What May Be True.

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            “In war, much is uncertain.”[1]  The war in Ukraine remains filled with uncertainties. 

            Even so, important verities resurface.[2]  First, grating as American leadership may be, disruptive as is the change fostered by the American political and economic model, no one sees a viable alternative.  Liberal democracy and an open world economy exert a powerful pull on people around the world.  They tantalize with visions of individual freedom and prosperity.  American weapons and tactics, so recently discredited in places where people felt themselves fighting merely for American goals, appear to work just fine in a place where people feel themselves to be fighting for their own cause.  Few people want to live in a world dominated by Russia or China.  “Prison camps, boiler suits, and a damn long march to nowhere.”[3] 

Second, the “Gods of the Copybook Headings” return.[4]  Alliances are like labor unions: people only join because they are drove to it by a greater danger.  So disparate an alliance as that of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union only came into existence because of the danger posed by Hitler’s Germany.  After the defeat of the Soviet Union in the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decayed.  Germany, in particular, ran down its military forces and renewed historical ties to Russia.  Neither President Obama’s cajoling nor President Trump’s rough tongue made any difference.  With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO sprang back to life.  European countries that once declined to join found an urgent new interest in membership.  Germany began the long process of re-building its military and eventually sent arms to Ukraine. 

In like fashion, people have been reminded for the umpteenth time that economic sanctions have little real effect on how countries behave.   

In our age at least, nationalism claims many hearts.  This seems less true in North America and Western Europe.  For example, the European Union (EU) is a supranational project three-quarters of a century in development.  It has created an alternative sense of identity for many of its members.  One effect has been to reduce the power of nationalism for many of its members.  Furthermore, traditional nationalism is too closely linked in many minds with war and racism.  Among the newer members of the EU, those added as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe, nationalism remains a much stronger force.[5]  Ukrainians are fighting for their own sense of national identity, which involves a sense that they want to be part of the West, not of Russia. 

“These facts, which if true,…”[6]  Perhaps these verities will stand the test of events, perhaps not.  The Ukraine crisis is a short-term crisis.  Perhaps things will re-set afterwards.  If not, everyone is going to have some hard thinking to do about how to adjust policy to reality. 

[1] Sir Desmond Morton, MC.  He would know.  He had been shot in the heart during the First World War, but survived.  See: Arthur Marder, Operation “Menace”: The Dakar Expedition and the Dudley North Affair (1976).    Also, Gill Bennett, Churchill’s Man of Mystery: Desmond Morton and the World of Intelligence (2006).   

[2] Walter Russell Mead, “Biden Needs a “Pivot” to the World,”  WSJ, 28 February 2022. 

[3] The character Jim Prideaux in John Le Carre, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974). 

[4] See: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_copybook.htm 

[5] That nationalism has troubled the EU in places like Poland and Hungary.  In part, Britain’s exit from the EU springs from a revived sense of specifically English nationalism triggered by the Scottish independence campaign. 

[6] Some Republican moron in Congress years ago. 

Errand in the Wilderness.

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            Back in late 2021, a couple of New York Times reporters gave some thought to the question posed by Will McAvoy: “If liberals are so fucking smart, why do they lose so God-damned always?”[1]  They pretty much concluded that liberal elites are good at the standardized exams that govern ascent in the public and private institutions of our increasingly Mandarin society.  In real terms, however, they are stupid and out of touch with ordinary people.[2] 

            Think of the political arena as a quadrant with Liberal policies on the left and Conservative policies on the right across the top; and with Economic policies and Social/Cultural policies running down the left side.  In the imagination of liberal elites, say the reporters, the majority of American voters think like liberal elites: they are fiscally conservative and socially liberal.  It follows then that fiscal conservatism will tend to rein-in social liberalism while social liberalism tests the limits of fiscal conservatism. 

            Polling data suggests that this belief is—to a degree–nonsense.  Certainly, this type of moderate voter exists, as do moderate elected officials of both parties.  However, many Americans are the reverse of the imagined fiscal conservative, social liberal voter. 

