Foreign Affairs July August 2020 Issue.Pdf
THE ENDANGERED ASIAN CENTURY
JULY/AUGUST 2020 / •
The World After the Pandemic • •
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Volume 99, Number 4
THE WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC
Chronicle of a Pandemic Foretold 10 Learning From the COVID-19 Failure—Before the Next Outbreak Arrives Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
The Pandemic and Political Order 26 It Takes a State Francis Fukuyama
COVER: A More Resilient Union 33 How Federalism Can Protect Democracy From Pandemics THE Danielle Allen HEADS
STATE OF When the System Fails 40 COVID-19 and the Costs o Global Dysfunction Stewart Patrick
July/August 2020
02_TOC_Blues.indd 1 5/18/20 5:52 PM ESSAYS The Endangered Asian Century 52 America, China, and the Perils o Confrontation Lee Hsien Loong
The Age of Magic Money 65 Can Endless Spending Prevent Economic Calamity? Sebastian Mallaby
How to Make Trade Work for Workers 78 Charting a Path Between Protectionism and Globalism Robert E. Lighthizer
Pinning Down Putin 93 How a Condent America Should Deal With Russia Victoria Nuland
The Rise of Strategic Corruption 107 How States Weaponize Graft Philip Zelikow, Eric Edelman, Kristofer Harrison, and Celeste Ward Gventer
The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy 121 The United States Must Recover the Full Range o Its Power Robert M. Gates
The Next Liberal Order 133 The Age o Contagion Demands More Internationalism, Not Less G. John Ikenberry
How Hegemony Ends 143 The Unraveling o American Power Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon ON FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM
Stacey Abrams on Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Kevin Rudd on the American leadership on what comes after a coming post-pandemic at home and abroad. COVID-19 vaccine. international anarchy.
July/August 2020
Book 1.indb 3 5/15/20 9:24 PM REVIEWS & RESPONSES Divided We Fall 158 What Is Tearing America Apart? Amy Chua
After Capital 165 A Radical Agenda to Tame Inequality Arvind Subramanian
This Land Is Not Your Land 171 The Ethnic Cleansing o Native Americans David Treuer
The Case for Climate Pragmatism 176 Saving the Earth Requires Realism, Not Revolution Hal Harvey
The Retrenchment Syndrome 183 A Response to “Come Home, America?” H. R. McMaster
The Vision Thing 187 Is Grand Stategy Dead? Francis J. Gavin and James B. Steinberg; Daniel W. Drezner, Ronald R. Krebs, and Randall Schweller
In Defense of Economists 193 A Response to “The Dismal Kingdom” Michael Feuer
“Foreign Aairs . . . will tolerate wide dierences of opinion. Its articles will not represent any consensus of beliefs. What is demanded of them is that they shall be competent and well informed, representing honest opinions seriously held and convincingly expressed. . . . It does not accept responsibility for the views in any articles, signed or unsigned, which appear in its pages. What it does accept is the responsibility for giving them a chance to appear.” Archibald Cary Coolidge, Founding Editor Volume 1, Number 1 • September 1922
July/August 2020
02_TOC_Blues.indd 5 5/18/20 5:53 PM July/August 2020 · Volume 99, Number 4 Published by the Council on Foreign Relations
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02_TOC_Blues.indd 6 5/18/20 5:53 PM CONTRIBUTORS
LEE HSIEN LOONG graduated from Cambridge as the “Senior Wrangler,” the coveted title for the university’s top undergraduate student in mathematics. He then joined the military o his native Singapore and eventu- ally moved into politics, following in the footsteps o his father, Singapore’s longtime leader Lee Kuan Yew. Since 2004, he has served as the country’s prime minister. In “The Endangered Asian Century” (page 52), Lee warns that Asian countries should not be forced to choose between the United States and China.
On her way to becoming perhaps the most experienced Russia hand at the U.S. State Department, VICTORIA NULAND cut her teeth at the Soviet desk in Washington and at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. She went on to serve as U.S. ambassador to NATO under President George W. Bush and later crafted the United States’ response to the Russian invasion o Crimea. In “Pinning Down Putin” (page 93), Nuland, today a distinguished practitioner in grand strategy at Yale, argues that Putin’s Russia is neither monolithic nor immutable.
ROBERT GATES joined the CIA as a graduate student and became the only entry-level employee ever to rise to the position o director o central intelligence. As U.S. secretary o defense from 2006 to 2011, he oversaw the surge o U.S. troops in Iraq and U.S. operations in Afghanistan and overturned the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. In “The Overmilitarization o American Foreign Policy” (page 121), Gates argues that in recent decades, U.S. foreign policy has relied too much on military action and has let other tools o American in¡ uence atrophy.
ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN has spent his career at the forefront o economics and global development. A leading expert on trade since his days in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund in the 1990s, he has taught at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. From 2014 to 2018, Subrama- nian served as chie economic adviser to the government o¤ India, where he was instrumental in popularizing the idea o a universal basic income. In “After Capital” (page 165), Subramanian reviews the French economist Thomas Piketty’s latest book, Capital and Ideology.
02_TOC_Blues.indd 7 5/18/20 5:54 PM Return to Table of Contents
THE WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC
ifteen years ago, after the ahead, he forecasts more failure and and H5N1 outbreaks, this political turbulence around the globe in Fmagazine ran an article called years to come. “Preparing for the Next Pandemic.” Danielle Allen notes how the United Two years later came “Unprepared for States’ early response was hampered not a Pandemic,” then others. Cut to 2017, just by poor leadership and federalism after and Ebola and Zika: but also by a lack o common social “Ready for a Global Pandemic? The purpose. And Stewart Patrick traces a Trump Administration May Be Woefully similar trend at the international level—a Underprepared.” None o this was global rush to closure, self-help, and prescience. It was conventional wisdom scapegoating rather than multilateralism. among public health experts. Anybody In country after country, politicians who didn’t understand the danger just unable to defend their own records have wasn’t paying attention. tried to deect attention onto scary, evil Still, even the Cassandras who saw foreigners, helping drive an emerging such a crisis coming have been shocked conviction that the real culprit in the crisis by how poorly it has been handled, as is globalization. The only way to reduce our lead package explains. Michael vulnerability, they say, is to cut ties to the Osterholm and Mark Olshaker trace how rest o the world—as i North Korean the failure to prepare was followed by a “self-reliance” oered a promising ideo- failure to contain. More than a century logical model for the twenty-rst century. on from 1918, we have proved little In truth, what is killing us is not better at combating a global pandemic connection; it is connection without than our great-grandparents were. So cooperation. And the cure is not isolation much for the march o progress. but deeper connection, the kind that can Francis Fukuyama writes that the support collective action. The doctors and initial phases o the emergency were a scientists around the world have acted brutal political stress test that only a dierently: reaching out to one another, handful o countries passed—those pooling their talents and resources, and with capable states, social trust, and showing what a true global community eective leadership. Since those same could look like. Perhaps that’s why so many narrowly distributed qualities will be politicians have tried to muzzle them. needed to manage the long, hard slog —Gideon Rose, Editor
Book 1.indb 8 5/15/20 9:25 PM If the world doesn’t learn the right lessons from THE WORLD AFTER THE PANDEMIC its failure to prepare, the toll next time could be considerably steeper. — Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
Chronicle o a Pandemic Foretold A More Resilient Union Michael T. Osterholm and Danielle Allen 33 Mark Olshaker 10 When the System Fails The Pandemic and Political Order Stewart Patrick 40 Francis Fukuyama 26
ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE HEADS OF STATE
Book 1.indb 9 5/15/20 9:25 PM Return to Table of Contents
There are two levels o preparation, Chronicle of a long range and short range, and govern- ment, business, and public health Pandemic Foretold leaders largely failed on both. Failure on the rst level is akin to having been warned by meteorologists that a Cat- Learning From the egory 5 hurricane would one day make a COVID-19 Failure—Before direct hit on New Orleans and doing the Next Outbreak Arrives nothing to strengthen levies, construct water-diversion systems, or develop a Michael T. Osterholm and Mark comprehensive emergency plan. Failure on the second is akin to knowing that a Olshaker massive low-pressure system is moving across the Atlantic toward the Gul o “ ime is running out to prepare for Mexico and not promptly issuing the next pandemic. We must evacuation orders or adequately stock- act now with decisiveness and ing emergency shelters. When Hurri-
THE WORLD AFTER PANDEMIC T purpose. Someday, after the next pan- cane Katrina hit New Orleans on demic has come and gone, a commission August 29, 2005, preparation on both much like the 9/11 Commission will be levels was inadequate, and the region charged with determining how well suered massive losses o life and government, business, and public health property as a result. The analogous leaders prepared the world for the failure both over recent decades to catastrophe when they had clear warn- prepare for an eventual pandemic and ing. What will be the verdict?” over recent months to prepare for the That is from the concluding paragraph spread o this particular pandemic has o an essay entitled “Preparing for the had an even steeper toll, on a national Next Pandemic” that one o us, Michael and global scale. Osterholm, published in these pages in The long-term failure by govern- 2005. The next pandemic has now ments and institutions to prepare for an come, and even though -19, the infectious disease outbreak cannot be disease caused by the new coronavirus blamed on a lack o warning or an that emerged in late 2019, is far from absence o concrete policy options. Nor gone, it is not too soon to reach a should resources have been the con- verdict on the world’s collective prepa- straint. After all, in the past two dec- ration. That verdict is a damning one. ades, the United States alone has spent countless billions on homeland security MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLM is Regents and counterterrorism to defend against Professor and Director of the Center for human enemies, losing sight o the Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. demonstrably far greater threat posed
MARK OLSHAKER is a writer and documen- by microbial enemies; terrorists don’t tary filmmaker. have the capacity to bring Americans’ way They are the authors of Deadliest Enemy: Our o life to a screeching halt, something War Against Killer Germs. -19 accomplished handily in a
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04_Osterholm_proof_Blues.indd 10 5/18/20 5:54 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
matter o weeks. And then, in addition the next one will be, as well. I the world to the preparations that should have doesn’t learn the right lessons from its been started many years ago, there are failure to prepare and act on them with the preparations that should have started the speed, resources, and political and several months ago, as soon as reports o societal commitment they deserve, the an unknown communicable disease that toll next time could be considerably could kill started coming out o China. steeper. Terrible as it is, ²®³¯´-19 should The public health community has for serve as a warning oµ how much worse a years known with certainty that another pandemic could be—and spur the major pandemic was on the way, and necessary action to contain an outbreak then another one after that—not iµ but before it is again too late. when. Mother Nature has always had the upper hand, and now she has at her WAKEUP CALL disposal all the trappings o the modern For anyone who wasn’t focused on the world to extend her reach. The current threat o an infectious disease pandemic crisis will eventually end, either when a before, the wake-up call should have vaccine is available or when enough o come with the 2003 outbreak o . A the global population has developed coronavirus—so named because, under immunity (iµ lasting immunity is even an electron microscope, the proteins possible), which would likely require projecting out from the virion’s surface some two-thirds o the total population resemble a corona, a halo-like astro- to become infected. Neither o those nomical phenomenon—jumped from ends will come quickly, and the human palm civets and ferret badgers in the and economic costs in the meantime markets o Guangdong, China, made its will be enormous. way to Hong Kong, and then spread to Yet some future microbial outbreak countries around the world. By the time will be bigger and deadlier still. In other the outbreak was stopped, the animal words, this pandemic is probably not sources eliminated from the markets, and “the Big One,” the prospect o which infected people isolated, 8,098 cases had haunts the nightmares o epidemiolo- been reported and 774 people had died. gists and public health o¹cials every- Nine years later, in 2012, another where. The next pandemic will most life-threatening coronavirus, , likely be a novel inuenza virus with the spread across the Arabian Peninsula. In same devastating impact as the pan- this instance, the virus originated in demic o 1918, which circled the globe dromedaries, a type o camel. (Since two and a hal times over the course o camel owners in the Middle East more than a year, in recurring waves, understandably will not kill their valu- killing many more people than the able and culturally important animals, brutal and bloody war that preceded it. remains a regional public health Examining why the United States challenge.) Both coronaviruses were and the world are in this current crisis harbingers o things to come (as we wrote is thus not simply a matter o account- in our 2017 book, Deadliest Enemy), ability or assigning blame. Just as this even if, unlike ²®³¯´-19, which can be pandemic was in many ways foretold, transmitted by carriers not even aware
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they have it, and tend not to During the 2003 outbreak, few become highly infectious until the fth people worried about supply chains. or sixth day o symptomatic illness. Now, global supply chains are signi- S, , and a number o other cantly complicating the U.S. response. recent outbreaks—the 2009 H1N1 u The United States has become far more pandemic that started in Mexico, the dependent on China and other nations 2014–16 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, for critical drugs and medical supplies. the 2015–16 spread o the Zika avivi- The Center for Infectious Disease rus from the Pacic Islands to North Research and Policy at the University and South America—have diered from o Minnesota (where one o us, Oster- one another in a number o ways, holm, is the director) has identied 156 including their clinical presentation, acute critical drugs frequently used in their degree o severity, and their means the United States—the drugs without o transmission. But all have had one which patients would die within hours. notable thing in common: they all came All these drugs are generic; most are as surprises, and they shouldn’t have. now made overseas; and many o them, For years, epidemiologists and or their active pharmaceutical ingredi- public health experts had been calling ents, are manufactured in China or India. for the development o concrete plans A pandemic that idles Asian factories or for handling the rst months and years shuts down shipping routes thus threat- o a pandemic. Such a “detailed opera- ens the already strained supply o these tional blueprint,” as “Preparing for the drugs to Western hospitals, and it doesn’t Next Pandemic” put it in 2005, would matter how good a modern hospital is i have to involve everyone from private- the bottles and vials on the crash cart are sector food producers, medical suppli- empty. (And in a strategic showdown ers, and health-care providers to with its great-power rival, China might public-sector health, law enforcement, use its ability to withhold critical drugs and emergency-management o¹cials. to devastating eect.) And it would have to anticipate “the Financial pressure on hospitals and pandemic-related collapse o worldwide health systems has also left them less trade . . . the rst real test o the able to handle added stress. In any resiliency o the modern global deliv- pandemic-level outbreak, a pernicious ery system.” Similar calls came from ripple eect disturbs the health-care experts and o¹cials around the world, equilibrium. The stepped-up need for and yet they largely went unheeded. ventilators and the tranquilizing and paralytic drugs that accompany their PREEXISTING CONDITIONS use produce a greater need for kidney I anything, despite such warnings, the dialysis and the therapeutic agents that state o preparedness has gotten worse requires, and so on down the line. rather than better in recent years—es- Even speculation that the antimalarial pecially in the United States. The prob- hydroxychloroquine might be useful in lem was not just deteriorating public the treatment o ²®³¯´-19 caused a health infrastructure but also changes shortage o the drug for patients with in global trade and production. rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, who
July/August 2020 13
Book 1.indb 13 5/15/20 9:25 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
depend on it for their daily well-being. year has all but killed the possibility o It remains unclear what impact ²®³¯´-19 major long-term projects. has had on the number o deaths due to Following the 2014–16 West African other conditions, such as heart attacks. Ebola outbreak, there was a clear Even i it’s mostly a matter o patients recognition o the inadequacy o inter- with severe or life-threatening chronic national investment in new vaccines for conditions avoiding care to minimize regional epidemic diseases such as their risk o exposure to the virus, this Ebola, Lassa fever, Nipah virus disease, could ultimately prove to be serious and Zika, despite the eorts o ½´ collateral damage o the pandemic. and other international philanthropic In normal times, the United States’ government programs. To address this hospitals have little in the way o hole in preparedness, ²¾¯, the Coali- reserves and therefore little to no surge tion for Epidemic Preparedness Innova- capacity for emergency situations: not tions, a foundation that receives support enough beds, not enough emergency from public, private, philanthropic, and equipment such as mechanical ventila- civil society organizations, was con- tors, not enough N95 masks and other ceived in 2015 and formally launched in personal protective equipment (¾¾). 2017. Its purpose is to nance indepen- The result during a pandemic is the dent research projects to develop equivalent o sending soldiers into vaccines against emerging infectious battle without enough helmets or ries. diseases. It was initially supported with The National Pharmaceutical Stock- $460 million from the Bill & Melinda pile was created during the Clinton Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, administration and renamed the Strate- and a consortium o nations, including gic National Stockpile in 2003. It has Germany, Japan, and Norway. Although never had su¹cient reserves to meet ²¾¯ has been a central player since early the kind o crisis underway today, and it this year in developing a vaccine for is fair to say that no administration has -CoV-2, the virus that causes devoted the resources to make it fully ²®³¯´-19, the absence o a prior major functional in a large-scale emergency. coronavirus vaccine initiative highlights Even more o an impediment to a the ongoing underinvestment in global rapid and e¹cient pandemic response is infectious disease preparedness. underinvestment in vaccine research Had the requisite nancial and and development. In 2006, Congress pharmaceutical resources gone into established the Biomedical Advanced developing a vaccine for in 2003 or Research and Development Authority in 2012, scientists already would (½´). Its charge is to provide an have done the essential research on how integrated and systematic approach to to achieve coronavirus immunity, and the development and purchase o there would likely be a vaccine platform vaccines, drugs, and diagnostic tools on which to build (such a platform is a that will become critical in public health technology or modality that can be emergencies. But it has been chronically developed for a range o related dis- underfunded, and the need to go to eases). Today, that would have saved Congress and ask for new money every many precious months or even years.
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FIRST SYMPTOMS ing information on the Wuhan out- By late 2019, the lack o© long-range break and underreporting case gures. preparation had gone on for years, It was the moment when preparation despite persistent warnings. Then, the for a specic coming storm should short-range failure started. Early have started in earnest and quickly surveillance data suggested to epidemi- shifted into high gear. ologists that a microbial storm was U.S. President Donald Trump would brewing. But the action to prepare for later pro er the twin assertions that he that storm came far too slowly. “felt it was a pandemic long before it By the last week o« December, was called a pandemic” and that “no- reports o a new infectious disease in body knew there’d be a pandemic or an the Chinese city o© Wuhan and sur- epidemic o this proportion.” But on rounding Hubei Province were starting January 29, Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade to make their way to the United States adviser, wrote a memo to the National and around the world. There is no Security Council warning that when the question that the Chinese government coronavirus in China reached U.S. soil, suppressed information during the it could risk the health or lives o rst weeks o the outbreak, evident millions and cost the economy trillions especially in the shameful attempt to o dollars. That same day, as reported silence the warnings o« Li Wenliang, by The Wall Street Journal, Alex Azar, the 34-year-old opthamologist who the health and human services secretary, tried to alert the public about the told the president that the potential threat. Yet even with such dissembling epidemic was well under control. and delay, the warning signs were clear Navarro sent an even more urgent memo enough by the start o this year. For on February 23, according to The New example, the Center for Infectious York Times, pointing to an “increasing Disease Research and Policy published probability o a full-blown -19 its rst description o the mystery pandemic that could infect as many as disease on December 31 and publicly 100 million Americans, with a loss o identied it as a novel coronavirus on life o as many as 1–2 million souls.” January 8. And by January 11, China Washington’s lack o an adequate had published the complete genetic response to such warnings is by now a sequence for the virus, at which point matter o public record. Viewing the the World Health Organization (³´ ) initially low numbers o clinically recog- immediately began developing a nized cases outside China, key U.S. diagnostic test. By the second hal o o¢cials were either unaware o or in January, epidemiologists were warning denial about the risks o exponential viral o a potential pandemic (including one spread. I an infectious disease spreads o us, Osterholm, on January 20). Yet from person to person and each individ- the U.S. government at the time was ual case causes two more, the total still dismissing the prospect o a numbers will remain low for a while—and serious outbreak in the United then take o . (It’s like the old demonstra- States—despite valid suspicions that tion: i you start out with a penny and the Chinese government was suppress- double it every day, you’ll have just 64
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cents after a week and $81.92 after two unable or unwilling to coordinate a weeks, and then more than $5 million by government-wide eort among relevant the end o a month.) C®³¯´-19 cases do agencies and departments. The Centers not typically double overnight, but every for Disease Control and Prevention ve days is a pretty good benchmark, initially shipped its own version o a allowing for rapid growth even from just test to state public health labs, only to a few cases. Once the virus had spread nd that it didn’t work. This should outside East Asia, Iran and Italy were the have immediately triggered an eleva- rst to experience this eect. tion o the issue to a crisis-driven Even with the lack oµ long-range priority for both the ²´² and the U.S. planning and investment, there was much Food and Drug Administration, that the U.S. government could and including bringing the private clinical should have done by way o a short-range laboratory industry into the process to response. As soon as the novel and deadly help manufacture test kits. Instead, the coronavirus was identied, Washington problem languished, and the ¬´ took could have conducted a quick but until the end o February to approve comprehensive review o national ¾¾ any independent tests. At that point, requirements, which would have led to the United States had 100 or so recog- the immediate ramping up o produc- nized cases o ²®³¯´-19. A little over a tion for N95 masks and protective week later, the number would break gowns and gloves and plans to produce 1,000, and after that, the president more mechanical ventilators. Relying declared a national emergency. on the experience o other countries, it In 1918, cities that reacted to the u should have put in place a comprehen- early, preventing public gatherings and sive test-manufacturing capability and advising citizens to stay home, suered been ready to institute testing and far fewer casualties overall. But for contact tracing while the number o this approach to work, they had to cases was still low, containing the virus have reliable information from central as much as possible wherever it cropped authorities in public health and gov- up. It could have appointed a supply ernment, which requires honesty, chain coordinator to work with gover- responsiveness, and credibility from nors, on a nonpartisan basis, to allocate the beginning. In the current crisis, the and distribute resources. At the same output from the White House was time, Congress could have been drafting instead—and continues to be —a emergency-funding legislation for stream o self-congratulatory tweets, hospitals, to prepare them for both the mixed messages, and contradictory onslaught o ²®³¯´-19 patients and the daily briengs in which Trump simulta- sharp drop in elective surgeries, routine neously asserted far-reaching authority hospitalizations, and visits by foreign and control and denied responsibility visitors, essential sources o revenue for for anything that went wrong or didn’t many institutions. get done. Everything was the gover- Instead, the administration resisted nors’ responsibility and fault—includ- calls to advise people to stay at home ing not planning ahead, the very thing and practice social distancing and was the administration refused to do. Two
July/August 2020 17
Book 1.indb 17 5/15/20 9:25 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
years earlier, it had even disbanded the tions. In this regard, it is not too late pandemic-readiness arm o the Na- for the United States to take on its tional Security Council. traditional leadership role and be an “You go to war with the army you example in this ght, rather than have, not the army you might want or lagging behind, as it has so far, places wish to have at a later time,” U.S. such as Germany, Hong Kong, Singa- Secretary o Defense Donald Rumsfeld pore, and South Korea, and even, famously declared in 2004, addressing despite its initial missteps, China. U.S. troops on the way to Iraq, where the military’s vehicles lacked armor that THE BIG ONE could protect the service members Why did so many policymakers ignore inside from explosive devices. That the virus until it was too late to slow it grim message could apply to the pan- down? It’s not a failure o imagination demic response, too, with, for example, that prevented them from understand- frontline health-care workers going to ing the dimensions and impact o a war against ²®³¯´-19 without ¾¾. But mass infectious disease outbreak. In the in many ways, the current situation is United States, numerous high-level even worse. The United States and simulated bioterror and pandemic other countries went to war against a tabletop exercises—from Dark Winter rapidly spreading infectious disease in 2001 through Clade X in 2018 and without a battle plan, su¹cient person- Event 201 in 2019—have demonstrated nel, adequate facilities or stocks o the confusion, poor decision-making, equipment and supplies, a reliable and lack o coordination o resources supply chain, centralized command, or a and messaging that can undermine a public educated about or prepared for response in the absence o crisis contin- the struggle ahead. gency planning and preparation. The In the absence o strong and consis- problem is mainly structural, one that tent federal leadership, state governors behavioral economists call “hyperbolic and many large-city mayors have taken discounting.” Because oµ hyperbolic the primary responsibility o pandemic discounting, explains Eric Dezenhall, a response on themselves, as they had to, crisis manager and one-time Reagan given that the White House had even White House staer who has long advised them to nd their own ventila- studied the organizational reasons for tors and testing supplies. (And health- action and inaction in government and care workers, forced into frontline business, leaders “do what is easy and treatment situations without adequate pays immediate dividends rather than respiratory protection, are o course the doing what is hard, where the dividends hero-soldiers o this war.) But ghting seem remote. . . . With something like a the virus eectively demands that pandemic, which sounds like a phenom- decision-makers start thinking strategi- enon from another century, it seems too cally—to determine whether the actions remote to plan for.” being taken right now are eective and The phenomenon is hardly new. evidence-based—or else little will be Daniel Defoe relates in A Journal of the accomplished despite the best o inten- Plague Year that in 1665, municipal
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Book 1.indb 18 5/15/20 9:25 PM Chronicle of a Pandemic Foretold
authorities in London rst refused to accept that anything unusual was happening, then tried to keep informa- tion from the public, until the spike in deaths made it impossible to deny the Citizen much-feared bubonic plague. By that point, all they could do was lock victims Scholar and their families in their homes in a vain attempt to stop the spread. Leader Short o a global thermonuclear war and the long-term impact o climate change, an infectious disease pandemic has the greatest potential to devastate health and economic stability across the globe. All other types o disasters and calamities are limited in geography and duration —whether a hurricane, an earthquake, or a terrorist attack. A pandemic can occur everywhere at once and last for months or years. Worldwide mortality estimates for the 1918 inuenza pandemic range as BU S high as 100 million—as a percentage o T UD EN TS the global population, equivalent to ON . STU UBA more than 400 million people today— DY TOUR OF C making it easily the worst natural MA in International A airs disaster in modern times. So profound were the pandemic’s e ects that average MA in Global Policy life expectancy in the United States One-year MA in immediately fell by more than ten years. International Relations Unlike a century ago, the world today MA in Latin has four times the population; more than American Studies a billion international border crossings MA International each year; air travel that can connect Relations & JD almost any two points on the globe in a matter o hours; wide-scale human MA in International encroachment on forests and wildlife Relations & MBA
habitats; developing-world megacities in SCHOOL PARDEE which impoverished people live in close bu.edu/PardeeSchool @BUPardeeSchool connes with others and without ad- equate nutrition, sanitation, or medical care; industrial farming in which ani- Frederick S. Pardee mals are kept packed together; a signi- School of Global Studies cant overuse o antibiotics in both
July/August 2020 19
FA 19_rev.indd 1 5/18/20 11:24 AM Book 1.indb 19 5/15/20 9:25 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
human and animal populations; millions scientists and policymakers don’t even o people living cheek by jowl with have a good handle on how many o the domestic birds and livestock (creating Ãľ² tests that determine whether an what are essentially genetic reassortment individual has the virus and how many laboratories); and a dependence on o the serology tests that detect antibod- international just-in-time supply chains ies and determine whether someone has with much o the critical production already had it are even reliable. Mean- concentrated in China. while, international demand for re- The natural tendency might be to agents—the chemicals that make both reassuringly assume that a century’s kinds o tests work—and sampling worth o medical progress will make up swabs is already outstripping supply and for such added vulnerabilities. (The production. It is hard to conclude that human inuenza virus wasn’t even the world today is much better equipped discovered until 1933, when the virolo- to combat a massive pandemic than gists Wilson Smith, Christopher doctors, public health personnel, and Andrewes, and Patrick Laidlaw, work- policymakers were 100 years ago. ing at London’s National Institute for Some are calling the ²®³¯´-19 pan- Medical Research, rst isolated the demic a once-in-100-year event, compa- inuenza A virus from the nasal secre- rable to 100-year oods or earthquakes. tions and throat washings o infected But the fact that the world is enduring a patients.) That would be a grave mis- pandemic right now is no more predic- conception. Even in a nonpandemic tive o when the next one will occur than year, aggregated infectious diseases— one roll o dice is o the result o the next including malaria, tuberculosis, ů³/ roll. (Although the 1918 u was the most ¯´, seasonal inuenza, and diarrheal devastating inuenza pandemic in history, and other vector-borne illnesses—rep- an 1830–32 outbreak was similarly severe, resent one o the major causes o death only in a world with around hal o 1918’s worldwide and by far the leading cause population.) The next roll, or the one o death in low-income countries, after that, could really be “the Big One,” according to the ÇÅ®. and it could make even the current In fact, given those realities o mod- pandemic seem minor by comparison. ern life, a similarly virulent inuenza When it comes, a novel inuenza pandemic would be exponentially more pandemic could truly bring the entire devastating than the one a century ago— world to its knees—killing hundreds o as the current pandemic makes clear. In millions or more, devastating commerce, the absence o a reliable vaccine pro- destabilizing governments, skewing the duced in su¹cient quantities to immu- course oµ history for generations to nize much o the planet, all the signi- come. Unlike ²®³¯´-19, which tends to cant countermeasures to prevent the most seriously aect older people and spread o ²®³¯´-19 have been nonmedi- those with preexisting medical prob- cal: avoiding public gatherings, shelter- lems, the 1918 inuenza took a particu- ing in place, social distancing, wearing larly heavy toll on otherwise healthy masks o variable eectiveness, washing men and women between the ages o 18 hands frequently. As o this writing, and 40 (thought to be a result o their
20 ¬®¯°± ¬¬¯
Book 1.indb 20 5/15/20 9:25 PM Chronicle of a Pandemic Foretold
more robust immune systems overreact- conditions demand—and then they ing to the threat through a “cytokine should repeatedly review and rehearse storm”). There is no reason to think that it. That eort should involve everyone the next big novel inuenza pandemic from high-level government and public couldn’t have similar results. health o¹cials to emergency respond- ers, law enforcement, medical experts PLANS VS. PLANNING and suppliers, food providers, manufac- Humans do not have the power to prevent turers, and specialists in transportation all epidemics or pandemics. But with the and communications. (As emergency su¹cient will, resources, and commit- planners are fond o saying, you don’t ment, we do have the power to mitigate want to be exchanging business cards at their awesome potential for causing a disaster site.) The strategy should premature deaths and attendant misery. oer an operational blueprint for how To begin with, Americans must change to get through the one or two years a how they think about the challenge. pandemic would likely last; among the Although many people in the public benets o such a blueprint would be health sphere don’t like associating them- helping ensure that leaders are psycho- selves with the military—they heal rather logically prepared for what they might than kill, the thinking goes—there is much face in a crisis, just as military training that they can learn from military plan- does for soldiers anticipating battleeld ning. The military focuses on exibility, conditions. The Bipartisan Commission logistics, and maintaining readiness for on Biodefense—jointly chaired by Tom any foreseeable situation. As U.S. General Ridge, the rst secretary oµ homeland Dwight Eisenhower noted, “Peace-time security, under President George W. plans are o no particular value, but Bush, and a former Pennsylvania peace-time planning is indispensable.” governor, and Joseph Lieberman, a The starting point should be to former Democratic senator from prioritize health threats in terms o their Connecticut—has suggested that the likelihood and potential consequences i operation could be located in the O¹ce unchecked. First on that list is a deadly o the Vice President, with direct virus that spreads by respiratory trans- reporting to the president. Wherever mission (coughing, sneezing, even simple it is based, it must be run by a smart breathing). By far the most likely candi- and responsible coordinator, experienced date would be another high-mortality in the mechanics o government and inuenza strain, like the 1918 one, able to communicate eectively with although as revealed by , , Zika, all parties—as Ron Klain was as Ebola and ²®³¯´-19, new and deadly noninu- czar in the Obama administration. enza microbes are emerging or mutating In addition to the gaming out o in unpredictable and dangerous ways. various potential scenarios, adequate Even before a specic threat has preparation must include a military-like arisen, a broad group o actors should model o procurement and production. be brought together to develop a The military doesn’t wait until war is comprehensive strategy—with enough declared to start building aircraft built-in exibility that it can evolve as carriers, ghter jets, or other weapons
July/August 2020 21
Book 1.indb 21 5/15/20 9:25 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
systems. It develops weapons over a clinical trials, and manufacturing period o years, with congressional capacity for such drugs the same way funding projected over the entire they subsidize the development and development span. The same type o manufacture o ghter planes and tanks. approach is needed to develop the Preparation for pandemics and for the weapons systems to ght potential necessary surge o medical countermeas- pandemics. Relying solely on the ures will also require being more attentive market and the private sector to take to where drugs and medical supplies are care o this is a recipe for failure, produced. In times o pandemic, every because in many cases, there will be no nation will be competing for the same viable customer other than the govern- critical drugs and medical supplies at the ment to fund both the development same time, so it is entirely reasonable to and the manufacturing process. expect that each will prioritize its own That has proved particularly true needs when distributing what it produces when it comes to drug development, and controls. There is also the ongoing even when there is no pandemic. For threat that a localized infectious hot spot many o the most critical drugs, a will close down a manufacturing facility market-driven approach that relies on that produces critical drugs or medical private pharmaceutical companies simply supplies. Despite the higher costs that it doesn’t work. The problem is evident, for would involve, it is absolutely essential example, in the production o antibiotics. that the United States lessen its depen- Because o the growing problem o dence on China and India for its lifesaving antimicrobial resistance—which threat- drugs and develop additional manufactur- ens to bring back a pre-antibiotic dark ing capacity in the United States itsel age, in which a cut or a scrape could kill and in reliably friendly Western nations. and surgery was a risk-lled nightmare— The U.S. government must also get it makes little sense for pharmaceutical more strategic in overseeing the companies to devote enormous human Strategic National Stockpile. Not only and nancial resources to developing a does it need to perform realistic powerful new antibiotic that might evaluations o what should be on hand subsequently be restricted to use in only to meet surges in demand at any given the most extreme cases. But in a u time, in order to avoid repeating the pandemic, such highly eective antibiot- current shame o not having enough ics would be essential, since a primary ¾¾ for health-care workers and rst cause o death in recent u outbreaks responders; supplies should also be has been secondary bacterial pneumonia rotated in and out on a regular basis, so infecting lungs weakened by the virus. that, for instance, the store doesn’t end The same holds for developing up including masks with degraded vaccines or treatments for diseases such rubber bands or expired medications. as Ebola. Such drugs have virtually no sales most o the time but are critical to HOLISTIC TREATMENT averting an epidemic when an outbreak To make progress on either a specic strikes. Governments must be willing to vaccine or a vaccine platform for subsidize the research, development, diseases o pandemic potential, govern-
22 ¬®¯°± ¬¬¯
Book 1.indb 22 5/15/20 9:25 PM ments have to play a central role. That includes funding basic research, development, and the Phase 3 clinical trials necessary for validation and licensing. (This phase is often referred A SUPERBUG to as “the valley o death,” because it is the point at which many drugs with early laboratory promise don’t pan out in GIRLS’ EDUCATION real-world applications.) It is also imperative that governments commit to purchasing these vaccines. A KILLER ROBOT With its current concentration on the development o a vaccine for -19 and other medical countermeasures, SPACE JUNK has had to put other projects on the back burner. For all the complaints about its cumbersome contracting THE NUCLEAR BUTTON process and tight oversight controls (said by critics to stie outside-the-box thinking and experimentation), TRASH is the closest thing the U.S. government has to a venture capital rm for epi- demic response. C -19 should spur A WOOLY MAMMOTH a commitment to upgrading it, and a panel o experts should undertake a review o ’s annual budget and scope to determine what the agency needs to meet and respond to future biomedical challenges. A podcast that brings O all the vaccines that deserve the world home. priority, at the very top o the list should be a “universal” inuenza vaccine, which would be game changing. Twice a year, once for the Northern Hemisphere and once for the Southern Hemisphere, through an observational and not very precise committee process, international public health ocials try to guess which u strains are likely to are up the next fall, and then they rush a new vaccine based on these guesstimates into produc- Produced by: tion and distribution. The problem is that inuenza can mutate and reassort its genes with maddening ease as it passes
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FA 23_rev.indd 1 5/18/20 11:26 AM Book 1.indb 23 5/15/20 9:25 PM Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker
from one living animal or human host to various nations that will need to work the next, so each year’s seasonal u together quickly when worldwide vaccine is usually only partly eective— disease surveillance —another vital better than nothing, but not a precise and component o pandemic prepared- directly targeted bullet like the smallpox ness—recognizes an outbreak. or the measles vaccine. The holy grail o The world was able to eradicate inuenza immunity would be to develop smallpox, one o the great scourges o a vaccine that targets the conserved history, because the two superpowers, elements o the virus—that is, the parts the United States and the Soviet that don’t change from one u strain to Union, both committed to doing so, the next, no matter how many mutations following an appeal at the 1958 conven- or iterations the virus goes through. ing o the World Health Assembly, the A universal inuenza vaccine would decision-making body o the . require a monumental scientic eort, Today’s tense geopolitics makes such a on the scale o the billion-dollar annual common commitment hard to achieve. investment that has gone into ghting But without it, there is little chance o /. The price tag would be adequate preparation for the next enormous, but since another popula- pandemic. The current global health tion-devouring u pandemic will surely architecture is far from sucient. It visit itsel on the globe at some point, has little hope o containing an even the expense would be justied many more threatening outbreak. Instead, times over. Such a vaccine would be the something along the lines o will greatest public health triumph since the be necessary—a public-health-oriented eradication o smallpox. treaty organization with prepositioned O course, no single nation can ght supplies, a deployment blueprint, and a pandemic on its own. Microbes do an agreement among signatories that not respect borders, and they manage an epidemic outbreak in one country to gure out workarounds to restric- will be met with a coordinated and tions on international air travel. As the equally vigorous response by all. Such Nobel Prize–winning molecular biolo- an organization could work in concert gist Joshua Lederberg warned, “The with the and other existing microbe that felled one child in a institutions but act with greater speed, distant continent yesterday can reach eciency, and resources. yours today and seed a global pan- It is easy enough to dismiss warn- demic tomorrow.” With that insight in ings o another 1918-like pandemic: the mind, there should be a major, care- next pandemic might not arise in our fully coordinated disaster drill every lifetimes, and by the time it does, year, similar to the military exercises the science may have come up with robust United States holds with its allies, but medical countermeasures to contain it with a much broader range o partners. at lower human and economic cost. These should involve governments, These are reasonable possibilities. But public health and emergency-response reasonable enough to collectively bet institutions, and the major medically our lives on? History says otherwise.∂ related manufacturing industries o
24
04_Osterholm_proof_Blues.indd 24 5/18/20 5:55 PM Your dream job is a global adventure away.
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20-ASU-0356 MGM Foreign Affairs FP R01.indd 1 3/3/20 10:25 AM Return to Table of Contents
that citizens trust and listen to, and The Pandemic and eective leaders—have performed impres- sively, limiting the damage they have Political Order suered. Countries with dysfunctional states, polarized societies, or poor leader- ship have done badly, leaving their citizens It Takes a State and economies exposed and vulnerable. The more that is learned about Francis Fukuyama ²®³¯´-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, the more it seems the crisis ajor crises have major conse- will be protracted, measured in years quences, usually unforeseen. rather than quarters. The virus appears MThe Great Depression spurred less deadly than feared, but very conta- isolationism, nationalism, fascism, and gious and often transmitted asymptomati- World War II—but also led to the New cally. Ebola is highly lethal but hard to Deal, the rise o the United States as a catch; victims die quickly, before they can global superpower, and eventually pass it on. C®³¯´-19 is the opposite,
THE WORLD AFTER PANDEMIC decolonization. The 9/11 attacks produced which means that people tend not to take two failed American interventions, the it as seriously as they should, and so it rise o Iran, and new forms o Islamic has, and will continue to, spread widely radicalism. The 2008 nancial crisis across the globe, causing vast numbers o generated a surge in antiestablishment deaths. There will be no moment when populism that replaced leaders across countries will be able to declare victory the globe. Future historians will trace over the disease; rather, economies will comparably large eects to the current open up slowly and tentatively, with coronavirus pandemic; the challenge is progress slowed by subsequent waves o guring them out ahead o time. infections. Hopes for a V-shaped recov- It is already clear why some countries ery appear wildly optimistic. More likely have done better than others in dealing is an L with a long tail curving upward or with the crisis so far, and there is every a series oµ Ws. The world economy will reason to think those trends will con- not go back to anything like its pre-²®³¯´ tinue. It is not a matter o regime type. state anytime soon. Some democracies have performed well, Economically, a protracted crisis but others have not, and the same is true will mean more business failures and for autocracies. The factors responsible devastation for industries such as shop- for successful pandemic responses have ping malls, retail chains, and travel. been state capacity, social trust, and Levels o market concentration in the leadership. Countries with all three—a U.S. economy had been rising steadily competent state apparatus, a government for decades, and the pandemic will push the trend still further. Only large compa- FRANCIS FUKUYAMA is Olivier Nomellini nies with deep pockets will be able to Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute ride out the storm, with the technology for International Studies at Stanford University and the author of Identity: The Demand for giants gaining most o all, as digital Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. interactions become ever more important.
