• 281: Gustavo Petro’s Big Win: Colombia’s First Leftist President Could Transform the Region, submitted on 2022-06-20 23:57:07+08:00.
• 282: Can Putin Survive?: The Lessons of the Soviet Collapse, submitted on 2022-06-21 22:30:48+08:00.
• 283: Beijing Is Still Playing the Long Game on Taiwan: Why China Isn’t Poised to Invade, submitted on 2022-06-23 22:43:49+08:00.
• 284: What Money Can’t Buy: The Limits of Economic Power, submitted on 2022-06-23 22:46:30+08:00.
• 285: How America Can Feed the World: To Prevent a Global Food Crisis, Expand the Lend-Lease Program, submitted on 2022-06-24 22:09:50+08:00.
• 286: The Perils of Pessimism: Why Anxious Nations Are Dangerous Nations, submitted on 2022-06-24 22:10:39+08:00.
• 287: A Post-Roe World?: Why Abortion Battles in America Won’t Halt Reform Abroad, submitted on 2022-06-24 23:24:24+08:00.

281: Gustavo Petro’s Big Win: Colombia’s First Leftist President Could Transform the Region, submitted on 2022-06-20 23:57:07+08:00.

—– 281.1 —–2022-06-20 23:58:22+08:00:

[SS from the article Ivan Briscoe, Program Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the International Crisis Group]

“In the lead-up to the country’s presidential election, members of Colombia’s high society braced for disaster. A habitué of the gentlemen’s clubs of Bogotá noted a tide of “catastrophe-minded hysteria” rolling through the salons. Businesses introduced special clauses permitting contracts to be struck down if the worst came to pass. Bleak mutterings circulated through the military barracks. The source of such widespread dread went by one name: Gustavo Petro, a former urban guerrilla, a socialist, and the leading contender in the race.

Those alarmed at the prospect of a Petro victory have had their fears confirmed. The 62-year-old Petro will be the country’s next leader, having defeated his opponent, Rodolfo Hernández—a 77-year-old real estate tycoon and relative political novice—in the runoff vote. This follows Hernández’s extraordinary upset victory in the first round of voting in late May, when he beat out Federico Gutiérrez, the center-right hopeful backed by the traditional parties, by espousing one message: “Colombia is captured by thieves.” But Hernández’s gambit finally failed him, and Colombia will soon be governed by its first leftist president.

In the sort of paradox that populist competition seems to invite, each campaign sought to present its candidate in the final weeks before the runoff as the sensible choice and the genuine political outsider. Hernández ultimately received the backing of much of Colombia’s political elite, which apparently chose to flay itself and run the risk of an authoritarian becoming president rather than let the left take power. But it was Petro, whose calls for change resonated with a public hungry for political, social, and economic transformation, who triumphed in this battle of antiestablishment credentials.

Petro’s win will have far-reaching implications in a region where Colombia has long been an anchor of relative political stability, despite the rising populist tide across Latin America. It is also telling regarding the current state of Colombian politics. Petro has promised to enact sweeping social changes, as well as measures such as halting new oil and gas exploration contracts and increasing taxes on the rich to pay for antipoverty programs and improved public services. Many of his proposed policies, including erecting so-called smart tariffs to protect Colombian agricultural production, could be poorly received in Washington.

To his supporters, Petro is a standard-bearer for Latin American progressivism who will usher in a new era of representation and egalitarianism. His critics, in contrast, accuse him of employing the same elite-baiting rhetoric that propelled to power other populist leaders, such as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Peruvian President Pedro Castillo. And indeed, Petro’s record as a former mayor of Bogotá, his self-portrayal as an agent of historic transformation, and even some of his reported personality traits, such as his aversion to being contradicted, suggest to many that a demagogue may be lurking.”

282: Can Putin Survive?: The Lessons of the Soviet Collapse, submitted on 2022-06-21 22:30:48+08:00.

—– 282.1 —–2022-06-21 22:31:45+08:00:

[SS from the article by Vladislav Zubok, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics]

“On May 9, 2022, a column of tanks and artillery thundered down Moscow’s Red Square. Over 10,000 soldiers marched through the city’s streets. It was Russia’s 27th annual Victory Day parade, in which the country commemorates the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazi Germany in World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin, presiding over the ceremonies, gave a speech praising his country’s military and fortitude. “The defense of our motherland when its destiny was at stake has always been sacred,” he said. “We will never give up.” Putin was speaking about the past but also about the present, with a clear message to the rest of the world: Russia is determined to continue prosecuting its war against Ukraine.

The war looks very different in Putin’s telling than it does to the West. It is just and courageous. It is successful. “Our warriors of different ethnicities are fighting together, shielding each other from bullets and shrapnel like brothers,” Putin said. Russia’s enemies had tried to use “international terrorist gangs” against the country, but they had “failed completely.” In reality, of course, Russian troops have been met by fierce local resistance rather than outpourings of support, and they were unable to seize Kyiv and depose Ukraine’s government. But for Putin, victory may be the only publicly acceptable result. No alternate outcomes are openly discussed in Russia.

