September October 2019
September October 2019
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 • VOLUME 98 • NUMBER 5 •
Autocracy
Now
AUTOCRACY NOW
F O R E I G N A F F A I R S .C O M
Modern life is built
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Volume 98, Number 5
AUTOCRACY NOW
Putin the Great 10
Russia’s Imperial Impostor
Susan B. Glasser
Party Man 18
Xi Jinping’s Quest to Dominate China
Richard McGregor
Erdogan’s Way 26
The Rise and Rule of Turkey’s Islamist Shapeshifter
Kaya Genc
Sheila S. Coronel
The Transformer 44
Orban’s Evolution and Hungary’s Demise
Paul Lendvai
September/October 2019
SEPT 13: FRMR NAT’L SECURITY ADVISOR FRMR ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE
STEPHEN HADLEY & DANIEL FRIED
Moderated by Liz Schrayer, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition
ESSAYS
The Sources of Chinese Conduct 86
Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a New Cold War?
Odd Arne Westad
ON FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM
Yuen Yuen Ang on the Ivan Briscoe on the Bernie Sanders on
struggle over the Belt political crisis how to end America’s
and Road Initiative. roiling Venezuela. forever wars.
September/October 2019
The India Dividend 173
New Delhi Remains Washington’s Best Hope in Asia
Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J. Tellis
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September/October 2019 · Volume 98, Number 5
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CONTRIBUTORS
SUSAN GLASSER wanted to be a journalist from the age of
ten, when she helped her parents distribute copies of a
newspaper they founded in Washington, D.C. She began
working at The Washington Post in 1998 and eventually
spent four years as joint Moscow bureau chief for the
newspaper. A former editor in chief of Foreign Policy and
a current staff writer at The New Yorker, Glasser is a
co-author (with Peter Baker) of Kremlin Rising: Vladimir
Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution. In “Putin the
Great” (page 10), Glasser recounts the Russian presi-
dent’s unlikely rise and inimitable rule.
H
istorical eras tend to have populist authoritarian, he has become
characteristic leadership types: the country’s longest-serving and most
the fledgling democrats of the significant leader since Ataturk.
1920s, the dictators of the 1930s and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines is
1940s, the nationalist anticolonialists of comfortable shooting people and wants
the 1950s and 1960s, the gerontocrats of you to know it, notes Sheila Coronel.
the 1970s, the fledgling democrats He made his name as a tough mayor
(again) of the 1980s and 1990s. Now bringing order to a crime-ridden city,
we’re back to dictators. and as president, he offers that experi-
The leading figures on the world ence as a national model—“Singapore
stage today practice a brutal, smash- with thugs instead of technocrats.”
mouth politics, a personalized authori- And Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Paul
tarianism. Old-school strongmen, they Lendvai explains, started off as a liberal
do whatever is needed to grasp and hold activist before cynically switching to
on to power. Here we profile five to see populist nationalism when the political
what makes them tick. All fought their winds shifted—and as prime minister,
way from obscurity to the throne and he has proceeded to dismantle demo-
then took a hard authoritarian turn. But cratic institutions and undermine the
how, and why? rule of law.
Susan Glasser says that Russia’s There is no scholarly consensus on
Vladimir Putin sees himself as a latter- what role individuals play in history,
day Peter the Great. He fetishizes relative to broader structural forces in
strength, dreams of restoring imperial their environment. You can tell any
grandeur, and rules by the old tsarist political story you want through the lens
doctrine of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, of the people involved, making it appear
Nationality.” that their choices mattered greatly. And
According to Richard McGregor, you can tell the same story with abstract
China’s Xi Jinping is driven by paternal trends doing the work and human
hero worship and devotion to the particularity washed out of the picture.
Chinese Communist Party. Having So how much do details about these
concluded that the party’s rule was men’s lives and characters matter? How
under growing threat, he has devoted his would history be unfolding without
time in office to restoring its dominance. them, and how much of what happens
Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan is next will be determined by their per-
harder to pin down, writes Kaya Genc. sonal whims? Good questions.
A fiery Islamist turned reformer turned —Gideon Rose, Editor
The leading figures
on the world stage
today practice a brutal,
smashmouth politics,
a personalized
authoritarianism.
I L L U ST R AT I O N BY T H E H EAD S O F STAT E
Erdogan’s Way
Kaya Genc 26
O
n January 27, 2018, Vladimir democratically elected mayor. Putin had
Putin became the longest- grown up so poor in the city’s mean
serving leader of Russia since postwar courtyards that his autobiogra-
Joseph Stalin. There were no parades or phy speaks of fighting off “hordes of rats”
fireworks, no embarrassingly gilded in the hallway of the communal apart-
statues unveiled or unseemly displays of ment where he and his parents lived in a
nuclear missiles in Red Square. After single room with no hot water or stove.
all, Putin did not want to be compared Peter the Great had no business being
with Leonid Brezhnev, the bushy- his model, but there he was, and there
browed septuagenarian whose record in he has remained. Earlier this summer, in
power he had just surpassed. Brezhnev, a long and boastful interview with the
who ruled the Soviet Union from 1964 Financial Times in which he celebrated
to 1982, was the leader of Putin’s gritty the decline of Western-style liberalism
youth, of the long stagnation that and the West’s “no longer tenable”
preceded the empire’s collapse. By the embrace of multiculturalism, Putin
end, he was the butt of a million jokes, answered unhesitatingly when asked
the doddering grandfather of a dod- which world leader he admired most.
dering state, the conductor of a Russian “Peter the Great,” he replied. “But he is
train to nowhere. “Stalin proved that dead,” the Financial Times’ editor,
just one person could manage the Lionel Barber, said. “He will live as long
country,” went one of those many jokes. as his cause is alive,” Putin responded.
“Brezhnev proved that a country doesn’t No matter how contrived his admira-
need to be managed at all.” tion for Peter the Great, Putin has in
Putin, a ruler at a time when manage- fact styled himself a tsar as much as a
ment, or at least the appearance thereof, is Soviet general secretary over the course
required, prefers other models. The one of his two decades in public life. The
he has liked the longest is, immodestly, religion he grew up worshiping was not
Peter the Great. In the obscurity and the Marxist-Leninist ideology he was
criminality of post-Soviet St. Petersburg force-fed in school but the heroic
in the 1990s, when Putin was deputy displays of superpower might he saw on
mayor, he chose to hang on his office wall television and the imperial grandeur of
a portrait of the modernizing tsar who his faded but still ambitious hometown,
Peter’s town. Strength was and is his
SUSAN B. GLASSER is a staff writer for The
New Yorker and former Moscow co-bureau chief dogma, whether for countries or men,
for The Washington Post. and the Russian emperors’ motto
10 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Putin the Great
September/October 2019 11
Susan B. Glasser
12 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Putin the Great
September/October 2019 13
Susan B. Glasser
East Germany and the poverty he was presidential administration to head of the
used to back home. Now, he saw his post-Soviet successor to the KGB, known
country’s leadership, weak and uncertain, as the Federal Security Service, or FSB.
abandon him, too. “We cannot do From there, he was appointed prime
anything without orders from Moscow,” minister, one in a series of what had been
he was told. “And Moscow is silent.” up until then replaceable young Yeltsin
This is perhaps the most memorable acolytes. Putin, however, was different,
passage from Putin’s 2000 as-told-to launching a brutal war in the breakaway
memoir, First Person, which remains both republic of Chechnya in response to a
the key source for understanding the series of domestic terrorist attacks whose
Russian president’s history and a prescient murky origins continue to inspire con-
document in which he laid out much of spiracy theories about the FSB’s possible
the political program he would soon start role. His displays of macho activism
implementing. The revolution in East transformed Russian politics, and Yel-
Germany, as scarring as it was for Putin, tsin’s advisers decided that this KGB
turned out to be only the prelude to veteran—still only in his 40s—would be
what he considered and still considers just the sort of loyalist who could protect
the greater catastrophe, the collapse and them. In March 2000, Putin won the first
dissolution of the Soviet Union itself, of what would be four presidential
in 1991. This was the signal moment of elections. As in those that followed, there
Putin’s adult life, the tragedy whose was no serious competition, and Putin
consequences he is determined to undo. never felt compelled to offer an electoral
Putin would go from his KGB posting program or a policy platform.
