups, notably among African-American and to some extent Latino groups.  This approach can also go further in opposing an academic curriculum as the authors who would be studied would be too representative of Western civilisation such as the leading white philosophers of the Enlightenment or the musicians like Mozart simply as representing white society that dominated the times. While one can understand grievances expressed by the descendants of slaves and taking an extreme case, the challenges that may have been associated with growing up in drastically impoverished areas if not ghettos, common sense should not condone violent rejection of free speech simply as the drive behind the violent opposition is seen as hallowed and a respectful dialogue can be engineered.  

Taking down the statues of confederate generals as they fought for slave states, changing the names of colleges (like at Yale) as the man on the front porch, who happened to a be US Vice President in the mid-19th century, had a cotton plantation with slave workers or trying to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes, the godfather of Rhodesia, at Oxford’s Oriel College have been very sensitive topics and the subject of much violent activism on campus and elsewhere. On one hand nobody should condone slavery. And everybody should oppose the white supremacist hijacking of those topics as during the bloody events in Charlottesville in the summer fo 2017. On the other everybody should live with their history while rightfully making sure some of the dire aspects are not repeated. Confederate generals fought for their states and many like Robert E. Lee, who decided to fight for his own Virginia after being offered the command of the Northern armies, did so out of patriotism at a time when the economy of many confederate states were reliant on cotton and so slaves initially purchased from Africa. This is history and by today’s standards would be unacceptable but it is dangerous to rewrite history to fit the times as the Soviets erased unwanted individuals from official pictures. While rewriting history with today’s lenses is not sound for any nation that should of course remember all the good and bad aspects of its history, removing statues or changing college names brings little change beyond polishing the resumes of activist leaders for having won their drive. It may also eventually erase key tragic blemishes like slavery from historical memory which would achieve the opposite of the inner reasons for the activist leaders to address the matter in the first place. It is also true that to the visiting Martian devoid of any agenda that American campuses could be seen today as cradles of fierce and temperamental activists who decided to focus on causes in order to exist while wittingly or unwittingly starting a career for themselves. 

Rejecting violent activism on campus and elsewhere is not like rejecting student activism which is eminently healthy and shows a societal commitment on the part of the young generation. There are also many forms of student activism on campus, some of which can be quite vocal but also based on dialogue. One of these involve students who wish to steer their university endowments to invest ethically and not only focus on returns. Even if at times mutual trust is not always involved, student activists get involved directly or more often indirectly addressing ad hoc committees in the way their university endowments invest. Experience shows that at times the process is not always smooth as noted with the recent exchange between David Swansen, the famed CIO of the Yale Endowment Fund and the Yale Daily News, the student newspaper that usually ends up representing the views of endowment activists on campus. However a respectful, if at times intense, communication can be managed and compromises found as long as free speech is respected on both sides. While the focus on racial discrimination is of course one of the most sensitive topic today, together with gender equality, one would wish that a respectful and rational dialogue take place on American campuses with the objective of fostering a more harmonious environment where students can also focus on their studies and keep learning “how to think”.           

It is difficult to discuss serenely the matters that McD covers and, like I did, others which relate, however distantly, to them. Society’s wounds may indeed be too recent to reach an appeased dialogue while there are still traces of bigotry that perdure. However, common sense should also dictate that as much progress was done on those sensitive, key matters and while society should work further at creating a more harmonious and inclusive environment, it would also be helpful that activists opt for dialogue in spite of violent rhetoric and hatred, refusing to hear opposite views if they are constructive all the more within an academic context. Activists who refuse exchanging views as they do not tolerate dissent can only achieve the opposite of what they seem to wish to gain which would be to become the fascists they decry and encouraging a societal response that may go back to the very ills at stake and may indeed include racism and exclusion. It is arguable that those minority students who have been admitted to elite universities should certainly be entitled to voice their opinions as they wish but focusing on dialogue, seizing the opportunity to keep changing society from within and becoming the active leaders of tomorrow. 

