Author: Desp(e)rat(e) measures

22-2-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

I would like to share with you a new book on warfare since 1945 by two well-known specialists of the subject. One is General David Petraeus, one of the leading American military commanders (and indeed thinkers) who was CIA Director under Obama (before sadly and to some unfairly having to resign due to an affair with his “All in” biographer). The other is Andrew Roberts, one of the leading British military historians also known for his famed “Napoléon” and “Churchill” biographies. I realize the topic is a tough one and some will think I relish writing on sad matters, but I thought it was an interesting one, all the more so as we are going into the third year of a war of invasion in Ukraine—an event which upended the relatively quiet and very productive post-Cold War globalization world we knew. “Conflict” is clearly a very dense book which a Book Note could not give the right credit for. To be fair, each chapter and its wars, that are described chronologically, would deserve a Book Note of its own—if not a whole book.     

Given the return of war in Europe, Russia is of course front and center of the authors’ considerations. Throughout history, Russia has always had a peculiar approach to using military forces, not necessarily to the benefit of its own soldiers. Eighty per cent of the soldiers who died fighting Nazi Germany did so on the Eastern front – these were Soviet forces, not including the millions of Soviet civilians who lost their lives as German forces went East in 1941. Russia registered five times more war dead in one year of the Ukraine invasion than in a decade in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Ukraine war is a regressive WW2-type war in terms of its warfare approach. Strategic leadership being key in modern warfare, the authors stress that the failure of Russia to win, all the more given its assumed military might, is a testimony to its inherent weakness. In a way, Russia’s military unwittingly showed Russian forces more appropriate for grand military parades of a North Korean style as seen in the May Day victory parades to celebrate the victory over Nazi Germany. Russian victories require masses of soldiers and casualties rather than sheer strategic brio—this perhaps reinforced by the inherent leadership weakness of commanders primarily chosen for their obedience. This assessment does not mean they will not win in Ukraine as time goes on, and the West gets tired or immersed into domestic political games and considerations—as vividly seen in the US.    

The authors make clear they are not writing a comprehensive history of all conflicts, while their focus is on the evolution of warfare through strategy, tactics and weapons and what happened on major battlefields. When looking at warfare, the 20^th century yielded more violent deaths than at any time since the beginning of the history of the world. 1945 and the end of WW2, a victory for a nascent West that would be solidified by the rising Cold War, was a time of hope. President Truman even abolished the OSS – Office of Strategic Services -, the predecessor of the soon to be CIA, in September 1945, within one month of the victory in the Pacific theater. Europe and the US were no longer at war, even if conflicts would ignite—such as with the Indian sub-continent partition that would give rise to Pakistan and the India we know, the Palestine conflict in 1948 (there to stay as we sadly see), and the Chinese civil war leading to the creation of an independent Taiwan (another sensitive spot 75 years later). Potential war on a large, if not unseen, scale then started gradually with the US and then Russia developing a nuclear arsenal, and MAD or the Mutually Assured Destruction strategy (during the Cold War, the US and Russia undertook 1,032 and 715 nuclear and then thermonuclear tests, incidentally leading to serious medical conditions in Kazakhstan where Moscow conducted 50% of its tests). One could say that MAD worked, as the two arch-enemies did not wage war directly for nearly half a century, before the Soviet Union collapsed, and globalization became the focus of all world powers.

In “The Death of the Dream of Peace” (1945-1953) the authors start with the world digesting the biggest conflict the world ever knew with the Chinese civil war, pitching Kuomintang leader Chiang vs. Communist Party leader Mao. This civil war, that few of us know well in the West, had started as the war against Japan was also waged, creating a very confusing overall battlefield. While Chiang’s Kuomintang had initially 2.5 million men under arms vs. half a million for Mao’s party, the latter leader inspired by Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” was far more agile tactically, avoiding direct confrontation when he could. Mao was also more in command than Chiang, with soldiers devoted to him and their cause, while the Kuomintang leaders were often more focused on internal politics and not caring so much about their forces. Mao was also more flexible—even using 200,000 soldiers who had fought for Japan—while being very rash in executing 150,000 soldiers opposing Communism. Chiang, supported by the West, lost a war that he should have won if only on sheer numbers, due to strategic and tactical mistakes that were not expected, and led to a retreat to Formosa and the Taiwan situation we still live with. The Chinese civil war, and its staggering six million deaths, showed that guerilla warfare carried out by much smaller Maoist forces could prevail against a Western-backed government much more powerful on paper. Then the Korean war broke out, when North Korea invaded south of the 38^th parallel Blitzkrieg style with 135,000 forces following Kim Il-sung’s decision being blessed by then Soviet Stalin (Kim Ill-sung was the father of Kim Jong Il, himself the father of Kim Jong Un, the current leader – North Korea being a family business). The Korean War, as it became known, was the first invasion of a country and, with the Chinese Civil War, the largest commitment of forces since WW2. It was also the start of surprise attacks—that we saw for decades to come with the 1967 War, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the 1982 Falklands War, the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, 9-11—where the attacker usually gets a much stronger response than its initial offensive however dreadful (a feature we still see to this day). It was also a war that unified most the West led by the US, (Truman having already lost China) via the UN, and so many of its members against one single enemy, which would keep its aggressive style in the Korean peninsula literally for generations. One of the amazing features of that war was the egotism of MacArthur who commanded the Western/United Nations (88% American) forces and the little-known fact that he was leading from Japan.  The Korean War that started very well, ended up in a Western retreat that was only saved by General Ridgway who replaced MacArthur after his criticism of President’s Truman limited war and his many ineptitudes as a military commander. Petraeus and Roberts give us a forgotten account of one of the leading intelligence disasters post-WW2 when the Chinese were able to move massive forces into Korea undetected, and Russian fighter pilots assisted North Korea while passing for North Koreans. This war cemented the existence of the famed 38^th parallel separating the two countries and led to what we still see today, with the aggressive moves and statements of Kim Jong Un.           