26 ¬®¯°± ¬¬¯
Book 1.indb 26 5/15/20 9:25 PM Francis Fukuyama
The political consequences could be world can watch ó, too, and has stood even more signicant. Populations can by in amazement, with China quick to be summoned to heroic acts o collec- make the comparison clear. tive self-sacrice for a while, but not Over the years to come, the pandemic forever. A lingering epidemic combined could lead to the United States’ relative with deep job losses, a prolonged decline, the continued erosion o the recession, and an unprecedented debt liberal international order, and a resur- burden will inevitably create tensions gence o fascism around the globe. It that turn into a political backlash—but could also lead to a rebirth oµ liberal against whom is as yet unclear. democracy, a system that has confounded The global distribution o power will skeptics many times, showing remark- continue to shift eastward, since East able powers o resilience and renewal. Asia has done better at managing the Elements oµ both visions will emerge, in situation than Europe or the United dierent places. Unfortunately, unless States. Even though the pandemic current trends change dramatically, the originated in China and Beijing initially general forecast is gloomy. covered it up and allowed it to spread, China will benet from the crisis, at RISING FASCISM? least in relative terms. As it happened, Pessimistic outcomes are easy to imag- other governments at rst performed ine. Nationalism, isolationism, xeno- poorly and tried to cover it up, too, more phobia, and attacks on the liberal world visibly and with even deadlier conse- order have been increasing for years, quences for their citizens. And at least and that trend will only be accelerated Beijing has been able to regain control by the pandemic. Governments in Hun- o the situation and is moving on to the gary and the Philippines have used the next challenge, getting its economy back crisis to give themselves emergency up to speed quickly and sustainably. powers, moving them still further away The United States, in contrast, has from democracy. Many other countries, bungled its response badly and seen its including China, El Salvador, and prestige slip enormously. The country Uganda, have taken similar measures. has vast potential state capacity and had Barriers to the movement o people built an impressive track record over have appeared everywhere, including previous epidemiological crises, but its within the heart o Europe; rather than current highly polarized society and cooperate constructively for their incompetent leader blocked the state common benet, countries have turned from functioning eectively. The inward, bickered with one another, and president stoked division rather than made their rivals political scapegoats for promoting unity, politicized the distri- their own failures. bution o aid, pushed responsibility The rise o nationalism will increase onto governors for making key deci- the possibility o international conict. sions while encouraging protests against Leaders may see ghts with foreigners them for protecting public health, and as useful domestic political distractions, attacked international institutions or they may be tempted by the weak- rather than galvanizing them. The ness or preoccupation o their oppo-
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Book 1.indb 28 5/15/20 9:25 PM The Pandemic and Political Order
nents and take advantage o the pan- rising expectations is ultimately a classic demic to destabilize favorite targets or recipe for revolution. The desperate create new facts on the ground. Still, will seek to migrate, demagogic leaders given the continued stabilizing force o will exploit the situation to seize power, nuclear weapons and the common corrupt politicians will take the oppor- challenges facing all major players, tunity to steal what they can, and international turbulence is less likely many governments will clamp down or than domestic turbulence. collapse. A new wave o attempted Poor countries with crowded cities migration from the global South to the and weak public health systems will be North, meanwhile, would be met with hit hard. Not just social distancing but even less sympathy and more resistance even simple hygiene such as hand this time around, since migrants could washing is extremely di¹cult in coun- be accused more credibly now o tries where many citizens have no bringing disease and chaos. regular access to clean water. And Finally, the appearances o so-called governments have often made matters black swans are by denition unpre- worse rather than better—whether by dictable but increasingly likely the design, by inciting communal tensions further out one looks. Past pandemics and undermining social cohesion, or by have fostered apocalyptic visions, cults, simple incompetence. India, for exam- and new religions growing up around ple, increased its vulnerability by the extreme anxieties caused by pro- declaring a sudden nationwide shut- longed hardship. Fascism, in fact, could down without thinking through the be seen as one such cult, emerging from consequences for the tens o millions o the violence and dislocation engendered migrant laborers who crowd into every by World War I and its aftermath. large city. Many went to their rural Conspiracy theories used to ourish in homes, spreading the disease through- places such as the Middle East, where out the country; once the government ordinary people were disempowered and reversed its position and began to felt they lacked agency. Today, they have restrict movement, a large number found spread widely throughout rich coun- themselves trapped in cities without tries, as well, thanks in part to a frac- work, shelter, or care. tured media environment caused by the Displacement caused by climate Internet and social media, and sustained change was already a slow-moving crisis suering is likely to provide rich mate- brewing in the global South. The rial for populist demagogues to exploit. pandemic will compound its eects, bringing large populations in develop- OR RESILIENT DEMOCRACY? ing countries ever closer to the edge o Nevertheless, just as the Great Depres- subsistence. And the crisis has crushed sion not only produced fascism but also the hopes oµ hundreds o millions o reinvigorated liberal democracy, so the people in poor countries who have been pandemic may produce some positive the beneciaries o two decades o political outcomes, too. It has often taken sustained economic growth. Popular just such a huge external shock to break outrage will grow, and dashing citizens’ sclerotic political systems out o their
July/August 2020 29
Book 1.indb 29 5/15/20 9:25 PM Francis Fukuyama
stasis and create the conditions for This might put to rest the extreme long-overdue structural reform, and that forms o neoliberalism, the free-market pattern is likely to play out again, at ideology pioneered by University o least in some places. Chicago economists such as Gary The practical realities oµ handling the Becker, Milton Friedman, and George pandemic favor professionalism and Stigler. During the 1980s, the Chicago expertise; demagoguery and incompetence school provided intellectual justication are readily exposed. This should ulti- for the policies o U.S. President mately create a benecial selection eect, Ronald Reagan and British Prime rewarding politicians and governments Minister Margaret Thatcher, who that do well and penalizing those that do considered large, intrusive government poorly. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who has to be an obstacle to economic growth steadily hollowed out his country’s and human progress. At the time, there democratic institutions in recent years, were good reasons to cut back many tried to blu his way through the crisis forms o government ownership and and is now oundering and presiding regulation. But the arguments hardened over a health disaster. Russia’s Vladimir into a libertarian religion, embedding Putin tried to play down the importance hostility to state action in a generation o the pandemic at rst, then claimed o conservative intellectuals, particu- that Russia had it under control, and larly in the United States. will have to change his tune yet again as Given the importance o strong state ²®³¯´-19 spreads throughout the action to slow the pandemic, it will be country. Putin’s legitimacy was already hard to argue, as Reagan did in his rst weakening before the crisis, and that inaugural address, that “government is process may have accelerated. not the solution to our problem; govern- The pandemic has shone a bright ment is the problem.” Nor will anybody light on existing institutions every- be able to make a plausible case that the where, revealing their inadequacies and private sector and philanthropy can weaknesses. The gap between the rich substitute for a competent state during a and the poor, both people and countries, national emergency. In April, Jack has been deepened by the crisis and will Dorsey, the ²® oµ Twitter, announced increase further during a prolonged that he would contribute $1 billion to economic stagnation. But along with ²®³¯´-19 relief, an extraordinary act o the problems, the crisis has also re- charity. That same month, the U.S. vealed government’s ability to provide Congress appropriated $2.3 trillion to solutions, drawing on collective resources sustain businesses and individuals hurt in the process. A lingering sense o by the pandemic. Antistatism may linger “alone together” could boost social among the lockdown protesters, but solidarity and drive the development polls suggest that a large majority o o more generous social protections Americans trust the advice o government down the road, just as the common medical experts in dealing with the national suerings oµ World War I and crisis. This could increase support for the Depression stimulated the growth government interventions to address o welfare states in the 1920s and 1930s. other major social problems.
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Book 1.indb 30 5/15/20 9:25 PM It Takes a State
And the crisis may ultimately spur renewed international cooperation. While national leaders play the blame game, scientists and public health ocials around the world are deepening their networks and A podcast on connections. I the breakdown o inter- national cooperation leads to disaster and the impact of is judged a failure, the era after that could see a renewed commitment to working big tech multilaterally to advance common interests. on our
DON’T GET YOUR HOPES UP democracy, The pandemic has been a global political stress test. Countries with capable, society and legitimate governments will come economy. through relatively well and may embrace reforms that make them even stronger and more resilient, thus facilitating their future outperformance. Countries with weak state capacity or poor leadership will be in trouble, set for stagnation, i not impoverishment and instability. The problem is that the second group greatly outnumbers the rst. Unfortunately, the stress test has been so hard that very few are likely to pass. To handle the initial stages o the crisis successfully, countries needed not only capable states and adequate resources but also a great deal o social consensus and competent leaders who inspired trust. This need was met by South Korea, which delegated management o the epidemic to a professional health bureaucracy, and by Angela Merkel’s Germany. Far more common have been governments that have fallen short in one way or another. Co-hosts Taylor Owen and David Skok sit down And since the rest o the crisis will also with high-profile guests to have in-depth and thought-provoking discussions about be hard to manage, these national trends technology’s impact on the world. are likely to continue, making broader optimism dicult. Another reason for pessimism is that the positive scenarios assume some sort cigionline.org/bt o rational public discourse and social
July/August 2020 31
FA 31_rev.indd 1 5/18/20 11:29 AM Book 1.indb 31 5/15/20 9:25 PM Francis Fukuyama
learning. Yet the link between techno- a country on its knees. Demands for cratic expertise and public policy is action will meet mountains o debt and weaker today than in the past, when die-hard resistance from a rump opposi- elites held more power. The democrati- tion. National and international institu- zation o authority spurred by the digital tions will be weak and reeling after years revolution has attened cognitive hierar- o abuse, and it will take years to rebuild chies along with other hierarchies, and them—i it is still possible at all. political decision-making is now driven With the most urgent and tragic phase by often weaponized babble. That is o the crisis past, the world is moving hardly an ideal environment for con- into a long, depressing slog. It will come structive, collective self-examination, out o it eventually, some parts faster and some polities may remain irrational than others. Violent global convulsions longer than they can remain solvent. are unlikely, and democracy, capitalism, The biggest variable is the United and the United States have all proved States. It was the country’s singular capable o transformation and adapta- misfortune to have the most incompe- tion before. But they will need to pull a tent and divisive leader in its modern rabbit out o the hat once again.∂ history at the helm when the crisis hit, and his mode o governance did not change under pressure. Having spent his term at war with the state he heads, he was unable to deploy it eectively when the situation demanded. Having judged that his political fortunes were best served by confrontation and rancor rather than national unity, he has used the crisis to pick ghts and increase social cleavages. American underperfor- mance during the pandemic has several causes, but the most signicant has been a national leader who has failed to lead. I the president is given a second term in November, the chances for a broader resurgence o democracy or o the liberal international order will drop. Whatever the election result, however, the United States’ deep polarization is likely to remain. Hold- ing an election during a pandemic will be tough, and there will be incentives for the disgruntled losers to challenge its legitimacy. Even should the Demo- crats take the White House and both houses o Congress, they would inherit
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decision-making under crisis, arguing that THE WORLD AFTER PANDEMIC A More Resilient only a centralized, authoritarian state can act quickly and ruthlessly enough. Union Yet federalism was not what held the United States back from a quick and eective response; the problem was How Federalism Can Protect governance. President Donald Trump Democracy From Pandemics deserves blame for failing at his central task o educating the public, but he Danielle Allen wasn’t acting in a vacuum. The virus has exposed that American democracy, although well equipped structurally, has hen the novel coronavirus lost its way in terms o its capacity to arrived in the United States, nd a common purpose. W it hit an economy, a society, and a constitutional democracy that were THE FEDERALISM FALLACY fundamentally unprepared. As the extent When the framers wrote the U.S. Consti- o the challenge became clear, the country tution, they consciously chose a federal simply could not deliver what was needed system o government. Recognizing to confront it: a large-scale program o that dierent functions should be handled testing and contact tracing, which would at dierent levels, they assigned some have suppressed the virus and allowed the responsibilities to the national level and economy to remain open. Just as the 2008 others lower down, while charging the nancial crisis exposed blind spots in how national government with maintaining countries thought about integrated harmony among the states. In the markets, within the rst three months o context o the coronavirus, this system 2020, the spread o ²®³¯´-19, the disease o federalism should be an asset, not a caused by the virus—with the massive liability. It provides exibility and the spike in deaths and the economic damage ability to tailor responses to the context— resulting from the shutdown—revealed just what the United States needed. that the United States was vulnerable to a Rural areas with no ²®³¯´-19 cases did more literal type o globalization-enabled not require the same response as cities contagion. What went wrong? with thousands. Many have blamed the United States’ In other parts o the world, the federal system, arguing that a decentral- pandemic has been controlled most ized government that devolves signi- easily in population units smaller than cant power to 50 states is no match for a a massive country like the United fast-acting virus. Those who hold this States. The Chinese contained the virus view have pointed to China’s prompt by specically locking down Wuhan, response to the outbreak as a model for the epicenter o the epidemic, and nearby cities. Island states with rela- DANIELLE ALLEN is James Bryant Conant tively small populations, such as Hong University Professor and Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and University. Taiwan, have fended o the virus
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especially well. Iceland has also fared reorientation o the economy and force well: by April 11, it had managed to private companies to produce ventila- test ten percent o its 350,000 people. tors, masks, and test kits. Only the The town oµ Vò, Italy, tested every federal government, empowered by the single one o its 3,000 residents, Defense Production Act o 1950, can eradicating ²®³¯´-19 in less than two do this. But Trump was slow to invoke weeks. The smaller the administrative the act, losing precious weeks. unit, the easier it is to roll out testing. The United States is blessed with a Why is this so? A big reason is that tiered structure o government, with viruses spread through social networks. the authority for responding to an Eorts to control them that take into outbreak residing in o¹cials from the account existing social structures president all the way down to the lowly perform better than those that do not. county health o¹cer. This setup is valu- Consider the dierence in how Singa- able because it makes it possible to pore and South Korea responded. implement custom-tailored policy on Because Singapore was blind to the smaller scales. As public health authori- social networks o migrant communi- ties discovered during the ů³/¯´ ties, the government failed to test and crisis, contact-tracing programs work trace the virus’s spread adequately best when they are run by people who among them, and the country experi- are trusted in the communities where enced an explosion o ²®³¯´-19 cases, they operate. Although Americans’ starting in its migrant worker popula- distrust o the federal government has tion. In South Korea, by contrast, when risen continuously over the last few a member o a large church tested decades, trust in local government positive, the government moved swiftly remains high. In a 2018 Gallup poll, 72 to test the entire congregation to percent o respondents said they have a control the spread. The lesson for the “great deal” or a “fair amount” o United States is that authority for key condence in their local government. public health decisions should be lodged That’s why, for example, a contact- with state and local authorities. After all, tracing program that protects privacy is they are the ones who best understand best introduced at the local level. I the dynamics o community spread. sensitive data about everyone a person At the same time, however, the has interacted with were funneled into a federal government needs to create the centralized national database, the poten- conditions for success. Small island tial for abuse would be high. No data- nations have it much easier: they can base is foolproof, but compared with a both make policy at levels close to the single national database, small pockets ground and coordinate a national o data are a far less tempting target for economy to support those policies. In hackers or proteers. Although the the United States, city governments federal government should surely help have no ability to, say, change mon- design the digital infrastructure used by etary policy to support their budgets. local health o¹cials, for the sake o Nor are states, for their part, in a beneting from scale, it’s reasonable to position to activate a wartime-style leave the use o that infrastructure in
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Ask your doctor: Trump with medical advisers at a White House brieng, April 2020
the hands o local authorities, with fundamentally an act o public educa- oversight from state governments. tion. The presidency is the foremost More broadly, Americans should teaching platform in the country. To expect the federal government to focus implement the plan, leaders will need on the big picture: setting overarching to activate the machinery o govern- goals and identifying promising prac- ment and do the nuts-and-bolts work o tices for how best to respond to the setting policies and directing resources. pandemic in ways that save both lives But the machinery o government is and livelihoods. They should expect greased by public acceptance. When the their state, county, metropolitan, and pandemic hit, none o this happened. municipal governments to get into the Trump, the person with the greatest nitty-gritty: contact tracing, testing, power to educate the public and moti- treating the ill, and supporting those vate the whole country behind a common who are self-isolating. That dierenti- purpose, declined to use that power. ated setup existed long before the This was a personal failing, but it was coronavirus arrived. The United States’ not just that. For decades now, the federal system, in other words, had all American public’s understanding o the the elements needed to respond to such demands and requirements o governance JONATHAN a crisis. What went wrong was a failure has atrophied. That point hit home after o governance. Trump was elected in 2016, when disgruntled Americans o all ages from / REUTERS ERNST THE GOVERNANCE GAP around the country wrote to me asking In times o crisis, a government’s duty how they could play a civic role and is to lead the public through a process protect the values they cared about. o diagnosing the problem and identify- (Evidently, being a historian o American ing a shared plan for solving it. This is constitutional democracy and a political
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philosopher o democracy was enough to “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE mark me as a civics “Dear Abby.”) What WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM astonished me was how few people knew ITSELF.” He was right. That moment where to start. They did not know how should have been greeted as a call for to call a meeting, how to engage their coming up with alternative ways o fellow Americans in a conversation about addressing the health problem that diagnosing their circumstances and would not kill the economy. But most o nding some sort o shared purpose. All the country did not hear his remark that that constitutional democracy is, is a set way. Instead, they interpreted it as a o institutions that give people the chance refusal to reckon with the challenge o to do these things and, i they do them the disease itself. well, to shape their communities. Yet A common purpose is not some Americans no longer understood how to airy-fairy thing. It is a practical tool use the machinery sitting all around them. that allows people to achieve something As the pandemic grew, instead o together. In eect, it is a map marked endlessly debating Trump, more Ameri- with a destination, a guide that permits cans should have asked, What questions collaborative navigation. A common need to be answered here? Had they done purpose is perhaps the most powerful so, they might have realized that neither tool in the democratic toolkit, particu- public health experts nor economists larly in a crisis, because it can yield the have a monopoly on how to respond. solidarity that induces people to do The former know how to ght diseases, hard things voluntarily rather than but they know little about how to get through authoritarian compulsion. Yet supply chains to deliver a testing infra- the tool is disintegrating from disuse. structure on an unprecedented scale. The latter know how to revive a agging CIVICS LESSON economy, but they know little about which Why has Americans’ understanding o alternatives to stay-at-home orders are constitutional democracy and o indi- eective at controlling a disease. At a time viduals’ roles within it deteriorated? The when there was a need to take in advice answer probably goes back to another from two silos o experts and make an crisis. When the United States entered integrated judgment, Americans settled World War II, it mobilized behind the into camps, defending the monofocal common purpose o defeating the Axis perspective o one category o expertise threat. As part o that eort, the U.S. or another. Americans needed to shake military, intent on beating Germany to o the shackles o obeisance to techno- developing an atomic bomb, activated the crats. Their elected leaders should have scientic community through the Manhat- led them through the process o asking tan Project. That was the beginning o the the right questions and then making scientication o American society. judgment calls, taking into account the After the Cold War began, and best advice experts could give. especially after the launch o Sputnik by There was a spark o such a moment the Soviet Union in 1957, the United in late March, when Trump tweeted States increasingly invested in scientic about collective stay-at-home orders, research and in education in the Ã
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elds (science, technology, engineering, and math). The goal was to remain globally competitive in both economic and military terms. Americans were inspired afresh in 1983 by A Nation at Risk, a federal report that found that the United States’ “once unchallenged preeminence in commerce, industry, science, and technological innovation is being overtaken by competitors Bring the throughout the world.” More recently, the National Academy o Sciences’ 2007 REAL WORLD report Rising Above the Gathering Storm worried that “the scienti c and techno- to your classroom logical building blocks critical to [the United States’] economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength.” Case Studies The United States needs science. It needs technological innovation, and it needs scientists to advise elected lead- American foreign policy ers. But that is not all the country needs. It also needs people who can Global institutions interpret the science and make judg- ment calls that take broader factors into Terrorism & security account. The U.S. government’s grow- ing investments in scienti c education International trade have been accompanied by reductions in Women, peace and security funding for civics education. Health and science In the 1950s, most high schools oered students three separate civics courses; and more... today, they usually oer only one, and 15 percent o students don’t even get that. Join our Faculty Lounge for Eleven states have no civics education premier access to this unique requirements whatsoever. The federal government spends $54 per student per online library of nearly 250 year on the elds. The gure for case studies and simulations civics education: ve cents. No won- — and make diplomacy part der, then, that in 2018, the National of your course Assessment o Educational Progress, a set o exams administered by the U.S. Department o Education, found that https://casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu/ only 24 percent o eighth graders were pro cient in civics.
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What’s more, science education is Sporting events may be the last things negatively correlated with political Americans get back as they reopen their participation: researchers have discov- economy. They should use the extra ered that the more hours o science time to double down on civics education. courses college students take, the less This crisis has laid bare just how likely they are to vote or partake in fragile and unsteady the United States’ other aspects o civic life. Over the constitutional democracy is. Now, the course o nearly eight decades o country must get its house in order and investing in scientic competitiveness, prioritize its farthest-reaching hopes and the United States neglected the civic aspirations. Americans had all the tools side o the equation. needed to respond to this crisis, except And the country is paying for it now. for the very thing that would have given In the United States today, the art o them reason to use them: a common governance is, at best, on life support. purpose. Let the search for one begin.∂ Paradoxically, Trump has delivered the best civics lesson in generations. Thanks to his impeachment trial, Americans have had to think about the proper bounds o executive power, the checks oered by the legislative and judicial branches, and precepts o the Constitu- tion. Thanks to his failure to govern through this crisis, many have learned for the rst time just how the United States’ federal system is supposed to work. I the country’s constitutional democracy is to have a healthy future, Americans should nish this crisis intending not only to invest in health infrastructure but also to revive civics education. Schools need more time for history, civics, and social studies. What should go to make room? Sports, for one thing. Compared with other coun- tries, the United States invests a dispro- portionate amount o time and money in sports. Americans appear to prefer football to democracy. It’s time to cut back—and I say this as someone whose rst professional ambition in life was to be a running back. The United States has made such sacrices before. World War II saw the suspension o football and soccer seasons the world over.
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It is tempting to conclude that When the System multilateral institutions—ostensibly foundational to the rules-based inter- Fails national system—are, at best, less eective than advertised and, at worst, doomed to fail when they are needed COVID-19 and the Costs of most. But that conclusion goes too far. Global Dysfunction Weak international cooperation is a choice, not an inevitability. Stewart Patrick The dismal multilateral response to the pandemic reects, in part, the he chaotic global response to decisions o specic leaders, especially the coronavirus pandemic has Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. Ttested the faith o even the most President Donald Trump. Their ardent internationalists. Most nations, behavior helps explain why the ÇÅ® including the world’s most powerful, struggled in the initial stages o the have turned inward, adopting travel outbreak and why forums for multilat-
THE WORLD AFTER PANDEMIC bans, implementing export controls, eral coordination, such as the G-7, the hoarding or obscuring information, G-20, and the ɱ Security Council, and marginalizing the World Health failed to rise to the occasion. Organization (ÇÅ®) and other multi- Just as important is the unique lateral institutions. The pandemic cooperation challenge that the novel seems to have exposed the liberal order coronavirus represents—and the dis- and the international community as tinctive weakness o the particular mirages, even as it demonstrates the institution most central to addressing terrible consequences o faltering it. The ÇÅ® has a mandate that exceeds global cooperation. its capabilities. Member states have A century ago, when pandemic assigned it more and more tasks while inuenza struck a war-torn world, limiting its independence and resources, few multilateral institutions existed. setting the organization up for failure. Countries fought their common To the extent that global health gover- microbial enemy alone. Today, an array nance has failed, it has failed by design, o multilateral mechanisms exists to reecting the ambivalence o states torn confront global public health emergencies between their desire for eective and address their associated economic, international institutions and their social, and political eects. But the insistence on independent action. existence o such mechanisms has not The pandemic has revealed both the stopped most states from taking a limits o the existing multilateral system unilateral approach. and the horric costs o the system’s failure. I the current crisis causes STEWART PATRICK is James H. Binger policymakers to conclude that multilat- Senior Fellow in Global Governance at the eralism is doomed and convinces them Council on Foreign Relations and the author of The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America to provoke its unraveling, they will be With the World. setting humanity up for even more
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costly calamities. I the crisis instead o rising interdependence. Among the serves as a wake-up call—a spur to invest most prominent o the new instruments in a more eective multilateral sys- was the ÇÅ®, which was created as a tem—the world will be far better specialized ɱ agency in 1948. prepared when the next global pandemic Since 2000, the organization has strikes, increasing the likelihood that risen markedly in importance, as the imperatives o cooperation will win various new and reemerging infectious out over the pressures o competition. diseases have threatened global health and security. The agency managed the MISSING IN ACTION global responses to the epidemic When the so-called Spanish u ravaged in 2003, the H1N1 u pandemic in the world in 1918, global health gover- 2009, the Ebola epidemic in 2014–16, nance was still in its infancy. Public and the Zika epidemic in 2015–16. In health had been a national or local the wake o , the World Health matter until the mid-nineteenth century, Assembly, the ÇÅ®’s governing body, when revolutions in transport deepened strengthened the International Health global integration to an unprecedented Regulations, the core legal prescriptions degree. In 1851, European countries governing state conduct with respect to hosted the rst International Sanitary infectious disease. The new ¯Å gave Conference, devoted to managing the ÇÅ®’s director general the authority cholera. Over the next six decades, to declare a “public health emergency o governments would hold 11 more such international concern” and required conferences, negotiate multilateral member states to increase their pan- treaties on infectious disease, and demic-response capacities. establish new international organizations, Meanwhile, an entire multilateral including the Pan American Sanitary ecosystem o global public health Bureau and the O¹ce International arrangements blossomed alongside the d’Hygiène Publique. ÇÅ® and its ¯Å, including the Global Yet these arrangements, focused as Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization they were on sanitation, were no match (now called °³¯, the Vaccine Alliance), for the Spanish u. The lack o meaning- the Global Health Security Agenda, ful international coordination to combat the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency the pandemic left each government to Financing Facility, and the Africa Cen- fend for itself. The outbreak quickly ters for Disease Control and Prevention. became the deadliest public health The result is a global health infrastruc- emergency in modern times, killing an ture beyond the wildest dreams o the estimated 50 million people worldwide. national leaders who confronted the 1918 It was not until the decades after inuenza pandemic alone. World War II that countries created a Amid the current pandemic, how- robust infrastructure to manage interna- ever, governments have repeatedly tional public health emergencies. They forsaken opportunities for consultation, established hundreds o multilateral joint planning, and collaboration, organizations and signed thousands o opting instead to adopt nationalist treaties to manage the shared dilemmas stances that have put them at odds with
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Book 1.indb 42 5/15/20 9:25 PM The World Is Changing And So Are We
The current global pandemic illustrates that the world is changing quickly and it is essential for leaders to understand how economics, geopolitics, security, health and the environment are inextricably linked— exactly what you will learn as a student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Discover how our flexible graduate programs—including fully online courses and degrees—will help you to advance your career.
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> Washington DC > Europe > China > Online Stewart Patrick
one another and with the ÇÅ®. The refer to the virus as “the Wuhan result has been a near-total lack o coronavirus,” after the Chinese city global policy coherence. where it was rst discovered. In China, the initial epicenter o the The G-20, which comprises the coronavirus pandemic, Xi’s govern- world’s most important established and ment was slow to report the outbreak emerging economies, operated on a to the ÇÅ®, and it resisted full trans- similar timeline, convening to discuss parency thereafter. What’s more, the pandemic for the rst time in late Beijing initially rebued oers from March, nearly three months into the the ÇÅ® and the U.S. Centers for outbreak. At their virtual summit, the Disease Control and Prevention to parties rejected requests from the provide desperately needed scientic International Monetary Fund to double expertise in epidemiology and molecu- its resources and suspend the debt lar virology. China was also slow to obligations o poor nations. (They have share transmission data and biological since suspended low-income countries’ samples with the ÇÅ®. debt service payments.) Outside China, many countries Finally, the Security Council re- responded to the novel coronavirus by mained missing in action. China, which implementing international travel held the rotating presidency o the restrictions. On January 31, Trump Security Council in March, blocked it ordered the United States closed to from considering any resolution about foreigners who had recently traveled to the pandemic, arguing that public China. On March 11, without consult- health matters fell outside the council’s ing U.S. allies, he abruptly suspended “geopolitical” ambit. (This is plainly air travel from Europe to the United untrue: in 2014, for instance, the body States. Brazil, India, Israel, and Russia passed Resolution 2177, designating the also implemented pandemic-related West African Ebola epidemic a “threat border restrictions that month. Other to international peace and security.”) countries, such as France and Germany, The most promising multilateral either banned or imposed limits on the initiative was the most under resourced. export o protective medical equipment. On March 25, ɱ Secretary-General Particularly disappointing on the António Guterres launched a humani- global stage was the lack o concerted tarian response plan to mitigate the action by the G-7, the G-20, and the ɱ eects o the coronavirus on fragile and Security Council. The leaders o the war-torn states, which are home to G-7, representing the world’s biggest approximately a billion people and a advanced market democracies, failed to majority o the world’s poor, as well as meet until early March. Even then, most o its 70 million refugees and they did little more than highlight their internally displaced people. Yet with a respective border closures. Later that budget o just $2 billion in ɱ funds, month, a meeting o G-7 foreign this plan had funding that was less ministers dissolved into acrimony when than one-1,000th o what the United U.S. partners rejected Washington’s States had dedicated to its domestic demand that the nal communiqué response by early May.
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PRIMAL INSTINCTS crises, international institutions do not Such shortcomings have prompted spring autonomously into action. They observers to conclude that failure is need to be spurred by their member inevitable—that in times o crisis, states, who invariably hold the whip citizens will look to their own leaders, hand. The secretariats o multilateral and governments will care for their own organizations can take some initiative, citizens at the expense o global con- but they always do so within constraints, cerns. But the record o other crises in as agents o their sovereign principals. recent years, especially the last global To the degree that global governance nancial crisis, suggests that sovereign exists, states—especially major powers— states are quite capable o coordinated remain the true governors. responses to shared global challenges, Unfortunately, powerful countries provided that their leaders take an such as the United States and China enlightened view o their countries’ have failed to play that vital leadership long-term national interests. role during the coronavirus crisis. In In 2008–9, rst U.S. President keeping with his past rhetoric and George W. Bush and then President actions, Trump has followed his “America Barack Obama spearheaded a coopera- rst” instincts and adopted a nationalist tive international response to the global response to the pandemic, framing credit crunch, helping prevent the ²®³¯´-19, the disease caused by the new world’s descent into another Great coronavirus, not as a threat to global Depression. Bush convened the rst- public health but as an assault on the ever meeting o the leaders o the G-20 sovereignty o the United States and in November 2008. The group met the safety o its citizens. As when he twice more in 2009, Obama’s rst year addresses the issue o immigrants and in o¹ce, coordinating massive stimulus refugees, his rst impulse was to harden packages to restore global liquidity, U.S. borders against what he insisted expanding the resources and mandates on calling a “foreign” or “Chinese” o the International Monetary Fund virus. There was no sense in Trump’s and the World Bank, and avoiding the reaction that the United States had any type o discriminatory trade and responsibility to launch or even partici- monetary policies that had fragmented pate in a collective global response. and weakened the world economy in the Chinese leaders, meanwhile, have early 1930s. The lesson is clear: multi- refused to cooperate with their counter- lateral institutions are what states and parts at the G-20 and the ɱ because their leaders make o them. they fear exposure and embarrassment. The late Richard Holbrooke, during Deliberations in the ɱ Security Council, his tenure as U.S. ambassador to the in particular, would have uncovered ɱ, made a similar point in criticizing China’s lack o transparency in handling the lazy habit o chastising the ɱ for the initial outbreak, as well as its cam- failures o multilateralism. Such paign o misinformation regarding the criticism, Holbrooke said, was akin to virus’s origins, sharpening international “blaming Madison Square Garden criticism and frustrating the Chinese when the Knicks lose.” Even during Communist Party’s geopolitical designs.
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China’s desire to avoid those outcomes impose barriers and withdraw into and the United States’ preoccupation smaller groups, thus militating against with exposing Chinese mendacity multilateral responses. Pandemics may prevented the Security Council from be transnational, but they are fought in passing a powerful resolution on the the rst instance within national coronavirus, one that would have had the jurisdictions, by local communities binding force o international law, seeking to protect themselves. allowing it to cut through political obstacles to cooperation. RULES AND REGULATIONS In a more cosmopolitan world, other The persistent weakness o the ÇÅ® has leaders might have lled the vacuum been a particular impediment to eective left by Washington’s delinquence and multilateral mobilization against the Beijing’s obfuscation. But that is not the coronavirus. The ÇÅ® is an invaluable world in which the crisis took shape. repository o scientic expertise, a Over the past dozen years, great-power focal point for global disease surveil- competition has waxed, and democracy’s lance, and a champion o the human fortunes have waned. Ascendant popu- right to health. It has helped eradicate lism and nationalism have weakened the several diseases—most notably small- domestic foundations for multilateral pox—and has put others, such as polio, cooperation by empowering authoritarian on the ropes. It has also highlighted despots and weakening public support the growing threat from noncommuni- for liberal internationalism. Global cable diseases o relative aÍuence, public health, long insulated from geopo- such as obesity and diabetes. litical rivalry and nationalist dema- Yet the ÇÅ® remains deeply awed, goguery, has suddenly become a terrain beset by multiple institutional short- o political combat, crippling the world’s comings that hamstring its ability to response to the pandemic. coordinate a pandemic response. Blame Epidemiological dynamics have also rests partly with the ÇÅ®’s largest stymied cooperation. Unlike the global funders, including the United States, nancial crisis, which struck most coun- the United Kingdom, Germany, and tries at about the same time, the virus has Japan, as well as large charities, such as spread gradually and unevenly. The the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ÇÅ® declared the coronavirus a pandemic which have pressed the organization to on March 11, but even today, the conta- expand its agenda without providing gion’s spread and eects vary widely commensurate resources, all the while from country to country. This has frus- earmarking a growing share o its trated policy coordination, as national and budget to address select diseases rather subnational authorities have responded than to support robust public health to the outbreak’s ever-shifting epicenter capacities in member states. Bureau- by adopting policies reecting very cratic impediments—such as a weak dierent short-term threat assessments. chain o command, an indecisive senior Infectious diseases evoke far more leadership, and a lack o accountabil- fear than most other international ity—have also undercut the organiza- threats, reinforcing primal instincts to tion’s performance.
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The ÇÅ®’s bungled response to the self-assess and self-report their prog- Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 ress in implementing the regulations, revealed many o these shortcomings. accountability is minimal. An independent review panel attributed Even more troubling, the revised the ÇÅ®’s poor performance to crip- ¯Å include a huge loophole that pling budget cuts, a paucity o deploy- allows states to defect during emergen- able personnel and logistical capacity, cies. Countries can impose emergency and a failure to cultivate relationships measures that diverge from ÇÅ® with other ɱ agencies, the private guidelines i they believe these will sector, and nongovernmental organiza- produce superior results, provided they tions. Hoping to correct some o those report their plans within 48 hours o aws, the World Health Assembly implementation. In their early responses authorized the creation o a new global to the coronavirus, governments health emergency workforce and a small repeatedly used this clause to impose contingency fund for rapid response. border closures, travel bans, visa restric- Neither reform resolved the ÇÅ®’s tions, and quarantines on healthy deeper structural problems, which the visitors, regardless o whether these coronavirus has again laid bare. measures had ÇÅ® endorsement or any The biggest impediment to the basis in science. Many did not even ÇÅ®’s success is the failure o its mem- bother to inform the ÇÅ®, forcing it to ber states to comply fully with the ¯Å. glean information from media sources Following the crisis, in which and obligating its director general, China and other countries either Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to refused or neglected to report epidemic dispatch letters reminding member data in a timely and transparent manner, states o their obligations. the World Health Assembly revised the The pandemic has also underscored ¯Å. The new regulations bolstered the aws in the ÇÅ®’s process for declar- ÇÅ®’s surveillance capacities, empowered ing an emergency. It was not until its director general to declare an emer- January 30 that the ÇÅ® nally desig- gency, and required all member states nated the spread o the new coronavi- to develop and maintain minimum core rus as a global emergency, after many capabilities to prevent, detect, and countries had shut their borders and respond to disease outbreaks. grounded commercial aircraft. On top The coronavirus pandemic has o criticizing the agency’s delay, revealed how resistant member states commentators disparaged the ÇÅ®’s remain to implementing their commit- binary, all-or-nothing approach to ments and how little leverage the ÇÅ® warnings, calling for a more nuanced has to ensure that they do so. Fifteen spectrum o alerts. years after the ¯Å were revised, fewer More important, the coronavirus than hal o all countries are in compli- crisis has exposed the lack o protocols to ance, and many nations still lack even ensure that all nations have access to rudimentary surveillance and laboratory vaccines. In past outbreaks, such wealthy capacities to detect outbreaks. Since countries as Australia, Canada, and the national governments are permitted to United States have hoarded vaccines for
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domestic use. This continues today. In Throughout the pandemic, the ÇÅ® March, Trump attempted and failed to has bent over backward to curry favor obtain exclusive U.S. access to a potential with important but di¹cult partners— coronavirus vaccine that is under devel- no surprise given the power asymmetry opment in Germany. Even i govern- between the agency and major donor ments do not hoard vaccines, there will states. Reliant on Chinese data and be widespread disparities in access and cooperation to stem the pandemic, Tedros distributional capacity. went to extraordinary lengths early this Finally, the pandemic has raised the year to ingratiate himsel with Xi and specter that some nations may decline to assuage Chinese sensibilities. to share virus samples, using the “Let me be clear: this declaration Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benet- [o an emergency] is not a vote o no Sharing as their justication. The condence in China,” the director protocol, an international agreement general insisted on January 30. “In many that was adopted in 2010 and that has ways, China is actually setting a new been ratied by more than 120 coun- standard for outbreak response,” he said, tries, serves a worthwhile function: gushing. “It’s not an exaggeration.” It granting nations sovereignty over their was in fact a gross exaggeration, given biological resources. But its application how China mismanaged the early to human pathogens is an obvious stages o the epidemic. Multiple critics perversion o that objective. During have taken Tedros to task, labeling him the 2005–7 avian inuenza pandemic, Beijing’s “enabler.” Indonesia resisted sharing virus sam- The ÇÅ®’s servility has not been ples, citing the misguided concept o limited to its approach to China, “viral sovereignty.” The Nagoya Protocol however. The agency has also largely increases the likelihood that countries avoided direct criticism o the United will act similarly today, risking unac- States, its largest donor. The reverse, ceptable delays in scientic analysis o needless to say, has not been true. At an novel viruses and in the development o April 7 news conference, Trump took lifesaving vaccines to stop pandemics. aim at the ÇÅ® to deect attention from his administration’s own poor BOWING TO REALITY response to the outbreak. He falsely In the wake o this pandemic, one accused the agency o stating in January anticipates growing calls to renegotiate that the coronavirus was “no big deal,” the ¯Å, to strengthen the authority o and he promised to “put a hold” on the ÇÅ®, and to increase the obligations U.S. nancial support for the interna- o the organization’s member states. tional organization. Tedros pushed Doing so in the current populist climate back, but ever so gently and obliquely, would be risky, however. Governments urging all ÇÅ® member states to avoid might seize the opportunity to claw “politicizing” the coronavirus response. back even more sovereign prerogatives, He did not directly refer to either Trump weakening the legal foundations for a or the United States. For international coordinated global response to a public institutions, it seems, kowtowing is just health emergency. another way oµ bowing to reality.
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GIVE AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE their freedom o action, or granting it In the ensuing months, the ÇÅ® and the authorities and capabilities it needs other multilateral institutions have to coordinate a pandemic response. taken some meaningful steps to contain One lesson that will emerge from the the pandemic and cushion its economic ²®³¯´-19 pandemic is that multilateral blows. The ÇÅ® has served as a leading cooperation can seem awfully abstract, source o expertise on the virus, sent until you actually need it—whether you teams to aected countries, helped poor rely on it to atten the curve o an nations build up their health capacities, epidemic, ensure the safety o airline advanced worldwide scientic collabora- travel, protect displaced people, or tion, combated misinformation, and prevent another global economic continued to promote the ¯Å. Simulta- meltdown. Another, harder lesson is neously, it has shaped the responses o that the multilateral system is not a dozens o other ɱ agencies and a¹liated self-regulating, autonomous machine organizations, including the International that springs into action whenever Civil Aviation Organization, the World needed. No amount o technocratic Tourism Organization, the ɱ Refugee expertise or institutional reform can Agency, the ɱ Development Program, compensate for the current lack o the International Monetary Fund, the political direction and sustained leader- World Bank, and many, many more. ship in that system. Prominent member But a truly empowered ÇÅ® could states must be wise benefactors to the have done more. With enhanced politi- multilateral system i they want to be cal powers and a more exible budget, its beneciaries.∂ the agency might have spearheaded a coherent multilateral response to the pandemic, persuaded nations to har- monize their border closures and travel restrictions, shamed laggards into fullling their binding treaty commit- ments under the ¯Å, and deployed signicant resources and personnel to the shifting epicenter o the pandemic. The main obstacle to this outcome, and the reason for the haphazard global response, was the persistent ambiva- lence that all countries, particularly great powers, feel toward global health governance. All governments share a fundamental interest in a multilateral system that can respond quickly and eectively to stop potential pandemics in their tracks. They are less enthusiastic about delegating any o their sovereignty to the ÇÅ®, allowing it to circumscribe
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Asian countries do not want to be forced to choose between the United States and China. – Lee Hsien Loong
The Endangered Asian Century The Overmilitarization o American Lee Hsien Loong 52 Foreign Policy Robert M. Gates 121 DOUG The Age o Magic Money
MILLS Sebastian Mallaby 65 The Next Liberal Order G. John Ikenberry 133 / THE How to Make Trade Work for Workers Robert E. Lighthizer 78 How Hegemony Ends NEW Alexander Cooley and YORK Pinning Down Putin Daniel H. Nexon 143
TIMES Victoria Nuland 93
/ REDUX The Rise o Strategic Corruption Philip Zelikow, Eric Edelman, Kristofer Harrison, and Celeste Ward Gventer 107
Book 1.indb 51 5/15/20 9:25 PM Return to Table of Contents
The Endangered Asian Century America, China, and the Perils o Confrontation Lee Hsien Loong
“ n recent years, people have been saying that the next century will be the century o Asia and the Pacic, as i that were sure to be the Icase. I disagree with this view.” The Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping made that argument to Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988. More than 30 years later, Deng has proved prescient. After decades o extraordinary economic success, Asia today is the world’s fastest-growing region. Within this decade, Asian economies will become larger than the rest o the world’s economies combined, something that has not been true since the nineteenth century. Yet even now, Deng’s warning holds: an Asian century is neither inevitable nor foreordained. Asia has prospered because Pax Americana, which has held since the end oµ World War II, provided a favorable strategic context. But now, the troubled U.S.-Chinese relationship raises profound questions about Asia’s future and the shape o the emerging international order. South- east Asian countries, including Singapore, are especially concerned, as they live at the intersection o the interests o various major powers and must avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious choices. The status quo in Asia must change. But will the new congura- tion enable further success or bring dangerous instability? That de- pends on the choices that the United States and China make, separately and together. The two powers must work out a modus vivendi that will be competitive in some areas without allowing ri- valry to poison cooperation in others.
LEE HSIEN LOONG is Prime Minister of Singapore.
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Asian countries see the United States as a resident power that has vital interests in the region. At the same time, China is a reality on the doorstep. Asian countries do not want to be forced to choose between the two. And i either attempts to force such a choice—i Washington tries to contain China’s rise or Beijing seeks to build an exclusive sphere o inuence in Asia—they will begin a course o confrontation that will last decades and put the long-heralded Asian century in jeopardy.