I recommend the reading of McD’s book as even if it is representative of a one-sided conservative and in many respects reactionary view, it covers the main areas of intellectual battle (often physical too) on American campuses today that may indeed have consequences on society at large, first in America and then, as often, more globally. I hope that I was able to express some balanced and respectful viewpoints, enshrined in common sense and rationality, even if the topics at hand are highly sensitive so we can always thrive for a much needed dialogue and eventually a more balanced society away from the extremes.  

Warmest regards,
Serge                   

16-1-19

Dear Partners in thought,

I wanted to tell you about “The Quantum Spy” from David Ignatius, the well known Washington Post Associate Editor and International affairs columnist but also the master of the intelligence novel as the John Le Carré of the CIA. DI was also an adjunct professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Public Policy in the field of International affairs, providing another useful dimension to his story telling. He gives unparalleled credibility to his novels, five of which have been famous including initially “Agents of Innocence” (which got plaudits from the CIA itself) and “Body of Lies” (which was made into a great movie with Leonardo di Caprio and Russel Crow) but also “Bloodmoney”, “The Increment” and “The Director” all with a central focus on the CIA involving Jordan, Pakistan, Iran and finally Langley itself.  He also published a very good book about an exchange between Brent Scowcroft and the late Zbignew Brzezinski, then two veterans from the opposite sides of the “aisle” though non-partisan and level-headed foreign policy experts, which makes us regret another time in American history. While some have seen him as an apologist for the CIA, I have always enjoyed the quality of his craft and the precision of his story telling that always produces an amazing mix of fiction and reality very much along the lines John Le Carré did for British Intelligence and probably far more accurately given his connections.  

The Quantum Spy is about the new frontier of spying which is not cyber warfare even if we read a lot about it, only last December with the alleged cyber attacks by China on various US entities like the Navy or stories about persistent hacks of the EU Commission over recent years, not to mention the saga of Russian hacks and fake news dissemination at times of key electoral contests in the West. The Quantum Spy is focused on Artificial Intelligence or AI and quantum computing and its staggering leapfrogging developments which as always can be used for good and less good matters depending on where one stands. DI is very good at crafting the best stories taking into focus the latest genre and protagonists be they Al Qaeda, ISIS, Iran and its nuclear power quest or cyber security. Incidentally, Fredrick Forsyth, a veteran, now 80 years old, spy and international intrigue novelist (“The Day of the Jackal”, “The Dogs of War”, “The Fourth Protocol”, “The Negotiator”) just released “The Fox” with a novel plot that goes beyond sheer technology and focuses on the intersection of the mind and cyber warfare.    

The Quantum Spy starts when the CIA Deputy Director for Operations visits a tech entrepreneur who was just approached by a VC platform it turned out owned by Chinese interests to purchase his company. The entrepreneur, being a patriot and having a relative working at the CIA, decides to have a chat with Langley to see how he could “contribute”, which will happen very fast, given that quantum computing is the area the CIA also focuses on. We then go into Singapore and take part in a “convincing” session between Harris Chang, a Chinese-American agency man and his target, Dr. Ma Yubo, who is a scientist working for the Ministry of State Security, China’s main intelligence service, in the area of quantum computing. The scientist happens to know there is a mole in Langley who wants “to work on world peace” by helping China through Project “Xie” (“scorpion” – a little over the top maybe) to steal America’s edge in quantum computing so the world can share science. The crux of the story of course is to identify the mole in a backdrop of the “overseas Chinese”, as called by mainland Chinese for the Chinese Americans working for the US and all the more for the CIA (actually seen as traitors if not turned), who might naturally be subjected to ancestral calls of duty. The list of 35 suspects narrows down to five, including two Chinese Americans. We then embark on a journey into a little-known world of scientists who work, knowingly or not, for US national security with many projects being funded in the government’s hope that one will break through and “go black”when tech companies that joined the “program” leave campus to relocate on airtight intelligence compounds. Upon reaching that milestone formerly independent tech companies then find themselves in an SCIF or “Secure Compartmented Information Facility” now with only one client, their perimeter surrounded by fences and guards at the entrance. And when foreign employees have to leave as they would get no security clearance, making the CEO of that quantum computing research company lament (in a possible wink from DI) that it creates a hiring problem as “we don’t have enough smart Americans” on offer. As an added benefit for the likes of me and my 19th century skillset, readers, who will feel they are on a tour of Q’s office in the James Bond movies, get a friendly basic tutorial of the Idiot’s Guide type on “universal problem-solving” quantum computing and its Qbits, how they should ideally separate and really “cold” that world is at 450 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Incidentally in an uncanny reality joins fiction development, IBM just released the first standalone quantum computer, IBM Q System One, which is not for sale and will actually work on a capabilities’ rental basis for now.  