The book is too rich and dense to keep within the scope of a regular Book Note, so I will keep the great contents to be discovered and thoroughly appreciated. In “Wars of decolonization” (1947-1975) the authors deal with the old British and French powers in Asia and Africa and the demise of their old empires.  In “From the Sinai to Port Stanley” (1967-1982) the authors discuss the Six Day War up to the famed Falklands War, which saw Margaret Thatcher showing what Britain could do in 1982 to preserve its global power and historical reputation.

In “The Cold War Denouement” the authors deal with the most key event post-WW2, which is the end of the biggest rivalry of the 20^th century leading to the end of the Soviet Union. In “The New World Disorder” (1991-1999) the authors cover a period where the rules are rewritten gradually and led by the US and by extension the West. In “The War of Afghanistan” (2001-2021) the authors do not deal with the Soviet war we all remember, but the one that started post-9-11 when US forces dislodged Al Qaeda and ended the Taliban rule for twenty years, only to let it back in two years ago—this with a reputational blow to US leadership and a disgrace for women and young girls. In “The Iraq War” the authors deal with another 9-11-related war. One that was also a continuation of the war that President George H.W. Bush did not want to end by seizing Baghdad in 1990, but his son orchestrated on the false premise Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (leading to Colin Powell losing some of his well-deserved aura as he famously made the wrong case). This war, opposed by Western countries like France, led to what became known as the Arab Spring with unimageable consequences for the Middle East. In “Vladimir Putin’s Existential War against Ukraine (2022-)” the authors focus on the return of history in Europe and a Russia going back to imperial delusion. Finally, the authors deal with the “The Wars of the Future”—conflicts that will involve expected tech features, where AI would not be absent. After the book was already published, history repeated itself putting Israel back at the forefront of Middle Eastern warfare with its global implications.

“Conflict” is a great book both in terms of history as well as tactical and strategic warfare, the latter being the focus for Petraeus and Roberts. It is not easy reading and is very detailed, one of the useful features being to remind us of many episodes of history that we might have forgotten, even if war is unexpectedly and sadly back on our menu these days. If anything, it reminds us, especially in Europe, that, while war is not desirable, it is not just a matter for history books. As the Roman author Publius Flavius Venetius Renatus used to say: “Si vis pacem para bellum” (if you want peace prepare for war), a quote that NATO, a reflection of the essential and hopefully enduring transatlantic alliance, would support, all the more in our Europe today.   

Warmest regards,

Serge             

24-1-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we go into 2024 we see many articles, in leading publications and from think tanks, stressing the key challenges the world will be facing due to many issues like an increasingly politically unstable America, an ongoing Ukraine war, or a worsening Middle East. As we go into an election year in America and many liberal and not so liberal democracies globally (70, or half of the world population), it is useful to look at the drivers of liberal democratic decline in the West. While addressing this matter, it is worth noting that elections are also held in countries like Russia, but they are more formal than real, with the outcome already known and thus not a sign of democracy.

The main issues that have hurt our democratic West are a hodgepodge of features, at times inter-linked, that, put together, foster a weakened socio-political system that keeps gradually declining, while simpler autocracies and dictatorships keep thriving the world over. Some of these features are the drastic change of younger generations’ political views, the impact of “hate” social media, the decline in formal education, the excesses of capitalism, the mismanaged migration used as a populist selling point, and the lack of defense readiness on the part of most countries – all while rational discourse increasingly falls on deaf ears.       

The hodgepodge of Western democratic decline features

The young, who used to demonstrate in major cities the Western world-over in 1968, while wanting governments to adopt very radical economic and social policies, are no longer there, many having grown up conservative or far more moderate in a natural life development. However, today younger generations are often keener to adopt extreme-right policies to deal with key issues such as immigration. The extreme-right National Rally led by Marine Le Pen, now the second political party in France, and a serious contender to lead the country in 2027, enjoys the support of a large part of the younger French today.

Social media have contributed to the younger generations adopting extreme policies, as knowledge is no longer perceived to be based on classical education and schools, but laptop screens and indeed social media. While each country is different, the young generation, as they reach voting age, naturally listen more easily to populist leaders who reflect the extreme views on many a social media channel. The older generations – especially the 60+ age group – will generally tend to be the ones to uphold traditional liberal democratic values, also as they have a more vivid knowledge of the 20^th century with its two World Wars and nuclear bomb-flavored Cold War.   

The lack of formal education is also becoming a feature (if not a factor) of younger voters backing extreme-right candidates or populist leaders. The US is a case in point, with the vast majority of voters with no college degrees – young or not – backing Trump who, in typical fashion, claims to love “the uneducated ones”. Interestingly the college-educated Americans nicknamed by economist Thomas Piketty “the Brahmin Left” tend to shift to liberal positions also as a reaction to Trump populism, also often reflecting their residing in large urban centers, which tend to be less conservative or indeed reactionary than rural areas.   

Capitalism is not helping today. Free markets, that underpinned Western and world growth, are out of control. There is a feeling of Wild West at play, that is also worsening feelings of social inequalities. Growing up the ladder through work, and indeed capitalism, is no longer clear to many. Leading capitalist figures such as Musk, Bezos or Zuckerberg, who are the new and even more powerful Rockefeller or Vanderbilt, while highly successful, are hardly role models (even if Bill Gates and others are around). In addition, the wealth of the top five billionaires has more than doubled since 2020, creating a further social disconnect. Recent news such as the annual salary and dividends of GBP300 m of Denise Coates, the CEO of Bet363, the UK gambling group is simply out of the world we knew. While US CEOs earned 21 times the average salary in 1965, today’s number is 344 times. The news that Taylor Swift, a clearly business-gifted singer, became a billionaire in 2023 are senseless at too many levels, all the more given the inequalities the world (including the West) knows, even if such situations are created as people, at times struggling, attend her concerts and buy her songs. Capitalism has become a system of excesses that are allowed by the legal system that is used and protected by its beneficiaries and their vast wealth, under the pretense that all benefit.