Many are socially conservative.  Thus, most Americans support restrictions on abortion.  Some are hard-core abolitionists.  Many others want to restrict abortion to the first trimester.[3]  Thus, support for restricting immigration is widespread.  Thus, most Americans always opposed the de-fund the police movement that briefly energized Democratic activists after the death of George Floyd.[4] 

Many are economically liberal.  Thus, they support gore-the-rich policies to pay for enhanced benefits for lower income groups.  The targets include both rich individual taxpayers[5] and corporations that are seen as predatory.  These favored policies include reducing the price of prescription drugs, expanding health-care both to under-served populations and in the scope of what is covered by Medicare (vision, dental, hearing). 

One central problem is how to pay for expanded benefits.  The choices are between running up the deficit and printing money, and heavily taxing corporations and wealthy individuals.  In this sense, the gore-the rich policy actually is fiscally conservative.  In contrast, “fiscal liberalism” would appear to mean running up the deficit, printing money, and courting the danger of severe inflation. 

Socially conservative voters with grave economic concerns were the voting base of the New Deal.  “Tax-spend-elect” was the policy of the New Deal.  It is possible that historians will conclude that the fifty year-long shift of the Democratic Party toward cultural and expressive liberalism turned out to be an errand in the wilderness that helped create Trumpism. 

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTjMqda19wk 

[2] David Leonhardt and Ian Prasad Philbrick, “As Democrats Misread Americans, They Shoot Themselves in the Foot,” NYT, 29 September 2021. 

[3] This position is a retreat from the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, even though a majority of Americans say that they support Roe.  It may reflect concession to fifty years of public outcry against abortion.  It may reflect revulsion against pro-choice lobbying for abortion on demand and public funding of abortions.  Probably it reflects something else I haven’t considered. 

[4] People living in high-crime minority areas seem to have wanted a strong police presence, but with abuse left off. 

[5] Defined as anyone making more than $400,000 a year. 

Baby Bust in China.

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            Between 1980 and 2015, China sought to push back the danger of over population with the “one child” policy.[1]  Birth rates dropped from about 23/1,000 in the mid-1980s to about 13/1,000 by 2005.[2]   Still, this left a lot of young people in the pipeline. 

            In 1990, about two-thirds of the Chinese population were between 15 and 64 years old.  A huge demographic shift took place over the next twenty years.  The share of those aged between 15 and 64 rose to 75 percent.  Essentially, young people with few dependents flooded out of the countryside into the labor market of coastal cities.  At the same time, China entered the world market.  A world in search of cheap goods produced by labor-intensive industries encountered a huge and growing Chinese labor force. 

By 2005, birth rates had stabilized at the lower level.  Now the share of the population of working age is falling.  Worse still, the fertility rate (1.3 children per woman) has fallen below the replacement rate (2.1 children per woman).  This portends a host of decisions. 

Some are economic.  Productivity gains from moving peasants from rice paddies to factory jobs will be reduced.  The growth in the absolute size of the labor force will slow.  The price of labor will be bid up, one way or another.  Automation offers one response.  Will the government invest resources in the technology that is required?  Moreover, “what China makes, the world takes.”  Will labor shortages drag on China’s ability to produce for export? 

            Some are social.  Generally, the young labor migrants left behind middle-aged parents who were still working.  Now, ten to thirty years on, those young migrants are themselves middle-aged and their parents need care and support.  Some 18.7 percent of the population is 60 or older.  This adds to the problems of working children.  Similarly, China’s efforts to get people to have more kids merely adds to the problems of working parents.  All this may pull people away from a tight focus on work. 

On the other hand, having built a culture of long hours on the job, China may have a difficult time changing the minds of managers and of workers.  Will China invest resources in creating systems of child-care and elder-care to enable productive workers to keep working long hours?  Will it make robust investments in education to address he concerns of parents?  Will it offer financial inducements for more children?  Vague promises of new measures accompanied the announcement of the new policy. 

Some are political.  One thing high-lighted by the announcement of the three-child policy is the degree of defiance of the government on a deeply personal matter.  One story quoted both a woman insisting that she wouldn’t have any children and another relieved that her previously-illegal third child could now come out of the shadows.  In this environment, the pretensions of an authoritarian state rankle, while its admission that a policy rigorously pursued for seventy years had unforeseen consequences can only make people wonder what else it has gotten wrong. 