in the backwater of Dresden to presi- But his agenda from the start was
dent of Russia in less than a decade, both clear and acted on with breathtaking
ascending to the Kremlin on New Year’s speed. In just over a year, Putin not
Eve in 1999 as Boris Yeltsin’s handpicked only continued to wage the war in
successor. Yeltsin, aging and alcoholic, Chechnya with unforgiving force but
had brought democracy to Russia after also reinstated the Soviet national
the Soviet collapse but had soured his anthem, ordered the government takeover
country on the word itself, which had of the only independent television
come to be associated with economic network in Russia’s history, passed a new
crisis, gangster rampages, and the crooked flat tax on income and required Russians
giveaway of state assets to communist to actually pay it, and exiled powerful
insiders turned capitalists. By the end of oligarchs—including Boris Berezovsky,
his two terms in office, Yeltsin was barely who had helped him come to power and
able to speak in public and was sur- would later suspiciously turn up dead in
rounded by a corrupt “Family” of relatives his British home. Over the next few
and associates who feared they would years, Putin would further consolidate
face prosecution once they lost the his authority, canceling elections for
protection of his high office. regional governors, eliminating politi-
Putin had arrived in Moscow at an cal competition in the State Duma,
opportune moment, rising in just a few and surrounding himself with loyal
years from an obscure job in Yeltsin’s advisers from the security services and
14 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Putin the Great
St. Petersburg. He also, in 2004, arrested approaching it, but the absence of
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s richest something—namely, the upheaval that
man, and seized his oil company in a preceded him. “Ultimately,” he said in the
politically charged prosecution that had same interview, “the well-being of the
the intended effect of scaring Russia’s people depends, possibly primarily, on
wealthy robber barons into subservience. stability.” It might as well have been his
These actions, even at the time, were slogan for the last 20 years. Where once
not difficult to read. Putin was a KGB there was chaos and collapse, he claims to
man in full, an authoritarian modernizer, offer Russia confidence, self-sufficiency,
a believer in order and stability. And yet and a “stable, normal, safe and predict-
he was called a mystery, a cipher, an able life.” Not a good life, or even a better
ideological blank slate—“Mr. Nobody,” one, not world domination or anything
the Kremlinologist Lilia Shevtsova too grand, but a Russia that is reliable,
dubbed him. Perhaps only U.S. Presi- stolid, intact. This may or may not
dent George W. Bush found Putin to be continue to resonate with Russians as the
“very straightforward and trustworthy” collapse of the Soviet Union recedes
after getting “a sense of his soul,” as he further and further from living memory.
announced after their initial 2001 It is the promise of a Brezhnev, or at
summit meeting in Slovenia, but Bush least his modern heir.
was not alone in considering Putin a
Western-oriented reformer who, although MISUNDERESTIMATING PUTIN
certainly no democrat, might prove to be Today, Putin is no more a man of mystery
a reliable partner after Yeltsin’s embarrass- than he was when he took power two
ing stumbles. At the World Economic decades ago. What’s most remarkable,
Forum in Davos a year earlier, an Ameri- knowing what we know now, is that so
can journalist had asked the new Russian many thought he was.
president point-blank, “Who is Mr. There are many reasons for the
Putin?” But of course, it was the wrong mistake. Outsiders have always judged
question. Everyone already knew, or Russia on their own terms, and Ameri-
should have. cans are particularly myopic when it
In many ways, Putin has been strik- comes to understanding other coun-
ingly consistent. The president who tries. Putin’s rise from nowhere received
made headlines in 2004 by calling the more attention than where he intended
breakup of the Soviet Union “the great- to take the country. Many failed to take
est geopolitical catastrophe of the Putin either seriously or literally until it
twentieth century” is the same president was too late, or decided that what he
of today, the one who told the Financial was doing did not matter all that much
Times earlier this year that “as for the in a country that U.S. President Barack
tragedy related to the dissolution of the Obama characterized as a “regional
Soviet Union, that is something obvi- power.” Often, Western policymakers
ous.” For Putin, the goal of the state simply believed his lies. I will never
remains what it was when he came to forget one encounter with a senior Bush
office two decades ago. It is not a policy administration official in the months
program, not democracy or anything just before Putin decided to stay in
September/October 2019 15
Susan B. Glasser
power past his constitutionally limited outlier. Russia was a declining power,
two terms and engineered his temporary “Upper Volta with nukes,” as critics used
shift to the Russian premiership. That to call the Soviet Union. Putin’s project of
would not happen, I was told. Why? restoring order was necessary, and at least
Because Putin had looked the official in not a significant threat. How could it be
the eye and said he wouldn’t do it. otherwise? On September 9, 2001, I and a
In general, U.S. interpretations of few dozen other Moscow-based corre-
Putin’s Russia have been determined far spondents traveled to neighboring Belarus
more by the politics of Washington than to observe the rigged elections in which
by what has actually been happening in Alexander Lukashenko was ensuring his
Moscow. Cold Warriors have looked continuation as president. We treated the
backward and seen the Soviet Union 2.0. story as a Cold War relic; Lukashenko
Others, including Bush and Obama at was “the last dictator in Europe,” as the
the outset of their presidencies and now headlines called him, a living Soviet
Trump, have dreamed of a Russia that anachronism. It was simply inconceivable
could be a pragmatic partner for the West, to us that two decades later, both Luka-
persisting in this despite the rapidly shenko and Putin would still be ruling, and
accumulating evidence of Putin’s aggres- we would be wondering how many more
sively revisionist, inevitably zero-sum dictators in Europe might join their club.
vision of a world in which Russia’s History has shown that just because
national revival will succeed only at the something is inconceivable does not mean
expense of other states. it won’t happen. But that is an important
There are many reasons why the reason we got Putin wrong, and why, all
West misunderestimated Putin, as Bush too often, we still do. Putin is only nine
might have put it, but one stands out years away from hitting Stalin’s modern
with the clarity of hindsight: Westerners record for Kremlin longevity, which
simply had no framework for a world in appears to be more than achievable. But
which autocracy, not democracy, would the West’s long history of misreading
be on the rise, for a post–Cold War Russia suggests that this outcome is no
geopolitics in which revisionist powers more preordained than Putin’s improb-
such as Russia and China would compete able path to the Russian presidency
on more equal terms again with the was in the first place. We may have
United States. After the Soviet collapse, misunderestimated him before, but that
the United States had gotten used to the doesn’t mean we might not mis-
idea of itself as the world’s sole super- overestimate him now. The warning
power, and a virtuous one at that. Under- signs are all there: the shrinking
standing Putin and what he represents economy, the shrill nationalism as a
seems a lot easier today than it did then, distraction from internal decay, an
now that the number of democracies in inward-looking elite feuding over the
the world, by Freedom House’s count, division of spoils while taking its
has fallen each year for the past 13 years. monopoly on power for granted. Will
When Putin came to power, it seemed this be Putin’s undoing? Who knows?
as though the world was going in the But the ghost of Brezhnev is alive and
opposite direction. Putin had to be an well in Putin’s Kremlin.∂
16 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Discover Graduate Education at t
DAVID L. BOREN
COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
The UNIVERSITY of OKLAHOMA
Visit www.ou.edu/international.
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Return to Table of Contents
W
hen Joe Biden met Xi Jinping of the Red Guards in the Cultural
in 2011, China’s leader in Revolution. Radicals harassed his son
waiting hit the U.S. vice and banished him to the countryside.
president with a volley of questions The father was not rehabilitated until
about U.S. politics. How did the system the late 1970s, after Mao had died. But as
work? What was the relationship Xi made clear to his visitors, he would
between the White House and Congress? not repudiate Mao. He revered him.
How should Beijing interpret the Biden and his advisers left China
political signals coming out of Wash- with the impression that Xi would be
ington? For Biden and his advisers, tougher to deal with than Hu, more
these were welcome questions after ambitious on behalf of his country and
nearly a decade of frustration in dealing more assertive about prosecuting its
with Xi’s predecessor, the colorless, interests. They were right, but even so,
impenetrable Hu Jintao. they probably underestimated him. In
But over meetings and meals in the years since he took power, Xi has
Beijing and Chengdu, the capital of harshly suppressed internal dissent,
Sichuan Province, the American visitors executed a sweeping anticorruption
were struck by Xi’s animation on campaign, and adopted a bold, expansive
another topic. Chinese leaders are foreign policy that has directly chal-
generally cautious about straying too lenged the United States. Few foresaw
deeply into their own biographies. the extent of Xi’s ambition before he
Recounting their personal stories in front took over as leader.
of Chinese officials, let alone foreign- There has been much handwringing
ers, involves traversing recent Chinese in the West in recent years about how
political history, a minefield of purges, so many got China, and Xi, so wrong.
betrayals, and ideological about-faces. Foreign analysts have habitually confused
Xi, however, talked unprompted Western beliefs about how China should
about his father, Xi Zhongxun, a revolu- reform with the party’s convictions about
tionary from the early days of the how to govern the country. But as mis-
Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and guided as many foreigners might have
been, even Xi’s colleagues don’t appear
RICHARD McGREGOR is a Senior Fellow at to have known what they were getting
the Lowy Institute and the author of Xi Jinping:
The Backlash (Penguin Books Australia, 2019), when, in 2007, they tapped him to take
from which this essay is adapted. over from Hu in five years’ time.