Migration is a key issue in the US today, like it was in Europe since 2015-16, and the aftermath of the Arab Spring, that also created local civil wars, prompting many to go for a better life elsewhere. Migration is used by hard right parties as a tool to grab votes in the name of national identity, while the problem today is also more acute than ever, as seen by the US-Mexican borders or on Italian shores. The problem has been compounded by a combination of moderate European governments losing much voter support through not wanting to adopt policies that would have been seen as akin to racial discrimination, while also needing cheap labor for their economy – as was the case for Merkel’s German economy nearly ten years ago, thus setting precedents that kept encouraging unwanted migration.

Apart from the US, the West and especially Europe may not be prepared today for an unwanted major war scenario. Old military powers, like France and Britain, are still very good at special operations, as often seen in the Middle East and Africa. But the talented professional soldiers on their own might not be able to counter a large-scale military aggression from a country like Russia and its allies in Europe. After 30 years of peaceful globalization, we live in times taking us back to the 20^th century and its major conflicts. As a Dutch senior commander of NATO rightfully sadly stated, the populations of Europe would simply not be ready or able to fight today, even to defend their freedom and democratic system. This fact also reflects a lack of community feeling at the national level of many countries, whose populations are no longer concerned on matters of war and peace or freedom preservation, as if those themes were from another age.     

Rational discourse no longer resonates well with many voters also, when they face daily situations like those living in the Southern American borders with Mexico. Principles are hard to matter in those cases also, as time goes by and nothing happens to fix what is not livable with 35% of Republican voters (likely hard core and Trump supporters) still believe in a rising trend that the “January 6” insurrection that stormed the US Capitol was a product of the FBI, which defies any logic. Ninety-one indictments against Trump do not seem to matter to his supporters, who feel invigorated by these actual facts, as if they were proof of a conspiracy by a deep state against their good leader.  Re-elections of moderate governments look increasingly challenging, with polls showing only a one-third success rate across Western countries today (although polls do change as elections get closer and are under-way).     

It is also clear that once rising to power, or having won key elections, many populist leaders, especially in Western countries, put “water in their wine” as the French would say. The recent examples of Georgia Meloni, as Italian prime minister, is very telling, but so are the examples of Geert Wilders in Netherlands or so far Javier Milei in Argentina. The reality of power, all the more in major Western countries, dictates populist winners to throw away many of their principles, a fact that should be stressed to the younger generations and all voters. All the more so as these populist winners are made to win elections these days, but not to exercise power in the best of ways, also given their overall backgrounds.    

Some thoughts to revive the Western liberal democratic course

While possibly naïve, there are solutions which, put together, could change the self-harming decline of Western democracy, and indeed civilization. These simple, but at times tough measures, all inter-linked and part of a Western society revival program, could involve an old-fashioned return to more driven parental guidance, civic education in schools, more sensible regulation of social media, increased taxes of top corporate and individual earners, as well as new tech developments like AI, and more realistic policies on the part of Western governments on issues like migration, as well as the institution, or return, of a national military service given our challenging times and societal needs.

Some could argue that this proposed wide-ranging approach would amount to a form of “dirigisme” that would go against liberalism and its spirit of “laissez faire” (do what you want), but countries need to go back to better social frameworks through which liberalism and democracy can endure. Liberalism should not be a tool for chaos, and our times require some decisive action, both from democratic governments and societies at large in partnerships – so we can survive and keep thriving.    

Both parents (admittedly in traditional families) and schools should work together to ensure that children in their teenage years are able to deal with domestic and world issues in a rational and sensible way. Parents should be more assertive in taking care of their children, and not allow them to stay for hours locked in their rooms watching and listening to social media, whose contents are often damaging to society, or playing video games for hours at a time (on a light note, this approach will come short of dealing with “watching one’s phone while walking down the street” so as to avoid any collision but it is a sound start). Schools, starting in early grades, should develop civic duty courses focused on societal and political matters, stressing the different viewpoints attached to them. The parental-school partnership goal would be to decrease the “hate” social media mind invasion, while giving children a fairer understanding of the issues of our time, and why democracy needs to be preserved.  It is worth noting that some Western governments are already taking some steps, as seen with President Macron’s proposed policies—part of his “civic rearmament” in January to regulate children’s screen time, and also introduce compulsory school uniforms, the latter to develop some better sense of community beyond social differences. 

Regulations should be more severe as to the hate contents from social media, while being fair as to freedom of speech, the latter a challenging balance to reach and an issue especially sensitive in the US today. The point is not to favor any political agenda, but to bring some normalcy leading to more reasonable thinking, and thus approaches to key societal matters, all the more by young generations who will also grow up and lead societies in the future. Similarly, and putting aside all their clear benefits, tech and AI companies should be regulated in a suitable manner to ensure they do not end up “managing” societies directly or indirectly. The EU has already taken steps, now followed by the US, to control notably Big Tech more adequately, also given their strong financial power and massive societal clout.    

Taxation should be reviewed, ideally in a coordinated manner throughout the West, to ensure that sanity comes back and net earnings are no longer out of this world, this for corporations and individuals, and not to let a societal disconnect, however legally framed, to endure. There is a need for governments to keep supporting fair free markets while restoring societal sanity via taxation and fund the lives of those in real need, so as to preserve the social contract. Similarly, AI companies should be taxed in a way that would help fund jobs to be likely lost by so many individuals due to this key tech development that is still unclear and quite worrisome as to its real benefits for society and its well-being (it is amusing to know that both Bernie Sanders and Bill Gates suggested a tax for “job-taking robots” in the past). While the West would engage in a societally-driven tax reassessment it would take appropriate measures to ensure that countries that do not follow suit, or top earning corporates or individuals that move to low if not zero tax jurisdictions, do not benefit from any resulting economic advantage and are publicly identified – putting the start of an end to new non-exotic tax paradises as they would think of rising.   