            It isn’t clear yet if there is a sweet spot where all solutions align. 

[1] Nathaniel Taplin, “China Baby Bust to Be Felt Globally,” WSJ, 2 June 2021; Sui-Lee Wee, “China Will Let Families Have Three Children,” NYT, 1 June 2021. 

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy  When an authoritarian state imposes such a policy, many grim stories follow.  In 2016, China adopted a two-child policy.  This failed to slow the slump in population growth.  In 2021 it adopted a three-child policy. 

Public Opinion on Abortion in May 2022.

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            Broadly, a majority of Americans support the right to abortion in most or all cases, while a large minority opposes it in most or all cases.  On average, 54 percent of Americans support the right to an abortion, while 41 percent oppose it.  In a more murky fashion, a larger majority (better than 60 percent) believe that Roe v. Wade should be maintained.  At the same time, about as many people believe that abortion should be limited to the first trimester.  So long as Roe v. Wade nationalized the right to an abortion, the law reflected democratic preference. 

However, Americans are regionally fractured over the issue of abortion.[1]  In thirteen states, state legislatures have passed laws that will automatically ban abortion IF the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.[2]  These states are clustered in the West and the South.  This too is democracy in action: polls show that 52 percent of the people in these states oppose abortions in most or all cases, while 43 percent say that it should be legal in most or all cases. 

In contrast, support for abortion rights is strongest in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, in the Far West, and the Upper Mid-West.[3]  There are 25 states in this group. 

These groupings contain puzzles.  Anti-abortion opinion is strongest in seven Southern and Border states.[4]  While, opinion in Alabama and West Virginia is clearly in the anti-abortion camp, neither state has yet passed a law outlawing abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.   Opinion in South Carolina, Indiana, and Nebraska is mildly in the anti-abortion camp, but none of these states has yet passed such a law.  In contrast, opinion in both Missouri and Oklahoma is mildly pro-abortion rights, but both states have passed laws banning abortion if the Supreme Court tosses Roe v. Wade. 

What might be the political consequences if the Supreme Court de-nationalizes the right to an abortion and returns the decision to the states?  A great wave of outrage probably will arise in all the pro-abortion states.  In most of these states, however, support for the right to an abortion is already a litmus test for politicians.  In the anti-abortion states, opposition to abortion is already a litmus test for politicians.  Yelling and screaming doesn’t get you anywhere.[5]  Organizing and campaigning does get you somewhere in a democracy. 

There are seven states where majority opinion supports legal abortion by less than 1 percent to less than 10 percent.[6]  One key goal for supporters of a right to abortion may be to secure control of the state houses in these seven states.  Similarly, one key goal for opponents of abortion may be to flip these states. 

Of course, the Supreme Court may decide that abortion anywhere is a threat to unborn life everywhere. 

[1] Nate Cohn, “How Opinions On Abortion Vary, And Why That Matters,” NYT, 5 May 2022. 

[2] Those states are Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky.  Florida has passed a law banning abortions after the first trimester. 

[3] States with a better than 10 percent majority in favor of abortion rights are Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, all of New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Florida. 

[4] To use the terminology of the Civil War.  They are Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. 

[5] Except put to bed without your supper in the old days. 

[6] Montana, New Mexico, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia. 

China and Inflation 2.

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            Inflation surged in much of the world during 2021 and the first months of 2022.[1]  Eurozone inflation reached an annual rate of 7.5 percent in April 2022; in the United States the inflation rate hit 7.5 percent in 2021 before climbing to 8.5 percent in March 2022. 

            But not in China.  For thirty years to government has held inflation in check, with an average of 2.6 percent price rise per year over the last ten years.  The Chinese government has continued the effort in the face of the current wide-spread inflation.  There the annual inflation totaled 0.9 percent in 2021 and climbed to 1.5 percent in March 2022.  The government has set a target cap of 3 percent for 2022. 