18 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Party Man
September/October 2019 19
Richard McGregor
Xi has always been a true believer in limited experience with power, those
the party’s right to rule China. For who have been far away from it, tend to
him, the centrality of the party, of Mao, regard these things as mysterious and
and of the communist canon are all of a novel,” he said in an interview pub-
piece. To deny one part of the CCP’s lished in 2000. “But I look past the
history is to deny all of it. In Xi’s eyes, a superficial things: the power, the flowers,
Chinese leader must be above all Red, the glory and the applause. I see the
meaning loyal to the Communist Party, detention houses and the fickleness of
its leader, and its ideological roots, in human nature. That gave me an under-
good times and bad. standing of politics on a deeper level.”
By the time he took office, Xi seemed Xi was only accepted as a full member of
possessed by a deep fear that the pillars the CCP in 1974. But once he was in, he
of party rule—the military, the state- began a steady climb to the top.
owned enterprises, the security appara- These days, only China’s best and
tus, and the propaganda machine—were brightest qualify to enter the presti-
corrupt and crumbling. So he set out on gious Tsinghua University, in Beijing,
a rescue mission. He would be the but Xi was admitted in 1975, before the
Reddest leader of his generation. And he university revived formal entrance
expected all party members to follow in exams, as part of the “worker, soldier,
his footsteps, or else. peasant” intake. (Much of the Chinese
intelligentsia still looks down on Xi as
BORN RED poorly educated.) After graduating, Xi
Xi’s early years tracked both the donned a soldier’s uniform to work as
privilege afforded to the families of top an assistant to one of his father’s closest
leaders and the perils they faced once comrades, Geng Biao, at the Central
the political winds changed direction. Military Commission, an experience
As a boy, Xi attended an elite school in that gave him an important bond with
Beijing and would visit his father in the armed forces. Xi was setting out on
Zhongnanhai, the sprawling compound the classic career path of an up-and-
next to the Forbidden City where top coming apparatchik. After leaving the
leaders lived and worked. Once Mao military commission, he served as
unleashed the Cultural Revolution, in deputy party secretary in Hebei, near
the mid-1960s, Xi’s world turned Beijing, and in Fujian, on the coast
upside down. He was detained by Red across from Taiwan, eventually rising to
Guards and forced to go through a become governor of the province in
ritual denunciation of his father. When 2000. In 2002, he became governor and
he was dispatched to the countryside then party secretary of Zhejiang, a
along with other elite city dwellers, province near Shanghai.
the 17-year-old Xi struggled with the Fujian and Zhejiang stand out in
harsh conditions. China as bastions of thriving private
The time he spent in Liangjiahe, an enterprise. Fujian was an important
impoverished village in northwestern gateway for investors from nearby
China, scarred him but also readied him Taiwan. Zhejiang is home to a number
for the battles ahead. “People who have of China’s most successful private
20 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
companies, including the e-commerce
giant Alibaba and the automaker Geely.
PARDEE SCHOOL
When Xi became China’s paramount
leader, in 2012, the Western media
latched on to his provincial pedigree to
Citizen
talk up his appreciation for markets.
Zhejiang’s capitalist spirit had rubbed
Scholar
off on Xi, Bloomberg News reported,
quoting Lu Guanqiu, a businessman
Leader
who owned and ran Wanxiang Group, a
car parts manufacturer. “When Xi
becomes general secretary, he’ll be even
more open and will pay even more
attention to private enterprise and the
people’s livelihood,” Lu said. But
digging deeper into Xi’s statements and
writings on the economy during his
time in Fujian and Zhejiang reveals a
dogged supporter of party orthodoxy.
Xi has always talked about balancing
development between the state and the
entrepreneurial economy. In practice, BU
ST
however, that has meant propping up the UD
EN
TS
O .
state sector to ensure it didn’t get eaten N ST
UDY TOUR OF CUBA
up by entrepreneurs.
It wasn’t until early 2007, when the MA in International Affairs
party leadership abruptly moved him to MA in Global Policy
Shanghai to be party secretary of
One-year MA in
China’s second city, that Xi came firmly International Relations
into the frame as a possible successor to
Hu. According to convention, the MA in Latin
party congress in late 2007 would pick American Studies
someone to take over five years later, MA International
when Hu was due to step down after Relations & JD
two terms as president. Xi emerged as a MA in International
compromise candidate. His chief rivals, Relations & MBA
Li Keqiang and Li Yuanchao, were both
from the Communist Youth League, as
was Hu. For party elders, the idea that bu.edu/PardeeSchool @BUPardeeSchool
a candidate from the youth league
would take the reins for another decade Frederick S. Pardee
was unacceptable, as that would have School of Global Studies
entrenched the power of a single faction
at the expense of the others.
21
Richard McGregor
22 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
just like that,” he said in a 2012 speech.
“Proportionally, the Soviet Communist
TWO TITANS
Party had more members than we do,
but nobody was man enough to stand up
and resist.” China had studied the
collapse of the Soviet Union intensely in
CLASH OVER TRADE.
its immediate aftermath. Nearly a
quarter of a century later, Xi was wor-
ried enough about the state of the party
to make everyone from senior leaders to
rank-and-file officials go back to class
and learn the lessons of the Soviet
collapse again. “To dismiss the history
of the Soviet Union and the Soviet
Communist Party, to dismiss Lenin and
Stalin, and to dismiss everything else is
to engage in historic nihilism,” he said in
another 2012 speech. “It confuses our
thoughts and undermines the party’s
organizations on all levels.”
Leadership rivals and ideological rot
spurred Xi into a frenzy of action.
During his first 200 days in office, he
covered an extraordinary breadth of
policy areas and implemented changes at
an astonishing pace. Within weeks, he
had attached a brand—“the Chinese
dream”—to his administration, established
strict new rules governing the behavior
COMING 10 SEP 2019
of officials, and laid down markers on
what ideas could and couldn’t be discussed, China´s entry into the World Trade Organization
cracking down on a liberal newspaper in in 2001 was heralded as historic, and for good
reason: the world´s most populous nation was
southern China over its promotion of joining the rules-based system that has governed
“constitutionalism,” a dirty word in a international commerce since World War II. But
the full ramifications of that event are only now
single-party state. He also started locking becoming apparent, as the Chinese economic
up the party’s critics. Activist lawyers juggernaut has evolved in unanticipated and
who had carved out a small space to profoundly troublesome ways.
23
Richard McGregor
Quanzhang, was not formally sentenced targeted some of Xi’s rivals, but it has
until January of this year, after four gone far beyond his enemies list.
years in detention. To illustrate the pitiless nature of the
Xi kept up the breakneck pace through anticorruption drive, consider the case of
2013. In September of that year, he Zhang Yang, who was one of China’s
unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative, most senior generals and the head of the
which made concrete Beijing’s plan to military’s Political Work Department,
develop and dominate the land and sea which polices ideological loyalty in the
routes connecting Eurasia and the Indian military. To the public, Zhang had been a
Ocean and thus make China the hub colorless apparatchik, distinguished in
of business and technology all the way to official pictures only by his military
Europe. Xi established the Asian Infra- uniform, moonish features, and jet-black
structure Investment Bank, over U.S. comb-over. Within the system, however,
objections. He set targets to eradicate he was a powerful player. In 2017, Zhang
poverty in China by end of 2020, the was found hanging from the ceiling at his
100th anniversary of the founding of the mansion in Guangzhou, across the border
CCP. He raised the temperature on from Hong Kong. The first sign that his
Taiwan, calling it a “political issue that suicide was related to corruption came in
can’t be passed on for generations.” Soon the press coverage of his death. Despite
after, China set about executing a long- his decades of service and his seniority,
held plan to build large military bases in Zhang received anything but a respectful
the South China Sea. sendoff. The military’s official newspaper
Most important of all, Xi launched his called him a man “with no moral bottom”
anticorruption campaign, appointing as and said that his death was “a shameful
its head Wang Qishan, one of the tough- way to end his life” and “a bad move to
est and most capable officials of his escape punishment.” The party’s pursuit of
generation. The scale of the resulting Zhang did not end with his burial. Nearly
purge is almost incomprehensible: since a year later, in late 2018, he was expelled
late 2012, when the campaign began, from the CCP—the party’s way of render-
authorities have investigated more than ing an official guilty verdict.
2.7 million officials and punished more Xi’s effort to concentrate power in his
than 1.5 million of them. They include own hands peaked at the end of his first
seven members of the Politburo and the term, in 2017. According to the evolving
cabinet and about two dozen high-ranking conventions of top-level Chinese politics,
generals. Two senior officials have been this should have been the moment when
sentenced to death. The party has more Xi nominated a successor to take over in
than 90 million members, but after 2022. Instead, he abolished the rule
excluding the farmers, the elderly, and limiting presidencies to two five-year
the retired, all of whom were largely terms, effectively making himself leader
spared, the purge amounts to a genera- in perpetuity.
tional clear-out. The sheer numbers give
the lie to the charge that the anticorrup- NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
tion campaign is merely a political purge Xi has chosen to govern China as a
in disguise. Certainly, the campaign has crisis manager. That might help him in
24 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Party Man
China’s immediate rivalry with the United For Canada, the wake-up call came last
States. But along the way, his enemies December, when Vancouver police
at home and his critics abroad have detained a senior executive from the
piled up. Thousands of wealthy Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei for
families and their associates who have extradition to the United States, only to
seen their lives of luxury and privilege see Chinese authorities arrest two Cana-
destroyed in the anticorruption campaign dian citizens in China and hold them as
will carry their anger at Xi for genera- virtual hostages. In Hong Kong, millions
tions. The technocratic elite feels betrayed marched in June against a proposed law
by Xi’s across-the-board power grab, that would have permitted extradition to
his trashing of emerging legal reforms, and the mainland, testing Xi’s resolve and his
his coddling of the state economy. willingness and ability to compromise.