Government policies led by liberal democratic governments should be able to address sensitive issues liberal democrats traditionally averted from managing, out of social unease, like immigration. It should not be an expression of Nazism to want one’s country to keep its national identity and manage a sensible immigration program. Nor should it be forbidden to enforce the control of one’s own borders. New approaches to these issues would deprive extremist populist parties from winning elections across the West, while forgetting about them once in power and facing its reality. Democracies need to address unwanted migration as it should be, and frontally – with care for all parties involved, notably their own citizens. It would be best to set and enforce workable policies to deal frontally with unwanted immigration, while realizing that some immigration is needed in many key economic and social sectors in the West, and avoiding drastic and last resort questionable programs of shipping back individuals to Rwanda or Albania.    

Finally, there is a dual need to restore a sense of community at the national level of most Western countries, while getting their populations better ready to defend their freedom, and indeed liberal democracy, against any aggression from autocratic powers using wars as an easier way to cement their power at home. The best way to achieve this dual objective, that is key given our newly challenging times, is to institute or re-institute a form of national military service to educate young populations in the basic art of warfare, and also to cement national communities across social classes. Until the mid-1990s, France had a one-year military service for all physically able young men to train them on military matters and give them a sense of national belonging. The end of the Cold War put an end to that process which could be restarted with EU nations also managing exchange programs, as a way to cement the EU project. And young women could also take part in this key process. From a geostrategic standpoint, European nations alone should reconsider national military services, all the more so in the context of a potential return of Donald Trump in the White House and an always-possible withdrawal from NATO (some even seeing this drastic scenario as a disguised blessing, needed to build a stronger and more independent EU or Europe).      

Those suggestions, the list of which could easily be increased, would be clearly challenging, if not impossible for some, to put in place. There is no simple solution, but a concerted and inter-linked approach, which while not being perfect, may be the only way to focus the minds and gradually reverse a trend that risks destroying a still-young historical concept we call modern liberal democracy. Holding elections is not enough today, and may lead to autocracy going forward. Doing nothing and hoping for the best only benefits ill-equipped populist-extremists without any meaningful societal gains in sight. 

Warmest regards

Serge

8-1-24

Dear Partners in Thought,

As we went through the challenging COP28, the latest annual episode of the global grand mass of climate change fighting, hosted by leading oil producer Dubai (creating much early controversy), I thought it would be useful to recap key features of what we know as climate change or global warming and ways to fight it. This Interlude will be thus focused on basic facts and thoughts about where we are on this key matter for human civilization and how to fight it best. While geopolitical unrest and wars we know matter, there are issues that also need our focus, this for future generations and indeed human civilization.

While I am keen on the world doing its best to alleviate the causes of global warming, it is admittedly a new field for me. I was born the year of JFK’s presidential win, a time when we were rightly focused on economic growth, while gradually adjusting to a post-WW2 Cold War that would last for another 30 years. It would also lead to a growing globalization that many of us start regretting today, given its key peaceful features. Very few of us thought about the impact of carbon dioxide in our lives, being very happy to drive great cars and enjoy flying the world over.

Here are a few key points focused on global warming and some of its contributors. I hope that all my scientific friends and experts will forgive me for excessively summarizing matters.       

1. Climate change is unequivocal since 2007 with thousands of research studies clearly making the case, together with its human involvement, since the Industrial Revolution. Climate change worsened in a much warmer way as economic growth was the clear focus, also fueled by consumer demand that industries naturally responded to at a time when climate did not matter. 

• While the climate was warmer millions of years ago (by ten degrees), global warming accelerated much faster over the last 10,000 years due to human impact and, again, the need for economic development since the mid-19^th century. That development itself had a faster path in the 20^th and fast-globalized (until now) 21^st centuries.   

• The concentration of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere has risen by 42% since 1850. Today and as Saudi Arabia and Russia know only too well 40bn tons of CO₂ are released every year by the fossil fuel industry globally.

• While CO₂ in small doses is helpful to avoid the planet freezing, its human-produced quantities have massively contributed to global warming (even more than other natural culprits, like volcanoes). As the Earth needs to adjust its temperature by evacuating excess CO₂, decarbonization has become a key strategic matter for industries well beyond profit-making.

• CO₂ also clearly stimulates the growth of plants, through what is known as “greening” which is a positive development even though it consumes more water. This has resulted in a more intensive agriculture in China and India, though without compensating for the tropical deforestation we saw in Brazil in recent years and its associated biodiversity loss. Forests also play a key role in reducing carbon dioxide as they are living direct air capture machines.  

• Humankind is often slow moving to do the right thing, all the more when economic interests are at stake (and some countries are understandably highly dependent on oil and gas production). At COP28 the heads of the IMF, European Commission and WTO stressed the challenging “trade off of short-term financial health versus the long-term health of the planet”. As such the best way to reduce CO₂ and greenhouse gas emissions would be to engage globally in “carbon pricing”, making polluters pay for what they emit under the form of tax (some revenues – the IMF estimates 20% – that would be reallocated to poor households who may suffer from the needed transition) and emissions trading schemes. Such a way forward would create an incentive to shift to cleaner energy sources, while being cost-efficiently revenue-generating for countries for public investment or other tax cutting and would fairly target those producers and consumers that are the most responsible for carbon emissions. Fifty countries have already followed that approach, but more are needed, as well as international cooperation through framework agreements, to lower trade distortions and ensure reduced competitiveness. This approach naturally has many facets at the global level beyond the scope of this short Interlude.

• While the purpose of this Interlude is to address the reality of climate change, and what is behind global warming, while seeing what humankind could do to reduce it by focusing on CO₂, the affected areas and thus battlefields are plentiful.  Climate change massively impacts glaciers, sea levels, hurricanes, the acidification of oceans, droughts, heat waves, floods, mega-fires, biodiversity and even polar bears and many other species beyond man. Global warming is a lethal game-changer that impacts the future of human civilization like no other threats before.   