            Why is China so determined to check inflation?  The link between inflation and political unrest has been suggested as a chief motivation for China’s stronger line against price rises.  Run-away inflation in the 1930s and 1940s undermined the legitimacy of the Kuomintang government.[2]  A sudden rise in consumer prices during 1988 is sometimes suggested as one of the contributing factors in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. 

How has China managed this feat?  China’s economy differs from Western economies in several ways.  First, investment, rather than consumer demand, is the most important driver.  The Chinese government has far greater control over investment than is common in Western countries.  Second, China’s response to Covid involved far less stimulus than was the case elsewhere.  This pumped much less money into the hands of consumers to either spend or save for later spending. 

            China has sought to fend off importing inflation from other economies.  It hasn’t been easy.  Russia’s war in Ukraine has helped push up world prices for carbon and grains, both major Chinese imports.  As a result, producers who transform raw materials into consumer goods have experienced a sharper rise in costs and prices—8.3 percent between March 2021 and March 2022—than have consumers. 

            While the United States maintains a strategic petroleum reserve, China has stored all sorts of key resources.[3]  This has allowed the government to counter the rise in import prices to a degree.  So, too, has the Chinese government’s large stake in the economy through state-owned firms.  These can be ordered to absorb some of the rising costs, rather than passing them on to consumers.  The government also limited steel exports to damp-down domestic price rises. 

Can China sustain its success?  All prediction is reckless.  Still, several observations may be valid.  First, China has unusually large reserves of strategic goods.  Those reserves aren’t unlimited.  Second, China depends on imports of food and energy.  What happens in the rest of the world will have something to say about what happens in China.  Third, Western countries have their own unpleasant memories of inflation from the 1970s.  The turn to resisting inflation in the West offers real hope that China will be able to ride out its current difficulties. 

[1] Stella Yifan Xie, “Beijing Uses Its Pull to Tame Inflation,” WSJ, 9 May 2022. 

[2] See Chang Kia-Ngau, The Inflationary Spiral: The Experience in China, 1939-1950 (1958). 

[3] There is a National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration.  For example, it stores aluminum, copper, rice, wheat, and soybeans.  If you don’t mind digging around a bit, you can learn more at https://news.knowledia.com/US/en/topics/AToxS 

China and Inflation.

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            The ability to provide a rising standard of living to ordinary people forms one, but only one, of the central pillars of the legitimacy of the Chinese government.  Off and on over recent decades, the government has used subsidies and informal price controls to hold down inflation. 

Relatively low labor costs and stable prices have helped make China’s economic strategy work.  China has thrived on the export of cheap goods.[1]  Inflation would make those goods less cheap.  China has thrived on the import of food and raw materials.  Inflation would push up the cost of those imports.  Passing along costs to middle-persons or consumers could choke down domestic prosperity. 

A relatively under-valued currency also helped make China’s economic strategy work.  An under-valued (priced) currency makes that nation’s goods more competitive on foreign markets.  It also makes foreign goods more expensive to China.  China has long preferred to maximize foreign sales of finished goods.  That has required China to find ways to hold down production costs from comparatively expensive imports of food and raw materials.  Inflation would force China to choose between holding to an under-valued currency and currency appreciation.  What do you want more, the sales or the raw materials and food? 

More than a year ago, many observers warned of a global wave of inflation looming on the horizon.  Many factors contribute to these price increases.[2]  In May 2021, the Chinese statistical agency warned that prices for key goods had risen by 9 percent in the previous year. 

It could be argued that the government still had some time before taking action against inflation.  The covid pandemic had slowed down exports to much of the world.  Lock-downs in China had reduced production, even while logistical bottle-necks has caused a back-up in foreign ports.  The prices of many goods had not risen or had risen by small amounts.  In short, there was some slack in the economy.  This could be taken up before the government had to start pumping the brakes a little. 

China’s government wasn’t buying it.  The government responded with new subsidies for small businesses, which have smaller profit margins than do big business, and by restricting futures trading in hopes of reducing stockpiling of goods (“hoarding” or “speculation”).  Bigger businesses would just have to eat the rising cost of American wheat and Australian iron-ore.  These measures seemed to be kinda-sorta working by early June 2021. 