They are, however, discussed in the West, which has been near jubilant about Ukraine’s success. Russia’s military setbacks have reinvigorated the transatlantic alliance and, for a moment, made Moscow look like a kleptocratic third-rate power. Many policymakers and analysts are now dreaming that the conflict could ultimately end not just in a Ukrainian victory; they are hoping Putin’s regime will suffer the same fate as the Soviet Union: collapse. This hope is evident in the many articles and speeches drawing comparisons between the Soviet Union’s disastrous war in Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It appears to be a latent motivation for the harsh sanctions imposed on Russia, and it underlines all the recent talk of the democratic world’s new unity. The war, the logic goes, will sap public support for the Kremlin as losses mount and sanctions destroy the Russian economy. Cut off from access to Western goods, markets, and culture, both elites and ordinary Russians will grow increasingly fed up with Putin, perhaps taking to the streets to demand a better future. Eventually, Putin and his regime may be shunted aside in either a coup or a wave of mass protest

This thinking is based on a faulty reading of history. The Soviet Union did not collapse for the reasons Westerners like to point to: a humiliating defeat in Afghanistan, military pressure from the United States and Europe, nationalistic tensions in its constituent republics, and the siren song of democracy. In reality, it was misguided Soviet economic policies and a series of political missteps by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that caused the country to self-destruct. And Putin has learned a great deal from the Soviet collapse, managing to avoid the financial chaos that doomed the Soviet state despite intense sanctions. Russia today features a very different combination of resilience and vulnerability than the one that characterized the late-era Soviet Union. This history matters because in thinking about the war in Ukraine and its aftermath, the West should avoid projecting its misconceptions about the Soviet collapse onto present-day Russia.

But that doesn’t mean the West is helpless in shaping Russia’s future. Putin’s regime is more stable than Gorbachev’s was, but if the West can stay unified, it may still be able to slowly undermine the Russian president’s power. Putin grossly miscalculated by invading Ukraine, and in doing so he has exposed the regime’s vulnerabilities—an economy that is much more interdependent with Western economies than its Soviet predecessor ever was and a highly concentrated political system that lacks the tools for political and military mobilization possessed by the Communist Party. If the war grinds on, Russia will become a less powerful international actor. A prolonged invasion may even lead to the kind of chaos that brought down the Soviet Union. But Western leaders cannot hope for such a quick, decisive victory. They will have to deal with an authoritarian Russia, however weakened, for the foreseeable future.”

283: Beijing Is Still Playing the Long Game on Taiwan: Why China Isn’t Poised to Invade, submitted on 2022-06-23 22:43:49+08:00.

—– 283.1 —–2022-06-23 22:44:15+08:00:

[SS]

“Concern is growing in Taiwan, in the United States, and among U.S. allies in Asia that China is preparing to attack Taiwan in the near future. Testifying before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee last year, Admiral Philip Davidson, then the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, warned that Beijing might attempt to seize the island in the next six years. Unifying Taiwan with mainland China is a key element of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream.” And as the political scientist Oriana Skylar Mastro has argued in these pages, Xi wants “unification with Taiwan to be part of his personal legacy,” suggesting that an armed invasion could come before the end of his third term as secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party in 2027 and almost certainly before the end of his probable fourth term in 2032.

Putin’s war in Ukraine has intensified these concerns. Xi’s announcement just before the Russian invasion of a “no limits” partnership with Moscow, coupled with his failure to condemn Putin’s actions and the Chinese media’s endorsement of Russian propaganda, seem to signal Beijing’s support for Russia’s territorial aggression. Beijing may see a strategic opening now that U.S. political and military resources are tied up in Europe. Moreover, Chinese leaders may have interpreted the West’s response to the Russian attack as an indication that the United States will not intervene militarily to defend a country to which it is not bound by a defense treaty, especially against a nuclear-armed adversary. As David Sacks of the Council on Foreign Relations has argued, “Chinese policymakers may conclude that Russia’s nuclear arsenal effectively deterred the United States, which would be unwilling to go to war with a nuclear power over Taiwan.”

But fears of an imminent Chinese attack are misplaced. For decades, China’s policy toward Taiwan has been characterized by strategic patience, as has its approach to other territorial claims and disputes—from India to the South China Sea. Far from spurring China to jettison this approach in favor of an imminent military assault on Taiwan, the war in Ukraine will reinforce Beijing’s commitment to playing the long game. The price Moscow has paid, both militarily and in the form of international isolation, is but a fraction of what China could expect if it were to attempt to take Taiwan by force. Better to wait patiently for Taiwan’s eventual surrender, as Beijing sees it, than to strike now and risk winning the island at too high a cost—or losing it forever.”

284: What Money Can’t Buy: The Limits of Economic Power, submitted on 2022-06-23 22:46:30+08:00.