THE TWO PHASES OF PAX AMERICANA Pax Americana in Asia in the twentieth century had two distinct phases. The rst was from 1945 to the 1970s, during the early decades o the Cold War, when the United States and its allies competed with the Soviet bloc for inuence. Although China joined the Soviet Union to confront the United States during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, its economy remained inwardly focused and isolated, and it main- tained few economic links with other Asian countries. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Asia, free-market economies were taking o. Japan’s was the earliest to do so, followed by the newly industrializing economies o Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. What made Asia’s stability and prosperity possible was the United States. The United States championed an open, integrated, and rules-based global order and provided a security umbrella under which regional countries could cooperate and peacefully compete. American multinational corporations invested extensively in Asia, bringing with them capital, technology, and ideas. As Washington promoted free trade and opened U.S. markets to the world, Asian trade with the United States grew. Two pivotal events in the 1970s shifted Pax Americana in Asia into a new phase: the secret visit to China in 1971 by Henry Kissinger, then the U.S. national security adviser, which laid the basis for U.S.- Chinese rapprochement after decades o hostility, and the launch, in 1978, o Deng’s program o “reform and opening up,” which allowed China’s economy to take o. By the end o the decade, economic barriers were coming down, and international trade was growing rapidly. After the Vietnam War and the war in Cambodia ended, Vietnam and the other countries o Indochina were able to focus their energies and resources on economic development, and they started catching up with the rest o Asia.
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Many Asian countries had long viewed the United States and other developed countries as their main economic partners. But they now increasingly seized the opportunities created by China’s rapid devel- opment. Trade and tourism with China grew, and supply chains be- came tightly integrated. Within a few decades, China went from being economically inconsequential for the rest o Asia to being the region’s biggest economy and major economic partner. China’s inuence in regional aairs grew correspondingly. Still, Pax Americana held, and these radical changes in China’s role took place within its framework. China was not in a position to challenge U.S. preeminence and did not attempt to do so. Indeed, it adopted as its guiding philosophy Deng’s dictum “Hide your strength, bide your time” and prioritized the modernization o its agricultural, industrial, and science and technology sectors over building military strength. Southeast Asian countries thus enjoyed the best o both worlds, building economic relationships with China while maintaining strong ties with the United States and other developed countries. They also deepened ties with one another and worked together to create an open architecture for regional cooperation rooted in the Association o South- east Asian Nations. A played a central role in forming the Asia- Pacic Economic Cooperation in 1989, establishing the Regional Forum in 1994, and convening the annual East Asia Summit since 2005. China participates fully in these processes. Every year, the Chinese premier travels to an member state to meet the coun- tries’ leaders, well prepared to explain how China sees the region and armed with proposals to enhance Chinese cooperation with the grouping’s members. As China’s stake in the region has grown, it has launched its own initiatives, including the Belt and Road Initia- tive and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. These have helped deepen China’s engagement with its neighbors and, o course, increased its inuence. But because the regional architecture is open, China’s inuence is not exclusive. The United States remains an important participant, underpinning regional security and stability and enhancing its eco- nomic engagement through initiatives such as the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act and the ¥¦§¨ Act. A also has formal dialogue mechanisms with the European Union, as well as with India and many other countries. A believes that such a network o connections
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creates a more robust framework for cooperation and more space to advance its members’ collective interests internationally. So far, this formula has worked well. But the strategic basis o Pax Americana has shifted fundamentally. In the four decades since it be- gan to reform and open up, China has been transformed. As its econ- omy, technological capabilities, and political inuence have grown exponentially, its outlook on the world has changed, as well. Chinese leaders today no longer cite Deng’s maxim about hiding one’s strength and biding one’s time. China sees itsel as a continental power and aspires to become a maritime power, too; it has been modernizing its army and navy and aims to turn its military into a world-class ghting force. Increasingly, and quite understandably, China wants to protect and advance its interests abroad and secure what it sees as its rightful place in international aairs. At the same time, the United States, which is still the preeminent power in many dimensions, is reassessing its grand strategy. As its share o global °´¾ diminishes, it is unclear whether the United States will continue to shoulder the burden o maintaining international peace and stability, or whether it might instead pursue a narrower, “America rst” approach to protecting its interests. As Washington asks fundamental questions about its responsibilities in the global sys- tem, its relationship with Beijing has come under increased scrutiny.
THE FUNDAMENTAL CHOICES OF THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA The United States and China each face fundamental choices. The United States must decide whether to view China’s rise as an existen- tial threat and try to hold China back through all available means or to accept China as a major power in its own right. I it chooses the latter path, the United States must craft an approach to China that will foster cooperation and healthy competition wherever possible and not allow rivalry to poison the entire relationship. Ideally, this competition will take place within an agreed multilateral framework o rules and norms o the kind that govern the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (Çî). The United States is likely to nd this a painful adjustment, espe- cially with the growing consensus in Washington that engaging Bei- jing has failed and that a tougher approach is necessary to preserve U.S. interests. But however di¹cult the task will be for the United
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States, it is well worth making a serious eort to accommodate Chi- na’s aspirations within the current system o international rules and norms. This system imposes responsibilities and restraints on all countries, strengthens trust, helps manage conicts, and creates a safer and stabler environment for both cooperation and competition. I the United States chooses instead to try to contain China’s rise, it will risk provoking a reaction that could set the two coun- tries on a path to decades o confrontation. The United States is not a declining power. It has great re- The United States and silience and strengths, one o which is its ability to attract talent from around China are not necessarily the world; o the nine people o Chi- set on a course of nese ethnicity who have been awarded confrontation, but it cannot Nobel Prizes in the sciences, eight were U.S. citizens or subsequently be ruled out. became U.S. citizens. On the other side, the Chinese economy possesses tremendous dynamism and increasingly advanced technology; it is far from being a Potemkin village or the tottering command econ- omy that dened the Soviet Union in its nal years. Any confron- tation between these two great powers is unlikely to end as the Cold War did, in one country’s peaceful collapse. For its part, China must decide whether to try to get its way as an unencumbered major power, prevailing by dint o its sheer weight and economic strength—but at the risk o strong pushback, not just from the United States but from other countries, too. This approach is likely to increase tensions and resentment, which would aect China’s standing and inuence in the longer term. This is a real danger: a re- cent survey by the Pew Research Center found that people in Canada, the United States, and other Asian and western European countries have increasingly unfavorable views o China. Despite China’s recent eorts to build soft power abroad—through its network o Confucius Institutes, for example, and through Chinese-owned international newspapers and television outlets—the trend is negative. Alternatively, China could acknowledge that it is no longer poor and weak and accept that the world now has higher expectations o it. It is no longer politically justiable for China to enjoy the concessions and privileges it won when it was smaller and less developed, such as the generous terms under which it joined the in 2001. A larger
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and more powerful China should not only respect global rules and norms but also take on greater responsibility for upholding and up- dating the international order under which it has prospered so spec- tacularly. Where the existing rules and norms are no longer t for purpose, China should collaborate with the United States and other countries to work out revised arrangements that all can live with. The path to creating a new order is not straightforward. Powerful domestic pressures impel and constrain both countries’ foreign pol- icy choices. Foreign policy has featured little in the current U.S. presidential campaign, and when it has, the prevailing focus has been variants o the theme o “America rst.” In China, the leadership’s overriding priority is to maintain internal political stability and, after enduring nearly two centuries o weakness and humiliation, to man- ifest the condence o an ancient civilization on the rise again. So it cannot be taken for granted that the United States and China will manage their bilateral relations based on rational calculations o their national interests or even share a desire for win-win outcomes. The countries are not necessarily set on a course o confrontation, but confrontation cannot be ruled out.
DYNAMICS IN THE ASIAPACIFIC These dynamics will play out all over the world, but one crucial arena will be the Asia-Pacic. The United States has always had vital na- tional interests in this region. It expended blood and treasure ghting the Pacic War to defeat Japan, a war in which the United States nearly lost three future presidents. It fought two costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, which bought precious time for noncommunist coun- tries in Asia to consolidate their societies and economies and win the battle oµ hearts and minds against communism. The United States’ generous, open policies that have so greatly beneted the Asia-Pacic derived from deep-rooted political ideals and its self-image as “a city upon a hill” and “a light unto the na- tions,” but they also reected its enlightened self-interest. A stable and prospering Asia-Pacic was rst a bulwark against the commu- nist countries in the Cold War and then an important region o the world comprising many stable and prosperous countries well dis- posed toward the United States. To U.S. businesses, the Asia-Pacic oered sizable markets and important production bases. Unsur- prisingly, several o the United States’ staunchest allies are in Asia,
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such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea, and so are some o its long-standing partners, such as Singapore. China has vital interests in the region, too. In Northeast Asia, the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Korean War still cast long shadows. In Southeast Asia, China sees a source o energy and raw materials, economic partners, and important sea lines o communication. It also sees chokepoints in the Strait o Malacca and the South China Sea that must be kept open to protect China’s energy security. But one critical dierence with the United States is that China sees the Asia-Pacic as its “near abroad,” to borrow a Russian expression, and thus as essential to its own security. Chinese President Xi Jinping has said that the Pacic Ocean is big enough to accommodate both the United States and China. But he has also said that Asian security should be left to Asians. A natural question arises: Does Xi think that the Pacic Ocean is big enough for the United States and China to coexist peacefully, with overlapping circles o friends and partners, or that it is big enough to be divided down the middle between the two powers, into rival spheres o inu- ence? Singapore and other Asia-Pacic countries have no doubt which interpretation they prefer. Although they may not have much inu- ence over how things will turn out, they fervently hope not to be forced to choose between the United States and China. The U.S. security presence remains vital to the Asia-Pacic region. Without it, Japan and South Korea would be compelled to contem- plate developing nuclear weapons; both are nuclear threshold states, and the subject already regularly surfaces in their public dis- course, especially given North Korea’s growing nuclear weapons capabilities. Such developments are fortunately still hypothetical, but their prospect is conducive neither to stability in Northeast Asia nor to nonproliferation eorts globally. In Southeast Asia, the U.S. Seventh Fleet has contributed to regional security since World War II, ensuring that sea lines o communication remain safe and open, which has enabled trade and stimulated economic growth. Despite its increasing military strength, China would be unable to take over the United States’ security role. Unlike the United States, China has competing mari- time and territorial claims in the South China Sea with several countries in the region, which will always see China’s naval pres- ence as an attempt to advance those claims.
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Another obstacle that would prevent China from taking over the security role currently played by the United States stems from the fact that many Southeast Asian countries have signicant ethnic Chinese minorities, whose relations with the non-Chinese majority are often delicate. These countries are extremely sensitive about any percep- tion that China has an inordinate inuence on their ethnic Chinese populations—especially recalling the history o China’s support for communist insurgencies in Southeast Asia until the early 1980s. Those sensitivities will constrain China’s role in Southeast Asian aairs for the foreseeable future. Singapore is the only Southeast Asian country whose multiracial population is majority ethnic Chinese. In fact, it is the only sovereign state in the world with such demographics other than China itself. But Singapore has made enormous eorts to build a multiracial national identity and not a Chinese one. And it has also been extremely careful to avoid doing anything that could be misperceived as allowing itsel to be used as a cat’s-paw by China. For this reason, Singapore did not establish diplomatic relations with China until 1990, making it the - nal Southeast Asian country, except for Brunei, to do so. O course, Singapore and all other Asian countries want to cultivate good relations with China. They hope to enjoy the goodwill and sup- port o such a major power and to participate in its growth. Global supply chains—whether for aircraft, cellular phones, or surgical masks—link China and other Asian countries closely together. China’s sheer size has made it the largest trading partner o most other Asian countries, including every treaty ally o the United States in the region, as well as Singapore and nearly every other ± country. It would be very di¹cult, bordering on impossible, for the United States to replace China as the world’s chie supplier, just as it would be unthinkable for the United States itsel to do without the Chinese market, which is the third-largest importer o U.S. goods, after Can- ada and Mexico. But neither can China displace the United States’ economic role in Asia. The global nancial system relies heavily on U.S. nancial institutions, and the renminbi will not replace the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency anytime soon. Although the other Asian countries export more to China than to the United States, U.S. multinational corporations still form the largest source o foreign investments in many Asia-Pacic countries, including Singapore. China’s major companies are starting to invest abroad,
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but it will be many years before China has multinational corpora- tions o the same scale and sophistication as those based in the United States, which tie global production chains together, link Asia with the global economy, and create millions o jobs. For these reasons, Asia-Pacic countries do not wish to be forced to choose between the United States and China. They want to culti- vate good relations with both. They cannot aord to alienate China, and other Asian countries will try their best not to let any single dis- pute dominate their overall relationships with Beijing. At the same time, those Asian countries regard the United States as a resident power with vital interests in the region. They were supportive—some more overtly than others—when U.S. President Barack Obama de- clared that the United States intended to “rebalance” American foreign policy toward Asia. They take comfort that although the Trump administration has raised issues o cost and burden sharing with its friends and allies, it has also put forward a strategy for the Indo-Pacic region and announced its intention to build up the U.S. military’s Indo-Pacic Command. But those Asian countries also recognize that the United States is a global hyperpower, with far-ung preoccupations and urgent priorities all over the world. They are realistic that should tensions grow—or, even worse, should conict occur—they cannot automat- ically take U.S. support for granted. They expect to do their part to defend their countries and interests. They also hope that the United States understands that i other Asian countries promote ties with China, that does not necessarily mean that they are working against the United States. (And o course, these Asian countries hope for the same understanding from China, too, i they strengthen their ties with the United States.)
AN INCLUSIVE REGIONAL ARCHITECTURE The United States and China are not the only major countries with a great deal o inuence in the region; other players also have signicant roles. Japan, in particular, has much to contribute to the region, given the size and sophistication o its economy. Under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, it has contributed more actively than before. For example, after the United States withdrew from the Trans-Pacic Partnership in 2017, Japan stepped up. It galvanized the remaining 11 members to complete the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-
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Pacic Partnership (²¾Ã¾¾), which brings together developed and de- veloping countries on both sides o the Pacic Ocean and is a step toward free trade in the Asia-Pacic region. India also enjoys a great deal o potential inuence. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has declared a strategic shift through its Act East Policy, and other countries look forward to seeing this policy put into action. The East Asia Summit includes India as a member be- It is great powers’ capacity cause other members hoped that as In- for cooperation that is the dia’s economy grew, it would see more true test of statecraft. value in regional cooperation. India was also one o the original countries nego- tiating to form the Regional Compre- hensive Economic Partnership, a proposed free-trade agreement that aims to integrate all the major economies in the Asia-Pacic, similar to the way that the North American Free Trade Agreement (now the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement) linked together countries in North America. After extensive negotiations, India decided last year not to join the ²¾; the remaining 15 participating countries are moving forward, although without India, something signicant has been lost. As most Asian countries recognize, the value o such agreements goes beyond the economic gains they generate. They are platforms that enable Asia-Pacic countries to cooperate with one another, develop stakes in one another’s success, and together mold the regional archi- tecture and the rules that govern it. Such regional arrangements must be open and inclusive. They should not, whether by design or result, keep any party out, undermine existing cooperation arrangements, cre- ate rival blocs, or force countries to take sides. This is why ²¾Ã¾¾ mem- bers have left the door open for the United States to sign on once again, and why the countries that are working to form the ²¾ still hope that India will join one day. This is also the basis on which Asia-Pacic countries support re- gional cooperation initiatives such as the various Indo-Pacic con- cepts proposed by Japan, the United States, and other countries, as well as China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Many other Asian countries view supporting the Belt and Road Initiative as a constructive way to accommodate China’s growing inuence in the region. I imple- mented well and with nancial discipline, the initiative’s projects can strengthen regional and multilateral cooperation and address the
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pressing need for better infrastructure and connectivity in many de- veloping countries. Some such projects have been criticized for lack- ing transparency or viability, but there is no reason to believe that all o the initiative’s projects, by denition, will impose unsustainable nancial burdens on countries or prevent them from growing their links with other major economies. Such consequences would not serve China’s interests, either, since they would undermine its inter- national standing and inuence. Developing new regional arrangements does not mean abandoning or sidelining existing multilateral institutions. These hard-won multi- lateral arrangements and institutions continue to give all countries, especially smaller ones, a framework for working together and advanc- ing their collective interests. But many existing multilateral institu- tions are in urgent need o reform: they are no longer eective, given current economic and strategic realities. For instance, since the conclu- sion o the Uruguay Round o trade negotiations in 1994, the Çî has found it increasingly di¹cult to reach meaningful trade agreements, because any deal requires consensus from its 164 members, which have hugely divergent interests and economic philosophies. And since last year, the Çî’s Appellate Body has been paralyzed by the lack o a quorum. This is a loss for all countries, who should work constructively toward reforming such organizations rather than diminishing their ef- fectiveness or bypassing them altogether.
A FERVENT HOPE The strategic choices that the United States and China make will shape the contours o the emerging global order. It is natural for big powers to compete. But it is their capacity for cooperation that is the true test o statecraft, and it will determine whether humanity makes progress on global problems such as climate change, nuclear prolifera- tion, and the spread o infectious diseases. The ²®³¯´-19 pandemic is a stark reminder oµ how vital it is for countries to work together. Diseases do not respect national bor- ders, and international cooperation is desperately needed to bring the pandemic under control and reduce damage to the global econ- omy. Even with the best relations between the United States and China, mounting a collective response to ²®³¯´-19 would be hugely challenging. Unfortunately, the pandemic is exacerbating the U.S.- Chinese rivalry, increasing mistrust, one-upmanship, and mutual
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blame. This will surely worsen if, as now seems inevitable, the pan- demic becomes a major issue in the U.S. presidential election. One can only hope that the gravity o the situation will concentrate minds and allow wiser counsel to prevail. In the meantime, Asian countries have their hands full, coping with the pandemic and the many other obstacles to improving the lives o their citizens and creating a more secure and prosperous region. Their success—and the prospect o an Asian century—will depend greatly on whether the United States and China can over- come their dierences, build mutual trust, and work constructively to uphold a stable and peaceful international order. This is a funda- mental issue o our time.∂
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The Age of Magic Money Can Endless Spending Prevent Economic Calamity? Sebastian Mallaby
rises can drive change, but sometimes it takes two crises to cement a transformation. Alone, the Great Depression ushered Cin the New Deal, roughly tripling U.S. federal spending as a share o output. But it took World War II to push federal spending much higher, solidifying the role o the state in the U.S. economy. I federal interventions such as the creation o the interstate highway system felt natural by the mid-1950s, it was the result o two com- pounding shocks, not a single one. American history oers many such examples. Alone, the Vietnam War might have triggered a decline o trust in the government. It took the compounding shock oµ Watergate to make that decline precipitous. Alone, the collapse o the Soviet Union would have enhanced U.S. power. It took the strong performance o the U.S. economy in the 1990s to spark talk o a “unipolar moment.” Alone, technological ad- vances would have fueled inequality in the rst decade o this century. Globalization reinforced that fracturing. Today, the United States and other advanced countries are experienc- ing the second wave o an especially powerful twin shock. Taken individ- ually, either the global nancial crisis o 2008 or the global pandemic o 2020 would have been enough to change public nances, driving gov- ernments to create and borrow money freely. Combined, these two crises are set to transform the spending power o the state. A new era o asser- tive and expansive government beckons. Call it the age o magic money. The twin shocks will change the balance o power in the world, because their eects will vary across countries, depending on the credibility and cohesion o each country’s economic institutions.
SEBASTIAN MALLABY is Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Japan, with a long history o low ination and a competent national cen- tral bank, has already shown that it can borrow and spend far more than one might have predicted given its already high levels o public debt. The United Kingdom, which has a worrisome trade decit but strong traditions o public nance, should be able to manage an expansion o government spending without adverse consequences. The eurozone, an ungainly cross between an economic federation and a bickering assem- blage o proud nation-states, will be slower to exploit the new opportu- nities. Meanwhile, emerging economies, which weathered the 2008 crisis, will enter a hard phase. Weaker states will succumb to debt crises. The new era will present the biggest potential rewards—and also the greatest risks—to the United States. As the issuer o the world’s most trusted nancial assets, the United States will be able to use (and maybe abuse) the new nancial powers most ambitiously. Thanks partly to the dollar’s entrenched position as the world’s reserve currency, the United States will be able to sustain an expansion in government spending on priorities as varied as scientic research, education, and national secu- rity. At the same time, the U.S. national debt will swell, and its manage- ment will depend crucially on the credibility o the Federal Reserve. In times o high national debt, U.S. presidents since Harry Truman have tried to subjugate the central bank. I the Fed loses its independence, the age o magic money could end in catastrophe.
“WHATEVER IT TAKES” The nancial crisis o 2008 left its mark on the world by magnifying the power o central banks in the advanced economies. In the days immediately after Lehman Brothers led for bankruptcy, in Septem- ber o that year, Ben Bernanke, the U.S. Federal Reserve chair, of- fered an early glimpse o the economy’s new rules by pumping $85 billion o public funds into the American International Group (), an insurer. When Representative Barney Frank, Democrat o£ Massa- chusetts, was informed o this plan, he skeptically inquired whether the Fed had as much as $85 billion on hand. “We have $800 billion,” Bernanke answered simply. Armed with the nation’s printing press, Bernanke was saying, the Fed can conjure as many dollars as it wants. The iron law o scarcity need not apply to central bankers. The rescue was only the beginning. The Fed scooped toxic as- sets o¦ the balance sheets o a long list o£ failing lenders in order to stabilize them. It embraced the new tool o “quantitative easing,” which
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involves creating money to buy long-term bonds, thus suppressing long-term interest rates and stimulating the economy. By the end o 2008, the Fed had pumped $1.3 trillion into the economy, a sum equiv- alent to one-third o the annual federal budget. The central bank’s traditional toolkit, involving the manipulation o short-term interest rates, had been dramatically expanded. These ambitious moves were mir- The Fed has emerged as the rored in other advanced economies. The Bank o England also embraced biggest agent of big quantitative easing, buying bonds on government, a sort of the same scale as the Fed (adjusting for economics superministry. the size o the British economy). The Bank o Japan had experimented with quantitative easing since 2001, but following the nancial crisis, it re- doubled those eorts; since 2013, it has created more money relative to °´¾ than any other mature economy. The European Central Bank’s response was halting for many years, owing to resistance from Ger- many and other northern member states, but in 2015, it joined the party. Combined, these “big four” central banks injected about $13 trillion into their economies in the decade after the nancial crisis. The crisis brought on by the novel coronavirus has emboldened cen- tral banks still further. Before the pandemic, economists worried that quantitative easing would soon cease to be eective or politically ac- ceptable. There were additional concerns that post-2008 legislation had constrained the power o the Fed to conduct rescues. “The government enjoys even less emergency authority than it did before the crisis,” for- mer Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in these pages in 2017. But as soon as the pandemic hit, such fears were dispelled. “I was among many who were worried a month ago about the limited scope o the Fed arsenal,” the respected investor Howard Marks confessed recently. “Now we see the vast extent o the Fed’s potential toolkit.” The Fed rode into battle in March, promising that the range o its actions would be eectively limitless. “When it comes to lending, we are not going to run out o ammunition,” declared Jerome Powell, the Fed chair. Whereas the Fed’s rst two rounds o quantitative easing, launched in 2008 and 2010, had involved a preannounced quantity o purchases, Powell’s stance was deliberately open ended. In this, he was following the precedent set in 2012 by Mario Draghi, then the president o the European Central Bank, who pledged to do “whatever it takes”
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to contain Europe’s debt crisis. But Draghi’s promise was an inspired blu, since the willingness o northern European states to support lim- itless intervention was uncertain. In contrast, nobody today doubts that the Fed has the backing o the U.S. president and Congress to deliver on its maximalist rhetoric. This is “whatever it takes” on steroids. The Fed’s muscular promises have been matched with immediate actions. During March and the rst hal o April, the Fed pumped more than $2 trillion into the economy, an intervention almost twice as vigorous as it delivered in the six weeks after the fall o Lehman Brothers. Meanwhile, market economists project that the central bank will buy more than $5 trillion o additional debt by the end o 2021, dwarng its combined purchases from 2008 to 2015. Other central banks are following the same path, albeit not on the same scale. As o the end o April, the European Central Bank was on track for $3.4 trillion o easing, and Japan and the United Kingdom had promised a combined $1.5 trillion. The design o the Fed’s programs is leading it into new territory. After Lehman’s failure, the Fed was leery oµ bailing out nonnancial companies whose stability was marginal to the functioning o the - nancial system. Today, the Fed is buying corporate bonds—including risky junk bonds—to ensure that companies can borrow. It is also working with the Treasury Department and Congress to get loans to small and medium-sized businesses. The Fed has emerged as the lender oµ last resort not just to Wall Street but also to Main Street. As the Fed expands its reach, it is jeopardizing its traditional claim to be a narrow, technocratic agency standing outside politics. In the past, the Fed steered clear o Main Street lending precisely because it had no wish to decide which companies deserved bailouts and which should hit the wall. Such invidious choices were best left to democrat- ically elected politicians, who had a mandate to set social priorities. But the old demarcation between monetary technicians and budget- ary politics has blurred. The Fed has emerged as the biggest agent o big government, a sort o economics superministry.
MONEY FOR NOTHING This leads to the second expansion o governments’ nancial power resulting from the coronavirus crisis. The pandemic has shown that central banks are not the only ones that can conjure money out o thin air; nance ministries can also perform a derivative magic o
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Stimulater in chief: Powell at a press conference in Washington, D.C., January 2020 their own. I authorized by lawmakers and backed by central banks, national treasuries can borrow and spend without practical limit, mocking the normal laws o economic gravity. The key to this new power lies in the strange disappearance o ina- tion. Since the 2008 crisis, prices in the advanced economies have risen by less than the desired target o about two percent annually. As a re- sult, one o the main risks o budget decits has vanished, at least for the moment. In the pre-2008 world, governments that spent more than they collected in taxes were creating a risk o ination, which often forced central banks to raise interest rates: as a form o stimulus, budget decits were therefore viewed as self-defeating. But in the post-2008 world, with ination quiescent, budget authorities can deliver stimula- tory decits without fear that central banks will counteract them. In- creased inequality has moved wealth into the hands o citizens who are
LIU more likely to save than to spend. Reduced competition has allowed / XINHUA JIE companies with market power to get away with spending less on invest- ments and wages. Cloud computing and digital marketplaces have made it possible to spend less on equipment and hiring when launching com- EYEVINE / panies. Thanks to these factors and perhaps others, demand has not outgrown supply, so ination has been minimal.
/ REDUX Whatever the precise reasons, the disappearance o ination has allowed central banks to not merely tolerate budget decits but also facilitate them. Governments are cutting taxes and boosting spend-
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ing, nancing the resulting decits by issuing bonds. Those bonds are then bought from market investors by central banks as part o their quantitative easing. Because o these central bank purchases, the interest rate governments must pay to borrow goes down. Moreover, because central banks generally remit their prots back to government treasuries, these low Despite a perception of U.S. interest payments are even lower than they seem, since they will be partially decline, almost two-thirds rebated. A nance ministry that sells of central bank reserves are debt to its national central bank is, still composed of dollars. roughly speaking, borrowing from it- self. Just as central bankers are blur- ring the line between monetary policy and budgetary policy, so, too, are budgetary authorities acquiring some o the alchemical power o central bankers. Iµ low ination and quantitative easing have made budget decits cheap, the legacy o 2008 has also made them more desirable. In the wake o the nancial crisis, quantitative easing helped the economy re- cover, but it also had drawbacks. Holding down long-term interest rates has the eect oµ boosting equity and bond prices, which makes it cheaper for companies to raise capital to invest. But it also delivers a handout to holders o nancial assets—hardly the most deserving recipients o gov- ernment assistance. It would therefore be better to rouse the economy with lower taxes and additional budgetary spending, since these can be targeted at citizens who need the help. The rise o populism since 2008 underscores the case for stimulus tools that are sensitive to inequality. Because budget decits appear less costly and more desirable than before, governments in the advanced economies have embraced them with gusto. Again, the United States has led the way. In the wake o the nancial crisis, in 2009, the country ran a federal budget decit o 9.8 percent o °´¾. Today, that number has roughly doubled. Other countries have followed the United States’ “don’t tax, just spend” policies, but less aggressively. At the end o April, Morgan Stanley estimated that Japan will run a decit o 8.5 percent o °´¾ this year, less than hal the U.S. ratio. The eurozone will be at 9.5 percent, and the United Kingdom, at 11.5 percent. China’s government, which led the world in the size o its stimulus after 2008, will not come close to rivaling the United States this time. It is likely to end up with a 2020 decit o 12.3 percent, according to Morgan Stanley.
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As the world’s strong economies borrow heavily to combat the coro- navirus slump, fragile ones are nding that this option is o-limits. Far from increasing their borrowing, they have di¹culty in maintaining their existing levels o debt, because their creditors refuse to roll over their loans at the rst hint o a crisis. During the rst two months o the pandemic, $100 billion o investment capital ed developing countries, according to the International Monetary Fund, and more than 90 countries have petitioned the ¯¬ for assistance. In much o the developing world, there is no magic, only austerity.
AMERICA’S ADVANTAGE Since the start o the pandemic, the United States has unleashed the world’s biggest monetary stimulus and the world’s biggest budgetary stimulus. Miraculously, it has been able to do this at virtually no cost. The pandemic has stimulated a ight to the relative safety o U.S. as- sets, and the Fed’s purchases have bid up the price o U.S. Treasury bonds. As the price oµ Treasuries rises, their interest yield goes down— in the rst four months o this year, the yield on the ten-year bond fell by more than a full percentage point, dropping below one percent for the rst time ever. Consequently, even though the stimulus has caused U.S. government debt to soar, the cost o servicing that debt has re- mained stable. Projections suggest that federal debt payments as a share o °´¾ will be the same as they would have been without the crisis. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch in economics. The world’s top economies have all enjoyed some version o this windfall, but the U.S. experience remains distinctive. Nominal ten-year government interest rates are lower in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom than in the United States, but only Germany’s is lower after adjusting for ination. Moreover, the rate in the United States has adjusted the most since the pandemic began. Germany’s ten-year government rate, to cite one contrasting example, is negative but has come down only marginally since the start o February—and has actually risen since last September. Likewise, China’s ten-year bond rate has come down since the start o this year but by hal as much as the U.S. rate. Meanwhile, some emerging economies have seen their borrowing costs move in the opposite direction. Between mid-February and the end o April, Indonesia’s rate rose from around 6.5 percent to just under eight percent, and South Africa’s jumped from under nine percent to over 12 percent, although that increase has since subsided.
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The United States’ ability to borrow safely and cheaply from global savers reects the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. In the wake o the 2008 crisis, when the failures o U.S. nancial regulation and monetary policy destabilized the world, there was much talk that the dollar’s dominance might end, and China made a concerted eort to spread the use o the yuan beyond its borders. A decade or so later, China has built up its government-bond market, making it the second largest in the world. But foreigners must still contend with China’s capital controls, and the oshore market for yuan-denominated bonds, which Beijing promoted with much fanfare a decade ago, has failed to gain traction. As a result, the yuan accounts for just two percent o global central bank reserves. Private savers are starting to hold Chinese bonds, but these still represent a tiny fraction o their portfolios. As China struggles to internationalize the yuan, the dollar re- mains the currency that savers covet. Despite the nancial crisis and the widespread perception that U.S. inuence in the world has declined, almost two-thirds o central bank reserves are still com- posed o dollars. Nor has the frequent U.S. resort to nancial sanc- tions changed the picture, even though such sanctions create an incentive for countries such as Iran to develop ways around the dollar-based nancial system. Issuing the global reserve currency turns out to be a highly sustainable source o power. The dollar continues to rally in times o uncertainty, even when erratic U.S. policies add to that uncertainty—hence the appreciation o the dol- lar since the start o the pandemic. The dollar’s preeminence endures because o powerful network ef- fects. Savers all over the world want dollars for the same reason that schoolchildren all over the world learn English: a currency or a lan- guage is useful to the extent that others choose it. Just under hal o all international debt securities are denominated in dollars, so savers need dollars to buy these nancial instruments. The converse is also true: because savers are accustomed to transacting in dollars, issuers o securities nd it attractive to sell equities or bonds into the dollar market. So long as global capital markets operate mainly in dollars, the dollar will be at the center o nancial crises—failing banks and businesses will have to be rescued with dollars, since that will be the currency in which they have borrowed. As a result, prudent central banks will hold large dollar reserves. These network eects are likely to protect the status o the dollar for the foreseeable future.
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OUR CURRENCY, YOUR PROBLEM In the age o magic money, this advantage will prove potent. At mo- ments o stress, the United States will experience capital inows even as the Federal Reserve pushes dollar interest rates down, rendering capital plentiful and inexpensive. Meanwhile, other countries will be treated less generously by the bond markets, and some will be penalized by borrowing costs that rise at the least opportune moment. A strong nancial system has always given great powers an edge: a bit over two centuries ago, the United Kingdom’s superior access to loans helped it defeat Napoleon. Today, nance has more sway over countries and people than ever before. But even as it bolsters U.S. power, nance has become riskier. The risk is evident in the ballooning U.S. federal debt burden. As recently as 2001, the federal debt held by the public amounted to just 31 percent o °´¾. After the nancial cri- sis, the ratio more than doubled. Now, thanks to the second o the twin shocks, federal debt held by the public will soon match the 106 percent record set at the end oµ World War II. Whether this debt triggers a crisis will depend on the behavior o interest rates. Before the pandemic, the Congressional Budget O¹ce expected the average interest rate on the debt to hover around 2.5 per- cent. The Fed’s aggressive bond buying has pulled U.S. rates lower— hence the free lunch. But even i interest rates went back to what they were before, the debt would still be sustainable: higher than the aver- age o 1.5 percent o °´¾ that the country has experienced over the past two decades but still lower than the peak o 3.2 percent o °´¾ that the country reached at the start o the 1990s. Another way o gauging debt sustainability is to compare debt payments with the growth outlook. I nominal growth—real growth plus ination—outstrips debt payments, a country can usually grow out o its problem. In the United States, estimates o real sustain- able growth range from 1.7 percent to 2.0 percent; estimates o future ination range from the 1.5 percent expected by the markets to the Fed’s o¹cial target o 2.0 percent. Putting these together, U.S. nominal growth is likely to average around 3.6 percent. I debt service payments are 2.5 percent o °´¾, and i the government meets those obligations by borrowing and so expanding the debt stock, nominal growth o 3.6 percent implies that the federal gov- ernment can run a modest decit in the rest o its budget and still whittle away at the debt-to-°´¾ ratio.
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Japan’s experience reinforces the point that high levels o debt can be surprisingly sustainable. The country’s central government debt passed 100 percent o °´¾ in 2000, and the ratio has since almost doubled, to nearly 200 percent. Yet Japan has not experienced a debt crisis. Instead, interest rates have declined, keeping the cost o servicing the debt at an aordable level. Japan’s track record also disproves the notion that high levels o debt impede vigorous emer- gency spending. The country’s pandemic Today, nance has more stimulus is large, especially relative to the scale o its health challenge. sway over countries and In short, the recent prevalence o people than ever before. low interest rates across the rich world encourages the view that U.S. debt levels will be manageable, even i they expand further. The more central banks embrace quantitative eas- ing, the lower interest rates are likely to remain: the rock-bottom yields on Japan’s government debt reect the fact that the Bank o Japan has vacuumed up more than a third o it. In this environment o durably low interest rates, governments enter a looking-glass world: by taking on more debt, they can reduce the burden o the debt, since their debt-nanced investments oset the debt by boosting °´¾. Based on this logic, the age o magic money may usher in expanded federal in- vestments in a wide range o sectors. When investors the world over clamor for U.S. government bonds, why not seize the opportunity? The question is whether Tokyo’s experience—rising debt oset by falling interest rates—anticipates Washington’s future. For the mo- ment, the two countries have one critical feature in common: a central bank that is eagerly engaged in quantitative easing. But that eagerness depends on quiescent ination. Because o a strong tradition o saving, Japan has experienced outright deation in 13 o the past 25 years, whereas the United States has experienced deation in only one year over that period. The danger down the road is that the United States will face an unexpected price surge that in turn forces up interest rates faster than nominal °´¾, rendering its debt unsustainable. To see how this could work, think back to 1990. That year, the Fed’s favorite measure o ination, the consumer price index, rose to 5.2 per- cent after having fallen to 1.6 percent four years earlier—thus proving that ination reversals do happen. As ination built, the Fed pushed up borrowing costs; rates on ten-year Treasury bonds went from about seven percent in late 1986 to over nine percent in 1988, and they hov-
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ered above eight percent in 1990. I a reversal o that sort occurred to- day, it could spell disaster. I long-term interest rates rose by two percentage points, the United States would face debt payments worth 4.5 percent o rather than 2.5 percent. The burden o the national debt would hit a record. That would have signicant political consequences. In 1990, the unsustainable debt trajectory forced the adoption o a painful decit-cutting package, causing President George H. W. Bush to renege on his “no new taxes” campaign pledge, arguably costing him the 1992 election. Given today’s political cynicism, it seems unwise to count on a repeat o such self-sacrice. It is therefore worth re- calling the other debt-management tactic that Bush’s administration attempted. By attacking the Fed chair, Alan Greenspan, with whis- pered slanders and open scolding, Bush’s advisers tried to bully the central bank into cutting interest rates. The way they saw things, lower rates, faster growth, and higher ination would combine to solve the debt problem. Greenspan stood his ground, and Bush was not reckless enough to get rid o him. But i a future president were more desperate, the Fed could be saddled with a leader who prioritized the stability o the national debt over the stability o prices. Considering the Fed’s recent business bailouts, it would be a small step to argue that the central bank also has a duty to protect citizens from budget auster- ity. Given its undershooting o the ination target over the past few years, it would be easy to suggest that a bit o overshooting would be harmless. Unfortunately, i not checked fairly quickly, this seductive logic could open the way to a repeat o the 1970s, when U.S. nancial mismanagement allowed ination to reach double digits and the dollar came closer than ever in the postwar period to losing its privileged status. The age o magic money heralds both opportunity and peril. The twin shocks o 2008 and 2020 have unleashed the spending power o rich-world governments, particularly in the United States. They have made it possible to imagine public investments that might speed growth, soften inequality, and tackle environmental chal- lenges. But too much o a good thing could trigger a dollar crisis that would spread worldwide. As U.S. Treasury Secretary John Connally put it to his European counterparts in 1971, “The dollar is our currency but your problem.”
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THE FED’S DILEMMA Nobody is sure why ination disappeared or when it might return again. A supply disruption resulting from post-pandemic deglobaliza- tion could cause bottlenecks and a price surge; a rebound in the cost o energy, recently at absurd lows, is another plausible trigger. Honest observers will admit that there are too many unknowns to make fore- casting dependable. Yet precisely because the future is uncertain and contingent, a dierent kind o prediction seems safe. I ination does break out, the choices o a handful o individuals will determine whether nance goes over the precipice. The United States experienced an analogous moment in 1950. China had sent 300,000 infantry across the frozen Yalu River, which marked its border with Korea; they swarmed U.S. soldiers sleeping on the frigid ground, stabbing them to death through their sleeping bags. The following month, with the fate o the Cold War as uncertain as it would ever be, U.S. President Harry Truman called Thomas McCabe, the Fed chair, at home and insisted that the interest rate on ten-year bonds stay capped at 2.5 percent. I the Fed failed to buy enough bonds to keep the interest rate at that level, “that is exactly what Mr. Stalin wants,” the president lectured. In a time o escalating war, the government’s borrowing capacity had to be safeguarded. This presented the Fed with the kind o dilemma that it may con- front again in the future. On the one hand, the nation was in peril. On the other hand, ination was accelerating. The Fed had to choose be- tween solving an embattled president’s problem and stabilizing prices. To Truman’s fury, McCabe resolved to put the ght against ination rst; when the president replaced McCabe with William McChesney Martin, a Treasury o¹cial Truman expected would be loyal, he was even more shocked to nd that his own man deed him. In his rst speech after taking o¹ce, Martin declared that ination was “an even more serious threat to the vitality o our country than the more spec- tacular aggressions o enemies outside our borders.” Price stability should not be sacriced, even i the president had other priorities. Years later, Truman encountered Martin on a street in New York City. “Traitor,” he said, and then walked o. Before the age o magic money comes to an end, the United States might nd itsel in need o more such traitors.∂
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How to Make Trade Work for Workers Charting a Path Between Protectionism and Globalism Robert E. Lighthizer
he new coronavirus has challenged many long-held assump- tions. In the coming months and years, the United States Twill need to reexamine conventional wisdom in business, medicine, technology, risk management, and many other elds. This should also be a moment for renewed discussions—and, hopefully, a stronger national consensus—about the future o U.S. trade policy. That debate should start with a fundamental question: What should the objective o trade policy be? Some view trade through the lens o foreign policy, arguing that taris should be lowered or raised in order to achieve geopolitical goals. Others view trade strictly through the lens o economic e¹ciency, contending that the sole objective o trade policy should be to maximize overall output. But what most Americans want is something else: a trade policy that supports the kind o society they want to live in. To that end, the right policy is one that makes it possible for most citizens, including those without college educations, to access the middle class through stable, well-paying jobs. That is precisely the approach the Trump administration is taking. It has broken with the orthodoxies o free-trade religion at times, but contrary to what critics have charged, it has not embraced protec- tionism and autarky. Instead, it has sought to balance the benets o trade liberalization with policies that prioritize the dignity o work. Under this new policy, the O¹ce o the U.S. Trade Representa- tive, which I head, has taken aggressive and, at times, controversial
ROBERT E. LIGHTHIZER is U.S. Trade Representative.
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actions to protect American jobs. But it has done so without sparking unsustainable trade wars and while continuing to expand U.S. export- ers’ access to foreign markets. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement ( ), which was rst signed in 2018 and is scheduled to enter into force this year, oers the best and most comprehensive illustra- tion o this new approach. This new way o thinking has motivated the administration’s policies toward China and the World Trade Organization (), as well. In addressing the challenges that re- main, the administration has the same goal: a balanced, worker-focused trade policy that achieves a broad, bipartisan consensus and better outcomes for Americans.