In addition, the government has allowed the foreign-exchange value of the currency—the renminbi—to appreciate against other currencies.  Both oil and wheat imports are denominated in dollars.  A stronger currency gets China the same amount for less or more for the same amount.  In Spring 2020, the renminbi was trading at 7.1 to the dollar.  By Spring 2021, it had risen to 6.4 to the dollar.  If foreign purchases did not shrink as prices rose, then some of the costs of China’s strategy could be exported to its trading partners. 

China looks like a predatory power, selling cheap to take over markets and exporting inflation when necessary.  Still, countries have policies for their own gain, not to help others. 

[1] Keith Bradsher, “In Battling Inflation, China Decides Not to Wait,” NYT, 10 June 2021. 

[2] Notable causes are said to be over-loaded shipping and port infrastructure and rising oil prices as the world’s economy rebounds from Covid.  Often left unsaid by the NYT is the great money creation by central banks as part of the response to Covid’s economic effects. 

A Geographer Reads the Newspapers.

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            One thing connects to another thing in surprising ways.[1]  East African countries don’t raise enough food to feed their people.[2]  East African countries make up the deficit by imports.    

Well, somebody makes up the deficit.  Mostly, this work is done and paid for by humanitarian Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) like the World Food Program of the United Nations and Mercy Corps and Oxfam International.  The NGOs, in turn, depend upon charitable contributions from individuals, corporations, and governments in the West. 

            Before and after Communism, southern Russia (including the Ukraine until the break-up of the Soviet Union) were important farm crop exporters.  Now, Southern Russia and independent Ukraine continue to serve as key sources of wheat, soybeans, and barley.  Because of lower transportation costs, these regions have developed large markets in East Africa.  Food imports to East Africa can come from the Americas or from the Black Sea ports like Odessa.  The New Orleans, USA—Mombasa, Kenya route is 10,764 nautical miles and takes 45 days.  The Odessa, Ukraine—Mombasa, Kenya route is 4,975 nautical miles and takes 20 days.  So the shipping cost that has to be added to the price of the grain is about double for Midwestern American wheat for example.  As a result, fourteen East African countries import half of their wheat from Ukraine and Russia.  Eritrea imports all of its wheat. 

            East Africa is beset by natural and man-made disasters.  There is a civil war in Ethiopia, Islamist terrorism in Somalia, and long-running ethnic conflicts in Sudan.  In recent years, a locust infestation has battered Kenya,[3] Covid has hammered the under-vaccinated region, and heavy rains have flooded much of South Sudan.[4]  Taken together, those problems make farming and stock-raising difficult. 

            On top of this, a drought has hit East Africa.[5]  A product of “La Nina,” the drought has caused the lowest rainfall in forty years all across East Africa.[6]  Crops have failed, herds have died.[7]  Thirteen million people in East Africa are hungry. 

People began moving off the parched land.  Mostly this has meant walking across the parched landscape toward some city.  In theory, it is up to the government to do something.  More importantly, that is where they will find the international aid agencies that actually try to do something. 

Then came the war in Ukraine.  Exports are disrupted, especially from Ukraine.  The Russian Navy has blockaded Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, while its Army is assaulting ports like Mariupol and—perhaps soon—Odessa.  Ukraine’s transportation system is diverted to the war effort.  Hence, exports are down, risk-premiums apply, and the costs of wheat have risen.  For example, the price of cooking oil has risen from $32 for 20 liters to $50; the price of beans from $18 to $28 for 25 kilograms.[8]  Wheat imports by Sudan have fallen by 60 percent. 

The donors who pay for the operations of the humanitarian NGOs do not have unlimited resources.  Nor do they have unlimited attention.  The sudden humanitarian crisis in Ukraine may have diverted some charitable giving from East Africa to Eastern Europe. 

The current estimated death total in the Ukraine-Russia War is 13,000-15,000.  The death toll in the last East African drought in 2011 is contested.  Some estimate that 50,000 died, while others put the toll at above a quarter million.[9]  Yes, we should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.  What if we can’t? 

[1] Abdi Latif Dahir, “War in Ukraine Worsens Hunger in East Africa,” New York Times, 2 April 2022. 