Until recently, Xi rarely commented on Even Mao had leadership rivals. Xi
the private sector, which is responsible has ensured for the moment that he has
for about 70 percent of the country’s none. There is good reason to think, as
economic output and an even greater many Chinese officials and scholars do,
proportion of its job creation. His rhetori- that Xi’s overreach will come back to
cal about-face on this issue late last haunt him before the next party congress,
year, when Xi invited a group of entre- in late 2022, especially if the Chinese
preneurs to a morale-boosting meeting economy struggles. By then, potential
at the Great Hall of the People, was a rare rivals might be willing to risk making
sign of a course correction. In the short their ambitions public. Xi might follow
term, Xi has been lifted by a rally-round- the path that has served him well so far
the-flag mood prompted by the trade war and try to take them out. He might be
with the United States and President able to leverage the regime’s weakness
Donald Trump’s erratic antagonism. But at home and China’s battles abroad to
none of the problems that have festered justify his continued rule. Or perhaps he
on Xi’s watch are going away. will finally admit that he, too, is mortal
Overseas, the backlash to Xi’s China and lay out a timetable to step down.
is gathering momentum. The United Xi has displayed remarkable boldness
States is confronting China on everything and agility in bending the vast, sprawling
from its trade practices to its military party system to his will. Sooner or later,
buildup. Germany, by contrast, is focused however, as recent Chinese history has
not on relative military might but on shown, the system will catch up with him.
industrial competitiveness. Australia, like It is only a question of when.∂
many countries in Asia, fears being left
to fend for itself in a region no longer
anchored by U.S. power. Japan worries
that China wants to not only dominate
the seas surrounding it but also settle
historical scores. Taiwan, a self-governing
island for decades, fears it will be gob-
bled up by the mainland. Southeast
Asian nations already feel overshadowed.
September/October 2019 25
Return to Table of Contents
R
ecep Tayyip Erdogan is the most become the world’s largest prison for
baffling politician to emerge in journalists. Filmmakers, novelists, pho-
the 96-year history of Turkey. tographers, and scholars are also among
He is polarizing and popular, autocratic the imprisoned. Turkey has banned gay
and fatherly, calculating and listless. Erdo- and transgender pride marches since 2015;
gan’s ideology shifts every few years, and Wikipedia has been blocked since 2017.
he appears to make up his road map as he In the wake of a financial crisis
goes along. He is short-tempered: he earlier this year, candidates who were
grabs cigarette packs from citizens to try aligned with Erdogan lost support in
to force them into quitting, scolds report- local elections. But even as his party’s
ers who ask tough questions, and once allure diminishes, Erdogan may win a
walked off the stage after an angry third presidential term in 2023. If that
exchange with the Israeli president at the happens, and Erdogan leaves office in
World Economic Forum in Davos. But he 2028, he will go down in history as
can also be extremely patient. It has Turkey’s second-longest-serving presi-
taken him 16 years to forge what he calls dent, a year shy of Kemal Ataturk’s rule.
“the new Turkey,” an economically Ataturk, “father of the Turks,” was an
self-reliant country with a marginalized Ottoman general who abolished the
opposition and a subservient press. caliphate in 1924 and modernized Turkey
This mix of anger and calm has made by force over the 1930s. Under his single-
Erdogan increasingly successful at the party regime, Ataturk forged a modern
ballot box. He became prime minister in nation-state from the ashes of a collapsed
2003 after his party won 34 percent of empire, built a modern bureaucracy,
the vote, and by 2011, its share had risen supported the creation of a Turkish
to just shy of 50 percent. In 2014, when bourgeoisie, and convinced a Muslim
he ran for president in order to central- nation to allow Western modernity into
ize his authority, more than half of Turks their lives. Erdogan initially criticized
who cast a ballot voted for him. They Ataturk’s centralized remaking of Turkey,
did so again in 2018, by which time blaming him for his highhanded style
they had also voted to do away with the of rule. But since 2008, when Erdogan
post of prime minister altogether. started having to balance various factions
of the bureaucracy, and even more so
KAYA GENC is the author of Under the Shadow: after 2013, when Turks took to the public
Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey. squares to protest his policies, Erdogan
26 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Erdogan’s Way
September/October 2019 27
Kaya Genc
has adopted strikingly similar methods. crusader mentality” and described the
Ironically, the politician he first sought International Monetary Fund and the
to distance himself from is the one he Organization for Economic Cooperation
has come to resemble the most. and Development as its modern incar-
nations. Erdogan and his ilk opposed
YOUNG TURK the absence of Islamic references in the
Erdogan was born in 1954, 16 years after public domain: in their view, the secular
Ataturk’s death, in Kasimpasa, a rough government did not deserve respect as
Istanbul neighborhood of open sewers long as it did not respect Islam.
and muddy streets, famed for its fire- In 1985, Erdogan had a chance to
fighters, pickpockets, and Romani prove his organizational skills to Is-
musicians. The son of a ferry captain, lamist elders when he arranged a boxing
Erdogan made pocket money by selling match occasioned by the visit of
Turkish bagels when he wasn’t studying Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of a
at a religious school. On his way home, CIA-backed mujahideen group, who was
as dusk fell in Istanbul, he would use in Turkey to celebrate Erbakan’s return
the deck of a cargo ship anchored in the to politics five years after being ban-
Golden Horn to practice reciting the ished from political life. Erdogan also
Koran, earning plaudits for his oratory. aligned himself with the Naqshbandi
But Erdogan also played soccer, dreamed Sufi order in Istanbul, an influential
of a career in sports, and rebelled against movement that provided the religious
patriarchy: his fellow Islamists did not connections that would aid his rise to
approve of his athletic shorts, and his power. In those years, Istanbul’s city
father asked him to land a proper job. government had hired Erdogan as a
Erdogan was 15 years old when, in player on its soccer team, but the team’s
1969, the leading Islamist politician in ban on Islamic beards forced him to
Turkish history, Necmettin Erbakan, resign. After completing his mandatory
published the manifesto Millî Görüş year of military service, Erdogan
(National Vision). Erbakan called on worked as an administrator at a sausage
Turkey to sever ties with the European factory; soon, Islamists invited him to
Economic Community (the precursor of work full time for Erbakan’s party—now
the EU) and align with pan-Islamist rebranded as the Welfare Party after
leaders in Bangladesh and Pakistan and previous incarnations were banned—
across the rest of the Muslim world. and there he raised funds from mem-
From the moment a teenage Erdogan bers to pay his wages. As the party’s
joined the youth branch of Erbakan’s provincial head in Istanbul, Erdogan
National Salvation Party, his political delivered speeches against “the evil new
instincts were shaped by this mindset. world order,” protested the Gulf War,
Erbakan’s movement supported the and defended the cause of Islamic rebel
mujahideen in Afghanistan in their fight groups in the Algerian civil war.
against the Soviets and Ruhollah Erdogan distinguished himself from
Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution in Iran. other Islamists through his calculated
At political rallies, party leaders pragmatism, ushering in a tectonic shift
condemned what they termed “the West’s in Turkish politics over the 1990s. “We
28 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Erdogan’s Way
don’t need bearded men who are good attributed to Aristotle, “Plato is my
Koran reciters; we need people who do friend, but truth is a better friend.”)
their job properly,” Erdogan would later The vehicle for Erdogan’s ambitions
say. As part of this drive, Erdogan was the Justice and Development
established a network of volunteers who Party—known by its Turkish abbrevia-
could put tens of thousands of party tion, AKP—which he formed in 2001. At
posters on walls in a few hours and a press conference announcing the new
distribute handouts to voters during party, Erdogan listed democratization
morning commutes. These were his and pluralism as its ideological corner-
“nerve ends,” he said, capable of send- stones. His movement, he claimed, was
ing signals from the Welfare Party’s based on power sharing: “A cadre will
administration to voters. Erdogan also run the party, and decisions won’t be
used another analogy to describe his taken under the shadow of one leader.”