The “enemy” unlike most of the intelligence novels of the Cold War and the last 15 years is not Russia (I felt happy for my good Russian friends) but for a change China, which is quite topical given the news and US foreign policy approach at large, if only on trade. As an aside, China has been rapidly on the rise, putting aside temporary growing economic pains, and indeed wishes to secure a world leadership role which I see as a natural move if I were the Chinese leadership, putting aside our different conceptions of democracy and political governance however important they may be. In some ways, the Trump administration is right in making sure China is not left unchecked when and if accessing (not to say stealing) intellectual property or taking advantages of WTO rules and other similar market features on trade (*). However, that China spies on other countries to advance its interests is no news and is actually what all countries, especially major powers, do even like the U.S. via the NSA on its own allies as documented under the Obama Administration. That is not to say that the US and the West should not take counter-measures, which the former in particular should do in conjunction with its Western allies instead of antagonising them, also on trade matters. Personally I am more in favour of engaging with China and working with China on trade and other matters with the objective of anchoring them in a multi-dependant world where all parties benefit even if at times in different areas. This approach is sounder than the actual and inimitable Trump style of launching trade wars where nobody wins (as the soybean producers and their employees in the Midwest, many of whom supported a more assertive and “America First” Trump style and policies, would now attest). Once again it does not mean that the West should not react in cases of spying as in the case of cyber attacks against the EU which would have gone on for years. Engagement with China should not preclude firm stances when the line is crossed so all parties’ focus should be on win-win and mutual benefits and growth.  

     The Quantum Spy is also a look into the Chinese intelligence apparatus which is far less well known by readers than their equivalent in Russia with the old KGB and more recent FSB and SVR. We see the surprising rivalries between services epitomised with the fight between the Ministry of State Security, which would be the equivalent of an MI6, and the PLA (People’s Liberation Army)’s various units known by a number such as 2PLA in the book.  The services are vying for intelligence leadership and control with 2PLA naturally carrying the ideological party torch while the MSS would be a hotbed of corruption and laxity also generated by too much proximity to the West over the years in their work. The MSS-PLA feud is also a reflection of Shanghai, where MSS staffers usually come from, vs. the rest divide and a rejection of the internationalist elite in a strange “déjà vu” for us Westerners. Incidentally Ma Jian, the vice head of the MSS and counter-intelligence who was arrested for corruption in 2015 in one of the PLA-driven periodic purges was condemned on 27th December for life in jail as he would have received illicitly EUR 14 m equivalent from Guo Wengui, one of the Chinese billionaires and regime critics now asking for political asylum in the US. This is another example of the campaign by Xi-Jinping to eradicate corruption since its leadership started in 2012, resulting one can read in a staggering number of 1.5 million sanctions of party and related officials to date. As China is involved, you can expect a few mentions of Sun-Tsu’s  Art of War and the expected Tao of Deception in the way the MSS will handle Project “Xie” though this approach is no longer Chinese as the book will show.  