Climate change deniers find it very challenging to make their case today, even if social media and the like provide them with tools to argue their point on a non-scientific, not to say crazy basis. In our strange times, many people do not need evidence, less so scientific evidence, to support themes that make little sense. This denier group, however, finds it hard to resonate among the “thinking” crowd today – even if they reach many gullible and passionate followers looking for outlets for their existential and societal anger.     

Hard right parties in Europe have seized on the perceived financial impact on living standards of fighting climate change (exacerbated by post-Covid austerity-driven public spending cuts and the energy constraints felt with the Ukraine war) to add this matter to their usual migration and national identity programs. On a side note, the latter two matters, largely and mistakenly neglected by liberal democrats as being too sensitive, opened a vote-grabbing avenue to extremists even if they all tend to practically moderate their positions once having won elections as seen with Georgia Meloni in Italy or recently Geert Wilders in the Netherlands. On the same basis, Donald Trump, now the US climate change denier supremo, clearly stated his “drill, drill, drill” support of fossil fuels (many producers being his backers) if winning the US presidency in 2024, again adding this new hard right theme to his old US-China Cold War focus, a hard to go away Putin-friendly lack of interest in Ukraine and NATO, increased protectionism and unprecedented isolationism at many levels, and his case (which, in all fairness, could be understood better if one lived there) for “more walls” at the Mexican border today.

The good news since the game-changing COP20 in Paris in 2015 is that a vast majority of countries across the various global geopolitical divides now supports global warming resolutions to decrease its increasing trend. One of the last economic sectors COP28 members focused on was food production, which was not an obvious candidate versus oil and gas producers, but shows the global warming footprint to be gradually dealt with as the key issue it is. In spite of such positive COP28 developments and the hard-negotiated final wording stressing a commitment to transition away from fossil fuels, it is clear that vested interests, often national in nature, make it hard to get tangible results as seen with the resolution to decrease coal consumption two years ago which led to no change as of today.  

While fighting for liberal democratic values, all the more as Europe and the Middle East go back to more uncertain times and a number of key elections are on the horizon, it is also our moral duty combined with vested interests to fight climate change and ensure our world keeps growing as it should even if financial and restructuring costs may be high on the way.   

Warmest regards,

Serge

19-12-23

Dear Partners in Thought,

We live in challenging times, with major wars in Ukraine or in Gaza playing out, bringing us back to the worst periods of the 20^th century, with globalization and its peaceful features also receding as seen with the increasingly conflictual relations with China. This new era – not so new if we remember the famous line that “History repeats itself” – comes at a time where the West is struggling in terms of leadership due to an America that seems to have lost its values and keeps hurting itself and the Free World it stood for and led for decades. Many columnists, including Americans, recently wondered whether the US was “irreparably off track” with all the implied global consequences.  

America is not well, as most Americans would also agree. A recent Gallup poll showed only 20% felt the country was well versus more than 50% 20 years ago, this in spite of US per capita income higher than in Western Europe or Japan, nine of the top 10 most-valuable companies in the world being American (versus four at the end of the Cold War) and a still-unrivalled defense machine. This pervasive feeling, also shared across the Western world, may be partly explained by America’s unsettling approach to its evolving role in the world. The proximity to an overly-intense presidential election is naturally not helping the situation, also given the nature and profile of the two likely contenders.

The America of Reagan that stood firmly as a leader of the West during the Cold War is no longer there, mainly due to domestic political issues that make it forget what it was and should be. No President is ever perfect, but Trump due to his personality, perhaps more than his policies, started changing the game with deep adverse effects on the country and as a result the West (this even if a Republican Congressman strangely stressed recently that one should separate personality and policies when dealing with Trump). One of the key reasons for American and Western pessimism is to be found in its domestic politics and their dynamics today, compounded with a clear worry globally that Trump could come back. 

The Republican party of Reagan has been taken over by Trump-influenced and practical hard right extremists, who do not even realize what they stand for and their deep historical disconnect with their own roots, but only wish to grab votes, often very locally. It is not even clear what Trump really believes in, as long as he can increase his polling and is strengthening his fame, this in spite of all the legal issues he is facing regarding January 6, 2021 and his own business enterprises. It is remarkable that many primary voters, even if usually more hard line than regular ones, support someone like Trump given his abysmal personal features that many of them should see as un-American. It is clear that resentment against a perceived out-of-touch “elite”, their own social standing and serious and mismanaged issues like immigration do play a role in crafting their simple views, like in Europe today. In addition, the quality of the politicians seems to have gone down over the years, as many bright individuals prefer to take the business road, as many studies show across the Western world.  As for the Democrats, it is a hollow combination of left-wing individuals many who adhere first to inclusion, diversity if not, (to use the word initially invented by right-wing extremists) “Woke” before anything else while there seems to be a very short list of individuals who could be leaders in this party, where Joe Biden is apparently in sole charge, and only the liberal California Governor Gavin Newsom could be seen as a major though differentiated figure. Democrats are simply nonexistent, while the media focus is on outlandish House Republicans like Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor-Greene if not, even if no longer, George Santos or an outlandish primary candidate like Vivek Ramaswamy. Hope is fortunately not lost for the GOP, when seeing the likes of Nikki Haley, even if playing a tactically smart game with Trump believers and of course Liz Cheney, two individuals, who still offer some degree of political system redemption for their party. And there are others like Governor Chris Sununu or Senator Mitt Romney who still stand for the right values behind democracy as we knew them. These individuals may feel very lonely in their party at a time of a ludicrous “retribution” impeachment enquiry process against Joe Biden launched by the likes of Representative JD Vance, the Hillbilly Blues author and once, before being a US Senator, a fierce and then fashionable critic in 2016 of Donald Trump, whom he called an idiot.       