organization: a “brick wall,” carefully He described his own role as an “or-
laid and difficult to break. chestra chief,” proclaiming that the “age
These grass-roots efforts paid off in of me-centered politics is over.” Erdo-
1994, when Erdogan was elected Istanbul’s gan founded the AKP with two other
mayor. He made public transportation veterans of the Welfare Party, Abdullah
free of charge during Islamic holidays, Gul and Bulent Arinc, and the troika
banned alcohol in municipal facilities, had charisma, support from Turkey’s
and lifted employment restrictions on Anatolian heartland, and a novel idea:
women who wore headscarves. When a that European integration and the
reporter asked him to explain his success, protections of religious freedom offered
he replied, “I am Istanbul’s imam.” by the EU were good for the pious and
Erdogan’s bravado alarmed secularists that democratization was in the interest
and generals, and his rising career was of conservative Turks. “We used to see
soon endangered: in 1998, Turkey’s the Turkish state as a leviathan that
highest court shut down the Welfare oppressed the religious and the poor,”
Party, and after a fiery speech at a rally, Arinc recalled. “Now, the EU negotia-
Erdogan was charged with inciting hatred tion process convinced us the Turkish
and sentenced to ten months in prison. state can be democratized.” Erdogan
The legal stain, which the judiciary also noted that because of the undemo-
planned as a way to terminate his career, cratic nature of the Turkish establish-
maximized Erdogan’s popularity, since ment, his “conservative democratic”
pious Turks now viewed him as their party could be considered “antiestab-
voice, which the state wanted to silence. lishment” without calling itself an
By the time he left prison, Erdogan was Islamist party, reaping the benefits of
ready to take the path to power. outsider status while maintaining wide
It was then that Erdogan moved appeal. It would become a winning
from local to national politics, defying formula for years to come.
the ban on his political activities and The AKP won Turkey’s 2002 elections
leading a breakaway group from Er- with 34 percent of the vote; the runner-up
bakan’s party. (He explained the rift received 19 percent. Earlier conservative
with his mentor by repeating a maxim parties had also won landslides—the
September/October 2019 29
Kaya Genc
Democrat Party in 1950, Justice in 1965, him not for his perceived reformism
and Motherland in 1983—but the but for the conservative values he had
leaders of those movements fared poorly defended early in his career.
once in power. Turkish generals hanged “In the heart of every Turkish citizen
one on the gallows, ousted another in a lies the desire to become president,”
coup, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to Suleyman Demirel, a poor shepherd
keep the third away from power. Erdo- boy who fulfilled that desire in 1993,
gan was determined to avoid a similar once said. Erdogan’s rise, like Demirel’s,
fate. In 2004, he pledged to curtail the is an inspiring example of upward
military’s long-standing dominance of mobility. Yet as with most good coming-
politics and demote the chief of the of-age stories, the hero in Erdogan’s
Turkish general staff, once a demigod, to bildungsroman has another character
a public servant. These promises won trait: vulnerability. In the tradition of
him support from liberals. But Turkey’s wronged conservative politicians before
military tutelage wasn’t replaced by him, Erdogan has presented himself as
democracy; rather, as the scholars Simon a precarious leader who needs to be
Waldman and Emre Caliskan have defended. In 2006, when he fainted
written, it gave way over the 2010s to inside his car after his blood pressure
“AKP patrimony.” “Instead of consensus fell, panicked advisers rushed out for
politics and pluralism,” they point out, help before the armored Mercedes
“the Erdogan years . . . have often been automatically locked its doors. Guards
highly divisive and autocratic in style.” had to break the windshield with
Around this time, Erdogan parted ways hammers to rescue him. The episode
with liberals and started making moves only added to the myth of a wronged
toward establishing a presidential man, betrayed by those closest to him.
system, which would present fewer Yet Erdogan has also changed his
obstacles to his exercise of power. self-presentation over time, from anti-
Western Islamist to conservative demo-
OUTSOURCING THE STATE crat. As the Turkish journalist Rusen
Erdogan, who is six feet tall, walks with a Cakir has written, Erdogan, when he
confident stride: his right shoulder faces moved from local to national politics in
forward, while the left shoulder waits the late 1990s, “wasn’t comfortable
in the back. The walk, known as “the with the ‘liberal’ moniker, which he
Kasimpasali march,” after his boyhood considered a swearword,” but because he
neighborhood, sums up the man. Follow- had been marginalized by the old guard,
ing his imprisonment, Erdogan resisted liberals thought of him as a bridge
pleas to become a Turkish Nelson Man- between the establishment and “the
dela and instead cultivated the image of a organizational power and dynamic
külhanbeyi, a roughneck who prowled the voting-base of Islamists.” To realize its
streets of Istanbul during the Ottoman vision of an Islamist movement compat-
period. By evoking that figure, he was ible with the global order, the AKP
able to emphasize his humble beginnings joined the Alliance of Conservatives and
and consolidate his pious base, the Reformists in Europe, a Europe-wide
disenfranchised Islamists who supported political party aimed at reforming, rather
30 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
than rejecting, the EU. Back home, the
AKP developed a strategy of forming
alliances to control the Turkish state.
In exercising his power, Erdogan worked
with both competent bureaucrats and
Islamists with political aspirations but
little technical know-how. “Other parties
have voters,” his teacher Erbakan fa-
mously said. “We have believers.” The
challenge for Erdogan was to retain the
Bring the
believers even as he pushed for market REAL WORLD
reforms and accession to the EU.
But therein lay a problem. Erdogan to your classroom
had no cadres to fill the state bureauc-
racy. Competent functionaries mostly
belonged to other political camps.
Although the Islamist bureaucrats tended
Case Studies
to be skilled at providing public health
and transportation services, they showed
little interest in education, policing, or
American foreign policy
intelligence work. And so Erdogan
resurrected the Ottoman tradition of Global institutions
indirect rule. He outsourced different
components of the state—the judiciary,
Terrorism & security
the police force, and the military—to
different power players. Between 2003 International trade
and 2013, the old-school bureaucrats who Women, peace and security
opposed the AKP’s globalist agenda were
Health and science
replaced in the Foreign Ministry and
the judiciary by ambitious new cadres. and more...
Most had backgrounds in the network of
religious schools run by Fethullah Gulen, Join our Faculty Lounge for
an Islamic preacher who has lived in exile
in Pennsylvania since 1999, after being premier access to this unique
accused of seeking to undermine Turkey’s online library of nearly 250
secular order. Gulenists also infiltrated case studies and simulations
the police and the military. — and make diplomacy part
But outsourcing power came with of your course
the price of losing control. Like Otto-
man sultans, omnipotent in their
palaces but ruling at the mercy of local https://casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu/
feudal lords, Erdogan saw his decentral-
ized authority become open to usurpation.
In the military, secular, nationalist
31
Kaya Genc
32 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Erdogan’s Way
September/October 2019 33
Kaya Genc
The alarming state of Turkey’s problems that people care about, but a
economy is a more threatening problem. few dozen officers are hardly sufficient
Last year, the Turkish lira lost 28 percent for a nation of 82 million. For almost a
of its value, and this year, food prices century, elected ministers tackled the
have increased by 30 percent. From July concerns of their constituents; today,
2018 to July 2019, the unemployment appointed members of boards specializing
rate rose by four percent, swelling the in education, culture, and technology
ranks of unemployed Turks from 3.2 have been made responsible for develop-
million to 4.5 million. Further aggravat- ing policy. A corporatist economy and
ing Turks has been the rise in the a culture of favoritism in politics, the
number of Syrian refugees making their media, and the public sector are on the
home in Turkey (more than 3.6 million rise. Majoritarianism increasingly defines
of them, as of June 2019). It was thus domestic politics. In the AKP’s view,
little surprise that in local elections held these tactics of control are necessary to
in March and June, the AKP saw its share keep a multiethnic and polarized country
of the vote fall dramatically in numerous in order. But they in fact deepen the
cities, including the capital, Ankara. systemic failings of Turkish democracy:
In spite of these cracks, the “brick the weakness of institutions, the lack
wall” Erdogan has patiently built of press scrutiny, and the ruthless pace of
remains intact. The AKP has around 11 cultural shifts over the past century.
million party members, ten times as Instead of solving these problems, the
many as the Republican People’s Party, AKP has chosen to be victimized by them.
the party Ataturk founded in 1923. Despite such challenges, Turkey’s
Aligning with the AKP today opens up civil society remains strong. Turkey has
career opportunities for Turks from 52 million active social media users. In
different social classes, much as aligning recent years, initiatives focusing on the
with Ataturk’s party did in the 1930s. security of ballot counting, fact checking
Recently, as if to assist future biogra- in the media, LGBTQ rights, and violence
phers, Erdogan periodized his reign. In against women have gained traction. As
a television interview, he named his the Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has
Islamist years, in the Welfare Party and noted, “Once a country gets too rich and
as mayor of Istanbul, as an “apprentice- complex, the leader may think himself
ship.” His time as a reformist prime to be too powerful, but individuals also
minister was his “journeymanship.” But feel powerful.” Erdogan’s great challenge
it is his years in the presidency that, in over the next decade, as individualism
Erdogan’s view, deserve the privileged grows in Turkey and Islamophobic
title of “mastership.” Now 65, Erdogan populism rises in Europe, will be to
rules with little separation of powers; convince voters that his mixture of anger
that was inevitable, he believes, after the and patience is still a model to follow,
very public betrayal of former allies. In that his formation story can continue to
the presidential palace, plasma screens inspire, and that only his unassailable
track which news stories are most widely ability can steer Turkey to safety. Erdo-
read in the country, requiring specialists gan will no doubt do everything in his
to rapidly address the snowballing power to succeed at this daunting task.∂
34 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recommended
Reading from
IMF Publications
bookstore.IMF.org
I N T E R N A T I O N A L M O N E T A R Y F U N D
Return to Table of Contents
I
n his final year in law school at a its conclusion—“I am used to shooting
Catholic men’s college in Manila, people”—could be construed as a joke, a
Rodrigo Duterte shot a classmate fact, or a threat. Its power, and its
who made fun of his thick accent. The beauty, lay in its ambiguity.