Lastly The Quantum Spy is also about the Chinese-Americans and what it means to be one. They are Americans through and through, “red, white and blue” (as in the case of Harris Chang, a former U.S. Marine major with stints in Iraq) some of whom working for the government while carrying an heritage that is more vivid than that of European descent. Whilst they do not experience overt racism as African Americans still may and are a minority that has been hugely successful in all aspects of American life, they are not part of the mainstream but dwindling white majority that has made America. There are still a lot of involuntary reminders that their skin is not white as old habits are slow to die even if they do. While Chinese students have excelled at joining top universities (to the point some feel discriminated against as affirmative action benefitting other minorities reduced their intake) they are still organised as associations on campuses, as we see in the book and are quick to defend their rights when feeling these are trampled. One of the features of the book is the drive by the MSS to remind those Chinese-Americans of their roots so they finally do the “right thing'” and indeed help China’s interests. Not being a specialist of this specific matter it is hard to assess the relevance and accuracy of that drive though my own experience dealing with Chinese-Americans in the field of business is that they are more American than Chinese, at times not even speaking the language fluently. This is not to say that obvious roots would not be a fertile ground for China to exploit in order to gain an advantage in many areas though like with anything the individual traits may matter more than race itself in terms of succeeding to exploit those roots.  

The Quantum Spy is a very well-written, multi-facetted book with a great story pace and host of characters who do not carry black and white (or yellow, if I may) features and also reflect the ever changing battlefield of intelligence in our times. Once again DI projects his known credibility in relation to intelligence story-telling and writing craft and it is no surprise that both Leon E. Panetta and Michael Hayden, who ran the CIA under two very different administrations from 2006 to 2011 have only praise for DI and his realism and “could not put down” the book. 

Going back to old ways, I dedicate this book note to my young friend Qi, doubtless a patriot and a man with global lenses. 

Warmest regards,
Serge                                                                     

(*) It should be noted that China has made great conciliatory moves recently in amending the laws to ban forced technology transfers from foreign companies operating in China, responding to Western concerns over cyber-espionnage or having 38 governmental agencies agreeing to crackdown on Intellectual Property rights infringements – also as China saw these moves as “win-win”. For more read the excellent FT op-ed from Key Jin in the FT dated 3 January 2019. 

It is clear that the Huawei-originated diplomatic spat between China and Canada (started with the jailing of Huawei’s CFO in Canada on espionage-related grounds) may overshadow these positive developments especially when a Canadian drug smuggler is now having to appeal a death sentence in China, creating, aside from the unusually harsh but hardly innocent sentencing, a very tough case that may not help soothe relationships with the West at a time of trade disputes even if it may hopefully be a tactical move on the part of the Middle Kingdom.          

28-12-18

Dear Partners in thought,

I would like to speak to you about “Roller-Coaster – Europe 1950-2017” a book by British historian Sir Ian Kershaw on the story of Europe and in superimposition the European Union and its predecessors in the years following WWII to our days. IK is one of the leading British historians today having made his mark with “Hitler” and “The End”, the former depicting the rise and years in power of the fateful German dictator and the latter going into the fall of Nazi Germany in late 1944 and early 1945. It is a fascinating book all the more for those who were alive during the period but were too close to it to understand it fully. It is a monumental book that captures the road traveled for 70 years focusing on its main themes but also providing ample details at many relevant levels. It is also a very timely opus at a time when the EU is going through struggling times and Britain is in the midst of dealing with Brexit in what is the most important crisis of its post-WWII history. While IK goes through modern European story and the major world events that impacted it, starting with the Korean war, he also spends time on the societal changes that took place in Europe and the world and altered perceptions of race, gender, religious belief and many features of humanity.  Incidentally this book is clearly important to understand where the EU (and its predecessors) comes from and has achieved for its member countries’s populations especially in times when easy attacks against its very nature and institutions fuse from extremist parties wanting to win elections in pointing the finger “outside”, this time to Bruxelles as the source of all ills in a well-tested fashion.

Looking at the various chapters of IK’s great book, which is a gold mine for all the detailed events that took place since 1950 in Europe, it should be fair that my comments are tainted by my own analysis of these though bearing in mind that IK and I would belong to a broadly similar camp of thoughts. In any case, the book is a must read for anyone wanting to get a very thorough account of that period of European history, especially for the younger generations who have not lived through it and thus lack historical memory to understand our times.      