THE LIMITS OF INTERDEPENDENCE Before World War II, taris were high by contemporary standards. From the 1820s until the late 1940s, the weighted average U.S. tari (which measures duties collected as a percentage o total imports) rarely dipped below 20 percent. President Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal Congress ushered in a period o relative tari liberalization in the 1930s, but the rate remained in the mid- to high teens through- out the decade. After the war, however, both Democrats and Republi- cans came to champion tari reduction as a means o preventing yet another con¡ict, arguing that trade fostered interdependence between nations. Trade liberalization therefore came to be seen not just as a tool o economic policy but also as a path to perpetual peace. Subsequent events seemed to vindicate this view. Exports to U.S. consumers helped Japan and West Germany rebuild and become re- sponsible members o the world community. The tearing down o trade barriers within Europe, starting with the establishment o the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, surely contributed to postwar security, as well, by bringing the democracies o§ Western Europe closer together and setting a template for future cooperation. But interdependence does not always lead to peace. In the United States, economic ties between the North and the South did not pre- vent the Civil War. Global trade grew rapidly in the years right be- fore World War I; exports as a percentage o global ©ª« peaked at nearly 14 percent in 1913, a record that would hold until the 1970s. Likewise, it would be hard to argue that the rise o Germany as a major exporter in the late nineteenth century helped pacify that country in the rst hal o the twentieth. Japan’s dependence on raw
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materials from the United States motivated its attack on Pearl Harbor. More recently, China’s accession to the Çî in 2001—which was supposed to make the country a model global citizen—was followed by massive investments in its military capabilities and territorial ex- pansion in the South China Sea. On the ip side, conict over trade is not always destabilizing or a threat to broader foreign policy objectives. The ±Ã® alliance survived the tari hikes associated with both the 1960s “chicken war,” when the United States clashed with France and West Germany over poultry duties, Conict over trade is not and the 1970s “Nixon shock,” when the always destabilizing. United States eectively abandoned the Bretton Woods system. The United States and Japan fought about trade in the 1980s, but their bilateral se- curity alliance stayed strong. Countries, like people, compartmentalize. There may be situations when it is appropriate to make conces- sions on trade in order to achieve broader diplomatic aims, but one should keep in mind that such bargains can prove costly in the long run. Letting India join the General Agreement on Taris and Trade (the precursor to the Çî) in 1948 with nearly a third o its indus- trial taris uncapped, for example, no doubt made sense to Cold Warriors, who thought that it would help bring India into the U.S. camp. Yet the negative repercussions o that decision persist to this day, now that India has become one o the world’s largest economies and, at times, a troublesome trading partner for the United States. Over the years, such concessions have piled up. Sometimes, the tendency to view trade through the lens o diplo- macy has led to excess timidity. The most vivid example is the failure o the George W. Bush and Obama administrations to meaningfully confront China’s market-distorting subsidies and policy o forcing for- eign companies to share their technology. But there are many others. For instance, until the current administration took o¹ce, the United States had never invoked the procedures for enforcing environmental commitments it had bargained for in its free-trade agreements. The Trump administration has used those tools to crack down on illegal timber harvesting in Peru and illegal shing in South Korea. Although the United States should not wield its economic leverage blithely, fear o rocking the diplomatic boat cannot be an excuse for inaction. The Trump administration has demonstrated that it is pos-
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Made in U.S.A.: a General Motors worker in Romulus, Michigan, August 2019 sible to take targeted yet aggressive trade actions while managing the risk o escalation. Despite the “sky is falling” rhetoric that has greeted many o the administration’s policies, the United States has remained the most open o the world’s major economies throughout Donald Trump’s presidency. Even with the recent taris imposed against China, along with eorts to rescue the domestic steel, aluminum, and solar power industries, the United States’ weighted average tari was only 2.85 percent in 2019 (and 1.3 percent for imports from countries other than China). That’s slightly higher than the 1.5 percent rate that prevailed during the last year o the Obama administration but still lower than a comparable gure for the É: the 3.0 percent weighted average rate it imposes on imports from other Çî members. History will judge the ultimate eectiveness o the Trump ad- ministration’s targeted duties. But experience has already proved wrong the Cassandras who said that its actions would inevitably
REBECCA COOK lead to a 1930s-style trade war.
THE EFFICIENCY OBSESSION The other dominant school o thought in trade policy is the econo- / REUTERS mist’s perspective. For adherents o this faith, the sole objective o trade policy is market e¹ciency. Lower taris and nontari barriers reduce the costs o producing and distributing goods and services;
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that, in turn, makes society as a whole better o—so the argument goes. How such policies aect the men and women who do the pro- ducing and distributing is oµ little or no consequence. Rather than envisioning the type o society desired and fashion- ing a trade policy to t, economists tend to do the opposite: they start from the proposition that free trade should reign and then ar- gue that society should adapt. Most The outsourcing of jobs acknowledge that lowering trade bar- riers causes economic disruption, but from high- to low-wage very few suggest that the rules o trade places has devastated should be calibrated to help society communities in the better manage those eects. On the right, libertarians deny that there is a American Rust Belt. problem, because the benets o cheap consumer goods for the masses sup- posedly outweigh the costs. On the left, progressives promote trade adjustment assistance and other wealth-transfer schemes as a means o smoothing globalization’s rough edges. Neither response is satisfactory. Those obsessed with e¹ciency tend to see employment simply as a means o allocating resources and ensuring production. In so doing, they greatly undervalue the personal dignity that individuals derive from meaningful work. Com- mentators from Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century to Arthur Brooks and Oren Cass today have written eloquently about the cen- tral role o work in a well-ordered society. Doing honest work for a decent wage instills feelings o self-worth that come from being needed and contributing to society. Stable, remunerative employ- ment reinforces good habits and discourages bad ones. That makes human beings better spouses, parents, neighbors, and citizens. By contrast, the loss o personal dignity that comes from the absence o stable, well-paying employment is not something that can be com- pensated for either by increased consumption oµ low-cost imported goods or by welfare checks. None o this is to suggest that market e¹ciency should be irrele- vant. But it should not be the sole factor in trade policy, and certainly not an object o idolatrous devotion, as some have made it. When it comes to taxes, health care, environmental regulation, and other is- sues, policymakers routinely balance e¹ciency with other competing goals. They should do the same for trade.
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In recent years, however, the xation on e¹ciency caused many to ignore the downsides o trade liberalization. Particularly as elites came to accept free trade as an article o faith, businesses found that they could send jobs abroad without attracting much negative pub- licity. General Electric’s hard-charging ²® from 1981 to 2001, the late Jack Welch, told suppliers at one point that his company would stop doing business with them i they weren’t outsourcing jobs. “Supply chain relocation” became a cure-all peddled by manage- ment consulting rms. Unfortunately—as ²®³¯´-19 has made pain- fully apparent—many companies caught up in the outsourcing frenzy failed to appreciate the risks. Economic groupthink also led policymakers to stop worrying about trade decits. In recent years, the U.S. trade decit in goods has rivaled the size o many G-20 economies. In theory, i the United States could produce enough goods domestically to eliminate its $345 billion goods decit with China, that would be the equivalent in revenue terms o adding two and a hal more General Motors to the U.S. economy. Yet in most policy circles, discussion o the trade decit has been limited to why it supposedly doesn’t matter. Many take comfort in the following trope: “I run a trade decit with my barber; since both o us are better o as a result, trade de- cits are benign.” This analogy is awed. A decit with the barber is one thing, but i I run a decit with the barber, the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, and everyone else with whom I trans- act, the situation is altogether dierent. Moreover, long-term trade decits must be nanced through asset sales, which can prove unsus- tainable over time. To carry the analogy further, the trade decit I run with providers o goods and services I consume is benign i it is oset by the surplus I run with my employer through the sale o my labor. But the situation may prove unsustainable i I’m funding my consumption by taking out a second mortgage on my home. And that is essentially what the United States has been doing over the past three decades by running a trade decit year after year. These persis- tent decits are nanced by net inows o capital—which means that every year, the country must sell U.S. assets to foreign investors in order to sustain the gap between exports and imports. Academic theory also cannot hide the basic fact that i a country imports goods it could produce domestically, then domestic spend- ing is employing people abroad rather than at home. This tradeo
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might be worth it i it frees up workers to move to more productive, higher-paying jobs. It might make sense, too, i reciprocal agree- ments for market access create new export-related jobs that replace those lost to competition from cheaper imports. But persistent trade decits should, at the very least, cause policymakers to question the tradeo and inquire as to the reasons behind the imbalance. Such scrutiny should increase with the size o the decit. And particularly when trade decits are the result o currency manipulation, a lack o reciprocity in market access, unfair labor practices, or subsidies, the United States should try to change the rules o trade.
THE DARK SIDE OF FREE TRADE The trade policy o the future should be informed by a balanced assess- ment o the past. On the positive side o the ledger, lower trade barri- ers and the proliferation o free-trade agreements in recent decades swelled the prots o many multinational corporations. That beneted not only ²®s but also middle-class Americans who hold equities in their retirement accounts. Trade helped revive many o the country’s great urban centers. Cheap imports and the rise oµ big-box and online retailers have made an ever-expanding class o consumer goods avail- able to the masses. In China, India, and throughout the rest o the developing world, millions o people have been lifted out o poverty. Yet the dark side is undeniable. Between 2000 and 2016, the United States lost nearly ve million manufacturing jobs. Median household income stagnated. And in places prosperity left behind, the fabric o society frayed. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has faced an epidemic o what the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have termed “deaths o despair.” They have found that among white middle-aged adults who lack a college education—a demo- graphic that has borne much o the brunt o outsourcing—deaths from cirrhosis o the liver increased by 50 percent between 1999 and 2013, suicides increased by 78 percent, and drug and alcohol over- doses increased by 323 percent. From 2014 to 2017, the increase in deaths o despair led to the rst decrease in life expectancy in the United States over a three-year period since the 1918 u pandemic. Trade has not been the sole cause o the recent loss o manufactur- ing jobs or o the attendant societal distress. Automation, productiv- ity gains, foreign currency manipulation, and the nancial crisis o 2008 have played key roles, as well. But it cannot be denied that the
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outsourcing o jobs from high- to low-wage places has devastated communities in the American Rust Belt and elsewhere. O course, economic upheaval is often the price o progress, and, economists insist, comparative advantage should encourage workers to move to more productive and higher-paying jobs. But this theo- retical phenomenon has failed to materialize in recent years. Com- pared with those who lost their jobs in earlier periods o economic change, displaced workers in modern, developed economies typi- cally have fewer and less attractive options. In the United Kingdom in the nineteenth century, for example, the repeal o the protection- ist Corn Laws prompted agricultural workers to ee the countryside for industrializing urban areas where factory jobs were waiting. By contrast, the American factory workers who were displaced begin- ning in the 1990s either had nowhere to go or ended up working in low-skill, low-paying service jobs. Rather than attempt to reverse these trends, some argue that ma- ture economies should double down on services, the digital economy, and research and development. These sectors contribute greatly to the United States’ competitive edge, and the service sector employs most Americans today and will likely continue to do so for the fore- seeable future. At the same time, however, it is di¹cult to imagine that the U.S. economy can serve the needs o working people with- out a thriving manufacturing sector. The technology sector, for all its virtues, simply is not a source oµ high-paying jobs for working people. Over hal o the United States’ roughly 250 million adults lack a college diploma. Histori- cally, manufacturing jobs have been the best source o stable, well- paying employment for this cohort. Perhaps with massive new investments in education, former autoworkers could be taught to code. But even so, there probably wouldn’t be enough jobs to em- ploy them all. Apple, Facebook, Google, and Netix collectively employ just over 300,000 people—less than hal the number that General Motors alone employed in the 1960s. Moreover, the service and technology jobs most accessible to work- ing people, such as data entry and call center jobs, are themselves vulnerable to oshoring. Economists have estimated that nearly 40 million service-sector jobs in the United States could eventually be sent overseas—that’s more than three times the number o current manufacturing jobs in the country.
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Cheerleaders for globalization are quick to point out that many products manufactured abroad were designed by engineers and re- searchers located in the United States. But those jobs are not safe from oshoring, either. China is investing heavily in its universities, and India has no shortage o capable engineers. In the technology sec- tor, in particular, there are valuable synergies from having engineers located close to manufacturing facilities. The back o today’s iPhone reads “Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China”; tomor- row, it easily could read “Designed and Assembled by Apple in China.” C®³¯´-19 has exposed other problems with the erosion o the United States’ manufacturing capacity. The country has found itsel overly de- pendent on critical medical equipment, personal protective gear, and pharmaceuticals from abroad. Even Germany and South Korea, strong U.S. allies, have blocked exports oµ key medical products as their own citizens have fallen ill. The crisis also has demonstrated how overex- tended supply chains increase the risk o economic contagion when a single link in the chain is broken. Even before the crisis reached Amer- ican shores, many U.S. companies were feeling the eects o China’s economic shutdown. Now, as companies prepare to reopen their U.S. operations, many still can’t produce what they want, since their overseas suppliers do not yet have government permission to reopen. The United States should not attempt to wall itsel o from the rest o the world in response to the current pandemic, but it should rein- force its determination to maintain and grow its manufacturing base. Trade policy alone cannot do that. But as part o a broader suite o tax and regulatory policies designed to encourage investment in the United States, reforms to the rules o trade can play an important role.
A MODEL DEAL A sensible trade policy strikes a balance among economic security, economic e¹ciency, and the needs o working people. When the ad- ministration began the task o renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement—one o the president’s signature campaign promises—two things were clear. One was that the agreement had become wildly out oµ balance, badly out o date, and hugely unpopu- lar. The second, however, was that undoing 25 years o economic in- tegration in North America would be costly and disruptive. The challenge in negotiating the ɲ was to right ±¬Ã’s wrongs while preserving trade with the United States’ two largest trading partners.
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We started by identifying the main imbalances, particularly in the automotive sector, which accounts for nearly 30 percent o North American trade. Before Trump was elected, nine o the last 11 auto plants built in North America were built in Mexico. Yet 80 percent o the cars manufactured in those facilities are sold in the United States. Over time, auto companies started to use Mexico as a place not only for assembling compact sedans but also for manufacturing high-value-added parts such as engines and transmissions, as well as for pro- NAFTA had become wildly ducing highly protable trucks and out of balance, badly out of ɳs. The net result was that the United date, and hugely unpopular. States lost a third o its auto-industry jobs to Mexico: 350,000 since 1994, while Mexico gained 430,000. This wage-driven outsourcing was not simply the work o Adam Smith’s invisible hand. The gap between U.S. and Mexican wages exists in part as a result o widespread corrupt labor agreements in Mexico. “Protection contracts,” as these deals are known, are struck between employers and unions, but the unions do not in fact repre- sent workers. And the workers have no opportunity to vote on the contracts. No wonder predictions that ±¬Ã would cause Ameri- can and Mexican wages to converge never came true. In fact, wages in Mexico are lower today in real terms than they were in 1994. The ɲ requires Mexico to eliminate protection contracts, ensure basic union democracy, and establish independent labor courts. Rather than seek to micromanage labor policies in Mexico— as critics have charged—the ɲ sets reasonable standards that correct a major source oµ labor-market distortion in North America. Although the new labor provisions received a chilly reception by some parts o the Mexican business community, they were warmly embraced by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his gov- ernment. The new obligations will not prevent companies from tak- ing advantage o e¹ciencies in integrated North American supply chains. But they will eliminate a form o regulatory arbitrage that hurts American workers. The ɲ also overhauls the “rules o origin” that govern trade in the automotive sector. All free-trade agreements contain rules o origin, which require goods to be made mostly with component ma- terials sourced from within the free-trade area in order to qualify for
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duty-free treatment. In theory, ±¬Ã’s rules o origin specied that 62.5 percent o the value o an automobile had to be made up o parts manufactured in North America. But the rules contained a peculiar quirk: the only parts that counted in the equation were those listed on a schedule created in the early 1990s and frozen in time. As cars evolved, many expensive parts, such as dashboard electronics and navigation systems, simply didn’t gure in the calculation o North American content. As a result, cars with more than hal o their value composed o parts from outside the continent could still be exempt from duties. And the problem was only going to get worse over time, as electric and autonomous vehicles came online. After discussions with the Canadian and Mexican governments, American labor unions, and the auto companies themselves, we ar- rived at a solution that will result in more investment throughout the region while still allowing manufacturers the exibility to stay com- petitive. The ɲ sets a higher threshold for the minimum fraction o a car’s value that must be produced within North America (75 per- cent). It also includes separate requirements for the minimum share o regional content in the highest-value-added parts, as well as for steel and aluminum. The ɲ makes these requirements meaning- ful by eliminating loopholes, and it includes a mechanism for revisit- ing the rules o origin in the future to keep up with industry trends. For the rst time in any trade agreement, the ɲ also includes provisions that discourage a race to the bottom in wages, by requir- ing that 40 percent o the value o a car and 45 percent o the value o a light truck be manufactured by workers who make at least $16 per hour. This rate is aspirational for Mexico, where wages are closer to $3 per hour, but it will create new incentives for companies to in- vest not only in Mexico but also in Canada and the United States. The U.S. International Trade Commission, an independent, nonpar- tisan federal agency, projects that increased demand for U.S.-sourced engines and transmissions alone will create roughly 30,000 new automotive-sector jobs. By my o¹ce’s estimates, the eect on the entire supply chain will be close to 80,000 new jobs. Critics have labeled these changes “managed trade,” whereby gov- ernments set specic goals in lieu oµ letting market forces do their work. But rules o origin feature in all free-trade agreements. The key dierence between those in the ɲ and those in ±¬Ã and other agreements is that the ɲ’s rules have been designed to
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actually work. They will ensure that the benets o the agreement will ow principally to Canada, Mexico, and the United States, not to other countries that have not provided reciprocal market access. Indeed, ±¬Ã-enabled free-riding has long undermined U.S. lever- age in negotiations with other trading partners. Until now, foreign automakers have been able to obtain duty-free access to the U.S. market by setting up assembly operations in Mexico, while manufac- turing most o the high-value parts outside North America. With the loopholes closed, the United States will be in a stronger position to negotiate with China, the É, and others. The ɲ can be updated as circumstances change. It contains a sunset clause stating that it expires after 16 years. Every six years, however, the parties will have an opportunity to review the agree- ment and extend it for another 16 years. These periodic reviews will force policymakers in all three countries to avoid the temptation to defer maintenance o the agreement and will allow them to respond to unanticipated developments in their economies.
THE CHALLENGES AHEAD The principles o a worker-focused trade policy should be front and center as the United States confronts two o the most signicant trade challenges it will face in the coming years: market-distorting state capitalism in China and a dysfunctional Çî. No trade policy decision since the end oµ World War II proved more devastating to working people than the extension o permanent normal trade relations to China in 2000—a legal status entitling it to the lowest possible taris. Despite President Bill Clinton’s predic- tion that the move would allow the United States to “export products without exporting jobs,” the opposite occurred. The U.S. trade de- cit with China ballooned to over hal a trillion dollars at its peak, and economists have calculated that the loss o at least two million jobs between 1999 and 2011 was attributable to the inux o Chinese im- ports. At the same time, Beijing increasingly forced foreign compa- nies to share their technology, a policy that resulted in the theft o billions o dollars in U.S. intellectual property and helped China become the world’s top exporter oµ high-tech products. Without much success, the George W. Bush and Obama adminis- trations tried to correct these problems at the Çî. Our team has taken a dierent approach. We spent much o the rst year o the
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Trump administration investigating China’s history o intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer. Where the Çî rules provided a remedy—as was the case with China’s discriminatory patent-licensing practices—we led a complaint with the Çî. But where they did not, we turned to remedies available under U.S. trade law. We carefully identied products produced by Chinese companies that No trade policy was more had beneted from China’s market- distorting practices and imposed a 25 devastating to working percent duty on those products. people than the decision to We remained open to a negotiated extend permanent normal solution, however, and in January, the administration reached a Phase 1 agree- trade relations to China. ment with China under which it will stop forced technology transfer, refrain from manipulating its cur- rency, strengthen protections for intellectual property, and eliminate a host o nontari barriers to U.S. exports. For the rst time, these com- mitments are in writing and enforceable through a dispute-resolution mechanism. The agreement by no means resolves all the outstanding issues, but in roughly three years, we’ve made more progress than the previous two administrations made in 16. Most important—and often overlooked by knee-jerk, partisan crit- ics o the deal—is that the administration has maintained pressure on China through a 25 percent tari that remains on hal o its exports to the United States, including nearly all high-tech products. These du- ties help oset the unfair advantage China has obtained through forced technology transfer and market-distorting subsidies. At the same time, China has made a series o purchasing commitments that will create long-term market access for U.S. exporters, particularly farmers. Whether there will be a Phase 2 depends on whether China complies with the terms o Phase 1 and whether it is willing to fundamentally change its model o state-run capitalism. Regardless, the policy in place today protects American jobs, blunts China’s unfair advantages, and minimizes the pain to U.S. exporters and consumers. The challenges in the Çî are also vexing. Like many international organizations, the Çî has strayed from its original mission. Designed as a forum for negotiating trade rules, it has become chiey a litiga- tion society. Until recently, the organization’s dispute-resolution proc- ess was led by its seven-member Appellate Body, which had come to
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see itsel as the promulgator o a new common law o free trade, one that was largely untethered from the actual rules agreed to by the Çî’s members. The Appellate Body routinely issued rulings that made it harder for states to combat unfair trade practices and safe- guard jobs. This was one o the reasons why the Trump administration refused to consent to new appointments to it, and on December 11, 2019, the Appellate Body ceased functioning when its membership dipped below the number needed to hear a case. The United States should not agree to any mechanism that would revive or replace the Appellate Body until it is clear that the Çî’s dispute-resolution process can ensure members’ exibility to pursue a balanced, worker-focused trade policy. Until then, the United States is better o resolving disputes with trading partners through negotiations—as it did from 1947, when the General Agreement on Taris and Trade was signed, until 1994, when the Çî was cre- ated—rather than under a made-up jurisprudence that undermines U.S. sovereignty and threatens American jobs. In confronting these and other challenges, the path forward lies somewhere between the openness o the 1990s and the barriers o the 1930s. Navigating it successfully will require exibility, pragma- tism, a willingness to break with past practice, and the courage to take positions that sometimes are unpopular with international elites. The United States must avoid the stale, reductionist paradigm o free trade versus protectionism, which oversimplies complex is- sues and sties creative policymaking. This almost religious ap- proach to trade policy also obscures the fact that trade is an issue on which it is possible to achieve broad, bipartisan consensus in an oth- erwise divided time. After all, the ɲ won the support o 90 percent oµ both the House and the Senate. This powerful consensus should last, because it is rooted in deeply held values. Where trade is concerned, most Americans want the same thing: balanced outcomes that keep trade ows strong while ensuring that working people have access to steady, well-paying jobs. Neither old-school protectionism nor unbridled globalism will achieve that. Instead, as the United States confronts future trade challenges, it should chart a sensible middle course—one that, at long last, prizes the dignity o work.∂
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Pinning Down Putin How a Condent America Should Deal With Russia Victoria Nuland
ew nations elicit such fatalism among American policymakers and analysts as Vladimir Putin’s Russia. For some, the country Fis an irredeemable pariah state, responsive only to harsh pun- ishment and containment. Others see a wronged and resurgent great power that deserves more accommodation. Perspectives vary by the day, the issue, and the political party. Across the board, however, resignation has set in about the state o U.S.-Russian relations, and Americans have lost condence in their own ability to change the game. But today’s Russia is neither monolithic nor immutable. Inside the country, low oil prices, the coronavirus pandemic, and Russians’ grow- ing sense o malaise all bring new costs and risks for the Kremlin. Abroad, Putin has played a weak hand well because the United States and its allies have let him, allowing Russia to violate arms control treaties, international law, the sovereignty o its neighbors, and the integrity o elections in the United States and Europe. Washington and its allies have forgotten the statecraft that won the Cold War and continued to yield results for many years after. That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level, unity with democratic allies and partners, and a shared resolve to deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin. It also included incentives for Moscow to cooperate and, at times, direct appeals to the Russian people about the benets o a better relation- ship. Yet that approach has fallen into disuse, even as Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown.
VICTORIA NULAND is Senior Counselor at the Albright Stonebridge Group and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She served in the U.S. State Department from 1984 to 2017, including as Ambassador to NATO from 2005 to 2008 and as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Aairs from 2013 to 2017.
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Whoever wins the U.S. presidential election this coming fall will— and should—try again with Putin. The rst order oµ business, how- ever, must be to mount a more unied and robust defense o U.S. and allied security interests wherever Moscow challenges them. From that position o strength, Washington and its allies can oer Moscow co- operation when it is possible. They should also resist Putin’s attempts to cut o his population from the outside world and speak directly to the Russian people about the benets o working together and the price they have paid for Putin’s hard turn away from liberalism. The fatalists may prove right that little will change inside Russia. But U.S. interests will be better protected by an activist policy that couples a strong defense with an open hand i the relationship improves. Such an approach would increase the costs o Putin’s aggressive behavior, would keep democracies safer, and may even lead the Russian people to question their own fatalism about the prospects for a better future.
THE 20YEAR SLIDE When Putin assumed the presidency in 2000, he set two goals to justify his policies and consolidate his power. Internally, he pledged to restore order, after years o chaos and impoverishment during the 1990s. Externally, he promised to restore greatness, following the humiliating loss o territory, global inuence, and military domi- nance that had come with the collapse o the Soviet Union almost a decade earlier. Both ambitions resonated with the Russian people. Over the next two decades, Russians would steadily relinquish more and more o their rights—freedom o expression and assembly, po- litical pluralism, judicial fairness, and an open economy (all o which were then new, tenuous, and unevenly shared)—in exchange for the stability o a strong state, a return to oil-fueled growth, and the pros- pect o middle-class prosperity. In the United States and Europe, too, some hoped that Putin would put an end to the oligarchic excess, ruble crashes, dependency on for- eign bailouts, and general lawlessness o the 1990s. Russia might, the thinking went, become more predictable and more reliable as an in- ternational partner. Western governments generally looked the other way as Putin’s methods for reestablishing control became increasingly Soviet during his rst decade in power: closing down opposition newspapers and ó stations; jailing, exiling, or killing political and economic rivals; and reestablishing single-party dominance in the
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“Russia Without Putin”: at a protest in Moscow, February 2020 parliament and regional governments. The George W. Bush adminis- tration, preoccupied with terrorism after the 9/11 attacks, believed that Moscow’s internal aairs were its own business and oµ little con- sequence to the U.S.-Russian relationship. When it came to Russian foreign policy, Putin had three initial pri- orities: reasserting Russian hegemony in neighboring states, rebuilding
SHAMIL the military, and regaining inuence at the global decision-making table. For the most part, the United States and its allies encouraged Russia in
ZHUMATOV its pursuit o the third goal, bringing Moscow into the World Trade Organization and creating the G-8 and the ±Ã®-Russia Council. They also made sure to take important decisions, such as whether to launch / REUTERS the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in 2001 and whether to intervene in Libya in 2011, to the ɱ Security Council and the G-8 for debate, so that Russia could join in. The belie was that Russia, like China, would
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become a more “responsible stakeholder” in global aairs by being integrated into rules-based international institutions. U.S.-Russian nuclear reduction talks continued, but Washington paid too little attention to Moscow’s substantial military investments outside the nuclear realm. The Bush administration made an early blunder in 2000 by only cursorily consulting with Moscow before with- drawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Putin has played a weak Treaty in order to build bigger missile defenses against Iran and North Korea. hand well because the The Bush team later sought to rectify United States and its allies the mistake by oering transparency have let him. and collaboration in missile defense de- velopment to meet the growing threats from Tehran and Pyongyang, but Putin rejected the oer. He had already knit the U.S. withdrawal from the ½ Treaty into a narrative o grievance against Washington. He later felt justied in cheating on two other pillars o 1980s arms control ar- chitecture, the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, accusing Washington o having broken Moscow’s trust rst. Taking lessons from the U.S. expe- rience in Afghanistan and Iraq and from Russia’s own subpar perfor- mance in the 2008 war with Georgia, Putin also poured money into irregular warfare, cyber-capabilities, long-range conventional weapons, and hypersonic missiles. Washington and its allies would not wake up to the impact o these investments until Russia’s 2014 seizure o Crimea. Both Democratic and Republican presidents worked closely with U.S. allies to prevent Putin from reestablishing a Russian sphere o inuence in eastern Europe and from vetoing the security arrange- ments oµ his neighbors. Here, a chasm soon opened between liberal democracies and the still very Soviet man leading Russia, especially on the subject o ±Ã® enlargement. No matter how hard Washington and its allies tried to persuade Moscow that ±Ã® was a purely defen- sive alliance that posed no threat to Russia, it continued to serve Put- in’s agenda to see Europe in zero-sum terms. I Russia couldn’t reclaim lands it had once dominated, only a zone o nonalignment stretching from eastern Germany to the Baltic and Black Seas would keep Russia safe, Putin asserted. But few in Washington considered it an option to slam the door on the new democracies o central and eastern Europe, which had worked for years to meet ±Ã®’s rigorous admission stan-
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dards and were now clamoring for membership. Leaving them in a geopolitical gray area would not have kept those states safe and free. Russia’s brutal treatment o those countries that were left in security limbo—Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine—has since made that clear. Putin has always understood that a belt o increasingly democratic, prosperous states around Russia would pose a direct challenge to his leadership model and risk reinfecting his own people with democratic aspirations. This is why Putin was never going to take a “live and let live” approach to former Soviet lands and satellite states. Instead, he seized on practically every democratic struggle o the last 20 years— Kosovo’s successful push for independence in 2008, the protests that set o the Syrian civil war in 2011, the Bolotnaya Square protests in Mos- cow in 2011–12, the Maidan uprising in Ukraine in 2014—to fuel the perception at home o Russian interests under siege by external enemies. For a long time, it worked. Russia’s conquests in Ukraine and Syria were wildly popular at home and deected attention from its internal prob- lems. With these successes, Putin’s geopolitical appetite grew. He came to believe that democratic states were weak and that Russia could cor- rode their political systems and social cohesion from the inside. In no small measure, the United States and its allies have enabled Putin’s boldness. Over the past 12 years, Putin and his cronies have paid a relatively small price for their actions. Russia has violated arms control treaties; elded new, destabilizing weapons; threatened Georgia’s sover- eignty; seized Crimea and much o the Donbas; and propped up des- pots in Libya, Syria, and Venezuela. It has used cyberweapons against foreign banks, electrical grids, and government systems; interfered in foreign democratic elections; and assassinated its enemies on European soil. The United States, meanwhile, has drawn redlines it later erased, pulled out o treaties and territory it needed to pressure Russia, openly questioned its own commitment to ±Ã®, strained its alliances with taris and recriminations, and even lent presidential credibility to Putin’s disinformation campaigns. U.S. and allied sanctions, although initially painful, have grown leaky or impotent with overuse and no longer impress the Kremlin. Russian diplomats attend international negotiations on Syria, Ukraine, arms control, and other issues with in- structions to stall any real agreement, thereby buying their country time to strengthen its ground position. Russia has also mastered the art o exploiting divisions in and between the United States and allied countries, thwarting their eorts at crafting a coherent counterstrategy.
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RUSTING RUSSIA The United States and its allies have also lost focus on the one thing that should worry the Russian president: the mood inside Russia. Despite Putin’s power moves abroad, 20 years o failing to invest in Russia’s modernization may be catching up with him. In 2019, Russia’s °´¾ growth was an anemic 1.3 percent. This year, the coronavirus pandemic and the free fall in oil prices could result in a signicant economic contraction. International sanctions deter serious foreign investment in Russia from most countries except China. Putin’s in- sistence on tight state control and on the renationalization oµ key sectors o the economy has suppressed innovation and diversica- tion. Russia’s roads, rails, schools, and hospitals are crumbling. Its citizens have grown restive as promised infrastructure spending never appears, and their taxes and the retirement age are going up. Corruption remains rampant, and Russians’ purchasing power con- tinues to shrink. In polls conducted in the country by the Levada Center last year, 59 percent o respondents supported “decisive, com- prehensive change,” up from 42 percent in 2017. A staggering 53 percent o 18- to 24-year-olds said they wanted to emigrate, the highest number since 2009. Putin, meanwhile, is not going anywhere. A fourth-term presi- dent barred from running in the next election, set for 2024, he is technically a lame duck. But the Russian parliament and the Consti- tutional Court have already rubber-stamped constitutional amend- ments allowing him to run for two more six-year terms and potentially stay in power through 2036. To give the process a veneer oµ legitimacy, Putin announced a national referendum on the amend- ments before the coronavirus pandemic put those plans on hold. Another Levada poll, from March o this year, found that only 48 percent o Russians supported extending Putin’s term, with 47 per- cent opposed, and 50 percent o those surveyed said they favored alternation o power and new faces in politics. Given those gures, Putin may reconsider holding the referendum at all. More generally, the air o resignation and cynicism inside Russia today is reminiscent o past eras when Kremlin leaders focused too much on adventures abroad and too little on their own people’s wel- fare, including the stagnant 1980s. The dierence is that Putin still has money to throw around. Russia’s two nancial crises in the 1990s—and the need to keep his capos fat and happy—incentivized
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him to maintain a large rainy-day fund. Russia currently has $150 billion in its National Wealth Fund and more than $550 billion over- all in gold and foreign reserves. It remains to be seen how much o this money Putin is willing to spend to support Russia’s health sys- tem and the country’s economic recovery from the coronavirus. Rus- sians may prove less patient this time around i the pandemic hits their country hard and the oligarchs get bailouts while average Ivans get empty promises and overowing hospitals.
A UNITED FRONT The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the democ- racies o the world in crafting a more eective approach to Russia— one that builds on their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens. To call this “great-power competition” or “a new Cold War” would be to give Putin too much credit: today’s Russia pales in comparison to the Soviet adversary. Depicting Putin’s Russia as a peer or an invincible enemy denigrates the United States’ ability to deter and resist dangerous Kremlin pol- icy. But the United States should not take this on alone. As in the past, it must mobilize its global alliances, shore up their internal defenses, and work jointly with others to rebu Russian encroachments in hot spots around the world. The eort should start among the democracies themselves. As the U.S. diplomat George Kennan counseled in his “Long Telegram” o 1946, when dealing with Moscow, “much depends on [the] health and vigor o our own society.” The §rst order o¨ business is to restore the unity and con§dence o U.S. alliances in Europe and Asia and end the fratricidal rhetoric, punitive trade policies, and unilateralism o recent years. The United States can set a global example for democratic re- newal by investing in public health, innovation, infrastructure, green technologies, and job retraining while reducing barriers to trade. Free people around the world also need their leaders to provide a shot o inspiration and con§dence in democracy itself. Moscow should also see that Washington and its allies are taking concrete steps to shore up their security and raise the cost o« Russian confrontation and militarization. That includes maintaining robust defense budgets, continuing to modernize U.S. and allied nuclear weapons systems, and deploying new conventional missiles and mis- sile defenses to protect against Russia’s new weapons systems. As the
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United States improves in areas in which Russia seeks or has gained an edge—hypersonic missiles, undersea weapons, cybersecurity, and anti- access/area-denial capabilities—it needs to do more to bring its allies along. For example, it should develop more o its high-tech weapons systems jointly with its allies, establish permanent bases along ±Ã®’s eastern border, and increase the pace and visibility o joint training exercises. American leaders need to U.S. requests for targeted military in- vestment would also lead to better bur- relearn how to den sharing among ±Ã® allies than has communicate with the endless political hectoring. Russian people. With its own strength reestablished, the United States will be better posi- tioned to bring Russia to the negotiating table. The one lesson Putin appears to have learned from the Cold War is that U.S. President Ronald Reagan successfully bankrupted the Soviet Union by forcing a nuclear arms race. Not wanting Russia to suer the same fate, he is eager to extend the 2010 New Ãà treaty, which limits U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear weapons systems and is set to expire in 2021. Washington should use Putin’s sense o urgency to tie discus- sions over New Ãà to wider negotiations on all aspects o military power—nuclear and conventional, space and cyberspace. To allow time for those talks, the treaty could be provisionally extended for a year or two, but Washington should not grant Moscow what it wants most: a free rollover o New Ãà without any negotiations to ad- dress Russia’s recent investments in short- and medium-range nu- clear weapons systems and new conventional weapons. Nor should it insist on including China in the talks right away, as the current ad- ministration advocates. I the United States and Russia reach an agreement, they can jointly pressure China to negotiate, but the United States should not sacrice its immediate security needs in the hope that China will someday agree to trilateral talks. Doing so would just give Putin more time to build new weapons. Russia’s weaponization o the Internet is no less dangerous. The U.S. president must lead a campaign to harden democratic socie- ties against Russia’s eorts to interfere in free elections, spread dis- information, iname societal tensions, and conduct political inuence campaigns. Democracies around the world need to pool their resources and work more eectively with technology compa-
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nies and researchers to expose and deter Russia’s malign activities as they happen, not months or years later. In the meantime, gov- ernments and technology companies share a responsibility to edu- cate citizens to recognize when they are being manipulated from abroad. They also need to negotiate changes to the prot structure o the Internet, which currently favors virality over truth and al- lows Putin’s troll armies to get paid by Facebook, YouTube, and other digital platforms while prosecuting their covert war. And there is no reason why Washington and its allies shouldn’t be more willing to give Putin a dose oµ his own medicine inside Russia, while maintaining the same deniability. Ukraine is another battleeld for democracy that the United States must not cede to Putin. American and European support for the country have prevented its collapse or complete dismemberment, but the war in the Donbas continues, with Ukrainians dying almost every day. Russia has actually agreed to terms for its withdrawal from the Donbas, in con- trast to the situation in Crimea, as laid out in the Minsk agreements o 2014 and 2015. What has been missing is a consistent diplomatic eort from Washington, Kyiv, Berlin, and Paris to implement the deal and pressure Putin to follow through. Instead, Putin has stalled and divided them, and key European leaders have blocked the United States from participating directly in the talks, against Ukraine’s wishes. I the United States and its allies make clear to Russia that the road to better relations with all ±Ã® and É countries goes through Ukraine, Putin might get more serious. I Russia continues to stall, sanctions and other forms o political, economic, and military pressure should be increased. At the same time, the United States should oer Russia a road map for gradual sanctions relie i and as Putin meets his obligation to get out o Ukraine. Russia’s successes in the Middle East are another product o U.S. ambivalence and neglect. In Syria, Putin saw an opportunity to support a fellow autocrat under pressure from his people while pro- tecting and extending Russia’s regional inuence. The United States, seeking to limit its own commitment, mistakenly expected that deeper Russian involvement in Syria would create an incentive for Moscow to help settle the conict and support free elections. The theory was that with skin in the game, Russia would want the game to be played fairly. Instead, Russia’s military intervention ensured the survival o Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad; further opened the door to Iranian inuence; and sent hundreds o thousands o addi-
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tional Syrian refugees into Jordan, Turkey, and Europe. The United States, meanwhile, made both Putin’s and Assad’s lives easier by neutralizing a shared threat, the Islamic State, or ¯¯. Today, Russia bombs hospitals and schools in Idlib Province to re- gain territory for Assad and uses the threat o new refugee waves to deter Turkey, European countries, and the United States from push- ing back. Russian troops regularly test the few U.S. forces left in Syria to try to gain access to the country’s oil elds and smuggling routes. I these U.S. troops left, nothing would prevent Moscow and Tehran from nancing their operations with Syrian oil or smuggled drugs and weapons. The U.S. footprint in Syria need not be large, but it cannot be zero, unless Washington wants to ensure that Putin emerges as the Middle East’s denitive power broker. Russia’s recent inroads in Libya, where it is supporting the forces o General Khalifa Haftar with weapons and advice, demonstrate that its appetite in the region is not sated—and why would it be, i relatively cheap investments buy it territorial control, inuence, and the ability to violate international humanitarian law with impunity?
AN OFFER OF SHARED PROSPERITY As it works on protecting its interests at home and abroad, the United States should also consider what Putin wants out o the U.S.-Russian relationship. He certainly wants sanctions relief, so U.S. and Euro- pean leaders should be clearer about their conditions for rolling back or removing sanctions. Traditionally, they have also oered Russia a¹rmative incentives—political and economic—for better relations. In 2013, for example, as both the United States and Ukraine were negotiating free-trade agreements with the É, Washington oered to drop some taris and regulatory barriers so that Russia, too, would obtain some benet from the agreements being settled around it. Russia’s seizure o Crimea froze those discussions. It is possible that Putin’s sense o security is by now so tightly tied to the Kremlin’s control o the economy that American and European oers o free trade and investment would not interest him. He might also fear that opening the door to better economic relations would make him look weak and needy. That should not prevent Washington and its partners in the G-7 from trying—and oering to provide the Kremlin with an alternative to its growing dependence on China. The carrot could take the form o a joint investment fund, free-trade zones,
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or the removal o tari s on certain goods. It could also include public- private partnerships in sectors such as clean energy, a business-to- business roundtable, and internships for young Russians to work in American and European rms. N could o er Moscow a fresh start, including resuming joint military exercises in areas such as ac- cident prevention and emergency response. The United States and Europe could reopen the question o a pan-European security dia- logue o the kind then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested in 2008, so long as doing so would not weaken existing institutions, such as , the , or the Organization for Security and Coopera- tion in Europe. I the United States and its allies resume working together on their Iran and North Korea policies, they should invite Russia to be a constructive contributor. Washington would want to start by placing those o ers in the shop window. To seal the deal, Russia would need to demonstrate its commitment to ending its attacks on democracies and to negotiating in good faith on arms control, Ukraine, Syria, and other dicult is- sues. Any incentives would need to be reversible in the event that Russia reneged on its end o the deal. In parallel, the United States and its allies should do more to reach out directly to the Russian people, especially younger citizens and those outside the major cities. A package o economic incentives with con- crete benets for ordinary Russians would help: it would undercut the Kremlin’s argument that the United States seeks the continual impov- erishment and encirclement o Russia and that win-wins are impossible. Putin has spent 20 years blaming the United States and for his leadership failures at home and aggression abroad. By labeling as “for- eign agents” any Russian nongovernmental organizations with collab- orative programs with liberal democracies, he has cut o U.S. contact with Russian civil society activists, political opponents, doctors, journal- ists, and many others. He also closed down most academic exchanges. The clampdown has worked exactly as he intended: fewer Russians know Americans, work with them, or see a future in closer ties. Washington and its allies could also o er Russians stronger in- ducements to break out o Putin’s information stranglehold. With appropriate security screening, the United States and others could permit visa-free travel for Russians between the ages o 16 and 22, allowing them to form their own opinions before their life paths are set. Western states should also consider doubling the number o
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government-supported educational programs at the college and graduate levels for Russians to study abroad and granting more ex- ible work visas to those who graduate. Putin may block his citizens from accepting these oers, but iµ he does, the blame for young Rus- sians’ lack o opportunities will fall squarely on him. Finally, U.S. leaders need to relearn how to communicate with the Russian people. Reagan and President Bill Clinton spoke directly to them in speeches and interviews, oering a future o friendship and shared security and prosperity i the two nations overcame their dier- ences. Not only have today’s leaders forgotten how to do this, but they have acceded to Putin’s view that any outreach to average Russians constitutes interference in Russia’s internal aairs, even as Moscow runs massive inuence campaigns in the United States and Europe. In the Soviet era, the United States defeated the Kremlin’s censor- ship by disseminating its messages through Voice o America and Ra- dio Free Europe broadcasts, Amerika magazine, and regular contact with dissidents. Despite Putin’s best eorts, today’s Russia is more per- meable. Young Russians are far more likely to consume information and news via the Internet than through state-sponsored ó or print media. Washington should try to reach more o them where they are: on the social networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte; on Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube; and on the many new Russian-language digital platforms springing up. Although no one should expect this group to rise up and demand change anytime soon, the United States should not let Putin remain the primary shaper o young Russians’ understanding o democratic policies and values. Washington and its allies must keep making the case that the relationship need not be zero-sum.