young “Rody,” as Duterte was then Throughout his campaign and his
known, was the son of a provincial early presidency—and, indeed, his
governor on the southern Philippine entire public life—the stories Duterte
island of Mindanao. Like many of the has told and the way he has told them
progeny of the Philippine political have resonated among a broad public.
elite, he had enjoyed a privileged So have the denim jeans, checked
upbringing. He grew up surrounded by shirts, and aviator sunglasses. His
guns and bodyguards, flew his father’s projection of both authenticity and
plane when he was in his hometown, muscular authority has enduring appeal.
and hung out with the sons of local Halfway through his presidential
notables in his Jesuit-run boys’ school. term, Duterte enjoys a satisfaction
In Manila, however, Duterte’s accent, rating that is nearing 80 percent. His
typical of those from the country’s popularity helped propel candidates
southern periphery, marked him as an from his coalition to victory in midterm
unsophisticated provinciano. Hence the elections in May. For the first time in
classmate’s teasing. 80 years, no opposition candidate won a
“I waited for him,” Duterte would seat in the country’s Senate, a tribute
recall nearly 45 years later, when he was to Duterte’s continuing hold on the
running for president and speaking Filipino imagination and the clout of his
before an enthusiastic crowd. “I told allies among the country’s political
myself, ‘I’ll teach him a lesson.’” The clans. Duterte has control of Congress,
classmate survived the shooting, he where his allies constitute an over-
recounted, and presumably learned the whelming majority, and of a Supreme
lesson. And although he was banned Court packed with his appointees. The
from attending graduation, Duterte got liberal opposition has been decimated,
the defeat of its strongest candidates at
SHEILA S. CORONEL is Toni Stabile Profes-
sor of Professional Practice in Investigative the polls both stunning and humiliating.
Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School. Large sections of the press have been
36 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Vigilante President
September/October 2019 37
Sheila S. Coronel
38 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Vigilante President
I also met Jun Pala, the radio broadcaster DAVAO’S DIRTY SECRET
who went around the city with a Smith & Duterte borrowed freely from both the
Wesson revolver tucked inside his denim Communist and the counterinsurgency
jacket and a hand grenade swinging playbooks. He bombarded the media
from his belt. For the six hours a day he with the specter of not communism but
was on the air, Pala called out suspected criminality. Like Pala, he took to the
Communists by name—lawyers, nuns and airwaves, hosting a weekly television show
priests, activists, village officials. in which he ranted against thieves and
It was during this period of terror that drug dealers. During a 2001 episode of
Duterte, a government prosecutor, his Sunday TV program, he read aloud
became involved in Davao politics. When 500 names of drug and crime suspects
Marcos fell and all the local officials from the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
were replaced, Duterte was appointed Carolyn Arguillas, a journalist in Davao,
acting vice mayor, thanks to his mother’s interviewed the mayor about a month
connections with the anti-Marcos opposi- after the broadcast, and she reported that
tion. Two years later, he ran for mayor at least four of those on Duterte’s list
against Pala and a more established had been found dead by the time of the
politician, and won. As mayor, he was interview. Another 17 suspected drug
both a patron of and an arbiter among dealers and cell phone snatchers, includ-
rival groups, pitting them against one ing teenagers, were killed soon after.
other in a divide-and-conquer strategy. The killers were mostly masked or
And as the fighting wound down, he hooded gunmen riding pillion on motor-
co-opted partisans on all sides, bringing cycles, sometimes in broad daylight.
in ex-Communists to work for him in the Sometimes the assassins left cardboard
city government and warning both signs that identified the victims as
criminal gangs and recalcitrant Reds to drug dealers or thieves. These were
move elsewhere—or else. He was cozy demonstration killings, intended as much
with the police; the city’s police chief, to eliminate the targets as to warn others.
Ronald Dela Rosa, was his godson. They were the work of the Davao Death
During his 22-year mayoralty, Duterte Squad, made up of thugs, ex-guerrillas,
ruled like a controlling patriarch. He and out-of-work anticommunist vigilantes
imposed a curfew on minors, banned who gunned down pickpockets, drug
smoking in most public places, restricted peddlers, and other petty criminals.
liquor sales, and cracked down on traffic Amado Picardal, a priest who lived in
violators and petty offenders. He also Davao during this period, recalled
beefed up social welfare programs, set up officiating at a wedding at his church one
one of the most successful 911 emer- afternoon in late 2008. “I heard shots
gency call lines in the country, provided outside, so after mass I went out, and
services for abused women, and built there I saw this probably 15- or 16-year-
clinics for the needy. He made business old sprawled dead on our car park,” he
happy by cutting red tape and investing told me in late 2016, just months after
in infrastructure. Weary citizens wel- Duterte became president. “There were
comed a safer, more efficiently run, and policemen nearby, and they just fired
more affluent Davao. [their guns] in the air as if to allow the
September/October 2019 39
Sheila S. Coronel
40 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Vigilante President
said to have Duterte’s ear. Some of the the new middle class, who are his hard-
president’s more influential cabinet core supporters. These include Filipinos
members—notably Carlos Dominguez III, employed around the world as nannies,
the secretary of finance, and Jesus nurses, seamen, and construction work-
Dureza, who was the presidential ers, as well as those who work in the
adviser on the peace process until last country’s booming call centers in Manila
year—were classmates from Duterte’s and other cities—the digital underclass of
Davao boyhood. the global technology industry.
Duterte’s policing strategy, too, was Duterte’s base is made up of scrappy,
inspired by Davao. The architect of his hard-working, and aspirational men
antidrug campaign and his first police and women. The global economy has
chief as president was Dela Rosa, formerly given them tickets out of poverty but not
Davao’s chief cop and now a senator. to affluence. They are better off than
Dela Rosa introduced the policing tech- the poor, but their life choices are still
nique known as tokhang, a shortened, limited. They cannot afford the fancy
combined form of the Visayan words for condominiums that dominate the skylines
“knock” and “plead,” in which police of the new luxury enclaves, nor do they
and village officials would knock on the shop in the malls that peddle Gucci and
doors of drug suspects and “plead” with Prada. They worry about petty crime,
them to stop their drug activities. On his long commutes, and the prospects of
first day as top cop, Dela Rosa ordered their children. They resent the rich for
all police stations in the country to sucking up the profits from an economy
conduct tokhang operations. Many of those that has been growing, on average, at five
at the receiving end of the door knocks to six percent annually for the past
eventually ended up dead; they were dozen or so years. They also resent the
either shot during police drug stings or poor, who have benefited from antipov-
killed by masked assassins. Duterte’s war erty programs. They are mad because they
on drugs is trademark Davao: the draw- obey the law, pay their taxes, work long
ing up of lists of suspects and then hours, and yet feel squeezed. As the
publicly naming and threatening them, Filipino political scientist Julio Teehan-
the brazen executions by motorcycle- kee has explained,
riding gunmen, the handwritten signs left
alongside corpses, and the incessant The Duterte phenomenon is not a
hyping of drugs as an existential threat. revolt of the poor; it is elite-driven.