In The Tense Divide, IK brings us to the real start of the Cold War with a world dividing itself in two hostile camps years only after the greatest onslaught in the history of humankind with far out events affecting Europe very directly and organisations such as NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) or the quickly aborted EDC (European Defence Community) being set up, the former as a US-led Western response to the Soviet threat in Europe. Interestingly the US already thought Europeans were not doing enough cost-wise to defend themselves while many European countries were wary of getting West Germany rearmed, the latter which did not really happen even if it contributed in other ways. It is the time of the nuclear weapon and space races which will redefine what war would mean. We are reminded of nuggets such as the Soviet Union wanting to join NATO for tactical reasons only to be rejected while the famed “missile gap” becomes a major driver for the US hawks like John F. Dulles to engage the Soviets only to realise much later that the US had 17 times more usable nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union when JFK entered the White House. It is a time of fear and resolve and one where conflicting forces seek to shape the future of a new, post-war Europe and world when the former still held centerstage in global affairs.     

In The Making of Western Europe, IK goes through the European project which should be a great reading for our times when it is under attack with Brexit and extremist parties even if counter-intuitively polls today show that there is an increasing majority of citizens of EU member countries supporting the EU. It shows the incremental steps, initially focused on coal and steel but growing wider and the key roles played by the main proponents of Europe such as Konrad Adenauer or Jean Monnet with their “never again” overriding peace driver especially between France and Germany that had been at war three times (if we include Prussia) since 1870. It is actually amazing to see that this construction of a new Europe takes place involving the fiercest earlier foes only years after WWII and in spite of all the atrocities that were unleashed. Reason seems to prevail with a departure from wanting to make the loser, all the more given what it stood for, “pay” like at Versailles in 1919, also as another mega-conflict looms and all hands will be needed on deck.    

In The Clamp, IK goes through the less than smooth tightening of the Soviet noose over all of Central and Eastern Europe and how that process went with the Yugoslav break-up (1948) and eruptions of nationalistic backlash in Berlin (1953), Budapest (1956), Prague (1968) and later in Warsaw (1981) with various degrees of bloodshed. Unlike today nationalism in the East was associated with patriotism and a fight for independence. The Communist parties throughout Central & Eastern Europe win elections like in Czechoslovakia and tighten the noose while gradually eliminating any dissent. This approach is also tried in Western Europe, like France and Italy, where the local Communist parties are the strongest in the political landscape and basking in the WWII victory also enabled by Soviet forces but will ultimately fail.         

In Good Times, IK goes through the economic prosperity associated with the post-war era, this for 30 years roughly until the 1973 oil shock and was named in France “Les Trente Glorieuses” (the glorious thirty). It was a time of societal advancement where people could climb up the ladder (a distant memory for our times and many as judged by the recent Yellow Vests uprising in France) even if some countries like Britain suffered shortages for many years until the fifties. It is a time when households can afford the new tools of prosperity like a television or a washing machine and cars become affordable and an increasing social status symbol across Western Europe and particularly its leading economies.  

In Culture after the Catastrophe, IK reviews the changes in the art, literature, theatre, music, religious attitudes and popular culture that took place in Europe against a Cold War backdrop. European culture during the 1950-1970 prosperity era in the West looked into the future with an increasing optimism. There was a deep sense that mankind coud achieve anything with an almost religious belief in science as exemplified by military-led early space exploration and the many advancements in medicine. Pop music becomes the ubiquitous medium and universal language of the youth which listen to Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the West but also increasingly beyond the Iron Curtain representing the first signs of what would become an irreversible freedom course in later years. All is not easy as Europe goes from an unremitting despair brought by the greatest slaughter it ever knew to reach a present day of shallowness of the beginning of a materialistic consumer society that people equate with happiness. Some cannot forget as shown with the famed line of philosopher Theodor Adorno: “To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” which encapsulates the struggle between the shadow of the past and the desire to break from that past and also its values. Most people wanted to forget and not revisit past misery, squarely looking at the future. In the 1950s and 1960s interest in the two world wars and the Holocaust were actually much lower than in the last quarter of the century as if the memories were too vivid and impossible to handle.      