The lack of quality of the US political personnel, which one could argue could be seen also in in key European countries is helping the demise of America and its Western leadership. Positions taken notably by House Republicans regarding financial aid to Ukraine risk hurting America’s international standing and its position as leader of the Free World. Not backing Ukraine on the basis that national security should also be managed at home regarding immigration at the Mexican border would risk destroying the democratic West by losing its leader. If Ukraine were to lose the war through lack of US support, Russia might expand its costly imperial fantasies by invading the NATO and EU Baltic state members and even Poland, whatever the risk of a major global conflict. It is noticeable and somewhat redeeming that older GOP Senators and House Representatives, perhaps with a direct memory of the past, are more aware than younger ones, who are more in a perpetual partisan if not extreme mode, about the need to uphold the foreign policy leadership values that made America. One natural step, were Trump to be elected against all rational hopes, would be for him (also given his old liking of Putin) to make the US withdraw from NATO on the grounds of America First and a return to a 1930s isolationism that many of his short-sighted supporters would think would be good for their country (he would now need a Congress majority to do this but anything is possible). Isolationism, that would be a natural step for Trump and has already been felt through some of the tactically protectionist Biden tax policies, would in any case hurt American interests and businesses globally, and as a result the American people, even if many do not see the direct links to their own well-being today.

Getting America back on track and avoiding a global power vacuum will take hard work and require high quality individuals to save the day (or indeed century) in politics, lest a collection of autocracies win the world over. The world has changed with the nemesis of the democratic West not being one single country like the Soviet Union, but a collection of strong and not-so-strong powers with their own different tactical geopolitical interests and a common strategic opposition to America and the West, even if some trading with them in the meantime. America, through its next generation of political leaders, should refocus on its essential global leadership role and the clear benefits attached to it, this for itself, the West and indeed a more peaceful and yet again globalized world focused on trade and prosperity. 

While America needs to go back to its roots, it is also key for European countries to adopt realistic policies to preserve democracy at home while making sure voters do not support extreme right parties on the basis of simple solutions for complex issues. European democracies should also take a firm lead and defend their founding principles abroad, while building a stronger Europe, as seen with Britain and EU member states working closely together in supporting Ukraine as if they were again happily part of the same club of old. In this respect the key decision from the EU to start accession talks with Ukraine is a major step even if their voting process should be reviewed so as to avoid the impossibility of providing a key financial package to Kyiv approved by 26 member-states as one member, Hungary, vetoes it on tactical and strategic grounds as if it were de facto an ally of Moscow. 

I never thought I would ever need to write a piece like this one. On a very personal note I love America and the “Dream” it offered. My America. I am who I am as America and what it stood for reshaped me in my twenties in the 1980s as I was searching for a future. I still want to hope we can get back to those times, all the more given the needs and risks of our very challenging times. 

I wish all of us a Merry Christmas and the Happiest New Year, hoping that our world finally gets back on the right track and Reason prevails.     

Warmest regards,

Serge  

Note: I wanted to state an addendum to my mid-November Interlude that clearly supported the right of Israel to retaliate following October 7 and eradicate Hamas and its terrorist capabilities, this to defend itself. One month following my Interlude we have reached a stage where the eradication of Hamas is proving arduous, even if its capabilities are likely severed, while the death toll of civilian Gazans and the destruction of the city are horrendous even if not the IDF objective (the mistaken killing of three hostages by the IDF is sadly telling in terms of the intensity of the fights). It is now time for the Israeli leadership to realize that they may be fulfilling Hamas’s grand design of creating a global opprobrium against Israel and stop or reduce meaningfully its military operations, including its indiscriminate aerial bombings. Time should now be focused on how to structure (indeed reconstruct) and manage a future Gaza and re-focus seriously on a peaceful future for the Palestinians and Israel. While there might be some political reasons on the part of the current Israeli leadership to keep its military operations going, the standing of the country in the world and among its allies, even like the steadfast US, will decrease while antisemitism may rise as already seen on US campuses today. This natural addendum would not change the clear right and obligation for Israel, like any other country suffering the same horrific blow, to have responded as it did initially to the atrocities of October 7.          

2-11-23

Dear Partners in Thought,

While I was cautious in writing too early on the grave matter, I wanted to share with you twelve points about the Israel-Gaza-Hamas situation that we see evolving in the Middle East, bearing in mind it impacts on the whole world. 

1. Netanyahu needed some very tough retaliation (however justified given the October 7 horrors) to try shifting the blame away. A win, however challenging to get, is his only way to try surviving by year-end. 

2. The fate of the Israeli hostages remains as fragile as before in spite of the occasional liberations and worsens as thousands of civilian Gaza residents die.  

3. Iran, even if not “directly” responsible did everything for October 7 to happen, but in any case, may enjoy the Gaza retaliation to shift the hijab revolution away too, wanting again to be seen as a true Middle Eastern power again, however fragile the regime may be (and indeed is).

4. After 44 years, a regime change may happen in Iran if the latter goes too far, especially with Hezbollah. Tehran seems to know this but is still ambivalent about its next steps.  

5. As seen with demonstrations, diplomatic break-ups and even the unacceptable odd terrorist act, it is clear that Israel is hurting itself globally by making the Gaza population unduly pay for October 7 even if to rightly eradicate Hamas. The only way Gaza will ever be rebuilt is if it comes under UN supervision and Hamas is gone. 

6. “Over time” the Israeli-Saudi rapprochement may go on as MBS has changed the Saudi MO, wanting to make it a more normal but powerful world player (golf, football, away from oil) thus needing a stable Middle East. 

7. The US has played its cards very well – surprisingly. The display of diplomacy and defence was first class. The Truman, Eisenhower but also Carter, Reagan and of course Clinton eras are back. Biden will (should?) eventually benefit from this, leading him potentially to rejig his ticket as he goes. 

8. Hamas is indeed going to be erased. One wonders what went through their minds but have they any? They will always stress wanting to put the Big P point back on the map (and will never address the October 7 horrors). It is possible that the PLO will come back to what it once was.  

9. It is also clear Israel should have addressed the P question long ago and found a solution if only to avoid enabling big scale terrorists doing an unexpected October 7. It is also sad that Netanyahu got trapped in such a useless coalition of so many populists only seeking votes (lesson to be learned), while allowing settlers of the extremist kind to go way too far as the world was not looking. 