[2] For an analysis of potential improvements in the agriculture of Sub-Saharan Africa, see: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/agriculture/our-insights/winning-in-africas-agricultural-market#:~:text=Agriculture%20in%20Africa%20has%20a,full%20agricultural%20potential%20remains%20untapped.  You can take back-bearings to figure out why this potential has not been achieved already. 

[3] See: https://www.npr.org/2021/01/19/958543535/locust-swarms-threaten-parts-of-east-africa

[4] See: https://floodlist.com/africa/south-sudan-floods-update-december-2021 

[5] See: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/historic-drought-looms-for-20-million-living-in-horn-of-africa 

[6] On “la Nina,” see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Ni%C3%B1a 

[7] In Kenya, 1.5 million livestock have perished. 

[8] Roughly, 4 liters to the US gallon; and 2 pounds to 1 kilogram. 

[9] Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War#Total_casualties

 with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_East_Africa_drought 

The Aftermath of the Ukraine War.

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To what extent do Ukrainian and Western (NATO/EU) interests overlap? 

                As I understand it, NATO allowed Ukraine to take the initial steps toward membership in the George W. Bush Administration.  However, neither France nor Germany was eager to have Ukraine admitted.  Probably didn’t want to make a permanent enemy out of Russia and—maybe—resented American bullying.  Have they changed their minds on NATO membership? 

Moreover, Ukraine had an on-going territorial dispute with Russia before the current unpleasantness: Crimea and the Eastern Donbas.  Will Russia have to surrender these as part off the peace settlement?  Or will Ukraine have to surrender them as the price of something with which the Russians can live?  Back at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the electoral maps show that Crimea was the area least enthusiastic about leaving Russia for Ukraine and the two eastern oblasts weren’t all that far behind. 

The EU was OK with an Association Agreement with Ukraine in 2014, but not full membership.  They had various requirements.  Have those requirements been fulfilled in the years since?  Then, the place seems to me to be a kleptocracy.  It’s why Ukrainian voters put a stand-up comedian into the presidency.   

Is the West going to get carried away by emotion and shoulder what may be a heavy burden because we admire the Ukrainian people’s resistance to Russian aggression?   Can the West use post-war negotiations to help Zelensky/force Ukraine to clean up its political system? 

There’s been a lot of damage done.  Who pays to fix up things? Who pays compensation for lives lost or ruined?  Russia?  Hard to do if it is permanently closed out of world energy markets.  Ukraine itself? The West? 

The Lesser of Two Evils.

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            In 2005, Vladimir Putin told Russians that the fall of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geo-political catastrophe of the century.”[1]  “As for the Russian people, it became a genuine tragedy. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens and countrymen found themselves beyond the fringes of Russian territory.”  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had advanced eastward relentlessly, first admitting the former “captive nations”[2] of the Warsaw Pact, then admitting the three Baltic states which had long been under Russian rule.  The United States had used its power to overthrow the governments of Iraq (2003) and Libya (2011) and to call for the overthrow of the government of Syria (2011).  Then the Americans left those places in blazing ruins.  For more than twenty years he labored to undo that “catastrophe.”  His accomplishments are not petty. 

            He rose from a low-level KGB officer to be the dictator of Russia, regardless of varying formal titles.[3]  He brought to heel the oligarchs who had “spontaneously privatized” much of Soviet-era industry to their own advantage.  He checked the further disintegration of the Russian Federation by a savage war in Chechnya.[4] 

            Since he came to power, Putin has been advancing the pre-existing Eurasian Economic Union.  This EEU is intended to rival the European Community (EC) and to pull together the economies of Russia and other former Soviet states.[5]  Anyone who has read the history of Nineteenth Century German unification or the history of the development of the EC knows that “butter” comes before “gun” in the dictionary.  In this effort, Ukraine figured as a rich prize.[6] 

He turned to trying to regain a measure of control over the countries that had left the Soviet Union in the wake of its collapse.  In 2008 he sent Russian troops into the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 

            Since the 2011 “Arab Spring” he has opposed the Americans with direct military aid in the Syrian and Libyan civil wars.  In both cases, Russia’s clients are winning. 