THE CHOICE IS THEIRS Overall, a more coherent approach to Russia will take unity, resources, condence, and focus. In the United States’ past dealings with Putin, one or all o these elements have faltered. Washington has paid too little attention, underinvested, and allowed itsel to be divided from its allies or seduced into appeasement in one area by the promise o prog- ress in another (trading Iran for Syria, Syria for Ukraine, and so on). Some—mysel included—have been overly optimistic in expecting that with more integration with the free world, Russia would become a better and more democratic partner. Others have been overly fatal- istic, citing Russia’s unique set o interests, its geography, or its his-
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tory to justify its aggression and violations o international law. Others still have been ahistorical in their outlook, asserting that i ±Ã® just reversed its enlargement and oered Russia hegemony over Ukraine and a larger sphere o inuence, Putin’s appetite would be sated. None o these lenses has given U.S. policymakers better vision. The coming U.S. presidential election oers the United States a chance to get o defense, restore the strength and condence o the democratic world, and close the holes in its security after years o drift and division. Once that resolve is rmly on display, the United States can seize the moment o renewal at home and stagnation in Russia to stretch out a hand again. Putin may not want or be able to take it. But the Russian people should know that Washington and its allies are giving him and Russia a choice.∂
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The Rise of Strategic Corruption How States Weaponize Graft Philip Zelikow, Eric Edelman, Kristofer Harrison, and Celeste Ward Gventer
raft is nothing new; it may be the second-oldest profession. Powerful people and those with access to them have always Gused kickbacks, pay-to-play schemes, and other corrupt prac- tices to feather their nests and gain unfair advantages. And such corruption has always posed a threat to the rule oµ law and stood in the way o protecting basic civil and economic rights. What is new, however, is the transformation o corruption into an instrument o national strategy. In recent years, a number o coun- tries—China and Russia, in particular—have found ways to take the kind o corruption that was previously a mere feature o their own political systems and transform it into a weapon on the global stage. Countries have done this before, but never on the scale seen today. The result has been a subtle but signicant shift in international politics. Rivalries between states have generally been fought over ide- ologies, spheres o inuence, and national interests; side payments o
PHILIP ZELIKOW is Professor of History and Professor of Governance at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia. A former U.S. diplomat and Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, he has worked for five presidential administrations.
ERIC EDELMAN is Counselor at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments and Senior Adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He served as U.S. Undersec- retary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.
KRISTOFER HARRISON is a financial and political risk consultant. He was an adviser to the U.S. Departments of Defense and State during the George W. Bush administration.
CELESTE WARD GVENTER served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the George W. Bush administration. Beginning this fall, she will be a Fellow at the Albritton Center for Grand Strategy at Texas A&M University.
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one kind or another were just one tactic among many. Those side pay- ments, however, have become core instruments o national strategy, leveraged to gain specic policy outcomes and to condition the wider political environment in targeted countries. This weaponized corrup- tion relies on a specic form o asymmetry. Although any government can hire covert agents or bribe o¹cials elsewhere, the relative open- ness and freedom o democratic countries make them particularly vul- nerable to this kind o malign inuence—and their nondemocratic enemies have gured out how to exploit that weakness. The ght against corruption has generally been marginalized in pub- lic and academic discussions o foreign policy. The problem is usually treated as a law enforcement challenge or a good-government issue— something that holds back political or economic development but that does not rise to the level o national strategy. Today, however, weapon- ized corruption has become an important form o political warfare. De- fenses against it must move into the mainstream o international policy work in every vulnerable government, including in the United States.
CORRUPTION ERUPTION Strategic corruption diers in important ways from the more tradi- tional forms that scholars call “bureaucratic corruption” and “grand corruption.” Bureaucratic corruption is the pervasive conversion o ordinary public service into a “bid for service”: for example, in many countries, simple steps such as getting a driver’s license or passing a building inspection require paying a bribe. This is the sort o graft that hobbles economic development by allowing well-connected in- siders to prot from investment at the expense o genuine growth. Grand corruption occurs when business leaders or major criminals (or oligarchs, who are a combination o the two) directly pay o top government o¹cials in exchange for favors, such as a preferential position or control o a key economic sector that presents opportuni- ties for high-margin plunder—often banking, telecommunications, or natural resources such as oil and gas. Both forms o traditional cor- ruption erode weak states, leading to breakdown and civil conict—a process playing out right now in countries such as Algeria, Bolivia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Venezuela. In bureaucratic and grand corruption, the payer and the payee are mainly just trying to get rich. In strategic corruption, by contrast, the greed is still there, for at least some o the players, but the corrupt
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inducements are wielded against a target country by foreigners as a part o their own country’s national strategy. Sometimes, but not al- ways, these schemes entail violations o the law, including by citizens o the target country. In other cases, the conduct may be technically legal but still involves “the perversion or destruction o integrity in the discharge o public duties,” as the venerable Oxford English Diction- ary’s denition o “corruption” puts it. For that reason, some corrupt acts are punishable by law; other kinds must be left to the judgment o citizens, i they are brought to light. The rst great eort to counter strategic corruption in the United States sought to do just that. The Foreign Agents Registration Act (¬), signed into law in 1938, arose from congressional investigations into communist and Nazi propaganda in the United States. The law required representatives o foreign sponsors to register, allowing what the legis- lation’s authors called “the spotlight o pitiless publicity” to do its work. In the 1960s, more congressional investigations led to a set o major amendments to ¬, which focused the legislation more on foreign sponsorship o political lobbying rather than propaganda. For the next few decades, foreign inuence peddling remained a relatively marginal phenomenon, characterized by the eorts o a handful o dictators and their cronies to buy inuence in Washington and other Western capitals. Things began to change in the 1990s. Suddenly, there were many more buyers. The collapse o communism put more than 20 new gov- ernments into the marketplace. All o them, and many more, were ea- ger to make friends and inuence people in Washington, the capital o the world’s sole remaining superpower. There, they found many con- sultants and lawyers ready to oer high-priced advice. A particularly lucrative new line oµ business was helping funnel U.S. or global invest- ment to countries newly opened to business. And as the United States and others leaned more on economic sanctions as a policy tool, foreign- ers needed more and more help navigating the regulatory machinery. Meanwhile, because o the deregulation o the global nancial sys- tem during the 1970s and 1980s, it was much easier to move and invest money in all directions and be able to get it back out again. Open and prosperous countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States were becoming the preferred shelters for the billions o dollars that every year are laundered through anonymized companies, real estate investments, and other schemes. As early as 2001, the Or- ganization for Economic Cooperation and Development identied
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anonymized companies as a primary means for hiding illicit transac- tions around the world. The United States, lacking national legislation that requires transparency about the “ultimate benecial owner” o corporate entities, gradually became a nancial haven for money laun- derers, terrorist nanciers, kleptocrats, and smugglers. For that reason, the striking growth o transnational criminal networks during the post–Cold War era has aided not just traditional corruption but also the strategic kind; after all, as the journalist Oliver Bullough memora- bly put it, “the evil money always mixes with the naughty money.” The cumulative result o all these shifts has been an exponential in- crease in the scale o U.S. commerce involving foreign interest groups. Americans with connections (real or merely claimed) to decision-makers now enjoy opportunities that can lead to all sorts o corrupt behavior. Political consultants and former U.S. o¹cials who spend time in the large, lucrative, and lightly regulated marketplace o inuence peddling face frequent tests o their ethics, integrity, and patriotism. Some handle these challenges with care and dutiful propriety. Others do not.
RUDY AND DMYTRO’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE Perhaps the most prominent case o strategic corruption in recent years is the Ukraine imbroglio that led to the impeachment o U.S. President Donald Trump in 2019. Many Americans may think o this as primarily a domestic political scandal. But it is crucial to under- stand its foreign roots. Trump was impeached because over the summer o 2019, he sought to condition his and his administration’s future relations with Ukraine on Kyiv’s willingness to help him dig up dirt on his political oppo- nent Joe Biden, blame former Ukrainian government o¹cials (and not the Kremlin) for hacking the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, and cast doubt on evi- dence that U.S. prosecutors had used to put one oµ Trump’s 2016 campaign managers, Paul Manafort, in prison. But the story actually started long before Trump did any o those things, and its primary authors were not Americans. Beginning in 2018, a group o plotters launched a concerted eort to smear the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, and push for her removal from o¹ce. The group included two natural- ized American citizens with ties to Ukraine, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman; their American lawyer and partner Rudy Giuliani (who also
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works as a personal lawyer to Trump); and two former Ukrainian law enforcement o¹cials, Yuriy Lutsenko and Viktor Shokin. Parnas, Lutsenko, and Shokin passed on derogatory information about Yova- novitch and Biden—including allegations later proved to be false— to Giuliani and Pete Sessions, then a Republican congressman from Texas. Giuliani encouraged media coverage o the claims, which were then amplied by Trump and his son Donald Trump, Jr. But behind this group were bigger players with deeper pockets, and it was their agenda that was driving the campaign. According to federal prosecutors in New York who indicted Parnas and Fruman last fall on charges o conspiracy to violate campaign nance laws, the pair, who had little money o their own, had been donating hundreds o thousands o dollars to U.S. political action commit- tees through a shell company backed by It is critical to understand foreign funds. They had other plans, as well. The Associated Press reported that the impeachment scandal’s in March 2019, Parnas and Fruman pro- foreign roots. posed a deal to Andrew Favorov, an ex- ecutive at the state-owned Ukrainian gas company Naftogaz, in which the company would import U.S. liqueed natural gas. As part o the deal, Favorov would replace the company’s widely admired chie execu- tive, Andriy Kobolyev. Parnas and Fruman told Favorov that the U.S. ambassador, Yovanovitch, would likely oppose the deal—but they as- sured him that she would soon be removed from o¹ce. The men, it seems, were hardly freelancing. As the journalist Catherine Belton writes in her recent book, Putin’s People, Parnas and Fruman were working for Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian tycoon “who’d taken over the Turkmenistan-Ukraine-Russia gas trade with the backing o the Kremlin.” (The federal prosecutors in New York revealed that Firtash has provided at least $1 million to Parnas.) According to The Washington Post, under Parnas and Fruman’s pro- posal, Naftogaz would agree to write o hundreds o millions o dollars in debt that Firtash owed the company. The plot’s political objectives and Firtash’s apparent involvement elevates this sordid tale from the level o ordinary sleaze to that o strategic corruption. Firtash is a well-known gure in Ukraine. For many years, he managed trade with Ukraine for Gazprom, the state-controlled Russian gas company that is, in the words o the econ- omist and Russia expert Anders Aslund, “probably Russia’s foremost
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geopolitical tool in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.” For Russia, eective control o the gas trade in and through Ukraine is a national objective o paramount importance. And Firtash was Gazprom’s man in Kyiv; indeed, according to Aslund, “Firtash appears to have been a Kremlin inuence agent rather than a businessman.” Firtash was arrested in Vienna in 2014 after federal prosecutors in the United States charged him with attempting to bribe o¹cials in India. A Russian businessman close to Russian President Vladimir Putin loaned Firtash 125 million euros to cover his bail. Firtash has since fought his extradition from Austria with the help o many American lawyers, in- cluding former o¹cials from both political parties. Among them are Jo- seph diGenova and Victoria Toensing, two attorneys with close ties to Giuliani; Firtash has said that he has paid the pair more than $1 million to represent him. DiGenova and Toensing have denied that Firtash was involved in Parnas and Fruman’s dealings, and according to The Washing- ton Post, the lawyers were able to arrange an unusual meeting with the U.S. attorney general, William Barr, to plead Firtash’s extradition case. (Meanwhile, money may not be the only thing o value that Firtash’s American associates have gotten out o the relationship: according toThe New York Times, Firtash’s legal team in Austria has supplied Giuliani with documents that he claims show wrongdoing by Biden.) DiGenova and Toensing have also appeared on Fox News, not to explain Firtash’s side o the story but to warn millions o American viewers that a supposedly wicked banker, George Soros, was trying to take over U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine. Soros, they claimed, was manipulating American diplomats there. Firtash’s lawyers were referring to the work o the foundations that Soros has funded to pursue his vision o an “open society.” Whatever one thinks o So- ros’s preferences in U.S. politics, his foundations have done enor- mous good in supporting transparency and law enforcement initiatives in eastern Europe. The Kremlin and its friends have pri- oritized undoing that progress and so have targeted Soros with vi- cious and often anti-Semitic propaganda. The Ukraine scandal, Belton writes, “exposed both the fragility o the American political system and how it had been corroded from within. ‘It looks like the whole o U.S. politics is for sale,’ said a former senior Russian banker with ties to the security services. . . . ‘It turned out everything depended on money, and all these [West- ern] values were pure hypocrisy.’”
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Smoke-lled room: Giuliani (right) with Parnas (far left) in London, July 2019 The upshot is that by spending millions o dollars and dangling bait about information to help Trump, Firtash and his associates are apparently trying to keep him from being extradited, put control o Ukraine’s energy sector in more pliable hands, get rid o the American ocials who stand in the way, and propagate conspiracy theories that have long been a staple o Russian propaganda. It is no coincidence that these aims almost completely match the Kremlin’s. It’s quite an agenda—and little o it originated in the United States.
COURTESY CORRUPTION WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS Putin’s regime is hardly the only one that has weaponized corruption to advance its national interests; Beijing has gotten in the game, as PROPUBLICA OF well. Consider the case o a once high-ying Chinese energy conglom- erate, China Energy. The actual character o the company’s oper- ations and its chie executive, Ye Jianming, remains mysterious. Ye had invested and arranged ocial connections around the world, including
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in the Czech Republic. In 2018, an expert in Prague who was tracking Ye’s eorts told The New York Times that “it’s been clear for some time that this is not just a Chinese commercial company, that they had some intelligence ties.” As a ²±± report put it, “at its height, [the company] aligned itsel so closely with the Chinese government that it was often hard to distinguish between the two.” China’s BRI involves graft The mystery deepened in November 2017, when U.S. authorities arrested a and bribery on an epic scale. ²¬² executive named Patrick Ho on charges oµ bribery and money launder- ing. A former Hong Kong government minister, Ho was well known for speeches extolling China’s Belt and Road Initiative (½¯), a mas- sively ambitious infrastructure plan intended to link China to Africa and Europe through road, rail, and maritime networks that China be- lieves will stimulate trade and economic development. Ho was not just relying on his oratorical gifts. In 2014, he oered President Idriss Déby o Chad $2 million, hidden in gift boxes. Two years later, he arranged for a bribe o $500,000 for the president o Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. The bribes were meant to open the oil and gas markets in those countries to Chinese business. And the ½¯ wasn’t the only thing Ho was promoting: U.S. federal prosecutors also al- leged that he had arranged for illicit arms sales to Libya and Qatar and had oered to help Iran move sanctioned money out o China. A few months after Ho’s arrest, the chie executive o ²¬² China Energy, Ye, disappeared. He is believed to be detained in China, and the company has been formally taken over by a Chinese state enterprise. Owing to China’s history o conict with the British Empire, China’s leaders are familiar with the way the British operated in the nineteenth century, and they seem to appreciate how the empire’s power did not rely solely on soldiers or warships; it came, rather, from the empire’s control o ports, canals, railroads, mines, shipping routes, telegraph cables, com- mercial standards, and nancial exchanges. Students o British impe- rial history could only shake their heads with recognition last year when they heard Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, the foreign minister o strategically located Djibouti, tell The Washington Post, “Yes, our debt to China is 71 percent o our °´¾, but we needed that infrastructure.” China now fos- ters land and sea connectivity in a global system built to Chinese norms and standards o cooperation, nanced by a network o Chinese-funded banks, and enabled by Chinese graft and bribery on an epic scale.
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Experts disagree about whether, on balance, the ½¯ poses a threat to U.S. interests. Regardless o one’s judgment on that question, however, it’s essential to see that corruption is central to the ½¯, which involves little transparency and lots o money and which puts o¹cials all over the world in hock to the Chinese Communist Party. It also connects infrastructure on three continents to an authoritarian government in Beijing known for collecting personal information and suppressing dis- sent. Not all local o¹cials take the same insouciant view as the foreign minister o Djibouti; some may need to be inuenced in other ways. That may be why China has taken a more systematic approach to strategic corruption in Australia. During the last few years, revelations o Chinese eorts to reshape Australia’s political environment have dominated headlines in the country. Wealthy donors with ties to Chinese authorities have funded Australian political organizations and election campaigns, organized eorts to inuence public opinion, and contributed to politicians who have praised China. In 2018, after media accounts revealed one such donor’s under-the-table contributions to an Australian senator—who then provided countersurveillance advice to the Chinese donor—the senator was forced to resign his seat. In 2005, a Chinese diplomat named Chen Yonglin defected to Australia and later wrote that “the Communist Party o China had begun a structured eort to inltrate Australia in a systematic way.” The Australian authorities agree. After retiring last year as director general o Australia’s main intelligence agency, Duncan Lewis went public with a warning about China’s “insidious” agenda. “Not only in politics but also in the community or in business, [such foreign inter- ference] takes over, basically, pulling the strings from oshore,” Lewis said. What Australia is experiencing is a version o the strategic cor- ruption that alarmed Americans in the 1930s and led to the passage o ¬. In 2018, Australia enacted the Foreign Inuence Transparency Scheme Act, which is based on ¬ but improves on it.
“A LITTLE CONFLICT OF INTEREST” U.S. adversaries are not the only ones that have weaponized corrup- tion. Turkey is just one example o a nominal ally that has also tried its hand at the technique. Last year, U.S. federal prosecutors charged the second-largest state-owned bank in Turkey, Halkbank, with organizing a massive scheme to evade international sanctions on Iran by shipping gold to the Islamic Republic in exchange for oil and gas. After initially
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protesting that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction, Halkbank pleaded not guilty, and the case is awaiting trial in New York. But Turkey wasn’t just trying to undermine the eort to isolate and weaken the Iranian regime, which is one oµ Washington’s most important foreign policy goals; it was also attempting to produce a specic policy outcome. In 2016, an Iranian Turkish businessman involved in the conspiracy, Reza Zarrab, was arrested in the United States. There was a signicant chance that he might plead guilty and talk, perhaps about the involve- ment o senior Turkish o¹cials in his scheme. Before Zarrab entered his plea, however, Giuliani and his longtime friend Michael Mukasey, who served as attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, agreed to represent Zarrab and worked hard to free him. Before allowing the two lawyers to represent Zarrab, the judge in the case held a number oµ hearings to explore their potential conicts o interest. Giuliani’s law rm was a registered agent for Turkey, and the judge noted that Giuliani might be barred from reaching a resolu- tion to the case “that would be contrary to Turkey’s interests.” In Feb- ruary 2017, Giuliani and Mukasey traveled to Turkey to discuss Zarrab’s case with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Then, according to The Washington Post, in the fall o that year, the two lawyers secured a meeting with Trump in which they lobbied the president to release Zarrab; the bait was the idea o swapping him for Andrew Brunson, an American pastor whom the Turks had arrested on pretextual charges. According to the Post, Trump was tempted, and then Secretary o State Rex Tillerson was called over to the Oval O¹ce. He was sur- prised to nd Giuliani and Mukasey there and refused to go along with the deal. Nor would the Justice Department. The White House chie o sta at the time, John Kelly, was also reportedly quite con- cerned about the Giuliani-Mukasey-Trump eort to interfere in a criminal investigation. The swap never occurred (Brunson was re- leased anyway in 2018), and Zarrab eventually pleaded guilty and spilled vital evidence that led to the indictment o Halkbank. Ever since, Halkbank and Turkish o¹cials have worked on Trump, trying to protect the bank from having to pay the kind oµ huge, multibillion-dollar nes levied in a similar case against the French rm ½±¾ Paribas. Their task has been made easier by the fact that Tillerson, Kelly, and many other potential objectors are now gone and that there seems to be no shortage o willing interlocutors in addition to Giuliani. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, has
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become a key go-between for relatives oµ Turkish leaders—including one o Erdogan’s sons-in-law. Last year, Lindsey Graham, a Republican U.S. senator from South Carolina, was fooled by a prank caller posing as the defense minister oµ Turkey, who recorded Graham’s assurances that Trump was “very sensitive” to Turkey’s concerns about the Halk- bank case and that Trump wanted “to be helpful.” It’s impossible to say for certain what Turkey has oered through its informal channels to Trump. But in November 2019, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton delivered an o-the-record speech to a private group in which he reportedly expressed his belie that “there is a personal or business relationship dictating Trump’s position on Turkey.” Other evidence suggests this may be true: Trump has been remarkably deferential to Erdogan and has treated the Turkish presi- dent with a leniency that stands in stark contrast to the manner in which Trump has dealt with the leaders o close U.S. allies, such as former British Prime Minister Theresa May and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In 2012, when Trump Towers Istanbul opened, Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump tweeted her thanks to Erdogan for attending the opening ceremony. And according to the Washington Examiner, Trump himsel once remarked in regard to Turkey, “I have a little con- ict o interest, because I have a major, major building in Istanbul.” It is surprising that a state-owned bank o a nominal U.S. ally de- ed Washington by helping Iran thwart sanctions. But what is far more dismaying is that when this activity came to light, those in- volved looked for and found American proxies who could plead their case to prevent the U.S. government from punishing their behavior. That goes well beyond pay-to-play. It is pay-for-policy; it is strategic corruption. And so far, it has succeeded. Halkbank has not paid sig- nicant nes for its massive violations o the sanctions against Iran.
LONDON’S CAUTIONARY TALE For the United States and its partners, strategic corruption poses three dangers. First, there is the direct and obvious threat oµ bad policy out- comes. Then, there is the more general risk that stems from rivals adopting corruption as a technique for global inuence building, as the Chinese have done in developing the ½¯. Such eorts amount to a steady reversal o the post–Cold War eort led by the United States and its allies to promote prosperity in developing countries through transparency, political reforms, and economic liberalization. In the
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past, by following such advice, countries could enhance their status in Western institutions and join the community o nations. In contrast, the new Beijing-centered system has built a global network o oligarchs who owe their positions and livelihoods to their Chinese patrons. As the Chinese system grows in inuence and expands its geographic reach, it corrodes not only the develop- To see what happens when ment prospects o the aected countries but also their participation in open strategic corruption goes trade relationships and their security unchecked, Americans need cooperation with others. look no further than the The third and nal danger comes from countries such as China and United Kingdom. Russia leveraging state-directed enter- prises and illicit money ows to directly penetrate Western governments and institutions. Canadian banks, British real estate companies, and American lobbying and public rela- tions rms, among others, now serve the interests o authoritarian states—wittingly or otherwise. In the United States, a steady drip o revelations about this foreign inuence has fed citizens’ tendency to view their political system as corrupt and to conclude that U.S. policy is for sale to the highest bidders—even overseas rivals. This is, o course, by design. As a 2016 study published by the Cen- ter for Strategic and International Studies put it, “Russian inuence centers on weakening the internal cohesion o societies and strength- ening the perception o the dysfunction o the Western democratic and economic system. . . . This is achieved by inuencing and eroding democratic governance from within its own institutions.” That is why, as the scholar Larry Diamond recently warned, “large-scale endemic corruption poses the single most urgent internal threat to democ- racy—and renders it all the more vulnerable to external subversion.” For a cautionary tale about what happens when strategic corruption goes unchecked, Americans need look no further than the United Kingdom. Putin believes that he has so neutered Washington’s closest strategic partner that he feels secure deploying exotic clandestine weapons there to conduct political assassinations. To amass this stag- gering degree o freedom to maneuver, Putin and his cronies exploited a number o weaknesses in the British system. The United Kingdom’s anonymous property registry allowed Russian oligarchs to swamp London and its nancial sector, where they stashed dirty money.
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British libel law favors plaintis far more than the equivalent U.S. statutes and doctrines do, and Russian oligarchs have ruthlessly ex- ploited that advantage with the goal o censoring speech that exposes their schemes. In 2014, for example, Cambridge University Press backed away from plans to publish the American political scientist Karen Dawisha’s book Putin’s Kleptocracy out o fear that Russians named in the book would unleash an avalanche o frivolous libel law- suits—with the help oµ high-powered British lawyers, o course.
HOW TO CLEAN HOUSE The growing threat from strategic corruption has gone largely unno- ticed or underappreciated in the Pentagon and the State Department. It is not enough to subcontract the problem out to federal prosecutors and hope for the best; the response needs to move to the center o foreign and national security policy. That will require public and private cam- paigns to monitor corruption, eorts by lawmakers to eliminate vulner- abilities in the U.S. legal and political systems, and an end to Washington’s overreliance on economic sanctions, which will become less and less ef- fective i U.S. rivals can oer alternative means o support. The policy moves that Washington needs to take to avoid London’s fate are not glamorous; they will rarely involve precision munitions or Ò teams. But they are nevertheless vital. For starters, the tradi- tional agenda o promoting transparency needs to be updated and reinforced. A rst step would be for the federal government and state capitals to tighten their regulation oµ limited liability companies, the anonymous nature o which allows them to hide funds o question- able origin and the ownership oµ luxury properties. Last year, the House o Representatives passed the Corporate Transparency Act, which would, among other things, require disclosure o the benecial owners o registered rms or corporations. This is a step in the right direction. Congress should also conduct fresh hearings on the scope and enforcement o ¬, which needs another round o amendments. The United States also needs legislation to make it harder to pursue baseless libel claims designed to harass and censor critics. Twenty-nine states have already passed such laws, but that is not enough. Federal legislation may be a better route. The ght against strategic corruption sometimes blurs the traditional lines between counterintelligence, law enforcement, and diplomacy. That can pose problems even when the federal government is in the
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hands o a normal presidential administration and is functioning well. Corruption investigations can overreach; they can become po- liticized. But U.S. intelligence and foreign policy agencies must be alert to the danger posed by strategic corruption. The defense against this threat cannot simply be left to a U.S. attorney’s oce or to the Treasury Department. A normal U.S. presidential administration would have already opened a national security investigation into the campaign against Yovanovitch, taking a hard look at Firtash and his associates and using resources that extend beyond those available to the . But even without any inside knowledge o the Trump White House, it is not dicult to imagine the diculties such an investigation would currently pose for career o- cials. The Halkbank case presents some analogous problems. And there may be similar situations that are not yet publicly known. But the means to ght strategic corruption exist, and a future admin- istration might decide to use them in an honest manner. A conscientious executive branch could take advantage o tools such as the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which was established in 2004 to help check the dangers o overzealous or politicized investigations. And o course, there are older methods for cleaning house, such as agency in- spector generals (now being targeted by the current president) and con- gressional oversight (i Congress ever manages to earn back the public’s trust, which has almost entirely eroded in recent decades). The danger o strategic corruption does not have to be a partisan issue. An anticorruption agenda could unite those on the left and the right who favor economic transparency—which protects consumers, investors, and citizens alike—and who want to stamp out crony capital- ism. Those shared values explain why anticorruption is an animating issue for civil society groups across the political spectrum, from Trans- parency International to the Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative. Although Trump’s impeachment has receded into the rearview mirror, the Ukraine debacle that precipitated it still presents an opportunity. Instead o merely contributing to the polarization and dysfunction that plagues Washington, that scandal and others can help reset the agenda for policy action. The Ukraine scandal is not just an alarm about the current U.S. president. It is a warning that drives home how vulnerable governments have become to a new form o political warfare, a strategy that takes advantage o freedoms in order to discredit them.∂
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The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy The United States Must Recover the Full Range o Its Power Robert M. Gates
.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to go it alone in re- sponding to the coronavirus pandemic is but the latest Umanifestation o the United States’ waning global leadership. Even before the virus struck, there was broad bipartisan agreement that Washington should reduce its commitments abroad and focus on problems at home. The economic and social toll o the pandemic will only reinforce that position. Many Americans—and not just the presi- dent’s supporters—believe that the United States’ allies have taken advantage o the country. They think that the costs associated with international leadership have been too high. They have lost patience with endless wars and foreign interventions. The United States remains the most powerful country in the world, in both economic and military terms. Yet nearly three decades since its victory in the Cold War and the collapse o the Soviet Union, it faces challenges on multiple fronts. China and Russia are strengthening their militaries and seeking to extend their inuence globally. North Korea poses an increasingly sophisticated nuclear threat in East Asia, and Iran remains a determined adversary in the Middle East. After 19 years o war, thousands o U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Islamic State (or ¯¯) continues to conduct terrorist attacks. Deep divisions have beset the United States’ strongest allies in Europe. And now, nearly every country on earth is grappling with the devastating consequences o the pandemic.
ROBERT M. GATES was U.S. Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. This essay is adapted from his forthcoming book Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post–Cold War Period (Knopf, 2020).
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Without a return o U.S. leadership, these challenges will only grow, moving us closer to a dog-eat-dog, might-makes-right world and further from one shaped by international cooperation and the peaceful resolution o dierences. But such a return would depend on rst addressing the fundamental aws in U.S. foreign policy since the end o the Cold War. Washington has become overly dependent on military tools and has seriously neglected its nonmilitary instruments o power, which have withered and weakened as a result. And it has attempted to develop and implement policy using a national security structure and bureaucracy that was designed for the Cold War and has changed remarkably little since the 1940s. Without greater military restraint and far-reaching institutional restructuring and reform, U.S. politicians and policymakers will have an increasingly hard time per- suading Americans to support the global leadership role so essential to protecting the security and economy o the United States. And without American leadership, there will be truly dark days ahead.
RESTORING BRAIN TO BRAWN A strong military underpins every other instrument o American power, and so every president must ensure that the U.S. military is the strongest and most technologically advanced in the world, capable o dealing with threats from both nonstate actors and great powers. Fullling that responsibility will become ever more di¹cult as the pandemic pushes the government toward curbing defense spending. As essential as it is to build and maintain a strong military, it’s just as—or more—important to know when and how to use it. When fac- ing a decision o whether to use the military, presidents must better dene the objective. What are troops expected to do, and are the re- sources adequate for the mission? I the mission changes, as it did in Somalia under President Bill Clinton (from famine relie to peace- making and improving governance) and in Iraq under President George W. Bush (from toppling Saddam Hussein to occupation, ghting an insurgency, and nation building), is there a commensurate change in the resources applied? Is there a mismatch between U.S. aspirations and U.S. capabilities, as in Afghanistan? Finding the right answers to these questions has proved di¹cult in recent decades. The objective o any military intervention must be clear, and the strategy and resources committed must be adequate to fulll the objective. Sensitive to domestic politics, presidents some-
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times are tempted to use just enough military force to avoid failure but not enough to achieve success. Such an approach is not only strategi- cally unwise but also immoral. The lives o American men and women in uniform must not simply be thrown at a problem and squandered in halÓearted or impulsive eorts. In the use o military force, the words oµ Yoda from Star Wars apply: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” Presidents must be especially wary o mission creep, the gradual expansion o a military eort to achieve new and more ambitious ob- jectives not originally intended. Often, once they have achieved the established objectives, leaders feel emboldened to pursue broader goals. Such overreach is what happened under Clinton after the United States sent troops into Somalia in 1993 to forestall humanitarian disas- ter and after it overthrew the military dictatorship in Haiti in 1994, and it is what happened under Bush after the United States toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and Saddam in Iraq in 2003. Intervention to prevent the slaughter o innocent civilians became one o the more frequent reasons for the use o force after the end o the Cold War. But such conicts raise thorny questions o their own. Before intervening militarily, leaders must assess whether core U.S. interests are really threatened, how realistic the objectives are, the willingness o others to help, the potential human and nancial costs o intervention, and what might go wrong when U.S. troops hit the ground. These are hard questions, but they must be addressed with eyes wide open. The bar for the use o the U.S. military for purposes short o protecting vital national interests should be very high. Some on the left are convinced that the United States should inter- vene to safeguard civilians, as in Libya, Sudan, and Syria. Some on the right advocate the use o force against China, Iran, or North Korea or want to provide large-scale military assistance to Ukraine or to the opposition in Syria. A president who ignores one or the other camp is considered either morally bereft or a wimp. The consequences o an insu¹ciently planned military interven- tion can be devastating. Take, for example, the U.S. intervention in Libya in 2011, which I opposed. Once President Barack Obama de- cided to go in, the administration made two strategic mistakes. The rst was agreeing to expand the original ±Ã® humanitarian mission from simply protecting the people o eastern Libya against the forces o Libyan President Muammar al-Qadda to toppling the regime. Nî could have drawn a proverbial line in the sand somewhere be-
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tween the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern city o Benghazi; a no-y zone and attacks on Qadda’s ground forces could have protected the rebels in the East without destroying the government in Tripoli. Under those circumstances, perhaps some kind o political accommo- dation could have been worked out. As I said at the time, Qadda had given up his nuclear program and posed no threat to U.S. interests. There is no question he was a loathsome and vicious dictator, but the total collapse oµ his gov- ernment allowed more than 20,000 shoulder-red surface-to-air missiles and countless other weapons from his arsenal to nd their way across both Africa and the Middle East, sparked a civil war in 2014 that plunged Libya into years o turmoil, opened the door to the rise o ¯¯ in the country, and created the opportunity for Russia to claim a role in determining Libya’s future. The country remains in a shambles. As happened in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq, expanding the U.S. military mission in Libya beyond the original objective created nothing but trouble. The second strategic mistake was the Obama administration’s fail- ure to plan in any way for an international role in reestablishing order and a working government post-Qadda. (This is ironic in light o Obama’s earlier criticism o Bush’s alleged failure to plan properly for a post-Saddam Iraq.) Drawing on nonmilitary tools, the government could have taken a number o useful steps, including sending a U.S. training mission to help restructure the Libyan army, increasing the advisory role o the ɱ Support Mission in Libya, helping design a better electoral system that would not have inamed social and re- gional divisions, and restraining Egypt and the Gul states from their meddling in the lead-up to and after the outbreak o the 2014 civil war. The United States did provide limited assistance to Libya after Qad- da fell, much o it for treating victims o the ghting and locating weapons stockpiles. A September 2012 Wilson Center report suggested 30 dierent nonmilitary U.S. programs to help Libya, focusing on areas such as developing a new constitution, building a transparent judicial system, improving nancial governance, promoting economic growth, and improving chemical weapons security and destruction. But the U.S. government never put together su¹cient funding for these measures, even though their estimated cost, according to the Wilson Center, for the three years between the intervention in 2011 and the beginning o the civil war in 2014 was $230 million. By comparison, the cost o U.S.
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Another ne mess: in the wake of NATO airstrikes in Tripoli, Libya, June 2011 military operations in Libya between March and October 2011 was about $1 billion. I ever there was a mismatch between the importance
MOISES o the nonmilitary mission and its available funding, this was it. There were a number o nonmilitary ways in which the United
SAMAN States (and its allies) might have been able to stop the ghting and help stabilize Libya in the summer and fall o 2011. But there was no / THE plan, no funding, and no desire. Washington’s use o nonmilitary in-
NEW struments o power, as so often after the Cold War, was hesitant, in-
YORK adequately funded, and poorly executed. The ±Ã®-Arab coalition bombed Libya and then just went home, leaving Libyans to ght over TIMES the ruins and thus creating another source o instability in the region
/ REDUX and a new base for terrorists. Obama himsel supplied the harshest judgment about the intervention, characterizing the failure to plan for a post-Qadda Libya as the worst mistake oµ his presidency.
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THE ENTIRE ARSENAL What is so striking about the overmilitarization o the period follow- ing the Cold War is just how much U.S. policymakers failed to learn the lessons o the seven previous decades. One o the United States’ greatest victories o the twentieth century relied not on military might but on subtler tools o power. The Cold War took place against the backdrop o the greatest arms race in history, but there was never actu- ally a signicant direct military clash between the two superpowers— despite proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere. Indeed, most historians calculate that fewer than 200 U.S. troops died due to direct Soviet action. Because nuclear weapons would have made any war be- tween the two countries catastrophic for both sides, the U.S.-Soviet contest was waged through surrogates and, crucially, through the use o nonmilitary instruments o power. Most o those instruments have withered or been abandoned since the end o the Cold War. But as the great powers today ex- pand and modernize their militaries, i the United States is smart, and lucky, the long competition ahead with China, in particular, will play out in the nonmilitary arena. Those nonmilitary instru- ments must be revived and updated. Like a strong military, diplomacy is an indispensable instrument o national power. For many years now, Congress has starved the State Department o su¹cient resources (except for brie periods under the George W. Bush administration), and the White House has often side- lined the agency and failed to support its budgetary needs. The State Department’s critics, including those inside the department, are right that the organization has become too bureaucratic and requires far- reaching reform. Still, any eort to strengthen the United States’ non- military toolkit must position a stronger State Department at its core. The United States’ economic power oers further nonmilitary means o courting partners and pressuring rivals. After World War II, the United States presided over the creation o institutions designed to strengthen international economic coordination largely on American terms, including the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (later part o the World Bank). Throughout the Cold War, the United States was a principal advocate for free trade and a more tightly knit global trading system. Attitudes changed, however, in the early 1990s. It became increas- ingly di¹cult to get Congress to approve free-trade agreements,
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even when they were negotiated with friendly countries such as Can- ada and Mexico. U.S. presidents came to see economic power mainly as an instrument to mete out punishment. Since the end o the Cold War, Washington has applied economic sanctions—mostly in the form o targeted trade and nancial restrictions—against dozens o countries in an eort to alter their behavior. Trump, in particular, has been hostile to nearly all multilateral organizations and has weaponized U.S. The State Department has economic power, starting tari wars with both allies and rivals. become too bureaucratic The Trump administration has also and requires reform. tried to slash foreign aid. Such assis- tance remains a useful tool, even though the public has always been skeptical o spending money abroad rather than at home. With little popular support, the U.S. Agency for International Development has shrunk since the end o the Cold War. When I retired as director o the ²¯, in 1993, ɯ´ had more than 15,000 employees, most o them career professionals, many working in developing countries in dangerous and inhospitable en- vironments. When I returned to government as secretary o de- fense, in 2006, ɯ´ had been cut to about 3,000 employees, most o whom were managing contractors. In shrinking ɯ´, the United States unilaterally gave up an im- portant instrument o power. By contrast, China has been especially adept at using its development projects to cultivate foreign leaders and buy access and inuence. Its boldest gambit on this front has been the Belt and Road Initiative, which in 2019 encompassed projects in 115 countries with an estimated cost o over $1 trillion. Another casualty o the collapse o the Soviet Union was the U.S. Information Agency and the United States’ overall strategic commu- nications capabilities. During the Cold War, the ɯ established a global network oµ libraries and outposts stocked with books and magazines about democracy, history, American culture, and a broad array o other subjects. The agency’s Voice o America broadcast news and entertainment around the world, presenting an objective view o current events to millions who would otherwise have been dependent on government-controlled outlets. The ɯ and its many outlets and programs reached every corner o the planet. It was a sophisticated instrument, and it worked.
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Nevertheless, the ɯ was abolished in 1999, with its residual eorts folded into the State Department. That had real consequences. By 2001, U.S. public diplomacy was a pale shadow o its Cold War self. Unlike China and Russia, the United States now lacks an eective strategy for communicating its message and countering those o its competitors. Governments have always tried to interfere in other countries’ aairs. What is new today is the availability o technology that makes earlier tools seem prehistoric. Russia, for example, mounted sophisticated hacking and disinformation campaigns to interfere in the 2016 Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, the 2016 presidential election in the United States, and the 2017 presidential election in France. The United States possesses the same the technologies; it just lacks a strategy for applying them. Cyberwarfare has become one o the most powerful weapons in a nation’s arsenal, giving countries’ the ability to penetrate an adversary’s military and civil infrastructure, interfere with democratic processes, and aggravate domestic divisions. The Russians are particularly skilled in this arena, having launched cyberattacks against Estonia, Georgia, Ukraine, and others. The United States is developing the capability to defend itsel against cyberattacks, but it also needs to take the oensive from time to time, especially against its primary adversaries. Authori- tarian governments must get a taste o their own medicine.
TIME FOR RENOVATIONS U.S. policymakers have many nonmilitary tools at their disposal. But those tools will remain inadequate for the challenges ahead iµ Wash- ington does not overhaul its outdated national security apparatus. The current structure, established by the National Security Act o 1947— which created the Department o Defense, the U.S. Air Force (as a separate military service), the ²¯, and the National Security Council (±²)—has outlived its usefulness. Under the current structure, for example, there is no formal place at the table for any o the depart- ments or agencies overseeing international economic policies. Presi- dents have routinely invoked a “whole-of-government approach” to tackle problems, suggesting that all relevant departments and agen- cies will bring their vast resources to bear in a shared eort. But apart from when it involves military matters, this collective action is largely smoke and mirrors. The government in fact has little ability to orches- trate all its instruments o power.