—– 284.1 —–2022-06-23 22:47:00+08:00:

[SS]

“The United States has a long history of wielding economic instruments to achieve its foreign policy goals. Precedents can be found at least as far back as the Embargo Act of 1807, when U.S. President Thomas Jefferson blocked imports in an effort to push back against British and French interference in U.S. trade. But there is an equally long history recording the inability of such instruments to alter the fundamental behavior of another party. The 1807 embargo, for instance, failed to hurt British and French interests and fueled, rather than prevented, conflict between the United Kingdom and the United States, culminating in the War of 1812. Nor does exercising economic power necessarily induce political shifts: economic penalties and rewards rarely lead to regime change, for example.

The application of economic power is changing in one crucial respect, however: the growing importance of international coordination. Economic power has always been more effective when exerted by a coalition of countries. But in a multipolar global economy, where essential goods and services can be sourced from an increasing number of national suppliers, the importance of coordination for effective application is greater still. Consider the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese exports, which were imposed solely by Washington and produced no significant changes in Beijing’s economic behavior. The Biden administration surely had that failure in mind when it enlisted the support of a broad coalition of like-minded governments before imposing sanctions on Russia. Going forward, U.S. economic power will depend more and more on Washington’s ability to foster unity in an increasingly fractured world.”

285: How America Can Feed the World: To Prevent a Global Food Crisis, Expand the Lend-Lease Program, submitted on 2022-06-24 22:09:50+08:00.

—– 285.1 —–2022-06-24 22:10:09+08:00:

[SS]

“The United States and its allies responded to Russia’s invasion with alacrity in supplying Ukraine with weapons and intelligence to repel Russian forces. They now need to muster a similar response in staving off a full-blown international food crisis. To do so, the United States can draw from its own history. Its World War II–era lend-lease programs sent copious amounts of food to sustain the British and Soviet war efforts. The United States remains the world’s largest exporter of agricultural produce and can turn that bounty to good use today. Working with the World Food Program (WFP), the private sector, and other partners, the United States can save millions of lives and demonstrate leadership on the international stage by delivering food to those who need it the most.”

286: The Perils of Pessimism: Why Anxious Nations Are Dangerous Nations, submitted on 2022-06-24 22:10:39+08:00.

—– 286.1 —–2022-06-24 22:11:10+08:00:

[SS from the article Daniel W. Drezner, Professor of International Politics at Tufts University]

“The dirty secret about international relations is that although everyone agrees about the importance of power, no one can agree on how to define or measure it. There are occasional moments when a consensus exists about the distribution of power: think of U.S. hegemony a generation ago. There are more moments when the relative strength and influence of the great powers remains unclear: think of the last decade of international politics, which was shaped by multiple competing narratives about the rise of China and the decline of the United States. And there are moments when the entire question of international power is put to the test: think of times when major wars break out, such as the one currently being fought between Russia and Ukraine.

People commonly think of power as a country’s ability to force others to do what that country wants. Experts usually measure it by looking at military might or GDP. But these are at best partial—and at worst biased—views. And they reveal very little about how a state may or may not act. Left out in such accountings of power is a crucial factor: expectations about the future and whether state leaders believe in an optimistic or a pessimistic destiny for their country. If leaders believe the future looks unfavorable, they will be tempted to take risky actions in the present to forestall further decline, which can lead to arms races and brinkmanship during crises. In contrast, optimistic leaders foresee a brighter future ahead for their country and thus favor strategic patience, which tends to produce investments in global governance.

The United States and its allies and partners have been pleasantly surprised by the trajectory of the war in Ukraine, which many believed Russia would win easily and quickly. Unfortunately, however, this sense of optimism might prove fleeting—and, needless to say, it is hardly shared by Moscow and Beijing. Indeed, it is possible to envision a scenario in which the conflict in Ukraine makes the whole world even more pessimistic about the future, which could mean a much greater likelihood of great-power war.”

287: A Post-Roe World?: Why Abortion Battles in America Won’t Halt Reform Abroad, submitted on 2022-06-24 23:24:24+08:00.

—– 287.1 —–2022-06-24 23:25:28+08:00:

[SS from the article by Nina Brooks, Minzee Kim, Elizabeth Heger Boyle, and Wesley Longhofer]

“Reversing Roe will have profound implications for abortion access in the United States. Such a decision will also have ramifications abroad, particularly if a judicial ruling empowers future U.S. presidential administrations to push for restrictions on abortion in other parts of the world.
It is important, however, not to overstate U.S. influence on global abortion policy. The 1973 case was a landmark in allowing abortion access and served as an example to abortion advocates across the world. But in the 50 years since, the United States’ international messaging on abortion has been incoherent. U.S. law made abortion legal at home, but additional legislation that followed gave U.S. presidential administrations tools to restrict access abroad. Indeed, the United States, with policies that are at worst obstructionist and at best inconsistent, has been instrumental in blocking international agreement on abortion liberalization. Nevertheless, the global trend has slowly moved toward greater access to abortion.”