In Challenges, IK deals with the strong “political turbulence” experienced, west and east, during the late sixties in quite different ways. In the West with the student protests and riots and the request for more individual freedoms of being. In the East with the Prague Spring and the quest for national freedom. The turbulence did not last for very long but had a deep impact especially beyond the Iron Curtain and was a prelude to the eventual fall of the Soviet bloc, which reacted quite harshly to this evolution and demand for freedom. The Invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968 was the last lesson the Soviets imparted on its bloc in Europe that led to a strengthening of all the regimes in the region, some mixing it with some superficial gifts of freedom (Poland and Hungary) with strong doses of local nationalism. In Western Europe, the changes brought by the student protests and their revendications for “other values” came at a time when the economic boom would stall, creating a different backdrop for a new age.          

In The Turn, IK focuses on the end of the good times and indeed the 1973 oil shock that prompted the end of the long lasting post-war boom at many economic and societal levels with the “negative primacy of economics” taking hold. Incidentally the oil shock of 1973 propelled  the oil barrel from USD 2.76 to USD 9.76 while the second oil shock set the barrel to USD 50 with its massive adverse economic impact, a level which in a crashing oil market in 2018 is considered abysmally low forty years on but in a much different and heavily globalised economy. This is the end of optimism that had characterised the previous two decades but the period also carries its fair share of positive developments with the peaceful end of authoritarian regimes in Spain, Portugal and Greece. The seventies appear as a transition decade also market by a “detente” between the superpowers and their two camps only to end when a “second Cold War” seems to start with the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and at the beginning of the eighties as the Soviet Union struggles to find a path forward at the end of the Brezhnev era that will herald a quick succession of caretaker leaders until Gorbachev.    

In Easterly Wind of Change, IK focuses on Mikhail Gorbatchev, the new Soviet leader as of March 1985, and Perestroika (reconstruction) which would change the nature of the ossified Soviet Union ultimately to a point of extinction on 25th December 1991 after its sphere had already collapsed after its own regional bloc in late 1989. This chapter is key as it marks the end of a divided Europe and indeed a world which for ten years will be globally unipolar and growing with the US at its helm, this without major crises in Europe with the notable exception of the Balkan wars pitting former Yugoslav states against each other and reminding the world of atrocities not seen on the old continent since WWII. While the world grows linearly and without major troubles, other powers start slowly emerging like China while a chaotic post-Soviet while Yeltsin-led Russia feels increasingly neglected by the world leader and Cold War winner, paving the way for a resurgent power seeking back its national pride under Putin.  

In Power of the People, IK deals with the period 1989-1991, which many of us lived through and was a true European revolution, largely fresh of bloodshed, enabled by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbatchev and combined by the power of the people in all the nations of Central & Eastern Europe under Soviet control. Such a revolution was enabled by the gradual disintegration of the Soviet Union whose leadership allowed for the collapse of its satellites states throughout CEE. There had been a prelude in 1980 with the Solidarnosc (Solidarity) movement that was later banned but was a catalyst for many in the Soviet Bloc. In late 1989 all the Soviet satellite regimes collapsed one after the other in a very short time period, most peacefully, like the DDR (with the actual Berlin Wall collapse), Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, some more bloodily like Romania where 1,000 lost their lives, including leader Nikolai Ceaucescu and his wife. German reunification quickly ensued even if serious concerns were initially raised by Britain and France but also the Netherlands remembering a strong Germany and its habits of overreaching. Ultimately that revolution would end with the collapse of the Soviet Union itself, which its leader who had put the whole winds of change in motion had never wanted and would even regret.      