The truth is that the level of illegal drug It is the angry protest of the wealthy,
use in the Philippines is lower than newly rich, well off, and the modestly
that in the United States or Thailand, but successful new middle class (includ-
Duterte’s warnings about the drug ing call centre workers, Uber drivers,
scourge have fueled the public’s anxieties and overseas Filipino workers
about safety. abroad). However, instead of feeling
Even now, Duterte spends part of better off, despite robust economic
the week in Davao, professing to be growth during the past six years
of the Aquino presidency, the middle
uncomfortable mingling with Manila
class have suffered from lack of
society. His discomfort resonates among
September/October 2019 41
Sheila S. Coronel
public services, endured the horren- the fall of Marcos’ dictatorship. By then,
dous land and air traffic, feared the the elite democracy that had risen from
breakdown of peace and order, and the ashes of authoritarian rule had lost
silently witnessed their tax money its sheen. The political class elected to
being siphoned by corruption despite
public office post-Marcos was widely seen
promises of improved governance.
as corrupt, inept, or indifferent to the
plight of ordinary people. In 1998, Joseph
THE DUTERTE DISRUPTION Estrada, a former movie star, was
No doubt, Duterte is a disruptor. In his elected president by capitalizing on his
bid for the presidency in 2016, he de- celluloid persona as defender of the
feated the money and machines of more poor. In 2004, his best friend, the charis-
established political players. His cam- matic action star Fernando Poe, Jr.,
paign relied on unpaid volunteers and nearly became president by riding the
Facebook; he became the country’s first same wave. These movie-star politicians
president to be propelled into office by found a solid electoral base among the
the power of social media. Unlike his poorest Filipinos.
predecessors, he cast aside any preten- Where Duterte strayed from the movie
sions of respect for democratic norms. stars’ script was in his decision to
He mocked human rights advocates, appeal not to the poor but to the aspiring
endorsed police killings, and encouraged middle class. Indeed, they have fared
violence against drug users and criminals. well under his presidency. He has given
He set the tone for uncivil discourse in them free tuition in state colleges,
public spaces, especially social media, longer maternity leaves, salary raises for
where his army of trolls, influencers, and those who work for the government,
dedicated followers continue to spew and free WiFi in public places. He has
venom against his critics. also promised to ease traffic and shorten
More important, in office, he has commutes: his centerpiece $170 billion
vitiated the institutional checks on presi- “Build, Build, Build” public works
dential power. He has cracked down on program, funded mainly by China and
the independent press, jailed a senator Japan, will supposedly decongest the
who investigated his death-squad past, and land, air, and sea routes in the country’s
engineered the ouster of an independent- fastest-growing areas.
minded chief justice of the Supreme This is Duterte defining the presidency
Court. He is a vociferous critic of the as if it were the mayoralty writ large.
Catholic Church, which has a history of After Marcos fell, democratic reformers
standing up to presidential overreach. By devolved authority to local governments,
cozying up to China and thumbing his thereby empowering local bosses and
nose at the United States (he famously political clans, the Dutertes among them.
called U.S. President Barack Obama “the Across the country, these families domi-
son of a whore”), he is also upending nate public office in their fiefdoms and
Philippine foreign policy. govern to advance their own interests and
Duterte was not the first Filipino extend their hegemony.
leader to ride the populist wave. He came Duterte belongs to a class of local
to power almost exactly 30 years after officials who have remained in power
42 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Vigilante President
September/October 2019 43
Return to Table of Contents
I
n the summer 1989, the Soviet The demonstration, broadcast live on
Union was beginning to falter, and Hungarian television, finished with six
its grasp on Eastern Europe was speeches. The final one was delivered by
slipping. But in Hungary, the Soviets Viktor Orban, a little-known, 26-year-
were hardly gone yet: Moscow still old activist with a scruffy beard. It was
maintained around 70,000 soldiers, 1,000 just seven minutes long, but it electrified
tanks, and 1,500 armored vehicles there. the crowd and the people watching at
Janos Kadar, who had built and led the home. “If we trust our own strength, then
repressive, Soviet-aligned regime that we will be able to put an end to the
had run the country for the past three communist dictatorship,” declared Orban,
decades, had resigned the previous year, who the previous year had helped
as the economy sputtered and Kadar found the Alliance of Young Democrats,
himself struggled with cancer. But the or Fidesz, a liberal youth movement.
regime centered on Kadar’s Hungarian
If we are determined enough, then we
Socialist Workers’ Party remained intact
can compel the ruling party to face
and still presided over an immense free elections. If we have not lost sight
security apparatus and a network of of the ideas of 1956, we will vote for a
armed militias. government that will at once enter
The momentum, however, was with into negotiations on the immediate
the opposition groups that sought to beginning of the withdrawal of
take advantage of the Soviet decline. Russian troops. If we are courageous
On June 16, they organized a massive enough, then, but only then, we can
demonstration in Heroes’ Square, which fulfill the will of our revolution.
includes a monument to the founders
of the Hungarian state, in central In Hungary at the time, it was still
Budapest. Part memorial service and unusual for anyone to publicly issue such
part protest, the gathering was attended a blunt rebuke of the Soviets. The
by some 250,000 people. On the steps of speech instantly propelled Orban to fame
the monument lay six coffins. Five in his country, and was noticed abroad,
contained the unearthed remains of men as well. Here, it seemed, was a herald of
who had been key leaders of Hungary’s Hungary’s bright, democratic future.
But in the 30 years that have passed
PAUL LENDVAI is the author of Orban:
Hungary’s New Strongman (Oxford University since that day, a staggering reversal has
Press, 2018), from which this essay is adapted. taken place, as Orban has transformed
44 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Transformer
September/October 2019 45
Paul Lendvai
from one of the most promising defend- brother lived in the cramped house of
ers of Hungarian democracy into the his paternal grandparents. When Viktor
chief author of its demise. As Hun- was ten, as a consequence of arguments
gary’s prime minister during the past between his mother and grandmother,
decade, Orban has systematically the family moved to a dilapidated house
dismantled the country’s democratic at the end of the main street in the
institutions, undermined the rule of somewhat larger village of Felcsut. The
law, eliminated constitutional checks circumstances in which he grew up were
and balances, hobbled independent orderly but without doubt very poor.
media, and built a kleptocratic system Orban has recalled how hard he and his
that rewards cronies while sidelining siblings had to work in the fields as
critics. His government does not young children: pulling beets, sorting
depend on naked oppression. Rather, potatoes, feeding the pigs and chickens.
through the distribution of sinecures, The house had no running water. Years
he has assembled around himself an later, Orban described the “unforget-
army of devotees, one that extends far table experience” of using a bathroom for
beyond the administration, the police, the first time, at age 15, and getting hot
the secret services, and the military. water by simply turning on a faucet.
Today, Hungary is at best an “illiberal His family’s fortunes improved in the
democracy”—a term Orban has used to 1970s and 1980s, as his father completed
describe his vision for the country. a university degree and climbed the
Others argue that the country has left ranks of the ruling Socialist Workers’
democratic governance behind alto- Party. Orban was a bright student, and
gether and is now a crude autocracy. his parents sent him to a selective
Looking back, it appears that the grammar school. But years later, he
young man whose rhetoric stirred Hun- described himself in an interview as an
garians in 1989 was no idealist; he was, “unbelievably bad child. Badly misbe-
rather, a budding opportunist getting an haved, cheeky, violent. Not at all likable.”
early taste of power. No great trauma or He added: “At home, I had constant
upheaval can easily account for his whole- problems with discipline; my father beat
sale ideological turnaround in the years me once or twice a year.” Throughout his
that followed: it seems to have simply youth, his brief compulsory stint in the
been the result of an extended series of military, and his university years, his
shrewd political calculations. Far from maxim remained unaltered: “If I’m hit
fulfilling the will of Hungary’s revolution, once, then I hit back twice.”
as he exhorted his fellow Hungarians to One of Orban’s favorite films is Once
do in 1989, Orban has instead fulfilled Upon a Time in the West, a 1968 spaghetti
only his own will to power. Western directed by Sergio Leone, which
arrived in Hungary only in the 1970s,
A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTOCRAT AS when Orban was a teenager. The plot
A YOUNG LIBERAL involves the slaughter of a family; in the
Orban was born in 1963 in the tiny village end, an avenging angel character, played
of Alcsutdoboz, not far from Budapest. by Charles Bronson, shoots the leader of
Initially, he, his parents, and his younger the gang behind the killing. Justice
46 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
prevails. “To persist and to emerge
victorious, it is not enough that the hero
can shoot and knows how to use his
fists,” Orban once told a biographer,
explaining the lesson he took from the
film. “He must also use his brain and
show magnanimity. That is very impor-
tant. You must know and understand your
enemy, you must find out what in reality
makes him tick and then, when things
come to a head, you mustn’t shrink from
the fight but attack and win!”
Gabor Fodor, a rival of Orban’s who
used to be a close friend, once observed
that even as a young man, Orban “was
already possessed of those domineering,
intolerant ways of thinking and behaving
that are all too evident in him today.”
But, Fodor noted, “he was, in addition
to all of this, sincere and likable.” It is a
combination of traits that suggests a
certain ambivalence in Orban’s character,
which perhaps helps explain the ease Kenneth Yamaguchi, Ph.D.
with which he transformed his political Professor, Chemistry
persona later in life.
At Budapest’s Bibo Istvan Special
College, for law students, Orban Join our global community:
became part of a tightly knit group of 100+ countries. 60+ languages.
liberals. One of the college’s chief
patrons was the Hungarian-born
American investor and philanthropist
George Soros, who generously subsi-
dized a student-run journal and lan-
guage courses and trips overseas. In
1988, Orban took a part-time job with
Soros’ organization, which later be-
came the Open Society Foundations. NEW JERSEY
The organization also gave Orban a
grant to attend Oxford University and
CITY UNIVERSITY
conduct research on the idea of civil
society in European political philosophy.