10. Putin is curiously “rather absent” from the crisis even if he gained from the (it turns out temporary) Western shift away from Ukraine also as US popular support for Kyiv was “wavering”. He is indeed trapped into naturally backing Hamas/Iran and upsetting Israel given the latter’s earlier cautious stance regarding the Ukraine war and any military equipment support for Kyiv. 

11. As shown at the UN, the world finds it hard to deal with a conundrum created by unacceptable horrors of October 7 and the onslaught on so many civilians in Gaza—the latter caused by the Israeli Defence Forces but resulting from a tragic and unforgivable plot from Hamas and de facto their Iranian backers. One can take sides for many justifiable reasons but the whole picture lacks clarity and sanity at any moral level.    

12. While globalisation retreated and protectionism rose again as a result of the American-China feud, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the new war in the Middle East bring us back to the forgotten era of the 20th century which most of us thought was long gone forever – making us think that WW3 is no longer an academic matter. 

I have limited my points to twelve but the list could be longer, including the impact on our own societies with street demonstrations favouring one specific party, terrorist attacks as seen in Belgium or France, or less lethal but divisive situations on campuses like in America. The situation we see developing today is like another chapter of a book all hoped was finished, but is never-ending—so strong are its ethnic, religious and historical roots for the world.  

Warmest regards,

Serge           

17-8-23

Dear Partners in Thought,

After eighteen months of the staggering (and failed) Russian invasion of Ukraine, it is worth trying to understand what drove it – and what supports it. Many recall the surprising statement from Foreign Minister Lavrov that led to massive audience laughter at a conference in India that Russia launched its “special military operation” as NATO was about to invade Russia. In July 2022, Putin, who had already written a big pre-war philosophical piece on the existential nature of Russia and its unity with Ukraine in mid-2021, made a speech at the Duma stressing that “the war was unleashed by the collective West, which organised and supported the unconstitutional coup in Ukraine in 2014 and justified genocide against the people of Donbass”. Hence the strange use of neo-Nazi appellation to describe the Ukrainian leadership (all the more knowing the religious roots of the Ukrainian president). Putin made it clear, probably to find some hard to find justification and a way to decrease the lack of results on the ground, that the West was the instigator and the culprit of the invasion of Ukraine. This invasion became no less than “the start of the breakdown of the US-style world order” also responsible for so many Russian and indeed world problems. This was “the transition from liberal-globalist American egocentrism to a truly multi-polar world based not on self-serving rules made up by someone for their own needs, behind which there is nothing but striving for hegemony, and not on hypocritical double standards but on international law and the genuine sovereignty of nations and civilisations, on their will to live with their historical destiny, with their own values and traditions.”  

The invasion of Ukraine had taken on a very practical existential role for Russia so as to make the move very noble, in a drive for Gaullian grandeur-restoration, all the more in what was portrayed as an increasingly value-less world without moral compass. All of this while Ukrainian civilian infrastructure was massively hit, civilians themselves were butchered like in Bucha (even if Russia would later argue this was staged by Ukraine) and a massive number of children were deported to Russia to welcoming new parents, in what would become a clear war crime against humanity. All these official statements would easily project a world upside down that only the boldest science fiction movies and books, like Orwell’s 1984, could have shown before. While many were ready for a Kremlin going to any length to achieve its goals, one of the key questions would then become: How could the Russian people buy this type of story-telling? As they seemed to do.          

Russia displays many, largely noble, explanations for this invasion that do not resonate well in the mostly Cartesian (even if declining for the Kremlin and many Russians) West. Notwithstanding the plausible argument that the West is in fact much stronger at many key levels today. Two major features to review are the war, led by a values-based Russia against the degenerative West via Ukraine that needs to be saved, and the feelings of a strong majority of Russians that Putin is right, and the war is just or that they are not opposed to it also in a form of apathy and refusal to see things for what they are. Jade McGlynn just wrote “Russia’s War” (and not just “Putin’s War”) to explain the two key points and its related ones from a Russian perspective. McGlynn is a young King’s College War Studies scholar with much actual exposure to Putin’s Russia, and her needed book is enlightening, even if some Russian critics may point to some unlikely support from MI6 or the dark corridors of Langley. This is a very detailed book that goes into many features around those two key points, making it for an arduous and possibly repetitive read at times, all the more given the challenging times we know.     

No leader in the West launching an invasion of a neighbour (admittedly all the more in the heart of old Europe) would enjoy an 80% approval rating – but Putin does. While the reliability of poll ratings in Russia can be discussed, a leader like Putin rarely goes down below 60%. On a key note, even the younger generations (18-24, 25-39 groups) support Putin (although slightly less so than the older ones). This can be explained by a majority of Russians wanting (if not needing) a strong leader—this mainly as the result of the shock linked to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the terrible 1990s that created societal disorder. A consequence of which was the ascension of a kleptocratic system that Putin eventually controlled and used to serve his (and his nascent co-leadership’s) needs in a strange and inflexible virtuous model. Many Russians— especially of the younger and skilled generations with post-cold war global aspirations—left Russia in 2022, some simply to avoid conscription. Yet a vast majority is not keen to go against the war and the authorities (especially in non-major urban areas as expected but clearly not only). This is helped by a unique propaganda machine, operating in a welcoming target population territory, and a highly repressive system that guarantees long-term jail if the word “war” is even publicly mentioned. (On a side note, it would appear that the Kremlin would actually prefer passivity to the actual support of its population). 

The Russian liberals who do not like Putin are actually rather condescending when it comes to Ukraine, as seen with the likes of Navalny’s and other groups. As a result, Russians do not oppose the war and are rather apathetic, some even blaming the West for the Western sanctions that deprived them of products they came to like since the 1990s (not the main objective of such sanctions for sure). Some analysts draw bold comparisons with the attitude of most Parisians during the German “occupation”, as they generally preferred to go on with their daily lives as if nothing had really happened (forgetting the many actions of the “resistance” back then, and de facto implying that Russians were actually “occupied” by their own in the Putin era). Even religion is playing a role in supporting the “special military operation” in Ukraine, notably with the well-known and politically-engaged Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, who is naturally close to the Kremlin. To what would be his forebear’s spiritual dismay, the grandson of atheist Soviet leader Molotov, who is a member of the Kremlin-captive Duma, stressed multiple times the “holy” nature of the war. 