            In 2014, after his attempt to lure Ukraine into the EEU foundered, he sent Russian troops into Crimea and the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. 

            He has achieved a measure of success in cozening Turkey, Hungary, and Italy.  Each has its own discontents with the European Union or NATO or the United States.  Then there’s China. 

            The United States and its presidents have been going through a bad patch since the end of the Cold War.  Vladimir Putin seems to be a bad man in a hurry.  That doesn’t mean he will win. 

[1] See: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna7632057  That fall occurred in the 20th Century, so he’s claiming a lot. 

[2] On the Cold War-era term, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captive_Nations#:~:text=%22Captive%20Nations%22%20is%20a%20term,Communist%20administration%2C%20primarily%20Soviet%20rule.  On the more broadly applicable “puppet state,” see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppet_state 

[3] It speaks volumes to the mentality of the Obama Administration foreign policy officials (and of the president himself) that they were unable to distinguish between form and substance.  Dmitri Medvedev went where Putin sent him and did what Putin told him. 

[4] Wikipedia is as accessible as anything else on this fight.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Chechen_War.  For an argument that Putin himself staged the bombing of apartment buildings to justify the second war, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_apartment_bombings 

[5] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Economic_Union 

[6] See: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/why-does-ukraine-matter/ 

History Lessons.

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            In 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in major Russian cities in a coup not supported by the majority of the Russian people.  They fought and won a bloody civil war.  Famine savaged the people.  The new government repudiated the debts to foreign investors in Tsarist government bonds and seized foreign property.  The new regime sought to export revolution all around the globe.  As a result, Communist Russia spent many years as a pariah country among the nations.  The new Soviet Union had little trade, no foreign investment, and constant harassment of its foreign operations.  Then came the collectivization of agriculture, more famines, and the purges.  Then Nazi Germany attacked.  A commonly-accepted estimate is that the war killed 20 million Russians.  Nevertheless, by the end of the war, the red flag flew over the Reichstag.[1] 

            It’s certainly possible that the Russian people have gone soft in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  Perhaps failed hopes for a swift victory, hundreds of combat deaths, tough—but not complete—economic sanctions, near-universal moral condemnation, and scathing satire on late-night television will bring Russia to its knees.  Or perhaps the badly out-gunned Ukrainians will suffer grave defeats, many additional millions of refugees will flood across the border into the European Union, and Russia will confiscate Western businesses and turn off the gas to Europe as further bargaining chips. 

            The peace settlement following the First World War left many people disappointed or unhappy.[2]  Germany suffered territorial losses, had to agree to pay heavy reparations, and had its sovereignty limited by disarmament.  At Versailles, “Meester Veelson” and other progressives denied Italy the territorial gains promised to it in exchange for entering the war in 1915.  Japan found its wartime efforts at empire-building in China checked.  Russia lost vast chunks of territory through the Western-sponsored triumph of national self-determination.  While German grievances won substantial redress during the Twenties, Italy and Japan remained dissatisfied. 

            The Great Depression transformed international relations, just as it did in domestic matters.  The conventional economics of the time commanded budget cuts and military spending suffered.  Democracies turned toward domestic reforms, or became paralyzed, or just collapsed wherever it had failed to sink strong roots.  In the decidedly un-capitalist Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin had seized to power in the late Twenties.  The Depression brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, while the government of Japan increasingly fell under the control of imperialist soldiers.  Italy’s Benito Mussolini ranked as the senior dictator in the group, although he had little yet to show for his tenure in terms of expansion.   

            The democracies were hard put to deal simultaneously with three open and one covert aggressors.  In the Thirties, the United States turned from partial engagement in international affairs to a deepening isolationism.  France’s interests and resources were almost entirely European.  Britain had the means to fight one war, but faced enemies in the Far East, the Mediterranean, and Central Europe.  Things had to get much worse to change policies. 

            Today, Russia, radical Islamists in the Middle East equipped—or almost—with nuclear weapons (Iran, Pakistan), and China all can be counted as dissatisfied powers.  Where to start? 

[1] Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (1977) is cold and comprehensive. 

[2] Raymond Sontag, A Broken World, 1919-1939 (1971) remains a valuable guide.