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The State Department should be the central nonmilitary instru- ment o U.S. national security policy. Although the State Department and ɯ´ traditionally have been staed by some o the most tal- ented people in government, in organizational terms, the two entities are nightmares. The State Department has a stultifying bureaucracy that frustrates its best people and greatly impedes its agility. It doesn’t always allocate its resources well— Successive U.S. presidents for instance, it still has too many have been frustrated by the people in comfortable postings such inadequacies and failures as Berlin, London, Paris, and Rome of USAID. and not nearly enough in Ankara, Beijing, Cairo, or New Delhi or in the capitals o other key developing countries. The bureaucratic cul- ture sties creativity, which explains why more than a few secretaries o state have, for all practical purposes, walled themselves o from the professionals in the department. To gain strength, the State Depart- ment must reform the way it recruits and trains people and change its culture so as to attract young independent thinkers. The State De- partment needs a dramatic bureaucratic restructuring and cultural shakeup—and then signicantly more funding and personnel. A restructured and strengthened State Department would serve as the hub for managing all the spokes o the government involved in directing nonmilitary resources to address national security prob- lems. A good example oµ how this might work is George W. Bush’s project to combat ů³/¯´ in Africa, in which a number o agencies had a role to play but the president empowered a single o¹cer in the State Department to control the budget and coordinate all the agen- cies in an eective campaign. Some might argue that the ±² and its sta should play this role. Having worked on the ±² sta under four presidents, I disagree. The kind o integration and centraliza- tion needed must involve day-to-day management and operational and budgetary integration and coordination—endeavors beyond the capabilities and writ o the ±². Successive U.S. presidents have been frustrated by the inadequa- cies and failures o ɯ´. That was one reason why Bush established the Millennium Challenge Corporation in 2004 as a separate entity, to provide assistance that would reward countries that were “ruling justly, investing in their people, and encouraging economic freedom.”
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Even i the ²² doesn’t take over all U.S. development assistance ef- forts, as some conservatives have called for, the principles it uses to guide the selection o recipient countries and projects ought to be adopted more broadly. I the recipients o American aid were sub- jected to greater vetting, particularly when it comes to their values and attitudes toward the United States, then Congress might prove more willing to support such programs. Self-interest in apportioning scarce resources for development would not be a sin (although the United States must continue to oer humanitarian assistance after natural disasters or emergencies wherever it is needed). Reviving and restructuring U.S. development assistance is all the more urgent in light o China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its other eorts to bring developing countries into its orbit. The establish- ment, in 2019, o the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, an independent government agency that helps nance private-sector investment in development projects was a good start to expanding U.S. eorts to encourage private investment in devel- oping countries. China may be able to loan billions o dollars to countries, but the United States has a vastly more powerful private sector that can not only invest in but also select economically viable projects that will truly serve the long-term interests o the recipient countries. The United States is well practiced in the art o economic punishment, but it needs to get a lot smarter about using economic tools to win over other countries. In the United States’ nonmilitary competition with China and Russia, U.S. o¹cials also need to look at how to reform the alli- ances and international organizations Washington helped create to make them better serve U.S. objectives today. When it comes to ±Ã®, for example, the United States should keep pressuring other members to spend more on defense but also help allies nd ways to collaborate in modernizing their military capabilities. The Interna- tional Monetary Fund and the World Bank also merit a hard look. There is no reason to leave them, but the United States should be aggressive in making sure that they serve U.S. interests and that they are operating eectively and fairly. In addition, i the United States wants to compete eectively with authoritarian governments, it will have to overhaul its public messag- ing. The current eort is an embarrassment. Many entities have a hand in strategic communications, including the White House, the
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State Department, the Defense Department, the Treasury Depart- ment, the ²¯, and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, but for the most part, each goes its own way. The result is many lost opportunities. The United States has failed to appeal to the nationalist sentiments o people in Europe and elsewhere to resist Chinese and Russian eorts to interfere in the internal aairs o their countries. U.S. policymak- ers have also done a lousy job communicating to the rest o the world the scale and impact o U.S. development assistance and humanitar- ian assistance programs, including programs that have beneted people ruled by enemy governments. Who knew, for example, that in 1999, during the North Korean famine, the United States provided more food aid than the rest o the world combined and three times what China oered? The United States needs to trumpet its foreign aid, to act less like a monastic order and more like Madison Avenue. What’s needed is a new top-level organization—akin to the ɯ on steroids and located within the State Department but empow- ered by the president—to enable consistent strategic communica- tion using all available venues. It would oversee all traditional and electronic messaging, including social media, and all public state- ments and other communication eorts by other parts o the U.S. government relating to foreign policy.
THE FULL SYMPHONY OF AMERICAN POWER Strengthening the nonmilitary tools o U.S. foreign policy would ad- vance U.S. national interests and create new, more cost-eective, and less risky ways to exercise American power and leadership interna- tionally. Americans want the strongest military in the world, but they want it used sparingly and only when vital national interests are at stake. Across the political spectrum, there is a belie that post–Cold War presidents have turned too often to the military to resolve chal- lenges abroad. The United States must always be prepared to defend its interests, but in order to revive domestic support for the United States’ global leadership role, U.S. leaders must exercise greater re- straint in sending the world’s nest military into combat. It should not be the mission o the U.S. military to try to shape the future o other countries. Not every outrage, every act o aggression, every oppres- sion, or every crisis should elicit a U.S. military response. Finally, most Americans want their country to stand for something beyond just military strength and economic success. They want it to
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be seen admiringly by others as the world’s strongest advocate for liberty. In formulating a foreign policy that the American public will support, U.S. leaders should recognize that it is important to use every nonmilitary instrument o power possible to encourage both friends and rivals to embrace freedom and reform, because those objectives serve the U.S. national interest. With restructuring and more re- sources, Washington’s nonmilitary instruments can contribute to a remarkable symphony o power. These tools will be essential as the United States faces the prospect o a long and multifaceted competi- tion with China. But even i U.S. o¹cials get all the right military and nonmilitary tools in place, it will still be up to American leaders, American legislators, and the broader American public to understand that the long-term self-interest o the United States demands that it accept the burden o global leadership.∂
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The Next Liberal Order The Age o Contagion Demands More Internationalism, Not Less G. John Ikenberry
hen future historians think o the moment that marked the end o the liberal world order, they may point to the Wspring o 2020—the moment when the United States and its allies, facing the gravest public health threat and economic catastro- phe o the postwar era, could not even agree on a simple communiqué o common cause. But the chaos o the coronavirus pandemic engulf- ing the world these days is only exposing and accelerating what was already happening for years. On public health, trade, human rights, and the environment, governments seem to have lost faith in the value o working together. Not since the 1930s has the world been this bereft o even the most rudimentary forms o cooperation. The liberal world order is collapsing because its leading patrons, starting with the United States, have given up on it. U.S. President Donald Trump, who declared in 2016 that “we will no longer surrender this country . . . to the false song o globalism,” is actively undermining 75 years o American leadership. Others in the U.S. foreign policy es- tablishment have likewise packed their bags and moved on to the next global era: that o great-power competition. Washington is settling in for a protracted struggle for dominance with China, Russia, and other rival powers. This fractured world, the thinking goes, will oer little space for multilateralism and cooperation. Instead, U.S. grand strategy will be dened by what international relations theorists call “the prob- lems o anarchy”: hegemonic struggles, power transitions, competition for security, spheres o inuence, and reactionary nationalism.
G. JOHN IKENBERRY is Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Aairs at Princeton University and Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University, in South Korea. He is the author of the forthcoming book A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal International- ism and the Crises of Global Order.
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But this future is not inevitable, and it is certainly not desirable. The United States may no longer be the world’s sole superpower, but its inuence has never been premised on power alone. It also depends on an ability to oer others a set o ideas and institutional frameworks for mutual gain. I the United States abandons that role prematurely, it will be smaller and weaker as a result. A return to great-power competition would destroy what is left o the global institutions that governments rely on for tackling common prob- lems. Liberal democracies would further descend into disunion and thereby lose their ability to shape global rules and norms. The world that would emerge on the other side would be less friendly to such Western values as openness, the rule oµ law, human rights, and liberal democracy. In the short term, the new coronavirus (and the resulting eco- nomic and social wreckage) will accelerate the fragmentation and breakdown o global order, hastening the descent into national- ism, great-power rivalry, and strategic decoupling. But the pan- demic also oers the United States an opportunity to reverse course and opt for a dierent path: a last-chance eort to reclaim the two-centuries-old liberal international project oµ building an order that is open, multilateral, and anchored in a coalition o leading liberal democracies. For guidance, today’s leaders should look to the example o U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The collapse o the world economy and the rapid spread o fascism and totalitarianism in the 1930s showed that the fates o modern societies were tied to one another and that all were vulnerable to what Roosevelt, using a term that seems eerily prescient today, called “contagion.” The United States, Roosevelt and his contemporaries concluded, could not simply hide within its borders; it would need to build a global infrastructure o institutions and partnerships. The liberal order they went on to build was less about the triumphant march oµ liberal democracy than about pragmatic, cooperative solutions to the global dangers arising from interdependence. Internationalism was not a project o tearing down borders and globalizing the world; it was about managing the growing complexities o economic and security inter- dependence in the pursuit o national well-being. Today’s liberal democracies are the bankrupt heirs to this project, but with U.S. leadership, they can still turn it around.
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THE PROBLEMS OF MODERNITY The rivalry between the United States and China will preoccupy the world for decades, and the problems o anarchy cannot be wished away. But for the United States and its partners, a far greater chal- lenge lies in what might be called “the problems o modernity”: the deep, worldwide transformations unleashed by the forces o science, technology, and industrialism, or what the sociologist Ernest Gellner once described as a “tidal wave” pushing and pulling modern societies into an increasingly complex and interconnected world system. Wash- ington and its partners are threatened less by rival great powers than by emergent, interconnected, and cascading transnational dangers. Climate change, pandemic diseases, nancial crises, failed states, nuclear proliferation—all reverberate far beyond any individual coun- try. So do the eects o automation and global production chains on capitalist societies, the dangers o the coming revolution in articial intelligence, and other, as-yet-unimagined upheavals. The coronavirus is the poster child o these transnational dan- gers: it does not respect borders, and one cannot hide from it or defeat it in war. Countries facing a global outbreak are only as safe as the least safe among them. For better or worse, the United States and the rest o the world are in it together. Past American leaders understood that the global problems o mo- dernity called for a global solution and set about building a worldwide network o alliances and multilateral institutions. But for many ob- servers, the result o these eorts—the liberal international order— has been a failure. For some, it is tied to the neoliberal policies that produced nancial crises and rising economic inequality; for others, it evokes disastrous military interventions and endless wars. The bet that China would integrate as a “responsible stakeholder” into a U.S.- led liberal order is widely seen to have failed, too. Little wonder that the liberal vision has lost its appeal. Liberal internationalists need to acknowledge these missteps and failures. Under the auspices o the liberal international order, the United States has intervened too much, regulated too little, and delivered less than it promised. But what do its detractors have to oer? Despite its faults, no other organizing principle currently under debate comes close to liberal internationalism in making the case for a decent and coopera- tive world order that encourages the enlightened pursuit o national interests. Ironically, the critics’ complaints make sense only within a
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system that embraces self-determination, individual rights, economic security, and the rule oµ law—the very cornerstones oµ liberal interna- tionalism. The current order may not have realized these principles across the board, but aws and failures are inherent in all political orders. What is unique about the postwar liberal order is its capacity for self-correction. Even a deeply awed liberal system provides the insti- tutions through which it can be brought closer to its founding ideals. A return to great-power However serious the liberal order’s competition is neither shortcomings may be, they pale in com- inevitable nor desirable. parison to its achievements. Over seven decades, it has lifted more boats—mani- fest in economic growth and rising in- comes—than any other order in world history. It provided a framework for struggling industrial societies in Europe and elsewhere to transform themselves into modern social democracies. Japan and West Germany were integrated into a common security community and went on to fashion distinctive national identities as peaceful great powers. Western Europe subdued old hatreds and launched a grand project o union. European colonial rule in Africa and Asia largely came to an end. The G-7 system o cooperation among Japan, Europe, and North America fostered growth and managed a sequence o trade and nancial crises. Beginning in the 1980s, countries across East Asia, Latin America, and eastern Europe opened up their political and economic systems and joined the broader order. The United States experienced its greatest successes as a world power, culminating in the peaceful end to the Cold War, and countries around the globe wanted more, not less, U.S. lead- ership. This is not an order that one should eagerly escort o the stage. To renew the spirit oµ liberal internationalism, its proponents should return to its core aim: creating an environment in which lib- eral democracies can cooperate for mutual gain, manage their shared vulnerabilities, and protect their way oµ life. In this system, rules and institutions facilitate cooperation among states. Properly regu- lated trade benets all parties. Liberal democracies, in particular, have an incentive to work together—not only because their shared values reinforce trust but also because their status as open societies in an open system makes them more vulnerable to transnational threats. Gaining the benets o interdependence while guarding against its dangers requires collective action.
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SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO / ALAMY IMAGES STOCK HISTORY SCIENCE The master builder: Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., 1933
THE ROOSEVELT REVOLUTION This tradition o liberal internationalism is often traced to U.S. Pres- ident Woodrow Wilson, but the great revolution in liberal thinking actually occurred under Roosevelt in the 1930s. Wilson believed that modernity naturally favored liberal democracy, a view that, decades later, led some liberals to anticipate “the end o history.” In contrast, Roosevelt and his contemporaries saw a world threatened by violence, depravity, and despotism. The forces o modernity were not on the side o liberalism; science, technology, and industry could be har- nessed equally for good and evil. For Roosevelt, the order-building project was not an idealistic attempt to spread democracy but a des-
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perate eort to save the democratic way oµ life—a bulwark against an impending global calamity. His liberalism was a liberalism for hard times. And it is this vision that speaks most directly to today. Roosevelt’s core impulse was to put the liberal democratic world on a more solid domestic footing. The idea was not just to establish peace but also to build an international order that would empower govern- ments to deliver a better life for their citizens. As early as August 1941, when the United States had not yet entered World War II, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill articulated this vision in the Atlantic Charter, writing that i the United States and other democracies vanquished the Nazi threat, a new international order would secure “improved labor standards, economic advancement and social security.” In the words o a Chicago journalist writing at the time, the New Deal at home was to lead to a “New Deal for the world.” Roosevelt’s vision arose from the belie that interdependence gen- erated new vulnerabilities. Financial crises, protectionism, arms races, and war could each spread like a contagion. “Economic diseases are highly communicable,” Roosevelt wrote in a letter to the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. “It follows, therefore, that the economic health o every country is a proper matter o concern to all its neigh- bors, near and distant.” To manage such interdependence, Roosevelt and his contemporaries envisioned permanent multilateral governance institutions. The idea was not new: since the nineteenth century, lib- eral internationalists had championed peace congresses, arbitration councils, and, later on, the League o Nations. But Roosevelt’s agenda was more ambitious. International agreements, institutions, and agen- cies would lie at the heart o the new order. On issue after issue— aviation, nance, agriculture, public health—multilateral institutions would provide a framework for international collaboration. Another innovation was to redene the concept o security. In the United States, the Great Depression and the New Deal brought into existence the notion o “social security,” and the violence and destruc- tion oµ World War II did the same for “national security.” Both were more than terms o art. They reected new ideas about the state’s role in ensuring the health, welfare, and safety o its people. “You and I agree that security is our greatest need,” Roosevelt told Americans in one oµ his reside chats in 1938. “Therefore,” he added, “I am deter- mined to do all in my power to help you attain that security.” Social security meant building a social safety net. National security meant
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shaping the external environment: planning ahead, coordinating poli- cies with other states, and fostering alliances. From now on, national governments would need to do much more to accomplish the twin goals o social and national security—both at home and abroad. What also made Roosevelt’s internationalism unique was that it was tied to a system o security cooperation among the big liberal democracies. The collapse o the post-1919 order had convinced inter- nationalists on both sides o the Atlantic that liberal capitalist democra- cies would need to come together as a community for their common defense. Free societies and security partnerships were two sides o the same political coin. Even before U.S. President Harry Truman and his successors built on this template, Roosevelt-era internationalists envisaged a grouping oµ like-minded states with the United States as, in Roosevelt’s words, “the great arsenal o democracy.” With the rise o the Cold War, the United States and its fellow democracies formed alliances to check the Soviet threat. The United States took the lead in fashioning a world o international institutions, partnerships, client states, and regional orders—and it put itsel at the center o it all.
CLUBS AND SHOPPING MALLS In the face o today’s breakdown in world order, the United States and other liberal democracies must reclaim and update Roosevelt’s legacy. As a start, this means learning the right lessons about the failures o the liberal international order in the past three decades. Ironically, it was the success o the U.S.-led order that sowed the seeds o the current crisis. With the collapse o the Soviet Union, the last clear alternative to liberalism disappeared. As the liberal order grew from being one- hal o a bipolar system to a truly global order, it began to fragment, in part because it no longer resembled a club. Indeed, today’s liberal international order looks more like a sprawling shopping mall: states can wander in and pick and choose what institutions and regimes they want to join. Security cooperation, economic cooperation, and politi- cal cooperation have become unbundled, and their benets can be obtained without buying into a suite o responsibilities, obligations, and shared values. These circumstances have allowed China and Rus- sia to cooperate with the liberal system on an opportunistic, ad hoc basis. To name just one example, membership in the World Trade Organization has given China access to Western markets on favorable terms, but Beijing has not implemented signicant measures to pro-
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tect intellectual property rights, strengthen the rule oµ law, or level the playing eld for foreign companies in its own economy. To prevent this sort oµ behavior, the United States and other liberal democracies need to reconstitute themselves as a more coherent and functional coalition. The next U.S. president should call a gathering o the world’s liberal democracies, and in the spirit o the Atlantic Charter, these states should issue their own joint statement, outlining broad principles for strengthening liberal democracy and reforming global governance institutions. The United States could work with its G-7 partners to expand that group’s activities and membership, add- ing countries such as Australia and South Korea. It could even turn the G-7 into a D-10, a sort o steering committee o the world’s ten leading democracies that would guide the return to multilateralism and rebuild a global order that protects liberal principles. The leaders o this new group could begin by forging a set o common rules and norms for a restructured trading system. They could also establish an agenda for relaunching global cooperation on climate change and con- fer about preparing for the next viral pandemic. And they should bet- ter monitor and respond to China’s eorts to use international organizations to advance its national economic champions and pro- mote its authoritarian mode o governance. This club o democracies would coexist with larger multilateral organ- izations, chie among them the United Nations, whose only entry re- quirement is to be a sovereign state, regardless o whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship. That inclusive approach has its merits, be- cause in many realms o international relations—including arms control, environmental regulation, management o the global commons, and combating pandemic diseases—regime type is not relevant. But in the areas o security, human rights, and the political economy, today’s liberal democracies have relevant interests and values that illiberal states do not. On these fronts, a more cohesive club o democracies, united by shared values, tied together through alliances, and oriented toward man- aging interdependence, could reclaim the liberal internationalist vision. A key element o this eort will be to reconnect international coop- eration with domestic well-being. Put simply, “liberal internationalism” should not be just another word for “globalization.” Globalization is about reducing barriers and integrating economies and societies. Lib- eral internationalism, by contrast, is about managing interdependence. States once valued the liberal international order because its rules tamed
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the disruptive eects o open markets without eliminating the e¹ciency gains that came from them. In giving governments the space and tools they needed to stabilize their economies, the order’s architects tried to reconcile free trade and free-market capitalism with social protections and economic security. The result was what the scholar John Ruggie has called the compromise o “embedded liberalism”: unlike the economic nationalism o the 1930s, the new sys- tem would be multilateral in nature, and unlike the nineteenth-century visions o “Liberal internationalism” global free trade, it would give countries should not be just another some leeway to stabilize their economies word for “globalization.” i necessary. But by the end o the 1990s, this compromise had begun to break down as borderless trade and investment overran national systems o social protection, and the order became widely seen as a platform for global capitalist and nancial transactions. To counteract this perception, any new liberal international project must rebuild the bargains and promises that once allowed countries to reap the gains from trade while making good on their commitments to social welfare. Economic openness can last in liberal democracies only i its benets are widely shared. Without sparking a new era o protectionism, liberal democracies need to work together to manage openness and closure, guided by liberal norms o multilateralism and nondiscrimination. “Democracies have a right to protect their social arrangements,” the economist Dani Rodrik has written, “and, when this right clashes with the requirements o the global economy, it is the latter that should give way.” Iµ liberal democracies want to ensure that this right to protection does not trigger destructive trade wars, they should decide its exact reach collectively. How, then, to deal with China and Russia? Both are geopolitical rivals o the United States, and both seek to undermine Western lib- eral democracies and the U.S.-led liberal order more generally. Their revisionism has put blunt questions o military power and economic inuence back on the diplomatic agenda. But on a deeper level, the threat emanating from these states—particularly from China—only gives more urgency to the liberal international agenda and its focus on the problems o modernity. The struggle between the United States and China is ultimately over which country oers a better road to progress. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s great project is to dene an
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alternative path, a model o capitalism without liberalism and democ- racy. The jury is out on whether a totalitarian regime can pull this o, and there is reason to be skeptical. But in the meantime, the best way to respond to this challenge is for liberal democracies to work to- gether to reform and rebuild their own model.
“BRACE UP” It would be a grave mistake for the United States to give up any at- tempt to rescue the liberal order and instead reorient its grand strategy entirely toward great-power competition. The United States would be forfeiting its unique ideas and capacity for leadership. It would become like China and Russia: just another big, powerful state operating in a world o anarchy, nothing more and nothing less. But in its geography, history, institutions, and convictions, the United States is dierent from all other great powers. Unlike Asian and European states, it is an ocean away from other great powers. In the twentieth century, it alone among the great powers articulated a vision o an open, postimperial world system. More than any other state, it has seen its national inter- est advanced by promulgating multilateral rules and norms, which am- plied and legitimized American power. Why throw all this away? There simply is no other major state—rising, falling, or muddling through—that can galvanize the world around a vision o open, rules- based multilateral cooperation. China will be powerful, but it will tilt the world away from democratic values and the rule oµ law. The United States, for its part, needed the partnership o other liberal states even in earlier decades, when it was more capable. Now, as rival states grow more powerful, Washington needs these partnerships more than ever. I it continues to disengage from the world or engages in it only as a classic great power, the last vestiges o the liberal order will disappear. And so it is left to the United States to lead the way in reclaiming the core premise o the liberal international project: building the international institutions and norms to protect societies from them- selves, from one another, and from the violent storms o modernity. It is precisely at a moment o global crisis that great debates about world order open up and new possibilities emerge. This is such a moment, and the liberal democracies should regain their self-condence and prepare for the future. As Virgil has Aeneas say to his shipwrecked companions, “Brace up, and save yoursel for better times.”∂
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How Hegemony Ends The Unraveling o American Power Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon
ultiple signs point to a crisis in global order. The uncoordi- nated international response to the ²®³¯´-19 pandemic, Mthe resulting economic downturns, the resurgence o na- tionalist politics, and the hardening o state borders all seem to herald the emergence o a less cooperative and more fragile international system. According to many observers, these developments underscore the dangers o U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America rst” policies and his retreat from global leadership. Even before the pandemic, Trump routinely criticized the value o alliances and institutions such as ±Ã®, supported the breakup o the European Union, withdrew from a host o international agreements and organizations, and pandered to autocrats such as Russian President Vlad- imir Putin and the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He has questioned the merits o placing liberal values such as democracy and human rights at the heart o foreign policy. Trump’s clear preference for zero-sum, transactional politics further supports the notion that the United States is abandoning its commitment to promoting a liberal international order. Some analysts believe that the United States can still turn this around, by restoring the strategies by which it, from the end oµ World War II to the aftermath o the Cold War, built and sustained a suc- cessful international order. I a post-Trump United States could re- claim the responsibilities o global power, then this era—including the pandemic that will dene it—could stand as a temporary aberra- tion rather than a step on the way to permanent disarray.
ALEXANDER COOLEY is Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. DANIEL H. NEXON is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government and at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. They are the authors of Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order.
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After all, predictions o American decline and a shift in interna- tional order are far from new—and they have been consistently wrong. In the middle o the 1980s, many analysts believed that U.S. leadership was on the way out. The Bretton Woods system had collapsed in the 1970s; the United States faced increasing competition from European and East Asian economies, notably West Germany and Japan; and the Soviet Union looked like an enduring feature o world politics. By the end o 1991, however, the Soviet Union had formally dissolved, Japan was entering its “lost decade” o economic stagnation, and the expen- sive task o integration consumed a reunied Germany. The United States experienced a decade oµ booming technological innovation and unexpectedly high economic growth. The result was what many hailed as a “unipolar moment” o American hegemony. But this time really is dierent. The very forces that made U.S. hege- mony so durable before are today driving its dissolution. Three develop- ments enabled the post–Cold War U.S.-led order. First, with the defeat o communism, the United States faced no major global ideological proj- ect that could rival its own. Second, with the disintegration o the Soviet Union and its accompanying infrastructure o institutions and partner- ships, weaker states lacked signicant alternatives to the United States and its Western allies when it came to securing military, economic, and political support. And third, transnational activists and movements were spreading liberal values and norms that bolstered the liberal order. Today, those same dynamics have turned against the United States: a vicious cycle that erodes U.S. power has replaced the virtuous cy- cles that once reinforced it. With the rise o great powers such as China and Russia, autocratic and illiberal projects rival the U.S.-led liberal international system. Developing countries—and even many developed ones—can seek alternative patrons rather than remain de- pendent on Western largess and support. And illiberal, often right- wing transnational networks are pressing against the norms and pieties o the liberal international order that once seemed so implac- able. In short, U.S. global leadership is not simply in retreat; it is unraveling. And the decline is not cyclical but permanent.
THE VANISHING UNIPOLAR MOMENT It may seem strange to talk o permanent decline when the United States spends more on its military than its next seven rivals combined and maintains an unparalleled network o overseas military bases.
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Military power played an important role in creating and maintaining U.S. preeminence in the 1990s and early years o this century; no other country could extend credible security guarantees across the entire international system. But U.S. military dominance was less a function o defense budgets—in real terms, U.S. military spending decreased during the 1990s and only ballooned after the September 11 attacks—than o several other factors: the disappearance o the So- viet Union as a competitor, the growing technological advantage enjoyed by the U.S. military, and the willingness o most o the world’s second-tier powers to rely on the United States rather than build up their own military forces. I the emergence o the United States as a unipolar power was mostly contingent on the dissolution o the Soviet Union, then the continuation o that unipolarity through the subsequent decade stemmed from the fact that Asian and Euro- pean allies were content to subscribe to U.S. hegemony. Talk o the unipolar moment obscures crucial features o world politics that formed the basis o U.S. dominance. The breakup o the Soviet Union nally closed the door on the only project o global ordering that could rival capitalism. Marxism-Leninism (and its o- shoots) mostly disappeared as a source o ideological competition. Its associated transnational infrastructure—its institutions, practices, and networks, including the Warsaw Pact, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, and the Soviet Union itself—all imploded. Without Soviet support, most Moscow-a¹liated countries, insur- gent groups, and political movements decided it was better to either throw in the towel or get on the U.S. bandwagon. By the middle o the 1990s, there existed only one dominant framework for interna- tional norms and rules: the liberal international system o alliances and institutions anchored in Washington. The United States and its allies—referred to in breezy shorthand as “the West”—together enjoyed a de facto patronage monopoly during the period o unipolarity. With some limited exceptions, they oered the only signicant source o security, economic goods, and political support and legitimacy. Developing countries could no longer exert lev- erage over Washington by threatening to turn to Moscow or point to the risk o a communist takeover to shield themselves from having to make domestic reforms. The sweep oµ Western power and inuence was so untrammeled that many policymakers came to believe in the permanent triumph oµ liberalism. Most governments saw no viable alternative.
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With no other source o support, countries were more likely to adhere to the conditions o the Western aid they received. Autocrats faced severe international criticism and heavy demands from West- ern-controlled international organizations. Yes, democratic powers continued to protect certain autocratic states (such as oil-rich Saudi Arabia) from such demands for strategic and economic reasons. And leading democracies, including the During the 1990s, most United States, themselves violated in- ternational norms concerning human, governments saw no viable civil, and political rights, most dramat- alternative to Western ically in the form o torture and ex- sources of support. traordinary renditions during the so-called war on terror. But even these hypocritical exceptions reinforced the hegemony o the liberal order, because they sparked widespread con- demnation that rea¹rmed liberal principles and because U.S. o¹- cials continued to voice commitment to liberal norms. Meanwhile, an expanding number o transnational networks—often dubbed “international civil society”—propped up the emerging archi- tecture o the post–Cold War international order. These groups and individuals served as the foot soldiers o U.S. hegemony by spreading broadly liberal norms and practices. The collapse o centrally planned economies in the postcommunist world invited waves oµ Western consultants and contractors to help usher in market reforms—some- times with disastrous consequences, as in Russia and Ukraine, where Western-backed shock therapy impoverished tens o millions while creating a class o wealthy oligarchs who turned former state assets into personal empires. International nancial institutions, government reg- ulators, central bankers, and economists worked to build an elite con- sensus in favor o free trade and the movement o capital across borders. Civil society groups also sought to steer postcommunist and devel- oping countries toward Western models oµ liberal democracy. Teams oµ Western experts advised governments on the design o new consti- tutions, legal reforms, and multiparty systems. International observ- ers, most o them from Western democracies, monitored elections in far-ung countries. Nongovernmental organizations (±°®s) advocat- ing the expansion oµ human rights, gender equality, and environmen- tal protections forged alliances with sympathetic states and media outlets. The work o transnational activists, scholarly communities,
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Another BRIC in the wall: Putin and Xi in Vladivostok, Russia, September 2018 and social movements helped build an overarching liberal project o economic and political integration. Throughout the 1990s, these forces helped produce an illusion o an unassailable liberal order resting on durable U.S. global hegemony. That illusion is now in tatters.
MIKHAIL METZEL THE GREATPOWER COMEBACK Today, other great powers oer rival conceptions o global order, of- ten autocratic ones that appeal to many leaders o weaker states. The West no longer presides over a monopoly o patronage. New regional
/ TASS organizations and illiberal transnational networks contest U.S. inu- ence. Long-term shifts in the global economy, particularly the rise o PHOTO HOST China, account for many o these developments. These changes have transformed the geopolitical landscape. In April 1997, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and Russian Presi- / REUTERS AGENCY dent Boris Yeltsin pledged “to promote the multipolarization o the world and the establishment o a new international order.” For years, many Western scholars and policymakers downplayed or dismissed such challenges as wishful rhetoric. Beijing remained committed to the rules and norms o the U.S.-led order, they argued, pointing out
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that China continued to benet from the current system. Even as Russia grew increasingly assertive in its condemnation o the United States in the rst decade o this century and called for a more multi- polar world, observers didn’t think that Moscow could muster sup- port from any signicant allies. Analysts in the West specically doubted that Beijing and Moscow could overcome decades o mis- trust and rivalry to cooperate against U.S. eorts to maintain and shape the international order. Such skepticism made sense at the height o U.S. global hegemony in the 1990s and even remained plausible through much o the follow- ing decade. But the 1997 declaration now looks like a blueprint for how Beijing and Moscow have tried to reorder international politics in the last 20 years. China and Russia now directly contest liberal aspects o the international order from within that order’s institutions and fo- rums; at the same time, they are building an alternative order through new institutions and venues in which they wield greater inuence and can de-emphasize human rights and civil liberties. At the United Nations, for example, the two countries routinely consult on votes and initiatives. As permanent members o the ɱ Security Council, they have coordinated their opposition to criticize Western interventions and calls for regime change; they have vetoed Western-sponsored proposals on Syria and eorts to impose sanc- tions on Venezuela and Yemen. In the ɱ General Assembly, be- tween 2006 and 2018, China and Russia voted the same way 86 percent o the time, more frequently than during the 78 percent vot- ing accord the two shared between 1991 and 2005. By contrast, since 2005, China and the United States have agreed only 21 percent o the time. Beijing and Moscow have also led ɱ initiatives to promote new norms, most notably in the arena o cyberspace, that privilege national sovereignty over individual rights, limit the doctrine o the responsibility to protect, and curtail the power oµ Western-sponsored human rights resolutions. China and Russia have also been at the forefront o creating new international institutions and regional forums that exclude the United States and the West more broadly. Perhaps the most well known o these is the ½¯² grouping, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Since 2006, the group has presented itsel as a dy- namic setting for the discussion o matters o international order and global leadership, including building alternatives to Western-controlled
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institutions in the areas o Internet governance, international pay- ment systems, and development assistance. In 2016, the ½¯² coun- tries created the New Development Bank, which is dedicated to nancing infrastructure projects in the developing world. China and Russia have each also pushed a plethora o new regional security organizations—including the Conference on Interaction and Condence Building Measures in Asia, the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and the Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism—and economic institutions, including the Chinese-run Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (¯¯½) and the Russian-backed Eurasian China and Russia have Economic Union (É). The Shang- been at the forefront of hai Cooperation Organization (²®)— a security organization that promotes creating new forums that cooperation among security services exclude the United States. and oversees biennial military exer- cises—was founded in 2001 at the ini- tiative oµ both Beijing and Moscow. It added India and Pakistan as full members in 2017. The net result is the emergence o parallel struc- tures o global governance that are dominated by authoritarian states and that compete with older, more liberal structures. Critics often dismiss the ½¯², the É, and the ²® as “talk shops” in which member states do little to actually resolve problems or otherwise engage in meaningful cooperation. But most other inter- national institutions are no dierent. Even when they prove unable to solve collective problems, regional organizations allow their members to a¹rm common values and boost the stature o the powers that convene these forums. They generate denser diplomatic ties among their members, which, in turn, make it easier for those members to build military and political coalitions. In short, these organizations constitute a critical part o the infrastructure o international order, an infrastructure that was dominated by Western democracies after the end o the Cold War. Indeed, this new array o non-Western organiza- tions has brought transnational governance mechanisms into regions such as Central Asia, which were previously disconnected from many institutions o global governance. Since 2001, most Central Asian states have joined the ²®, the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, the É, the ¯¯½, and the Chinese infrastructure in- vestment project known as the Belt and Road Initiative (½¯).
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China and Russia are also now pushing into areas traditionally domi- nated by the United States and its allies; for example, China convenes the 17+1 group with states in central and eastern Europe and the China- ²Ò² (Community o Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum in Latin America. These groupings provide states in these regions with new arenas for partnership and support while also challenging the cohesion o traditional Western blocs; just days before the 16+1 group expanded to include the É member Greece in April 2020, the European Commis- sion moved to designate China a “systemic rival” amid concerns that ½¯ deals in Europe were undercutting É regulations and standards. Beijing and Moscow appear to be successfully managing their alli- ance o convenience, defying predictions that they would be unable to tolerate each other’s international projects. This has even been the case in areas in which their divergent interests could lead to signicant ten- sions. Russia vocally supports China’s ½¯, despite its inroads into Cen- tral Asia, which Moscow still considers its backyard. In fact, since 2017, the Kremlin’s rhetoric has shifted from talking about a clearly demar- cated Russian “sphere o inuence” in Eurasia to embracing a “Greater Eurasia” in which Chinese-led investment and integration dovetails with Russian eorts to shut out Western inuence. Moscow followed a similar pattern when Beijing rst proposed the formation o the ¯¯½ in 2015. The Russian Ministry o Finance initially refused to back the bank, but the Kremlin changed course after seeing which way the wind was blowing; Russia formally joined the bank at the end o the year. China has also proved willing to accommodate Russian concerns and sensitivities. China joined the other ½¯² countries in abstain- ing from condemning Russia’s annexation o Crimea in 2014, even though doing so clearly contravened China’s long-standing opposi- tion to separatism and violations o territorial integrity. Moreover, the Trump administration’s trade war with China has given Beijing additional incentives to support Russian eorts to develop alterna- tives to the Western-controlled ǯ¬Ã international payment sys- tem and dollar-denominated trade so as to undermine the global reach o U.S. sanctions regimes.
THE END OF THE PATRONAGE MONOPOLY China and Russia are not the only states seeking to make world poli- tics more favorable to nondemocratic regimes and less amenable to U.S. hegemony. As early as 2007, lending by “rogue donors” such as
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then oil-rich Venezuela raised the possibility that such no-strings- attached assistance might undermine Western aid initiatives designed to encourage governments to embrace liberal reforms. Since then, Chinese state-a¹liated lenders, such as the China Devel- opment Bank, have opened substantial lines o credit across Africa and the de- Chinese state-a¤liated veloping world. In the wake o the 2008 nancial crisis, China became an impor- lenders have opened tant source oµ loans and emergency substantial lines of credit funding for countries that could not ac- across the developing world. cess, or were excluded from, Western nancial institutions. During the nan- cial crisis, China extended over $75 billion in loans for energy deals to countries in Latin America—Brazil, Ecuador, and Venezuela—and to Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan in Eurasia. China is not the only alternative patron. After the Arab Spring, Gul states such as Qatar lent money to Egypt, allowing Cairo to avoid turn- ing to the International Monetary Fund during a turbulent time. But China has been by far the most ambitious country in this regard. An AidData study found that total Chinese foreign aid assistance between 2000 and 2014 reached $354 billion, nearing the U.S. total o $395 bil- lion. China has since surpassed annual U.S. aid disbursals. Moreover, Chinese aid undermines Western eorts to spread liberal norms. Sev- eral studies suggest that although Chinese funds have fueled develop- ment in many countries, they also have stoked blatant corruption and habits o regime patronage. In countries emerging from war, such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, and South Sudan, Chinese development and reconstruction aid owed to victorious governments, insulating them from international pressure to accommodate their domestic foes and adopt more liberal models o peacemaking and reconciliation. The end o the West’s monopoly on patronage has seen the concur- rent rise o ery populist nationalists even in countries that were rmly embedded in the United States’ economic and security orbit. The likes o Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have painted themselves as guardians o domestic sovereignty against liberal subver- sion. They dismiss Western concerns about democratic backsliding in their countries and emphasize the growing importance o their eco- nomic and security relationships with China and Russia. In the case o
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the Philippines, Duterte recently terminated a two-decade-old military treaty with the United States after Washington canceled the visa o the former national chie o police, who is accused oµ human rights viola- tions in the Philippines’ bloody and controversial war on drugs. O course, some o these specic challenges to U.S. leadership will wax and wane since they stem from shifting political circumstances and the dispositions o individual leaders. But the expansion o “exit op- tions”—o alternative patrons, institutions, and political models—now seems a permanent feature o international politics. Governments have much more room to maneuver. Even when states do not actively switch patrons, the possibility that they could provides them with greater lev- erage. As a result, China and Russia have the latitude to contest U.S. hegemony and construct alternative orders.
CENTRIFUGAL FORCES Another important shift marks a break from the post–Cold War unipolar moment. The transnational civil society networks that stitched together the liberal international order no longer enjoy the power and inuence they once had. Illiberal competitors now chal- lenge them in many areas, including gender rights, multiculturalism, and the principles oµ liberal democratic governance. Some o these centrifugal forces have originated in the United States and western European countries themselves. For instance, the U.S. lobbying group the National Rie Association worked transnationally to successfully defeat a proposed antigun referendum in Brazil in 2005, where it built an alliance with domestic right-wing political movements; over a decade later, the Brazilian political rebrand Jair Bolsonaro tapped into this same network to help propel him- sel to the presidency. The World Congress o Families, initially founded by U.S.-based Christian organizations in 1997, is now a transnational network, supported by Eurasian oligarchs, that con- venes prominent social conservatives from dozens o countries to build global opposition to Ò°½ÃÕ and reproductive rights. Autocratic regimes have found ways to limit—or even eliminate—the inuence oµ liberal transnational advocacy networks and reform-minded ±°®s. The so-called color revolutions in the post-Soviet world in the rst decade o this century and the 2010–11 Arab Spring in the Middle East played a key role in this process. They alarmed authoritarian and illiberal governments, which increasingly saw the protection oµ human rights and
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the promotion o democracy as threats to their survival. In response, such regimes curtailed the inuence o ±°®s with foreign connections. They imposed tight restrictions on receiving foreign funds, proscribed various political activities, and labeled certain activists “foreign agents.” Some governments now sponsor their own ±°®s both to suppress liberalizing pressures at home and to contest the liberal order abroad. For example, in response to Western support o young activists during the Some of the forces driving color revolutions, the Kremlin founded the youth group Nashi to mobilize the unraveling of the liberal young people in support o the state. order have originated in The Red Cross Society o China, Chi- the United States itself. na’s oldest government-organized ±°®, has delivered medical supplies to Euro- pean countries in the midst o the ²®³¯´-19 pandemic as part o a care- fully orchestrated public relations campaign. These regimes also use digital platforms and social media to disrupt antigovernment mobili- zation and advocacy. Russia has likewise deployed such tools abroad in its information operations and electoral meddling in democratic states. Two developments helped accelerate the illiberal turn in the West: the Great Recession o 2008 and the refugee crisis in Europe in 2015. Over the last decade, illiberal networks—generally but not exclusively on the right—have challenged the establishment consensus within the West. Some groups and gures question the merits o continued mem- bership in major institutions o the liberal order, such as the European Union and ±Ã®. Many right-wing movements in the West receive both nancial and moral support from Moscow, which backs “dark money” operations that promote narrow oligarchic interests in the United States and far-right political parties in Europe with the hope o weakening democratic governments and cultivating future allies. In Italy, the anti-immigrant party Lega is currently the most popular party despite revelations o its attempt to win illegal nancial support from Moscow. In France, the National Rally, which also has a history o Russian backing, remains a powerful force in domestic politics. These developments echo the ways in which “counter-order” move- ments have helped precipitate the decline oµ hegemonic powers in the past. Transnational networks played crucial roles in both upholding and challenging prior international orders. For example, Protestant networks helped erode Spanish power in early modern Europe, most
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notably by supporting the Dutch Revolt in the sixteenth century. Liberal and republican movements, especially in the context o the rev- olutions across Europe in 1848, played a part in undermining the Con- cert o Europe, which tried to manage international order on the continent in the rst hal o the nineteenth century. The rise o fascist and communist transnational networks helped produce the global power struggle oµ World War II. Counter-order movements achieved political power in countries such as Germany, Italy, and Japan, leading those nations to break from or try to assail existing structures o inter- national order. But even less successful counter-order movements can still undermine the cohesion oµ hegemonic powers and their allies. Not every illiberal or right-wing movement that opposes the U.S.- led order seeks to challenge U.S. leadership or turns to Russia as an exemplar o strong cultural conservatism. Nonetheless, such move- ments are helping polarize politics in advanced industrial democracies and weaken support for the order’s institutions. One o them has even captured the White House: Trumpism, which is best understood as a counter-order movement with a transnational reach that targets the alliances and partnerships central to U.S. hegemony.