In New Beginnings, IK focuses on the early years of transition following the end of the European divide which after a period of joy shifted to ethnic war in the former Yugoslavia and a feeling of misplaced hopes of rapid life changes for the populations of CEE that were faced with a strong economic transition while Western Europe was trying to unite more through the EU and the changes heralded by the Maastricht treaty. These new beginnings marked by challenging and hopeful developments would go on until 9-11 in New York which were the real start of a new century with a markedly different agenda where Islamic fundamentalism, once barely noticed, would be the new challenge for the West and indeed Europe.   

In Global Exposure, IK goes through the dual narrative of the West’s fight against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism (and its consequences such as the invasion of Iraq and the unsettling of the Middle East) as well as the advent of a globalised world which would in turn bring its many political and economic challenges. A greater number of ordinary Europeans become more aware of the intrusion of the rest of the world into their lives, this being maximised by the rapid spread of the internet. The new millenium was marked by two deep societal events: i) The 9-11 attacks albeit on US soil had a profound impact on Europe beyond the devastating introduction of Islamic Terrorism for the US in terms of attitudes towards immigration and multiculturalism and ii) the arrival of the globalised economy and its pervasive effects on everyday life all enhanced by computer technology developments and the vast expansion of a deregulated financial sector, all with instantaneous connectivity across the globe, creating an interconnected and interdependent world as never before and relying upon the credo that it would bring both growth and peace as nations that trade prosper and don’t make war.         

In Crisis Years, IK addresses the economic crisis dubbed the “Great Recession” that started in 2008 which was a turning point in the positive story behind globalisation and free markets, particularly financial. The Greek crisis as major test for the Greek people but even more so for EU resilience with the first attack on the German continental view of the future and the globalisation credo led by Alexis Tsipras (who would, like Matteo Salvini today, be more concilient later on) and Yanis Varoufakis (who would never relent even after leaving office while aptly marketing his message through lucrative books and speech tours).  The Syrian war that takes place at the end of the Arab Spring, itself a consequence of the US desire to reshape the Middle East in the 2000s leads to the most massive influx of migrants from various regions into Europe, creating crisis points notably in Italy. This massive influx of migrants in 2015 leads Germany and Angela Merkel to open borders based both on humanitarian reasons but more so on quasi-existential demographic shortages, this leading to strong opposition and the rise of populist movements across Europe. Russia finally reasserts control of its historical near abroad, scuppering EU dreams of eastern expansion, by seizing control of Ukrainian Crimea albeit a Russian-populated area and starts supporting separatist movements in eastern Ukraine, prompting the beginning of a new quasi-Cold War with sanctions being levelled at Russia and its oligarchs’ interests globally. Brexit, once unthinkable, becomes the potential future of Britain in June 2016 after a referendum that was not needed and a campaign where facts were markedly low and emotions high on both sides.   IK finishes his book addressing what is a “new era of insecurity” where history is “now” as we live through events unfolding in front of our eyes, at times too close to the action to fully understand them while being peppered by news, often via now omnipresent social media, that project news that are either increasingly biased and fact-less or far too many to absorb. Europe has been a roller-coaster of ups and downs with a heady mixture of great achievements, severe disappointments and even disasters. Europe abruptly left the insecurity of the Cold War to reach the insecurity of the multi-facetted crisis of the last decade with the strong economic blows of the Great Recession, the multiple Al-Qaeda and ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks on its soil, an externally resurgent Russia looking for a lost role, an overtly and determined ambitious China on the path for global leadership and now the rise of populism under its many forms filled by fears of the adverse impacts of globalisation, uncontrolled immigration and an ever technology-driven world altering minds and eating jobs while creating social divides between its elites and the “left outs”. Europeans should however remember that they are now living peacefully, in freedom and under the rule of law especially those residing in EU-member states and as an integral part of the leading economic bloc in the world, some of us at times forgetting what they take for granted.  
I highly recommend this book as for some of us born and living in that old world and regardless of nations, it is about who we are, Europeans.  

Warmest regards,
Serge  

Serge Desprat- Dec 28, 2018 (Prague)