In one of the ongoing features strengthening the Kremlin’s Orwellian propaganda approach, Russian history is officially rewritten in ways the country has known under Stalin with the main objective of creating a new Russian identity. The focus is permanent and on school textbooks, television shows, films, festivals, military history tours and even historical re-enactment clubs and student discussion societies while murals and even statues are added, especially in the last ten years, to the existential and patriotic display. The Christian roots of Russia, the defeat of Napoleon and the Great Patriotic War are much stressed alongside Peter and Catherine the Great while the lost Gorbachev and anarchic Yeltsin eras are quasi-demonised, the latter responding to the natural sorrows of many Russians. Ukraine, which was initially to be saved, is now often depicted as the ultra-nationalist state where no dissent can exist and opposition is banned while anything Russian is deemed to be hostile.  The Russian population is flooded day in day out with messages that underpin an existential Russian and indeed imperialistic rebirth, this without any easy access to alternative views, most if not all Western or opposition conduits being banned as deemed propaganda-flavoured.        

Jade McGlynn often refers to Dmitri Trenin, a former senior officer in Soviet and Russian military intelligence, who led the Carnegie Moscow Center, the key local post of the well-known think tank since the mid-1990s (on a personal note he even gave an internship to my older daughter). While a very fine, highly intellectual man, and de facto one of the most sensible Washington-Moscow “conduits”, he decided to leave the Carnegie Endowment a few months into the invasion as he felt deeply supportive of it. Trenin, a former member of the “Westerniser realist camp”, who knows the West better than most Russians, made statements about the need to defend Russian culture also against what the West represents today “with its civilisation of consumption, its gender innovations and so on”.  To him, clearly winning in Ukraine and “inflicting damage to the Western enemy” is about survival for Russia – not simply a return to imperial history as Putin likes. I was exchanging with him at the beginning of the conflict but did not foresee such a drastic position and rupture (which I took initially as a proof that he was de facto a prisoner of the system and had too much family in Russia as he does). While Trenin’s statements are very strong, it is also clear the state of affairs across the West (and especially in the US with its great and quasi un-American political divide, wild mass shootings and exacerbated forms of capitalism), does not help in rejecting the Kremlin scenario. Nor does this scenario not fall on deaf ears, with many Russians looking at the world and grieving post-Cold War shocks. 

It is also true that Russia was not treated with the most care by Western powers in the early to mid-1990s, as they wanted to ensure it would quickly become part of a nascent globalised, and increasingly rootless, world—even if wanting to improve the material conditions of many along the way. On a side but key note, McGlynn stresses that the main enemy of old Russia is often seen today as Britain, due to its ancient imperial history (and the odd fact that it founded America) far more than the US, in spite of its massive aid to Ukraine to date, or Western Europe—this perhaps also linked to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s fierce support of Kyiv. While the invasion is now seen in Moscow as a war of liberation, Russia would also seem to endure it in order to get rid of Anglo-Saxon influence across Europe. To some in the Russian leadership, the Ukraine “special military operation” is not simply about Ukraine but also much more about Europe, of which Russia sees itself as a key part, and its very soul. 

It is hard not to try to understand, admittedly to some difficult extent, the Russians who do not want to face the horrors of the war and prefer to find some noble or practical rationale for it or stay away from the topic. Many of us would follow that sad path in their very shoes, and given their too often tragic history. Until late 2021 I wanted myself to ensure that we anchored Russia not only to the West but to the world through globalisation that would ensure a lesser focus on military solutions and would nicely “trap” nations over time into working together, as they would have too much to lose otherwise (a recipe applicable to China today that seems to need it more than Beijing may have initially thought). It is also our duty to explain to Russians that the course taken by the Kremlin goes against the interests of all parties, and at the same time makes them supportive of mass murders and war crimes. This is true, even if the latter are still well managed by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine and totally dismissed as fake news or hard to accept by most of the general population. 

Jade McGlynn’s book reveals a Russia most of us did not know, and which needs to gradually change over time, but will also unlikely support a coup in the Kremlin. The sanctions-rooted 40% decline in value of the rouble in 2023, and the likely associated inflation surge and economic crisis to follow (not ideal when funding a large-scale war) may hurt Russians and (some Western analysts hope) make them question the cost of the war, given the roots of such developments. However, it may largely remain a private or dinner table matter, given the known dynamics. As often seen in history, a coup would more likely come from the current weakened leadership (the odd Wagner insurrection, if there was one, being an erratic example, even if it showed inherent autocratic weaknesses) but is no guarantee for a better scenario for a Ukraine war that will otherwise last long—possibly with Western population support gradually waning as seen today in the US and that could be lethally dealt with in a “Trump 2024”. Hence the need for a strengthened Western resolve and speedy delivery of what is needed to win or reach the negotiation table (also making sure Kyiv is not adopting unmanageable positions like regarding the future of Crimea).  

On a very personal note that may resonate with many in the West, I would like to stress that we should not see all Russians as evil, even if one supports Ukraine and/or is naturally opposed to outdated imperialistic moves, especially in old Europe. Many Russians left their country as they could not stand the invasion, or did not want to be part of it for many personal reasons. Many Russians lived outside Russia before the invasion and even liked a Putin style, following the shambolic state of their country in the 1990s. Russians should never be rejected for being Russian, even if they ought to be sensibly and respectfully engaged on the matter of the Ukraine tragedy and its many ramifications at all societal and world levels. At some point, we will rebuild Ukraine (as many development financial institutions seem to be ready to go for in a well-planned but premature way) but we will also need to help re-building and re-shaping Russia – with the Russians and for us all.   

Warmest regards, 

Serge