CONSERVING THE U.S. SYSTEM Great-power contestation, the end o the West’s monopoly on patron- age, and the emergence o movements that oppose the liberal interna- tional system have all altered the global order over which Washington has presided since the end o the Cold War. In many respects, the ²®³¯´-19 pandemic seems to be further accelerating the erosion o U.S. hegemony. China has increased its inuence in the World Health Organization and other global institutions in the wake o the Trump administration’s attempts to defund and scapegoat the public health body. Beijing and Moscow are portraying themselves as providers o emergency goods and medical supplies, including to European coun- tries such as Italy, Serbia, and Spain, and even to the United States. Illiberal governments worldwide are using the pandemic as cover for restricting media freedom and cracking down on political opposition and civil society. Although the United States still enjoys military su- premacy, that dimension o U.S. dominance is especially ill suited to deal with this global crisis and its ripple eects. Even i the core o the U.S. hegemonic system—which consists mostly oµ long-standing Asian and European allies and rests on norms
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and institutions developed during the Cold War—remains robust, and even if, as many champions o the liberal order suggest will happen, the United States and the European Union can leverage their combined economic and military might to their advantage, the fact is that Wash- ington will have to get used to an increasingly contested and complex international order. There is no easy x for this. No amount o military spend- U.S. policymakers must ing can reverse the processes driving the unraveling o U.S. hegemony. Even i plan for the world after Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic global hegemony. nominee, knocks out Trump in the pres- idential election later this year, or i the Republican Party repudiates Trumpism, the disintegration will continue. The key questions now concern how far the unraveling will spread. Will core allies decouple from the U.S. hegemonic system? How long, and to what extent, can the United States maintain nancial and mon- etary dominance? The most favorable outcome will require a clear re- pudiation oµ Trumpism in the United States and a commitment to rebuild liberal democratic institutions in the core. At both the domestic and the international level, such eorts will necessitate alliances among center-right, center-left, and progressive political parties and networks. What U.S. policymakers can do is plan for the world after global hegemony. I they help preserve the core o the American system, U.S. o¹cials can ensure that the United States leads the strongest military and economic coalition in a world o multiple centers o power, rather than nding itsel on the losing side o most contests over the shape o the new international order. To this end, the United States should reinvigorate the beleaguered and understaed State Department, rebuilding and more eectively using its diplomatic re- sources. Smart statecraft will allow a great power to navigate a world dened by competing interests and shifting alliances. The United States lacks both the will and the resources to consis- tently outbid China and other emerging powers for the allegiance o governments. It will be impossible to secure the commitment o some countries to U.S. visions o international order. Many o those governments have come to view the U.S.-led order as a threat to their autonomy, i not their survival. And some governments that still welcome a U.S.-led liberal order now contend with populist and other illiberal movements that oppose it.
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Even at the peak o the unipolar moment, Washington did not always get its way. Now, for the U.S. political and economic model to retain considerable appeal, the United States has to rst get its own house in order. China will face its own obstacles in producing an alternative system; Beijing may irk partners and clients with its pres- sure tactics and its opaque and often corrupt deals. A reinvigorated U.S. foreign policy apparatus should be able to exercise signicant inuence on international order even in the absence o global he- gemony. But to succeed, Washington must recognize that the world no longer resembles the historically anomalous period o the 1990s and the rst decade o this century. The unipolar moment has passed, and it isn’t coming back.∂
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Book 1.indb 156 5/15/20 9:25 PM REVIEWS & RESPONSES
The pandemic has fed a raging case of partisan polarization— another virus for which there is as yet no treatment or vaccine. – Amy Chua
Divided We Fall The Retrenchment Syndrome Amy Chua 158 H. R. McMaster 183
After Capital The Vision Thing MARK Arvind Subramanian 165 Francis J. Gavin and James B. Steinberg;
PETERSON Daniel W. Drezner, Ronald R. Krebs, and This Land Is Not Your Land Randall Schweller 187 David Treuer 171
/ REDUX In Defense o Economists The Case for Climate Pragmatism Michael Feuer 193 Hal Harvey 176
Book 1.indb 157 5/15/20 9:25 PM Return to Table of Contents
Two recent books, Ezra Klein’s Divided We Fall left-leaning Why We’re Polarized and Michael Lind’s right-leaning The New Class War, attempt to explain how What Is Tearing America things got to this point. Klein, the Apart? co-founder o the news and analysis website Vox, puts the country on the Amy Chua couch. His explanations center on psychology, identity, and the dominant role that party a¹liation plays in Ameri- cans’ psyches. By contrast, Lind—a Why We’re Polarized prolic writer and a co-founder o the BY EZRA KLEIN. Simon & Schuster, think tank New America—nds his 2020, 336 pp. answers in a single factor: social class. (It is one o the ironies o the present The New Class War: Saving Democracy moment that putting class warfare front From the Managerial Elite and center can now be a right-wing BY MICHAEL LIND. Portfolio, 2020, position.) Klein and Lind are two o the 224 pp. country’s keenest political observers, and their books are a cut above the slew t has been clear for many years that o others on the United States’ divisions. the United States is a house divided. They are best read in tandem, as com- IBut since March, when the coronavi- plements to each other. Although they rus pandemic shut down much o the might not admit it, Klein and Lind are country, that division has taken on a describing the same peak, just from ghastly new face. Staggering death tolls opposite sides o the mountain. and nightmarish images oµ body bags, overwhelmed hospitals, and freezer IDENTITY CRISIS morgues have stirred little sense o unity Klein begins by marshaling an impres- or common purpose. Instead, they seem sive body o evidence from cognitive and to have simply fed an already raging case social psychology that reveals the human o partisan polarization—another virus proclivity for group identication and for which there is as yet no treatment or us-versus-them conict. Normally, people vaccine. It has become di¹cult to ask have many crosscutting group identities. even the most basic questions—whether Today, however, Americans’ political a certain medicine works, whether a city identities have become “mega-identities.” has enough ventilators and protective The labels “Democrat” and “Republi- equipment—without triggering a can” increasingly subsume other sources political brawl, usually revolving around o identity, including race, religion, and President Donald Trump. geography, and are highly predictive not only o where people stand on abortion AMY CHUA is John M. Du, Jr., Professor of or immigration but also o where they Law at Yale Law School and the author of Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate shop, what sports they like, what news of Nations. they watch, and so on. These political
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mega-identities are “far more powerful This partisan divide poses grave than issue positions in driving polariza- danger, Klein argues. Societies marked tion,” Klein writes. In fact, “there’s only by conict along many dierent axes are a weak relationship between how much a far less prone to civil war than societies person identies as a conservative or with a single major cleavage. Americans’ liberal and how conservative or liberal partisan mega-identities “have attained their views actually are—to be exact, in a weight that is breaking our institutions both cases it’s about a .25 correlation.” and tearing at the bonds that hold this In the United States, partisan identity country together,” he writes. has become central to “psychological In Klein’s telling, polarization’s self-expression” and is now the country’s original sin dates back to the 1960s. most intense social cleavage, even more Before then, both major political parties intense than race. were big-tent operations, “scrambled, The most striking evidence Klein both ideologically and demographically, produces for this is a study published in in ways that curbed their power as 2015 by the political scientists Shanto identities and lowered the partisan Iyengar and Sean Westwood, who asked stakes o politics.” Indeed, in 1950, U.S. about 1,000 people to review the ré- political parties were so undierenti- sumés o two ctional high school ated ideologically that the American seniors competing for a scholarship and Political Science Association published to pick one as the winner. The résumés a report pleading for more political were essentially identical, except for the polarization. But this changed during applicants’ grade point average (3.5 or the ght over civil rights, when the 4.0) and either the applicants’ race Democrats “chose to snap their alliance (white or black) or their party a¹liation with the Dixiecrats to pursue justice,” (Democrat or Republican). One might prompting the segregationist Dixiecrats have reasonably expected that grades to jump ship to the Republican Party. would play a larger role in the selections “America’s modern run o polarization than would party a¹liation. Instead, has its roots in the civil rights era,” he when the résumés contained no informa- writes, “in the Democratic Party choos- tion about the applicants’ race, the ing to embrace racial equality and the participants chose the student from their Republican Party providing a home to own party roughly 80 percent o the white backlash.” time, even when that student had the It was a fateful choice. By 2012, only lower grade point average. Amazingly, nine percent o self-identied Republi- party a¹liation had an even stronger cans were nonwhite, according to a eect than race: when the résumés survey Klein cites. Klein observes that as included no information about party, but the country’s demographics continue to the opposite-race applicant had the change and the possibility o the United higher grades, only 45 percent o African States becoming a “majority-minority” Americans stuck with the person o their state grows ever more real, white Ameri- own race, and only 29 percent o white cans (and especially white men) increas- Americans did so. In short, Klein con- ingly feel that their status is threatened, cludes, “partisanship even trumped race.” and “the simplest way to activate some-
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one’s identity is to threaten it.” (He cites Lind also begins his story in the 1960s. my work on this topic to back up his By the mid-twentieth century, two world argument.) To Klein, the election o wars and the ongoing threat o commu- Trump in 2016 represented the triumph nism had produced a kind o settlement o threatened white Americans, egged on in developed Western countries between by partisan primaries and “identity the economic elites and the working journalism,” in which media organiza- class. In this system o power sharing, tions compete for eyeballs and clicks by which Lind calls “democratic plural- publishing provocative stories intended ism,” mass-membership political par- to reinforce people’s preferences for ties, legislatures, unions, churches, and members o their own group and pro- civic associations gave the working class voke hostility toward members o others. economic, political, and cultural clout that counterbalanced the professional KEEP IT CLASSY management class’s inuence over the Klein writes captivatingly well. Reading corporate sector, universities, the Why We’re Polarized is like having a judiciary, and the executive branch. conversation with a brilliant, extremely But as the threat o war and commu- persuasive friend who has read every- nism receded, elites—both conservative thing and who is armed with scores o and liberal—began a “revolution from studies that he’s able to distill into above.” Animated by a belie in free accessible bites. Readers might be ready markets and “technocratic neoliberalism” to buy his argument hook, line, and (an ideology celebrating rule by “all-wise, sinker—until they read Lind’s book, and altruistic experts”), these elites ground suddenly, some o Klein’s deciencies down the institutions that supported the become apparent. working class. Big business undermined Whereas Klein is mostly focused on unions by moving (or merely threatening polarization in the United States, Lind to move) factories and supply chains sets out to explain the wider, global overseas in response to demands for populist surge that led to Brexit in the higher wages and other benets. Aca- United Kingdom, France’s “yellow demics and activists celebrated the social vest” protests, and the rise o the and cultural contributions o immigrants nationalist politician Matteo Salvini in and minorities and denigrated those o Italy. Lind argues that “almost all o native-born white Americans. “Under the political turmoil in Western Europe technocratic neoliberalism,” Lind writes, and North America can be explained by “. . . the boss class pursues the working the new class war.” As he sees it, this class after the workday has ended, trying war pits the working class against a to snatch the unhealthy steak or soda small “overclass” o “managerial elites”— from the worker’s plate, vilifying the university-educated, cosmopolitan theology o the worker’s church as a professionals and bureaucrats who ring oense and possibly an illegal hate make up somewhere between ten and crime to be reported to the police.” 15 percent o the population but who Meanwhile, pro-immigration poli- enjoy outsize inuence on government, cies championed by elites depressed the academy, and the economy. working-class wages even as returns to
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the wealthy skyrocketed. Lind cites a 2018 Harvard /Harris Poll that complicates any attempt to describe American populism in simplistic racial terms. The survey, he explains, found that 64 percent o Americans, including 53 percent o Latinos, favor immediately deporting anyone who crosses the border illegally; 70 percent support more restrictive immigration laws. If, as many overclass neoliberals claim, support- ing enforcement o immigration laws is motivated solely by “white nation- alism,” then overwhelming numbers o Americans, including a majority o Latinos, must be “white nationalists.”
The working class, however, is not monolithic or unied. I it were, Lind points out, “the overclass . . . would lose every election.” Instead, national working classes are divided along many cleavages, including race, religion, region, and, “most important,” the divide between “old-stock” whites and “recent immigrants and their descen- dants,” creating a “split labor market,” in which elites can play subgroups o the working class against one another. The result is a managerial technocracy that sits atop a divided working class. It is no surprise that the working class distrusts the experts, whose do-gooder or high-minded initiatives so often seem to come at the working class’s expense, be it the “war on coal,” free trade, or taxes on goods such as soda and cigarettes. This class chasm has been visible throughout the pandemic, perhaps most prominently in protests against stay-at-home orders, which many working-class and middle-class Americans see as destructive overreach
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promoted by Democratic politicians, itarian personalities” o . . . white liberal media outlets, and alleged working-class native voters, many o experts who can’t be trusted. whom, it is claimed, will turn As frustration has mounted over the overnight into a fascist army. . . . years, it has erupted in populist move- ÖThe reductio ad absurdum o this kind o mythological thinking is the ments. According to Lind, however, adoption o the term “Resistance” by without funding and expertise from domestic opponents o President elites, these movements almost inevita- Donald Trump, which implies an bly fail or get co-opted by opportunis- equation between Democrats and tic demagogues, such as Trump, anti-Trump Republicans and the heroic France’s Marine Le Pen, and Italy’s anti-Nazis o the French Resistance. Salvini. All purport to give voice to a marginalized working class, advocating WHAT TO DO? economic nationalism, opposing free The virtues and vices o these books trade and immigration, and deliberately mirror each other. Klein assembles “using crude and belligerent lan- reams o social-scientic evidence to guage”—a symbol o their rejection o back up his claims, so much so that his elite sensibilities. book occasionally resembles an aca- Lind is not a populist. “Populism,” demic survey o the literature. Lind, by he writes, “is a symptom o a sick body contrast, is weak on empirical evidence, politic, not a cure.” Both “technocratic oering little substantiation for con- neoliberalism and demagogic populism tested propositions that are central to represent . . . highways to the hell o his book, such as the adverse eects o autocracy.” Nevertheless, at some points, immigration and free trade on the Lind sounds as angry as the members o working class. Klein’s story takes into the working class with whom he obvi- account a multitude o factors—insti- ously sympathizes. He writes causti- tutional, cultural, psychological—that cally well. One characteristic takedown he says work together to produce is worth quoting at length: identity-reinforcing feedback loops. Lind’s thesis is monocausal, focusing on A . . . common view among transat- class alone, at the expense o numerous lantic elites interprets the success o other factors, such as racial resentments populist and nationalist candidates . . . not as a predictable and disruptive and demographic fears. backlash against oligarchic misrule, But just as Lind downplays the role but as a revival o Nazi or Soviet-style o race, Klein is surprisingly dismissive totalitarianism. One narrative holds o class, concluding, after an uncharac- that Russian president Vladimir teristically cursory analysis, that in the Putin’s regime, by cleverly manipu- 2016 election, “racial resentment lating public opinion . . . , is respon- activated economic anxiety,” and not sible for Brexit, the election o the other way around. A larger weak- Trump in 2016, and perhaps other ness o Klein’s book lies in its U.S.-cen- major political events. A rival tric focus. I Klein’s explanation for the narrative . . . [holds that] dema- rise o polarization and populism is gogues can trigger the latent “author- correct—tracing it to the peculiar racial
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realignments brought about by the civil education and encourage entrepreneur- rights movement—then why are the ialism as “neoliberal panaceas,” noting same phenomena occurring in France, projections that the fastest-growing jobs Italy, and the United Kingdom, whose in the future will be concentrated in racial histories, electoral systems, and service-sector roles that don’t require political cultures are totally dierent? college degrees. Besides, as he notes in a These strikingly similar movements all powerful passage, such ideas err in across western Europe strongly suggest “oering workers the chance to become that other forces are at work. Lind’s something other than workers, as though account, even i incomplete, is much there were something shameful and stronger on that point. retrograde about being an ordinary wage Conversely, when it comes to the rise earner.” What is perhaps more surprising o populism in the United States, Lind for someone championing the interests doesn’t grapple with facts suggesting o nonelites, Lind also opposes massive that additional factors are at play redistributive measures, such as a univer- besides class. For example, according to sal basic income, on the grounds that a 2020 study conducted by the Pew such proposals are unrealistic and, in any Research Center, only 41 percent o event, designed to “anesthetize” the Republicans feel that there is too much working class without actually giving economic inequality in the country, and workers more power. 78 percent o Republicans (including 66 Instead, he calls for a return to the percent oµ lower-income Republicans) kind o democratic pluralism that are satised with existing opportunities emerged in the United States and Europe “to get ahead by working hard.” If, as after World War II, a power-sharing Lind claims, class warfare is principally system in which a variety o subnational motivating Trump supporters, they entities or institutions give working-class should not be so complacent with the members a genuine voice and inu- state o inequality and upward mobility ence. This would involve a shift toward in the United States. what Lind terms “microdemocracy,” in Not surprisingly, the books dier which more decision-making would be sharply when it comes to prescriptions. transferred to the level o “wards,” or Klein’s proposals are fairly conven- “units small enough to permit ordinary tional. He advocates, for example, people to experience politics as partici- eliminating the Electoral College, giving pants and not mere observers.” Lind congressional representation to Puerto sees much to admire in German-style Rico and Washington, D.C., and elimi- “codetermination,” which requires nating the libuster, arguing that these corporate boards to include worker measures would enhance democracy representatives. Finally, Lind calls for and thereby dampen polarization (and, authorities to give “creedal congrega- incidentally, favor Democrats). tions”—principally churches, but also Lind, by contrast, rejects many o the “secular groups like American Atheists most familiar reform ideas and calls for and neo-pagan creeds like Wiccans”— radical structural change. He dismisses formal roles in overseeing media and proposals to expand access to higher education policy.
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AT THE BREAKING POINT anything with a class dimension—any The ²®³¯´-19 crisis has vindicated both policy, any event, any disaster that has books. Dispiritingly, responses to the adverse eects on the poor—will neces- pandemic have split along party lines, sarily have a racial dimension and the just as Klein’s account would predict, potential to amplify racial tensions. with Americans retreating into their Above all, the pandemic has revealed political mega-identities. One’s partisan that the United States is reaching a a¹liation and views oµ Trump almost systemic breaking point. Amid the chaos, completely determine one’s ideas about it increasingly seems that the country who is to blame for the failure to might be on the road to a violent contain the coronavirus and when political reckoning. In their timely lockdown orders should be eased. examinations o this dysfunction, Klein The pandemic has also brought into and Lind oer important tools to ugly relie the class divisions that shape navigate its fault lines in the period o Lind’s vision. The wealthiest Ameri- soul-searching to come.∂ cans have retreated to their vacation homes, golng and meditating and working remotely while in quarantine. Service-sector employees who can’t survive without weekly paychecks have paid a much higher price. At the same time, the United States’ suddenly exposed dependence on other countries for antibiotics and medical equipment makes Lind’s warnings about the dangers o globalized supply chains and the collapse o domestic manufac- turing seem darkly prescient. Ultimately, however, one cannot fully understand the pandemic’s consequences in the United States, the politics sur- rounding it, or the country’s destructive broader political dynamics without seeing how class and ethnic divisions interact with and sometimes catalyze each other. Consider how the death rates for ²®³¯´-19 have been markedly higher among minorities than among white Americans. Although African Americans represent only around 30 percent o the populations o Chicago and Louisiana, they account for roughly 70 percent o all ²®³¯´-19 fatalities in both places. In the United States,
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to reform corporate governance and After Capital socialize medicine. And then there is the French economist Thomas Piketty, who wants to overhaul capitalism beyond the A Radical Agenda to Tame point o recognition by abolishing Inequality permanent private property altogether. Capital and Ideology is an expansive Arvind Subramanian sequel to Piketty’s best-selling Capital in the Twenty-rst Century. Any author who is willing to follow up an 800-page book with an equally dense and signi- Capital and Ideology cantly longer one must either be ex- BY THOMAS PIKETTY. tremely self-condent or possess extraor- TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR dinary faith in the stamina oµ his readers. GOLDHAMMER. Belknap Press, 2020, And then there is the sheer brazenness o 1,104 pp. the U-turn Piketty takes in the new book. The earlier book was premised on s the coronavirus pandemic rav- the idea that an iron law o capitalism, ages the globe and exposes captured in the expression r > g—mean- Adysfunction in Western capital- ing that the returns on capital would ist democracies, intellectuals are inton- exceed overall economic growth—has ing in near unison: “Government is doomed societies to ever-greater back. The Reagan-Thatcher revolution is degrees o inequality. Essentially, r dead. Capitalism as we know it is passé.” captures the income made by capitalists, And particularly exposed is the once and g, that made by society as a whole; preeminent United States. It is paying a i the expression holds, inequality will high price for having become, as the rise in favor o the former group. novelist Martin Amis once wrote, “land The new book reverses course, o the prot-making casualty ward, dustbinning destiny in favor o agency home o the taxi-metered ambulance.” and choice. Societies, it argues, are not Yet trendy as it is to skewer the prot helpless victims o exogenous forces; motive, capitalism is not lacking for they get the inequality they choose. saviors, who come in dierent guises, Politics, not technology—which deter- hawking particular cures. Some want to mines the return on capital—is the real adjust incomes after the market’s verdict culprit. The sequel never even refers to (redistributors); others want to inuence the immutable law o capitalism that market outcomes (predistributors). There was the core argument o its predeces- are those who want to raise minimum sor. Economists and theorists continue wages and change antimonopoly laws, or to debate whether r is greater than, less than, or equal to g. But Piketty couldn’t ARVIND SUBRAMANIAN is Visiting Lecturer be bothered. He has moved on. in Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy Still, Capital and Ideology is a magis- School of Government. He previously served as Chief Economic Adviser to the Government terial history o economic development of India. as seen through the prism o inequality.
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It is breathtaking in its scholarship and change, they transform, but they never sweep (almost no corner o the globe is ruin. They always respect acquired left unvisited) and incandescent in its rights, no matter what their origin.” insights, which emerge from the data The impulse Piketty describes stems that Piketty and his collaborators have from the sacralization o property. spent decades collecting. Those in power, even i they had gotten there by means o a revolutionary THE LIMITS OF REVOLUTION overthrow o the previous political Piketty raises a fundamental question: order, feared that i property rights were Why have all the revolutions and seriously violated, the economic and upheavals oµ history, which were social order would collapse. And so the intended to overthrow an unfair social contest between justice and property order, ended up changing so little for rights was never really a contest: around those at the bottom o the pyramid? the mid-1800s, the British preferred to Inequality in France on the eve o pay wealthy slaveholders in the Carib- World War I was much greater than it bean about ve percent o the United was before the French Revolution: in Kingdom’s °´¾ to compensate for the Paris, for example, the share o total abolition o slavery rather than direct private property o the top one percent that money to education and public was about ten percentage points greater health to improve the circumstances o in 1910 than in 1780. Whatever may the poor in the United Kingdom itself. have happened to liberté and fraternité, it Capital and Ideology presents some is clear that égalité ended up serving striking new facts about economic more as a rousing call to arms than as a history, too. For example, for most o realized outcome. its pre-1400 history, the Chinese state is Piketty explains this puzzle through generally understood to have been historical examples drawn from the strong. But Piketty shows that in terms aftermath o upheavals in Brazil, o scal capacity, successive dynasties France, Haiti, India, the United King- (the Ming and the Qing, specically) dom, and the United States. In all those levied taxes that were a fraction o what cases, societies were keen to compensate their counterparts in western Europe owners o property—land, capital, and were able to extract, which helps explain slaves—but never the peasants or the China’s vulnerability to the depreda- slaves themselves. In his discussion o tions o British imperialism beginning reparations after the Haitian Revolution, in the early 1800s. Piketty quotes the nineteenth-century French poet Alphonse de Lamartine, an PIKETTY AND PATEK PHILIPPE abolitionist, who wrote that it was The most daring parts o the book relate absolutely necessary to grant “an indem- to Piketty’s prescriptions, especially his nity to the colonists for their legally proposal to abolish permanent private owned property in slaves, which is to be property. Piketty, along with his collabo- conscated. . . . Only revolutions rators Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel conscate without compensation. Zucman, has blueprinted arguably the Legislators do not act that way; they most imaginative and radical alternative
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to traditional capitalism. Every citizen, the next generation.” That is Piketty’s on reaching the age o 25, would get a goal for capital—with the crucial capital endowment that was roughly 60 dierence that the transfer o wealth percent o the average wealth in society. would happen not within a family but This would be nanced by progressive between citizens and the state. taxes on wealth, income, and inheri- Interestingly, Piketty’s aversion to tance. The young could start life with a private property comes with absolutely sense o new possibilities, “such as no wistfulness about the Soviet or the purchasing a house or starting a business.” Chinese communist model. In fact, he Capital would circulate because exces- attributes the rise o the Reagan- sive accumulation would be taxed by Thatcher revolution in part to the the state both during a person’s life and Soviet Union’s economic failure. And EMMANUEL POLANCO at death via inheritance taxes. for all o China’s economic miracles, its One might call Piketty’s concept undemocratic, nontransparent, repres- “Patek Philippe custodialism,” after the sive approach is not to his taste, either. luxury watch company’s famous catch Piketty joins a chorus oµ left-wing phrase: “You never actually own a Patek thinkers who decry “billionairism”—the Philippe. You merely look after it for most egregious manifestation o private
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property—as a social pathology, an chusetts, serve as reminders that impor- immoral blight that should never be tant elements o Piketty’s vision are not allowed to come into being. Their as far from political realization as his policy proposals, including the imposi- critics might claim. tion o wealth taxes, are as much about eliminating that blight as about temper- THE RACE QUESTION ing capitalism. That might be why One area in which Piketty parts ways Piketty neglects what economists call with others on the contemporary left is “size-of-the-pie eects”: Wouldn’t the in his thinking about the role that race vast redistribution he advocates be so and identity play in the politics o damaging to incentives, entrepreneur- inequality. Less educated and less ship, and capital accumulation that it well-o white Americans were once an would leave little pie left to redistribute? important part o the Democratic Piketty’s inattention to that problem Party’s base in the United States. When comes across as deliberate and almost trying to understand why so many o disdainful. One suspects that he wants them now act against their own eco- to rectify an imbalance. He devotes nomic self-interest by voting for Repub- more energy to critiquing the neoliberal licans who do things that either don’t purveyors o the Third Way—Presidents help them (cutting taxes for the rich) or François Mitterrand and Emmanuel actively hurt them (reducing the wel- Macron in his own country; British fare state), many left-leaning thinkers Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. point to racism as a driving force, Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack arguing that polarization around identi- Obama in the Anglo-American world— ties, especially race, drives voting and their intellectual enablers. These behavior. Piketty concedes that racism leaders and thinkers, Piketty claims, were may well be a strong pull factor in so enamored with markets and incen- explaining these voters’ rightward shift, tives that they pied-pipered the devel- but he argues that there was also a push oped world into its current predicament. factor: center-left parties betrayed them His epithet for Macron is revealing: by doing little to arrest the problems “an inegalitarian internationalist.” that have aÍicted them for nearly four Still, there is no question that Piketty’s decades now, such as wage stagnation. proposals are impractical. Most socie- Race has always divided the United ties would balk at the level and progres- States, he notes, and accounting for this sivity o the taxes—reaching up to 90 political shift requires explaining change— percent—that Piketty and his colleagues something that a constant factor cannot propose. On the other hand, Piketty’s do. As he sees it, the change that occurred main goal is to confront complacent was in the fortunes o the white working centrism; he is outlining a vision and class, whose lives have been bueted calling for experimentation in helping by technological advances and global- achieve it. And the U.S. presidential ization but who have received little help campaigns o Senator Bernie Sanders, from their political leaders. Piketty Democrat oµ Vermont, and Senator implies that these people did not leave Elizabeth Warren, Democrat o Massa- the Democratic Party; the party deserted
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them. “To summarize: the Democratic extended to dierent social groups, such Party, like the parties o the electoral as “Other Backward Classes,” and they left in France, changed its priorities. now reach as high as 60 percent in some Improving the lot o the disadvantaged sectors. Among Indians, especially ceased to be its main focus,” he writes. those from upper castes, such reserva- The Democratic Party has increasingly tions have become increasingly contro- become a party serving what he calls versial as their reach has expanded. But “the Brahmin left”—the more highly Piketty has a nuanced assessment, educated, aspirant class. hinting at the system’s possible inspira- He also notes that the ight o work- tion for other countries seeking to ing-class voters from center-left parties reduce inequality: “Taking the full is not solely an American phenomenon. measure o the successes and limitations It also occurred in western Europe, where o the Indian experience (o reserva- ethnic identity is arguably less salient. tions) will be useful in thinking about “It would be a mistake,” he argues, “to how one might do more to overcome reduce everything to the race factor, which long-standing social and status inequali- cannot explain why we nd an almost ties in India and around the world.” identical reversal o the educational cleavage on both sides o the Atlantic.” THE GOOD NEWS Piketty’s discussion o caste in India The more serious aw is that despite is instructive. His surprising nding is its admirable attempt to discuss the that since 1950, India has done somewhat world and not just the West, the book better on caste inequality than either in one sense distorts history. A reader the United States or South Africa, even could come away from Piketty’s book postapartheid, has on racial inequality. thinking that the post-1980 period The ratio oµ lower-caste to upper-caste constitutes a dark age that witnessed incomes is higher in India than the the reversal o a decades-long trend ratio oµ black people’s incomes to white toward economic equality. But for the people’s incomes in the two other average citizens o China, India, and countries, and India has posted stronger dozens o other countries, this has been improvements over time, as well. a golden age, when standards oµ living That achievement elicits a positive soared rapidly, reversing a 200-year assessment from Piketty o India’s history o stagnant growth, persistent attempt to redress caste inequality via deprivation, and poverty for the vast a¹rmative action or “reservations”: a majority. Where Piketty laments, nearly euphemism for strict, constitutionally hal oµ humanity would rejoice. enshrined quotas for certain castes in I Piketty had a more international, public-sector jobs, government, and cosmopolitan perspective, he would educational institutions. At the country’s have a more upbeat story to tell. Inequal- independence, such quotas were set at ity may be increasing within countries, about 22.5 percent for “scheduled but it has sharply declined globally, as castes” (the so-called Untouchables) and the economist Branko Milanovic has “scheduled tribes” (indigenous commu- shown. By focusing on relative perfor- nities). Over time, they have been mance, it is easy to miss big improve-
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ments in absolute performance; empha- approaches to development—fretting to sizing inequality within countries, prove incontrovertibly that in one place, especially rich ones, leads Piketty to a at one point in time, one policy inter- grimmer global picture. vention can work—one has to admire There is also a tricky normative issue. Piketty for defying the dominant trend. The rising fortunes o people outside In the great tradition o the Annales the West are the result o some o the school oµ history, he casts his discerning very factors that have led to the soaring gaze on history’s sweep, not just to inequality in advanced countries. understand the world but also to Countries such as Singapore and South transform it.∂ Korea, then later China and India, and more recently Bangladesh and Vietnam have advanced rapidly because open global markets have allowed them to export their way to prosperity. This puts liberal Western economists in a bind. I globalization sometimes takes a job from a white man without a college degree in Lille or Pittsburgh and gives it to his more educated counterpart in Bangalore or Hanoi, then whom should liberals stand for—or, rather, whom should they stand up for? Piketty does not confront such uncomfortable questions. Capital and Ideology can be method- ologically shaky, too. Although Piketty rejects the idea oµ historical inevitability, his arguments for societal agency and choice are weak. They mostly consist o glib assertions that things could have been otherwise, as i the mere possibility o counterfactual histories is evidence for agency. I the depressingly consistent historical pattern is one o rising inequal- ity and a lack o serious redistribution, it is di¹cult to digest the claim that socie- ties could have made dierent choices. I that were true, then why didn’t they? Despite these aws, the book’s grand encapsulation o the history o inequality and its daring prescriptions make it a dazzling addition to the list o major works o economic history and development. And as economists take ever-narrower
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As the historian Claudio Saunt This Land Is Not shows in his new book, Unworthy Repub- lic, U.S. administrators and politicians Your Land gradually turned the voluntary re- moval into compulsory expulsion using a mix oµ legal and extralegal measures. The Ethnic Cleansing o State and federal militias hunted, Native Americans killed, and often scalped Native Ameri- cans. Squatters and opportunists moved David Treuer onto Native American lands both before and after tribes o¹cially relo- cated. And the government gave banks and other lenders the power to force Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans into punitive sales Native Americans and the Road to Indian and forfeitures, rendering tens o Territory thousands o Native Americans home- BY CLAUDIO SAUNT. Norton, 2020, less in their own lands. Thousands o 416 pp. Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, Delawares, Hurons, Potawato- mis, Sauks, Seminoles, and Senecas n his rst annual message to the died in the process o removal. The U.S. Congress, in 1829, U.S. myriad relocations and displacements IPresident Andrew Jackson—a slave- are now commonly referred to by a owning real estate speculator already single name: the Trail oµ Tears. famous for burning down Creek By the end o this decadelong process, settlements and hounding the survi- the federal government had spent $75 vors o the Creek War o 1813–14— million to eject Native Americans from called for the “voluntary” migration o the eastern United States. That is the Native Americans to lands west o the equivalent o over $1 trillion today, or Mississippi River. Six months later, in $12.5 million for each Native American the spring o 1830, he signed the removed. In 1836, 40 percent o every Indian Removal Act into law. This dollar the U.S. federal government spent measure gave the president the author- went toward enforcing the Indian ity to negotiate with Native American Removal Act. In 2019, by contrast, only tribes for their fertile lands. The 17 percent o the federal budget went to statute set o waves oµ litigation, national security and defense. mineral prospecting, and land specula- But the economic returns on this tion—not to mention waves o vio- massive project o ethnic cleansing and lence committed by nonnative settlers displacement were also considerable. In against Native Americans. the 1830s—the decade o removal—the federal government made nearly $80 DAVID TREUER is Professor of English at the million selling Native American lands to University of Southern California and the author of The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native private citizens, around $5 million more America From 1890 to the Present. than it spent. And in the 1840s, those
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lands produced 160 million pounds o adopted, settlers remained suspicious o ginned cotton, 16 percent o the national them and their ways oµ life. Isaac crop. The real winners, then, were McCoy—a preacher who evangelized southern slaveholding landowners and among the Miami, Odawa, and Potawat- their investors in New York. omi tribes o the Great Lakes—believed Today, migration—both forced and that “the Indian problem” was one o voluntary—looms large once again. proximity. McCoy concluded that, on And the lessons from this nineteenth- the whole, Native Americans were hard century history have a renewed rel- to save. “How grossly mistaken are evance. The O¹ce o the ɱ High those writers who would have the world Commissioner for Refugees has esti- believe that the Indians are quite a mated that in 2018, there were 70.8 virtuous people,” he complained. This million displaced people worldwide. was even truer for the Native Americans The ɱ has similarly noted that around who were constantly exposed to the 272 million—a full 3.5 percent o the derelict fringe o American society on world population—are migrants. Many the frontier. “The great mass,” he wrote, o their lives and stories parallel those “have become more and more corrupt o the Native Americans who lived in morals, have sunk deeper and deeper through the Trail oµ Tears. in wretchedness, and have dwindled down to insignicance or to nothing.” ILL FARES THE LAND McCoy imagined an “asylum” to the At the dawn o the nineteenth century, west. He shared this idea with Lewis life for the roughly 100,000 Native Cass, governor o the Michigan Terri- Americans living east o the Mississippi tory. And Cass brought the notion with was pretty good. It in no way resem- him to Washington when he became bled the savagery that European Amer- Jackson’s secretary o war. O course, the ican settlers imagined. None o the idea that there was an “Indian problem” scores o tribes in the eastern third o was already widespread. Previous the country was made up o nomadic presidents and state governors had tried hunter-gatherers: they hadn’t been for to solve it in myriad ways. George hundreds o years. Nearly all lived in Washington, for instance, burned so many settled villages; they farmed and gath- Native American villages in the North- ered edibles in the woods and shellsh east that it earned him the Seneca name along the coast. The Cherokees had “Town Destroyer.” And Thomas Jeer- developed a syllabary and published son proposed luring Native Americans their own newspaper. They had also into debt and obligating them to sell begun to create their own form o their lands in lieu o payment. But never representational democracy. Other before had the country’s chie executive tribes, such as the Chickasaws and the so explicitly endorsed segregationist Choctaws, had adopted Christianity, removal policies on this scale. built schools, and even selectively Power brokers and land speculators embraced slave ownership. on the eastern seaboard knew that the best But no matter how many European weapon they had to gain access to American practices Native Americans tribal lands was the states themselves,
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“Voluntary departure”: a print of Jackson at the Battle of Tallushatchee, 1813 which felt that they could pass whatever West be chosen? And how would the legislation they wanted and subject Native American migrants get there? In everyone within their borders, including the end, the results were neither fair Native Americans, to their own laws. In nor in accordance with existing treaties. 1832, the Supreme Court ruled that the State representatives and assorted individual states had no authority in business interests immediately seized Native American aairs. But Jackson felt on the law’s ambiguity, formulating a strongly that the federal government disjointed and confusing array o should stay out o tribal matters. The methods that were, in Jackson’s words, drama o states’ rights versus the federal “calculated to induce . . . a voluntary government was staged at the expense o departure.” Saunt notes that “the phrase PICTORIAL PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO the Native American nations. perfectly captured the bad faith that The Indian Removal Act provided underlay the policy.” for an exchange oµ lands and fair In the meantime, the federal govern- compensation. What is more, the ment assigned clerks to deal with the statute explicitly stated that its provi- day-to-day logistics o the removal, sions should not be construed in a way appointed commissioners to negotiate that violated any existing treaties with land cessions, and mobilized thou- Native American groups. But the act sands o soldiers to make the deporta- was vague. How would compensation tions a reality on the ground. Jackson work? Who exactly would be compen- even invited his friend General sated, and how? How would land in the George Gibson to oversee the operation.
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Some Native American tribes did ment noted that it was completely leave voluntarily; many o them, how- unsuitable for agriculture. The govern- ever, were transported by private ment, however, persisted in referring to contractors who kept the cost o moving it as “ne country.” people as low as possible by denying Meanwhile, landowners in Alabama, them any medical care and by forcing Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, and the old and inrm to march on foot, North and South Carolina quickly resulting in untold suering and death. expanded the plantation system—and, Other Native Americans stayed despite by extension, chattel slavery—onto orders to leave. In time, voluntary Native American lands. Saunt does an deportation became compulsory. Many incredible job oµ linking northern Native Americans in the East were nanciers to southern slave owners and persecuted and killed as individuals. both to the process o Indian removal. Consider, for instance, a nineteen-year- Over the course o the 1830s, Saunt old Creek man who was captured by notes, “the enslaved population in slave hunters. When they realized that Alabama more than doubled to 253,000. the youth wasn’t an escaped slave, and By the end o the decade, nearly one thus had no value, they shot him and out o four slaves worked on land that scalped him. Still others were hunted as only a few years earlier had belonged groups. The Seminoles eectively fought to the Creeks.” This was largely - o the U.S. government for years, nanced by northern bankers—such as suering thousands o casualties in the Joseph Beers, the president o the course o the Second Seminole War. North American Trust and Banking The Seminoles ultimately remained Company—who skimmed handsome in their ancestral lands in central prots o the cotton planted, picked, Florida. But they were the exception and processed by the enslaved. rather than the rule. By 1830, roughly 20,000 Native Americans remained in A CAUTIONARY TALE the eastern third o the continental Unworthy Republic is a study in power. United States. Many o them were It describes, in detail, the coming engulfed by settlers and forced to live together o money, rhetoric, political on mountainous and agriculturally ambition, and white-supremacist unproductive land, separated from their idealism. Saunt shows his readers the kinfolk who had migrated, with their cost o a racial caste system in the cultural and political systems in a United States. The immoral and illegal shambles. Those who left were rarely ethnic cleansing o the eastern third o better o. The land set aside for Native the country via Native American American settlement in what is now removal was not merely a historical Oklahoma lacked water for irrigation; crime in its own right; it also abetted the terrain was rocky, and the soil thin. another such crime, by solidifying and What is more, the boundaries were extending slavery and its attendant unclear and often overlapped. Many racial hierarchy, which would only be Native American people who ventured partially overturned in the 1860s, with to the territory in advance o settle- the end o the American Civil War.
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Despite the magnitude o the social Saunt’s book thus serves as a cau- and political forces involved, however, tionary tale in the modern age o mass Native American removal was in no way migration. The complicated process o necessary or inevitable. It didn’t just Indian removal reminds readers that happen: a thousand small decisions consent and willful action are shaped and a few big ones made it so. At the by economics, policy, and the culture heart o this process was the nation’s o rule. Ultimately, the story o the rst populist president, Jackson. “Old Trail oµ Tears is not a happy one. But it Hickory,” as he was known, rst made would be false to assume that the his name as a military commander in government won. It did not. Native the Indian Wars, but his private fortune people persisted despite the odds. They came from real estate speculation. He rebuilt their tribes and their lives, their premised his worldview—one o farms and their schools, their families limited federal control and vocal and their traditions. That, after all, is support for “the common man”—on his the American way.∂ status as a political outsider and his personal experience as a landowner. The parallels with the present are eerie. Contemporary Americans, much like their counterparts in the 1830s, have a president who is a real estate developer o dubious character—a man for whom the rhetoric o success hides a disregard for the most vulnerable and for whom corporate prot is more important than the public good. U.S. President Donald Trump openly admires Jackson. Before an audience at Jackson’s estate in Tennessee, Trump noted that Jackson “confronted and deed an arrogant elite” and asked, “Does that sound familiar to you? I wonder why they keep talking about Trump and Jackson, Jackson and Trump.” In 2017, he selected a portrait o Jackson to hang just behind his desk in the Oval O¹ce. More important, Trump echoes the ethnonationalist xenophobia that drove Native American removal. Last year, for instance, he wrote a series o posts on Twitter warning that the “bad ‘hom- bres’” from Mexico and Central Amer- ica “will be removed from our Country . . . as we build up our removal forces.”
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pointing. Its e¦ects—rising seas, intense The Case for storms, deserti£cation, and so on—are felt most acutely in developing coun- Climate tries, far away from the industrialized nations that are most responsible for Pragmatism the problem. And government attempts to address such negative externalities Saving the Earth Requires (as economists call these nonmonetized Realism, Not Revolution costs for third parties) by forcing producers to shoulder the burden caused Hal Harvey by their carbon emissions have fallen ¬at. In short, humanity uses the atmos- phere as a free dumping ground for pollutants, and deeply vested interests The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After resist changing that. Warming Climate change also confounds BY DAVID WALLACEWELLS. Tim customary human timescales. The worst Duggan Books, 2019, 384 pp. e¦ects o® today’s emissions won’t be felt for generations, which makes morally Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to unsustainable behavior easier to rational- Play Itself Out? ize. And the harm done by humans BY BILL M CKIBBEN. Henry Holt, induces natural systems to compound 2019, 304 pp. their sins: the rising temperatures are melting the Arctic’s permafrost, which in The Green New Deal: Why the Fossil Fuel turn unleashes further monstrous quanti- Civilization Will Collapse by 2028, and the ties o® carbon and methane into the Bold Economic Plan to Save Life on Earth atmosphere, speeding warming. Mean- BY JEREMY RIFKIN. St. Martin’s while, thanks to the loss o® ice in the Press, 2019, 256 pp. Arctic Ocean, that once shiny ice mirror, which used to bounce solar energy back limate change is often described into space, is now transforming into a as a “wicked problem,” meaning dark heat absorber, itsel± leading to rising Cthat it resists easy de£nition and temperatures. Rampaging £res in de£es conventional solutions. It tran- Australia—driven in large part by higher scends political boundaries and cannot temperatures and droughts—have taken be solved by a single country, but interna- forests that absorbed carbon dioxide for tional governance is a weak substitute. hundreds o® years and converted them It is a collective-action problem that into huge sources o® it. demands a collective solution, but it has Because the global community has instead led to a great deal o¥ £nger- dawdled in decarbonizing its energy systems, it has spent most o® the “carbon HAL HARVEY is CEO of Energy Innovation and budget”—the quota o® carbon emis- a co-author, with Robbie Orvis and Jerey Rissman, of Designing Climate Solutions: A sions, for all o® civilization over all time, Policy Guide for Low-Carbon Energy. that must not be exceeded i® warming
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is to be kept below a certain temperature projections: the death o all ocean life target. Carbon stays in the atmosphere by 2100; a 21 percent drop in human for millennia, so once emissions hit the cognitive abilities, also by 2100. budget for, say, 1.5 degrees Celsius McKibben’s book takes aim at a warming (the goal set by the 2015 Paris familiar cast o climate villains. He argues climate agreement), there is no reversing that U.S. presidents have failed on the damage. All that can be hoped for climate change, including Barack Obama, is the prevention o further harm. who “zigged and zagged” on climate goals and increased the country’s reliance on A BLEAK PICTURE natural gas. He excoriates Exxon, whose This is the grim portrait that emerges executives knew about the threat from from catastrophist writing about climate climate change but suppressed the facts change, a genre that has exploded in and later lied about them, according to recent years and that is perhaps best journalists at InsideClimate News and the exemplied by The Uninhabitable Earth, Los Angeles Times. Less familiar targets by David Wallace-Wells, and Falter, by include Silicon Valley tycoons, who Bill McKibben. Wallace-Wells is a McKibben says are skeptical o democ- columnist and editor at New York maga- racy and promote technological hubris, zine, and he has a knack for translating and genetic engineering, which exacer- scientic literature into examples that bates inequality, according to McKibben. are a hit in the gut. Wallace-Wells pulls McKibben is a great writer, and his no punches: “Most people talk as i charges, although a bit hyperbolic, are Miami and Bangladesh still have a generally sound. But it turns out that chance o surviving; most o the scien- those complaints are mostly throat tists I spoke with assume we’ll lose clearing, as McKibben readies himsel them within the century,” he writes. to take aim at his biggest (but also least It is easy to quibble with Wallace- specic) target: neoliberalism. In Wells’s book. The projections he McKibben’s view, neoliberal deregula- notes—200 million climate refugees tory policies have led to perverse by 2050, for example—are often at the concentrations o wealth and have extreme end o what the science delegitimized the state, leaving people suggests. But the big picture is right: without the tools to take on big, com- human civilization is heading toward mon problems such as climate change. mind-bending devastation, at incred- The answer, he says, is in community ible speed. Wallace-Wells pulls this organizing and nonviolent demonstra- out o the scientic literature and tions o the kind that he advocates makes it crystal clear. through 350.org, a global environmental Wallace-Wells is in some ways walk- group that he helped found in 2007. ing in McKibben’s footsteps. McKibben Mobilizing people will no doubt help has been issuing dire warnings about build communities and inuence public climate change for decades. Once a debate, but it can’t lead to major change lonely voice, he now leads a chorus. on its own: no matter how morally and McKibben also presents a series o ethically appealing McKibben’s agenda worst-case scenarios based on scientic may be, one cannot draw a straight line
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from protests and boycotts to mothballed mance meter and then calling that the coal plants or supere¹cient vehicles. future seems naive. The world is com- McKibben oers strong moral instruc- plex, and such techno-optimism ignores tion, sharp writing, and a trenchant some basic limitations oµ human life. critique o neoliberalism. But he doesn’t People need food, places to sleep, put forward a politically viable strategy and clothes to wear. They like to buy to convert mobilization into legislative things and travel, and providing all this and regulatory change. is the source o most carbon emissions. One might hope that such a strategy And unlike the technologies that RiØin would form the core o a “Green New celebrates, those kinds oµ basic goods Deal,” a label that has been applied to a don’t develop according to Moore’s law, wide range o proposals in the past two which (broadly interpreted) observes that years. Unfortunately, whereas climate’s computing performance tends to double Paul Reveres lean on worst-case scenar- every two years. Simply put, contempo- ios, the activists pushing for a Green New rary human life requires massive amounts Deal often tra¹c in unfounded opti- o energy. It will take time and major mism. Among these is Jeremy RiØin, an infusions o money, labor, and materials environmental activist and social theorist. to replace the dirty energy sources In The Green New Deal, RiØin tries to humans use now with cleaner ones. unpack and esh out the ubiquitous but RiØin acknowledges the role o vague phrase that lends the book its title. highways, buildings, farms, bridges, To RiØin, “the smart green infrastruc- cars, and so forth and properly notes ture shift into a zero-carbon Third that these are prime candidates for Industrial Revolution economy . . . is the rebuilding, for both economic and very centerpiece o a Green New Deal.” climate reasons. But he dispenses with RiØin argues that a huge amount o them briey, without explaining how fossil fuel infrastructure—coal mines, that kind o investment might become oil wells, pipelines—will be “stranded” politically viable, and the book as a by a coming revolution in clean energy. whole fails in its intent oµ laying out a He’s not wrong, but he is positively realistic green strategy. Panglossian about when and how that will happen. In RiØin’s view, every- THE VIRTUES OF PRAGMATISM thing will be transformed by the Inter- A good climate strategy requires a detailed net oµ Things, which will converge understanding oµ both means and ends. digitized sectors o the green economy When it comes to combating climate and stimulate “the next Industrial Revo- change, mobilization alone isn’t a strategy, lution.” An example o those future and neither is an “all o the above” changes, RiØin argues, is that car-sharing approach to technological development. services will eliminate 80 percent o the There is no alternative, in the end, to world’s cars, and the remaining 20 examining the huge physical systems percent will be fully autonomous and that emit carbon and going after them, powered by clean energy. Using extrap- targeting big and fast solutions rst— olation to assume every nascent tech- for climate change is a numbers game. nology will peg the needle on its perfor- The world each year emits over 50
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The gathering storm: at a house damaged by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, October 2017 billion metric tons o carbon dioxide by four major sources: power plants, equivalent—a measure that encompasses vehicles, buildings, and factories.
JOSEPH RODRÍGUEZ / RODRÍGUEZ /JOSEPH EHRP REDUX carbon dioxide, the most prominent Viewed this way, although climate greenhouse gas, and also other green- change is a global problem, it is primar- house gases that drive global warming, ily rooted in a relatively narrow band: such as methane. To avoid the worst- four economic sectors—electric power, case scenarios presented by Wallace- transportation, construction, and Wells and McKibben, that gure must manufacturing—in 20 countries. Now fall close to zero by midcentury. consider that those sectors have a nite About 75 to 80 percent o carbon number o decision-makers: the execu- dioxide equivalent comes from the tives who run oil companies, utilities, fossil fuels burned in just 20 countries automakers, major construction rms,
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and big manufacturing companies and, citizens and experts are absent at the emphatically, the government regula- important but often obscure forums tors who oversee them. where substantive climate-related deci- Ultimately, those are the people who sions are made, that is a big problem. can make real change—yet they are After correctly identifying the often ignored by climate activists. genuine decision-makers in each sector, Buildings emit nearly a third o U.S. the next step is to gure out how they carbon dioxide, and a great building operate and how to apply pressure on code can cut energy use in new con- them. What is their statutory power? struction by 80 percent. In the United How did they get their jobs? What are States, an organization called the the boundaries o their power? What International Code Council develops processes guide their decisions? Who building standards. More than 100,000 has inuence over them? These are city and state o¹cials are eligible to elementary questions that one needs to vote on proposed changes, but only answer in order to make a dierence on around 1,000 do so. An important code any policy issue. They are, in fact, the improvement that would have made map to a serious solution. new buildings more e¹cient was recently narrowly defeated, more by A REALISTIC STRATEGY apathy than anything else, condemning In all four critical sectors—electric a generation oµ buildings to unneces- power, transportation, construction, and sary energy waste. This represents a manufacturing—the most realistic goal failure in climate strategy: the issue is to change policy in a way that diverts went unnoticed but will burden the existing energy cash ows from fossil world with many decades o unneces- fuels to clean energy sources. This is sary emissions. generally easier than creating new sums Meanwhile, thousands were protest- o money by raising taxes or engaging ing the Keystone pipeline, which was in decit spending—so don’t count far less important. While activists were dollars; count carbon. For example, a protesting that pipeline—which, built policymaker can require that every year or not, would have little or no impact energy companies increase the fraction on oil consumption—they were miss- o electricity they produce from renew- ing at the forum that sets building able energy sources, so that the rev- standards across the United States. It enues from consumers’ monthly utility turns out that the targets o much bills go, increasingly, away from coal climate activism are not the decision- and to wind and solar power. Thirty makers: the United Nations does not states have adopted these measures; regulate power plants, shareholders do most o them need more aggressive not set fuel-e¹ciency standards, and targets, and the laggards need to get the U.S. Congress does not set build- onboard. This is climate policy at scale. ing energy codes. Indeed, o the four important It is true that even social movements sectors, electric power is the easiest to with fuzzy aims can sometimes make a deal with, because it is now cheaper to dierence. But i the most motivated build wind and solar power plants from
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scratch than it is to fuel and maintain by a zero-carbon grid would be a zero- most existing coal power plants. Nuclear carbon car. What is the pressure point? power could play a big role, but right Weirdly, U.S. regulatory authority for now its costs are signicantly higher the fuel consumption o vehicles is than the price o fossil fuels, and so handled by the National Highway Tra¹c new technologies would need to be Safety Administration, whereas the developed to bring those costs down. regulation o tailpipe carbon dioxide It is worth noting that market forces emissions is delegated to the Environ- alone won’t create incentives for utility mental Protection Agency. The carbon companies to green their operations, dioxide that gets emitted is driven by the because utilities are physical monopo- amount o fuel burned, so this amounts lies—there is only one set o wires to to double, but inconsistent, regulation. any given house—and their expenditures The consequence is that political or legal and power choices are regulated by pressure must be applied to both. public commissions. Utilities are In the absence o federal standards, a dependent on the decisions o regula- dozen states have banded together to get tors—who could require them, for the job done, which is suboptimal, but example, to cut their use o carbon- they have enough market share to bend emitting sources in halµ by 2030 and to the curve toward cleaner vehicles. These totally decarbonize by 2045. Dozens o commitments, too, need more citizen states and countries have adopted support, and governors who work to variants o this approach, because it reduce auto pollution deserve applause. works. The decision-makers in this case Compared with power grids and are state governors, state legislatures, motor vehicles, new buildings are easy and utility regulatory commissions. to make supere¹cient. The key is to They can choose to remake the grid so update building codes to include that it is free o climate-warming energy-e¹ciency requirements. Such emissions—and today there are favorable codes already demand structural sound- economic and technological conditions ness, wiring safety, earthquake readi- for that choice. Accelerating this action ness, and reproong, so why not take would be a great choice for climate care o the global commons by also policy and citizen activism. including tight energy standards? The In the transportation sector, the best physical task is not hard: good insula- bet would be for auto regulators to set tion, great windows, supere¹cient a very high fuel-e¹ciency standard for appliances, and advanced heating and passenger vehicles, light trucks, and cooling. It all pays for itsel in reduced ɳs and then oer car manufacturers energy costs, but those rational eco- “supercredits” for each electric vehicle nomics are stymied by the fact that they sell—meaning, for example, that those who design and build buildings i they want to sell an ɳ that does never pay the utility bill. So a public not meet the standard, they must also standard—a building code—is required. sell an electric vehicle. The utility and Building codes are typically a state’s transportation strategies would work in jurisdiction—although they are some- tandem, as an electric vehicle powered times set by counties or cities. Most
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states adopt an international standard, Beyond pricing carbon, to deal with which, as described above, gets ironed industrial emissions, the world needs out by technocrats and experts in much more generous R & D budgets. obscure forums. Today, astonishingly, In the United States, less public money the devising o a new code takes close is spent on clean energy research and to a decade—so most codes are behind development than Americans spend on in new technology—and adoption is potato chips. The United States has spotty: a few states exceed the refer- the world’s best national labs and ence standard, but most lag badly in research universities, but they are adopting it, and some have no thermal underused. Any number o nonpartisan code at all, to account for the cooling studies, by the likes o the National and heating energy needs oµ buildings. Academy o Sciences and the indepen- These policy decisions are almost dent American Energy Innovation wholly ignored by climate activists. Council, have called for tripling clean The most di¹cult to transform o the energy R & D, from roughly $2.5 four sectors is manufacturing. Industrial billion to $7.5 billion. This is a modest facilities are complex and vary widely, number in light o the potential. There so there is no one-size-ts-all strategy. is little political resistance to this idea The best approach would combine three but, sadly, only modest support; it is elements. First, for complex, heteroge- considered a secondary issue. University neous, price-sensitive sectors such as presidents and national lab directors, industry, a carbon tax is a ne policy. working together to inuence their But taxes are unpopular, so many respective senators and representatives, jurisdictions have substituted a carbon could get this done. cap, with permits auctioned o or Finally, governments at all levels handed out for free. This is a good way should adopt “buy clean” policies, to set a price on carbon. Carbon taxes committing themselves to purchase their and caps are generally the business o cement, steel, glass, and other materials national legislatures, but in the labora- only from suppliers whose emissions put tory o democracy that is the United them in the top quartile o their respec- States, the states, again, have taken the tive industries in terms o environmental lead. Nine states in the Northeast have performance. California has started joined forces to cap electricity emissions, doing this, and producers have noticed. and California has a comprehensive cap. This kind o targeted, realistic Both systems’ permits are trading at a strategy, which focuses on the most low price, indicating that carbon reduc- consequential decisions and is backed tions are cheaper than predicted—so by a deep understanding o who makes regulators should tighten the caps, and the key choices, might not be as excit- achieve more reductions. The decision- ing as calls for revolutionary change. makers to target to get more taxes or But it would work.∂ caps are European governments, both in key countries and in Brussels, along with U.S. states that take climate change seriously.
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emerged from frustrations over indeci- The Retrenchment sive, protracted, and costly military interventions abroad. These frustrations Syndrome have reproduced the Vietnam syndrome in a new guise: the Afghanistan-Iraq syndrome. Across the political spectrum, A Response to “Come Home, many Americans have come to believe America?” that retrenchment would not only avoid the costs o military operations overseas but also improve U.S. security. They have found support for this belie in analyses H. R. McMaster like those that appeared in this magazine’s lead package for its March/April 2020 issue, titled “Come Home, America?” n the decades after the U.S. with- The authors o the articles in that drawal from Vietnam, the simplistic package oered dierent variations on Ibut widely held belie that the war the retrenchment theme. But what some had been unjustied and unwinnable o the articles have in common is an gave way to “the Vietnam syndrome”—a appeal that reects strong emotions conviction that the United States should rather than an accurate understanding o avoid all military interventions abroad. what went wrong in the wars that fol- The mantra o “no more Vietnams” lowed the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Propo- dominated foreign policy, muting more nents o a U.S. withdrawal from its concrete discussions o what should be military commitments play to visceral learned from that experience. Instead, feelings o war weariness and argue that the analogy was applied indiscriminately; the di¹culties o those wars were the U.S. military operations in the Balkans, inevitable consequence o the United the Horn o Africa, Latin America, and States’ misguided pursuit o armed the Middle East prompted assertions domination. Some retrenchers depict that the use o force would lead to U.S. foreign policy since the end o the “another Vietnam.” It was not until the Cold War as a fool’s errand, impelled by United States won a lopsided victory a naive crusade to remake the world in over the military o Iraqi President the United States’ image. And although Saddam Hussein in the 1990–91 Gul advocates o retrenchment often identify War that President George H. W. Bush as realists, they subscribe to the ro- could declare that the United States had mantic view that restraint abroad is nally “kicked the Vietnam syndrome.” almost always an unmitigated good. In Nearly three decades later, however, a fact, disengagement from competitions new mantra o “ending endless wars” has overseas would increase dangers to the United States; the paltry savings realized H. R. MCMASTER is Fouad and Michelle Ajami would be dwarfed by the eventual cost Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the o responding to unchecked and author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World. From 2017 to 2018, he served as undeterred threats to American secu- U.S. National Security Adviser. rity, prosperity, and inuence.
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ALTERNATIVE HISTORY the regime’s brutality, emboldening In their critiques o the post-9/11 wars, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and retrenchers fail to acknowledge the his Iranian and Russian supporters to hidden costs o their recommendations. intensify their mass homicide. In Although a majority o Americans now 2017–18, U.S. President Donald Trump agree that the decision to invade Iraq in nally enforced the Obama administra- 2003 was a mistake, retrenchment tion’s redline, retaliating against the use advocates ignore the consequences o o chemical weapons by Assad with the withdrawal o U.S. forces from Iraq strikes against the Syrian military. But in 2011 and o the broader disengage- Trump’s decision in 2019 to withdraw ment from the Middle East that accom- U.S. forces from eastern Syria compli- panied it. Those steps ceded space to cated eorts to eliminate ¯¯ and jihadi terrorists and Iranian proxies, bolstered the inuence o Assad and his thereby creating an ideal environment sponsors in an area whose control would for the return o sectarian violence and give them a signicant advantage in the the establishment o the self-declared war. Almost nine years since the Syrian caliphate o the Islamic State (or ¯¯). civil war began, a humanitarian catas- The Obama administration made similar trophe continues in Idlib Province, mistakes in Libya earlier in 2011, after which, at the end o 2019, generated pushing for a ±Ã® air campaign that over a million more refugees, many o helped depose the dictator Muammar whom succumbed to extreme cold or al-Qadda. Although it was determined the novel coronavirus. to avoid the mistakes o the George W. Despite evidence that U.S. disengage- Bush administration’s war in Iraq, the ment can make a bad situation worse, Obama administration paradoxically retrenchers have pushed for a withdrawal exceeded them, failing to shape Libya’s o U.S. forces from Afghanistan. The political environment in the wake o agreement signed between the United Qadda’s demise; nearly a decade later, States and the Taliban in February 2020 the Libyan civil war rages on, and the will allow the Taliban, al Qaeda, and country remains a source and a transit various other jihadi terrorists to claim point for millions seeking escape from victory, recruit more young people to turmoil in northern Africa and the Sahel. their cause, gain control o more terri- Retrenchers ignore the fact that the tory, and inict suering through the risks and costs o inaction are some- imposition o draconian sharia. Just as times higher than those o engagement. the Syrian civil war and the rise o ¯¯ In August 2013, the Syrian regime used generated a refugee crisis that reached poison gas to kill more than 1,400 into Europe, the establishment o an innocent civilians, including hundreds Islamic emirate in a large portion o o children. Despite U.S. President Afghanistan would generate another Barack Obama’s declaration in 2012 that wave o refugees and further destabilize the use o these heinous weapons to Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation o over murder civilians would cross a redline, 220 million people. Terrorist organiza- the United States did not respond with tions that already enjoy safe haven in the military force. U.S. inaction enabled Afghan-Pakistani border region will
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increase their prots from illicit activi- C. Vann Woodward observed that tech- ties such as the narcotics trade and apply nologies such as the conventional aircraft, those resources to intensify and expand jet propulsion, the ballistic missile, and their murderous campaigns. Retrenchers the atomic-powered submarine marked do not acknowledge that U.S. with- “the end o the era o free security.” Those drawal often leaves a vacuum that technologies overtook “Americans so enemies and adversaries are eager to ll. suddenly and swiftly that they have not Retrenchment advocates are relatively brought themselves to face its practical unconcerned about enemies gaining implications.” Retrenchers are out o step strength overseas because they assume with history and way behind the times. that the United States’ geographic blessings—including its natural resources FALSE PROPHECIES and the vast oceans that separate it from Even the most compelling arguments the rest o the world—will keep Ameri- for sustained engagement overseas are cans safe. But in today’s interconnected unlikely to convince hardcore re- world, threats from transnational terror- trenchers, because they believe that an ists (or viruses, for that matter) do not overly powerful United States is the remain conned to particular regions. principal cause o the world’s problems. The humanitarian, security, and political Their pleas for disengagement are consequences o the conicts in Afghani- profoundly narcissistic, as they perceive stan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen have geopolitical actors only in relation to reached well beyond the Middle East the United States. In their view, other and South Asia. Just as China’s conceal- actors—whether friends or foes—pos- ment o the coronavirus forestalled sess no aspirations and no agency, actions that might have prevented a except in reaction to U.S. policies and global catastrophe, the United States’ actions. Retrenchers ignore the fact that withdrawal o support for its partners on sometimes wars choose you rather than the frontlines against jihadi terrorists the other way around: only after the most could generate staggering costs i the devastating terrorist attack in history did terrorists succeed in penetrating U.S. the United States invade Afghanistan. borders as they did on September 11, In the “Come Home, America?” 2001. And a reduction o U.S. support package, Jennifer Lind and Daryl Press for allies and partners along the frontiers argue in “Reality Check” that abandoning oµ hostile states, such as Iran and North what they describe as Washington’s Korea, or revisionist powers, such as pursuit o primacy would quell China and China and Russia, could result in a shift Russia while providing opportunities for in the balance o power and inuence cooperation on issues o climate change, away from the United States. Retrench- terrorism, and nuclear proliferation. And ment could also result in a failure to deter in “The Price o Primacy,” Stephen aggression and prevent a disastrous war. Wertheim asserts that a less threatening Retrenchers also overlook the trend United States could “transform globaliza- that the security associated with the tion into a governable and sustainable United States’ geographic advantages has force” and bring about a reduction in been diminishing. In 1960, the historian jihadi terrorism, a less aggressive China,
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a curtailment o Russian interference, the say in a war’s course o events and its cessation o Iran’s proxy wars, the termi- political, human, and psychological nation o North Korea’s threat to U.S. complexities. Excessive optimism soon and regional security and human rights, grew into hubris, setting the United and even progress against the threat from States up for unanticipated di¹culties in climate change. Afghanistan and Iraq. I these promises seem too good to The best antidote to such overcon- be true, it’s because they are. Retrench- dence, however, is not the excessive ment hard-liners are condent in such pessimism oered by retrenchers. Policy- claims because they assume that the makers should instead adopt what the United States has preponderant control historian Zachary Shore calls “strategic over future global security and prosper- empathy”: an understanding o the ity. In reality, adversaries have the ideology, emotions, and aspirations that power to act based on their own aspira- drive and constrain other actors. Strategic tions and goals: American behavior did empathy might help at least some advo- not cause jihadi terrorism, Chinese cates o retrenchment qualify their economic aggression, Russian political adamant opposition to democracy promo- subversion, or the hostility o Iran and tion and human rights advocacy abroad North Korea. And U.S. disengagement and might allow them to accept that the would not attenuate those challenges or United States cannot determine, but can make them easier to overcome. inuence, the evolution o a world in which free and open societies ourish. In STRATEGIC EMPATHY recent years, protests against authoritarian The movement in favor o retrenchment rule and corruption have ared up all over is in part a reaction to the overoptimism the world. In Baghdad, Beirut, Caracas, that animated U.S. foreign policy in the Hong Kong, Khartoum, Moscow, and 1990s. When the Soviet Union collapsed Tehran, people have made clear that they and the Cold War ended, some thinkers want a say in how they are governed. and policymakers assumed that the Support for those who strive for freedom process o democratization that was is in the United States’ interest, because a unfolding in eastern Europe would be world in which liberty, democracy, and replicable in Africa, Asia, and the Middle the rule oµ law are strengthened will be East. But they failed to give due consider- safer and more prosperous. Disengage- ation to local contexts and to political, ment from competitions overseas would social, cultural, and religious dynamics cede inuence to others, such as the that make liberal democracy and the rule Chinese Communist Party, which is oµ law hard to reach. Similarly, after the already redoubling eorts to promote its United States’ lopsided military victory authoritarian model. Retrenchment may in the Gulµ War, some assumed that hold emotional appeal for Americans future wars could be won quickly and tired o protracted military commitments decisively because U.S. technology had abroad, but blind adherence to an ortho- produced a “revolution in military aairs.” doxy based on emotion rather than reason But this presumption ignored continuities would make Americans less safe and put in the nature o war, such as the enemy’s the United States further in the red.∂
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incrementalism and decentralization The Vision Thing that Drezner, Krebs, and Schweller propose—essential to policymakers is that they face competing short- and Is Grand Strategy Dead? long-term goals and multiple, often crosscutting challenges. Grand strategy allows policymakers to integrate their eorts to pursue these objectives Foreign Policy Needs a Road simultaneously and to adjudicate among Map them when they appear to be in con- ict. A grand strategy is a map o the Francis J. Gavin and James B. forest that allows policymakers to nd Steinberg the path home through the trees. Grand strategy not only allows policymakers to prioritize and accommo- aniel Drezner, Ronald Krebs, date divergent ends; it is also vital in the and Randall Schweller (“The choice o means. In its most simplied DEnd o Grand Strategy,” May/ form, policymaking rests on the asser- June 2020) are surely right that grand tion that i a country adopts policy X, it strategy is challenging, particularly in a will achieve goal Y. But even in the best world characterized by a diusion o circumstances, with the most conscien- power, a changing and multidimen- tious policymaking process and decision- sional international system, political makers, the relationship between a polarization, populism, and distrust o proposed policy and the desired outcome elites. They are profoundly wrong, is inherently uncertain. No new foreign however, in arguing that those factors policy challenge is the same as one seen make grand strategy irrelevant or even before, and unlike scientists, policymak- counterproductive for the United States ers do not have the luxury o testing out today. On the contrary, it is precisely a variety o approaches to see what works because the world is so complex and best; they need decisional rules that challenging that grand strategy is more allow them to make principled choices important than ever. among competing options. A strategy is a way to relate a choice Consider the United States’ never- o means to one’s goals, and it’s hard to ending debate about ±Ã® enlargement. argue that policymakers don’t need that: Proponents o enlargement have based after all, that’s what policy is all about. their argument in part on the view that To paraphrase Lewis Carroll, i you the United States would be more secure don’t know where you want to go, every in a world where countries are able to road is as good as the next. But the make choices free from the coercion o corollary is equally important: once you great powers. Critics, on the other do know where you want to go, some hand, have contended that maintaining roads are better than others. What good relations with major powers is makes grand strategy, as opposed to vital to securing U.S. interests, even i mere strategy—and as opposed to the that means according each o those
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powers a sphere o inuence in its role in the world and laid the ground- neighborhood. Which approach should work for a new postwar order. In the the United States adopt? Drezner, Krebs, absence o such a clear and bold and Schweller believe that Washington long-term strategy, it is doubtful that should “decentralize authority and Roosevelt could have surmounted the responsibility.” But on what basis could domestic and international obstacles an individual ±Ã® commander or that favored caution and inertia. special envoy pick between these competing perspectives? Only grand TUNING THE ORCHESTRA strategy provides the criteria to help The authors also point to the waning choose between these two plausible but capacity oµ big powers to inuence the incompatible views about how the global landscape and the declining role world works and how that understand- o military and economic power. But ing should inform policy choices. Why, these changes, too, only deepen the especially in a democracy, should that need to integrate all elements o na- choice be delegated to a military o¹cer tional power to achieve national goals: or a midlevel unelected o¹cial? the tougher the problems, the less Drezner, Krebs, and Schweller eective ad hoc responses will be. observe that the global problems the Nothing illustrates the point better United States faces are often nonlinear. than the Trump administration’s tful, That very insight further buttresses the scattered, and incremental response to need for a grand strategy. The world the ²®³¯´-19 crisis. An eective grand has seen moments when an unforeseen strategy would allow the government event triggered profound change, such to recognize profound global changes as the July Crisis o 1914, which led to and respond to them in a coordinated, World War I; the political revolutions consequential, and eective way. o 1989–91; and the 9/11 attacks. A But grand strategy does more than policy based on incrementalism and provide coherence to the disparate decentralization is precisely the wrong strands o national policy. It helps approach when such profound changes communicate the interests and goals o occur. Consider U.S. President Franklin the United States to many audiences, Roosevelt’s masterful approach to including its own o¹cials, allies, and fascism in Europe and the breakdown adversaries. It allows the entire govern- o the international economic order in ment bureaucracy to sing from the same the wake o the Great Depression. page by oering an anthem to o¹cials Despite entrenched isolationism and to guide their day-to-day work—espe- populist xenophobia in the United cially those who ll positions below the States, Roosevelt understood that the level o the president and the cabinet country’s peace and prosperity de- but who still play a critical role in pended on deeper international engage- pursuing national interests. Drezner, ment. The measures he pursued may Krebs, and Schweller advocate decen- have seemed incremental, but they were tralizing policymaking. They are right guided by a grand strategy that dramat- to stress the importance o “appreciat- ically transformed the United States’ ing regional knowledge” and to warn
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againsttance in the tribal dangers areas, o and, conducting above all, policytrusting from the 5,000United miles States. away. He But is just how as canhard “theater on other commanders, countries, however—ar- special Not all readers envoys,guing, for and example, subject-matter that U.S. experts” goals in possiblyAfghanistan know are what doomed fundamental to failure are leaders, choicesbecause to the make American in the absencepresence o an agreed-onstrengthens, grand rather strategy? than weakens, I U.S. the but all leaders CentralTaliban Commandand weakens, received rather athan request tostrengthens, support Saudi the clientArabia regime in its proxyin Kabul. are readers. war in Yemen, for example, how would - Harry S. Truman itThe decide Great between Firewall reassuring of China: Howa key to ally andBuild the and risks Control o contributing an Alternative to aVersion deepeningof the Internet humanitarian disaster? SIGN UP for the BYU.S. JAMES policy GRIFFITHS toward Iran. Zed is a Books,case in point.2019, 288It goes pp. without saying that the Foreign Affairs United States has multiple interests at Books & Reviews stake:Controlling preventing the Internet Iran from was acquiring supposed newsletter nuclearto be as weapons hopeless and as nailingcountering Jell-O its to the destabilizingwall, as U.S. policies President in theBill Middle Clinton East, rstsaid, and but foremost, in this vividly but also reported maintaining narra- eectivetive, Griths working tells relationships exactly when with and key Europeanhow China allies, achieved strengthening it. Chinese multilat- dissi- eraldents, institutions the U.S. suchgovernment, as the International and AtomicInternet Energy giants Agency,went up andagainst showing the solidarityChinese state—andwith people lost. ghting Software for built humanto help dignity Chinese and users a voice leap in over their the own governance.Great Firewall How, to absentreach foreignsome broad websites grandhas been strategic checkmated. framework, Facebook, can American decision-makersGoogle, and others sort surrenderedthrough this totangle oChinese interests censorship and produce demands policies in thatorder are to consistentaccess the andChinese integrated market. rather And than China’s pullinghomegrown in opposite tech giants, directions? which are loyal to Thethe regime,executive seized branch control is not o the the only audiencemarket. Beijingfor U.S. outspent grand strategy. its challengers For Congress,in order to grand eld strategycutting-edge is a way censor- to understandship technology, and assess often what purchased an adminis- from trationAmerican hopes suppliers. to achieve Now and it ishow, exporting thus facilitatingboth its technology the legislative and its branch’s ideology o criticalcyber-sovereignty involvement to in other the policymak-countries. ingGriths and policy-implementation condemns the “moral process.failing” Ito is Silicon for this Valley very reasonrms and that despairs Congress that adopted“the censors the requirement are on the advance.” that every presidential administration prepare a ForeignAffairs.com/newsletters National Security Strategy.
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Even more important, a grand Paranoid Style in American Politics,” strategy provides a conceptual platform since the early days o the United States’ for a broad, vigorous, and informed founding, “American politics has often public debate about the United States’ been an arena for angry minds.” role in the world, one based on a rich Grand strategy has never been easy. and inclusive discussion oµ basic prin- As U.S. secretary o state under Presi- ciples and that goes beyond the ad hoc, dent James Monroe, John Quincy reactive analysis o day-to-day policy Adams faced daunting challenges. The decisions. Drezner, Krebs, and United States had just emerged from Schweller assert that grand strategy is the War o 1812, which had ended in a more di¹cult in an age o populism. In stalemate and had exposed political fact, increased populism makes grand ssures that nearly tore the country strategy more needed than ever. A grand apart. The United States was weak. strategy allows an administration to Countries and empires stronger than it articulate an overarching framework, sought to craft a world order inimical to and that articulation lets the public American interests and values. And the participate meaningfully in the decision Industrial Revolution unleashed power- about where to steer the ship o state ful global forces that upended the rules and how best to get there. o politics and power. This political division, combined with postwar COMPOSING THE SCORE economic malaise and increased immi- The authors seem to forget that today gration from Europe, gave rise to is hardly the rst time that a debate powerful populist forces, represented over U.S. foreign policy has taken most clearly in the form o General place at a time o political polarization Andrew Jackson, and a deepening sense and popular mobilization. From the o national disunity. Elites and institu- Founding Fathers’ divisions over the tions were distrusted, and the prolifera- wisdom o the Jay Treaty o 1794 (a tion oµ hyperpartisan newspapers grand strategic debate i ever there was created a media landscape riven by one), to the arguments over the suspicion and disinformation. Spanish-American War, to quarrels Adams, operating under severe over how to respond to the communist constraints, crafted an approach that revolution in China, U.S. foreign preserved his country’s freedom o policy has been deeply entwined with action, laid the groundwork for expan- domestic political passions and parti- sion, and skillfully managed European san ghts. Even within parties, con- powers that might have threatened sensus has often been elusive: witness the young republic. Steeped in Ameri- the contest between the Cold War can values and marked by a sharp grand strategy favored by President understanding o U.S. interests, Adams’s Richard Nixon and that preferred by vision laid the foundation for the President Ronald Reagan. Nor is United States’ long-term security and populism or distrust o elites new. As prosperity, managing the short-term the historian Richard Hofstadter perils in a way that set the stage argued in his seminal 1964 essay, “The for the country’s global emergence a
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century later. It is precisely this kind strategy documents typically avoid o thoughtful grand strategic vision prioritizing clearly among “competing that the United States desperately short- and long-term goals and multiple, needs today. often crosscutting challenges,” as they put it. As a result, “the disparate strands o FRANCIS J. GAVIN is Director of the Henry A. national policy” often lack the “coher- Kissinger Center for Global Aairs at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced ence” that grand strategy can in principle International Studies. bequeath. We would be heartened by the vision o an “entire government bureauc- JAMES B. STEINBERG is University Professor of racy . . . sing[ing] from the same page” Social Science, International Aairs, and Law at Syracuse University and was U.S. Deputy thanks to a grand strategic “anthem”—i Secretary of State under President Barack we were not more often struck by the Obama. sheer cacophony emerging from the U.S. foreign policy apparatus. With reality so Drezner, Krebs, and often at odds with their idealized portrait, Schweller Reply Gavin and Steinberg retreat into exhorta- tion. What is going on in Washington e appreciate Francis Gavin today, they declare, reveals why grand and James Steinberg’s strategy is more important than ever. Wvigorous response. And we In their full-throated praise o grand share their admiration for grand strat- strategy, Gavin and Steinberg do not egy’s theoretical virtues. In our profes- address the main question that animated sional lives, each o us has at times our article: Why has the United States happily played the armchair grand in recent years had such di¹culty strategist. In our writing and teaching, formulating and executing a competent we have taken presidents to task for grand strategy? Let us, for the moment, lacking a grand strategy or for failing grant the validity o their examples o to pursue one consistently. Like so past grand strategic virtuosity. The fact many others in our circle, we have remains that the current international grieved for grand strategy: denying its and domestic challenges to an eective growing irrelevance, expressing anger grand strategy are insurmountable. A at decision-makers for their poor world marked by nonpolarity, political choices, proposing possible bargains to polarization, radical pluralism, and resuscitate a coherent grand strategy, populism is infertile ground for a viable and feeling depressed over the loss. and sustainable grand strategy. But unlike Gavin and Steinberg, we have Gavin and Steinberg do not deny nally moved on to the nal stage o that the obstacles to an eective grand grief: acceptance. strategy are greater than ever. Nor do Gavin and Steinberg stress the prom- they explain how U.S. decision-makers ise o grand strategy without acknowledg- can or will overcome such obstacles. ing the possible pitfalls. They know Nostalgic for past foreign policy suc- full well that the United States has, more cesses, they seem committed to preserv- often than not, fallen short o their ing the myth o grand strategy in the theoretical standard. The White House’s absence o its reality.
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To that end, they oer the reader a Bush administration brilliantly man- cherry-picked list o grand strategic aged the end o the Cold War by successes, while conveniently overlooking jettisoning strategic commitments and the failures. Committing to a grand moving forward experimentally into strategy can be costly, especially in times the unknown. o radical uncertainty. Gavin and Stein- The lessons o this track record are berg rightly cite the July Crisis o 1914 clear. National decision-makers, obliged and the 9/11 attacks as such “moments to make choices in an open, dynamic, when an unforeseen event triggered nonlinear system that is rarely in profound change.” But were the Euro- equilibrium, should act incrementally pean powers served well by the grand and learn from trial and error. They strategies that led them into World War should not be straitjacketed by grand I? Was the United States served well by strategy, an idea whose time has passed. its post-9/11 grand strategy, which It gives us no joy to arrive at this produced the global war on terrorism conclusion, but we see no reason to and the Iraq war? Given the results, we continue investing in an illusion.∂ cannot agree that “a policy based on incrementalism and decentralization is precisely the wrong approach when such profound changes occur.” During those critical junctures, a more incre- mental policy might have prevented those tragic errors. Indeed, many o the past successes cited by Gavin and Steinberg derived less from the rigorous pursuit o a grand strategy than from improvisational leadership. They approvingly cite Franklin Roosevelt’s “clear and bold long-term strategy” that “dramatically transformed the United States’ role in the world.” Yet Roosevelt was not a linear thinker who developed and then consistently followed a grand strategy. He was, in the historian Warren Kim- ball’s apt image, a “juggler,” who adapted and improvised in response to events. U.S. foreign policy in the early Cold War was a triumph, but it did not spring fully formed from the heads o thinkers such as George Kennan or Paul Nitze. It emerged in a piecemeal fashion and appears as a coherent strategy only in retrospect. And the George H. W.
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cost-benet analysis to inform govern- In Defense of ment policy. Romer criticizes Schelling, incorrectly, for blurring the distinction Economists between empirical questions, such as how much it costs to save lives, and normative questions, such as how much A Response to “The Dismal society should pay to save lives. But i Kingdom” society must choose how to spend limited resources, it is not surprising that one o the (albeit imperfect) metrics includes the dollar sign. Cost- Michael Feuer benet analysis and cost-eectiveness analysis are tools with advantages and limitations; it is one thing to point out n “The Dismal Kingdom” (March/ their limitations, another to come up April 2020), the economist Paul with better tools. IRomer excoriates his profession for Not all economists are heralds o causing many o the United States’ enlightened public policy, but it is a current problems—from lower life more heterogeneous profession than expectancy to the opioid epidemic to Romer’s critique suggests. He should be subprime lending. Romer reaches this thanked for reminding economists that verdict in the course o reviewing two some o them have ignored or even recent books, Binyamin Appelbaum’s perpetuated the familiar failures o The Economists’ Hour and Nicholas capitalism. But he seems to suggest that Lemann’s Transaction Man, which, he all economists bow at the altar o writes, “converge on the conclusion that free-market fundamentalism, and he the economists at the helm are doing implies that only the most orthodox more harm than good.” Romer largely strains o economic thought have endorses that conclusion—an astonish- inuence. He does not mention those ing charge when advanced by a distin- who doggedly advocate sensible govern- guished economist such as himself. ment intervention, such as Anne Case, Yet in making his case, Romer relies Angus Deaton, Paul Krugman, and on problematic causal claims and overly many others. Policymakers have too broad characterizations. His argument often failed to heed the advice o such is most suspect when he faults certain public-minded economists. But Romer individuals—such as Thomas Schelling, ought to have acknowledged their who helped popularize the use o constructive contributions to economic development, environmental protection, MICHAEL FEUER is Dean of the Graduate educational opportunity, and the struggle School of Education and Human Development and Professor of Education Policy at George against poverty and inequality. Washington University, a Nonresident Senior In his plea for humility, Romer Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the beseeches his fellow economists to just author of The Rising Price of Objectivity: Philanthropy, Government, and the Future of “say no when government o¹cials look Education Research. to [them] for an answer to a normative
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question.” That is a courageous sugges- tion, and one that could stimulate discussion about the role o science in society. But especially now, when the ²®³¯´-19 pandemic requires govern- ments everywhere to embrace science, it is dangerous to scapegoat economists— or any scholars who understand collec- tive action and stand against leaders who reject scientic evidence.
FOR THE RECORD Due to an editing error, a March/April 2020 article (“Getting to Less”) mis- stated measurements o U.S. military spending in 1952 and 1968. The gures expressed are in constant dollars, not current dollars.∂
Foreign Aªairs (ISSN 00157120), July/August 2020, Volume 99, Number 4. Published six times annually (January, March, May, July, September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at additional mailing o¹ces. ¡¢£: Send address changes to Foreign Aªairs, P.O. Box 324, Congers, NY 10920. From time to time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe will be o interest. I you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Congers, NY, address indicated above.
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