In 1990, Hungary held its first free
elections, which resulted in a center-
right coalition government led by Jozsef
47
Paul Lendvai
48 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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Paul Lendvai
the family, in love of the mother coun- and a half, two years. . . . And in the
try. This was the first major step in meantime, we have, by the way, been
Orban’s decades-long transformation doing nothing for the past four years.
into an autocratic right-wing populist.
There seemed to be no deep ideological Wall-to-wall media coverage of what
soul-searching involved—just clear- became known as Gyurcsany’s “lie
eyed calculations about what it would speech” fueled a massive and passionate
require to win power. attack by the opposition, with Orban
The Socialist–Free Democrat govern- leading the charge against what he
ment struggled under the weight of an called an “illegitimate” government.
unpopular package of economic reforms In the years that followed, Orban
and a corruption scandal, and in the proved to be a devastatingly effective
elections of 1998, Orban’s party tri- opposition leader. In the 2010 elections,
umphed, and he became prime minister. Fidesz won 57 percent of the popular
For the next four years, the Hungarian vote and 263 parliamentary seats. For
economy performed reasonably well, the first time in the history of demo-
and Orban remained extremely popular. cratic Hungary, a political party had
Yet Fidesz, to the surprise of many, lost achieved a two-thirds majority in
the 2002 elections. Partly, the upset parliament. In the nearly a decade since,
followed from Orban’s failure to clearly Orban has used that majority to
distance the party from extreme right- transform Hungary’s constitution,
wing groups, which openly trafficked in institutions, and society.
anti-Semitic rhetoric and even celebrated
the Nazi-allied regime that had ruled THE MAFIA STATE
Hungary in the 1940s. After what he deemed a “revolution at the
Orban’s party spent the next four years ballot box,” Orban did not form a new
in opposition and failed to win back government so much as pursue regime
power in elections in 2006. But a few change. During the electoral campaign,
months later, a political bombshell he had said not a single word about
exploded in Hungary. An audio record- constitutional reform, but in 2011, he
ing emerged, on which the Socialist proudly announced the drafting of an
prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, could entirely new constitution, called the
be heard delivering an obscenity-laced Fundamental Law of Hungary. The new
tirade to fellow party members to constitution was rushed through parlia-
convince them that some painful eco- ment in nine days without any input
nomic reforms had been unavoidable: from the public, much less a referen-
dum. The main victim of the new
We had almost no other choice constitution was the judiciary, especially
[than the package of cuts] because
we fucked up. Not just a little bit but
the Constitutional Court, whose jus-
totally. No other country in Europe tices would be selected not as they had
has committed such stupidities as we been before, through an all-party
have. . . . Obviously we have been parliamentary committee, but directly
lying our heads off for the last one by parliament. With Fidesz holding a
supermajority in parliament, Orban
50 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
could pack the court with sympathetic
judges. He also chipped away at its
authority: among other assaults, in
2013, the Fidesz-dominated parliament MORAL and
T he
voted to strip the Constitutional Court
of the ability to review laws concern-
POLI T I CAL COURAGE
ing state finances and wrote directly of I SRAEL ’s
into the constitution a number of
Fidesz-backed laws that the court had FOUNDI NG FAT HERS
previously overturned.
The media were also in Orban’s sights.
Orban blamed his party’s defeat in 2002
on the publicly funded media networks
and had long dreamed of hobbling them.
With parliament’s support, he brought
together all the government-funded
television and radio networks under a new
conglomerate run by Fidesz supporters.
He then established a centralized media
authority to oversee the organization
and named trusted Fidesz officials to
run it, giving them nine-year terms. As
a result, the public networks are more
tightly supervised today than they were
in the final period of the communist
regime. Hungary’s position on the
World Press Freedom Index, compiled
by Reporters Without Borders, has “Ross and Makovsky have done a real
plummeted from 23rd in 2010, when service.... They tell the story of Ben-Gurion,
Fidesz took power, to 87th this year—one Begin, Rabin and Sharon ... [and] provide
notch below Sierra Leone. guidance for today’s leaders in Israel and for
A further erosion of press freedom all of us on the meaning of leadership.”
occurred last year, when all pro-Fidesz —Hill ary Rodham Clinton,
media owners “donated” their holdings 67th US secretary of state
to a new structure run by three of “A powerful statement on the style and
Orban’s most trusted lieutenants. Dubbed principles of leadership that are critical for
the Central European Press and Media shaping the Middle East peace process.”
Foundation, the organization now
—Henry Kissinger,
consists of 476 media outlets. The 56th US secretary of state
government has exempted it from legal
scrutiny and from regulations governing Available in hardcover, audio, and ebook from
the concentration of media holdings.
Except for one television station owned
by a German company, a small radio
BeStrong FA ad v3 .indd 1 7/18/19 5:43 PM
51
Paul Lendvai
station heard only in Budapest, and a few quarter of 2019, 100,000 people who did
culture-focused weeklies, every single not have jobs were paid by local or
media outlet in the country is now state authorities about half the minimum
controlled by people close to the regime. wage for performing community ser-
Another part of Orban’s strategy has vice; the unemployment figures do not
been to create a socioeconomic elite account for them. Another factor in
that prospers from ties to Fidesz. Under reducing unemployment is the fact that
his watch, the process of awarding since 2015, more than 500,000 Hungar-
government contracts has been corrupted ians are estimated to have found employ-
to an astonishing degree, to the benefit ment abroad, mostly in Austria, Ger-
of Fidesz-connected businesses. many, and the United Kingdom. And
Transparency International has reported despite Orban’s claims to have revived
that in 2018, about 40 percent of public Hungary’s economy, the economist
procurements in Hungary featured only Istvan Csillag has shown that without the
one bidder. Balint Magyar, a sociologist funds Hungary receives from the EU,
and founding member of the Free which amount to between 2.5 billion
Democrats, has called Orban’s Hungary and five billion euros a year (the equiva-
“a post-communist mafia state, led not lent of 2.5 to five percent of GDP), the
by a party, but by Prime Minister Viktor Hungarian economy would collapse. The
Orban’s political-economic clan.” A irony is that even though his country and
sense of impunity has fueled this crony his political survival depend on EU
capitalism, as Fidesz has hollowed out funds, Orban delights in thumbing his
the law enforcement and judicial bodies nose at Brussels, where handwringing
that would normally investigate and over his autocratic abuses of power have
prosecute such misconduct. For example, not been accompanied by meaningful
at Orban’s direction, parliament allowed efforts to rein him in.
Hungary’s chief prosecutor, a Fidesz
loyalist, to serve beyond his term limit “NATION, FAMILY, AND
and then extended his term by nine CHRISTIANITY”
years. Moreover, the prosecutor can no The damage Orban has inflicted on
longer be questioned by parliament, Hungary is not limited to its govern-
and his successor can be nominated only ment institutions and economy. He has
by a two-thirds majority. also degraded the country’s political
Orban claims that he has been a good culture by infusing it with forms of
steward of the Hungarian economy. And xenophobia, racism, and nationalism
it is true that under his government, that could once be found only on the
some Hungarians have done very well: margins of society. Orban has long
the economist Janos Kornai estimates toyed with such themes, and since the
that tens of thousands of Hungarians 2015 refugee crisis, they have become
have enriched themselves by directly or central parts of his political identity.
indirectly exploiting ties to the Orban That year, as waves of refugees began to
regime. Falling unemployment numbers, arrive from Afghanistan, Syria, and
hailed by the government, are partly the other conflict zones, Orban directed his
result of a sleight of hand: in the first government to put up more than 100
52 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Transformer
miles of razor wire to keep them out, food and denied legal representation.
labeling them a threat to Hungary and What is more, as The New York Times
Europe’s Christian values. “We wrote of the findings, “Civic organiza-
shouldn’t forget that the people who are tions that have tried to help [refugees]
coming here grew up in a different have been harassed and censored. And
religion and represent a completely courts meant to protect the rights of
different culture,” he wrote in an op-ed these people are under immense pressure
published by a German newspaper that to do the bidding of the country’s
year. “Most are not Christian, but Mus- increasingly authoritarian government.”
lim.” Around the same time, he warned in Meanwhile, Orban has taken aim at
a radio interview that “now we talk about the cosmopolitan elites who, in the
hundreds of thousands [of refugees], but demagogic fantasy he peddles, are con-
next year we will talk about millions, and spiring with migrants to despoil Hungary
there is no end to this. All of a sudden, of its Christian purity. In a stomach-
we will see that we are in a minority on turning twist, the main target of these
our own continent.” attacks has been his former patron, Soros.
Again and again, Orban has presented In recent years, Fidesz has blitzed the
himself and his government as “the last Hungarian public with anti-Semitic
defenders of a Europe based on the attacks on Soros, painting him as a
nation, family, and Christianity.” In the behind-the-scenes manipulator bent on
time-honored tradition of populist seeing his homeland overrun by migrants
demagogues, he cast the migrant influx and refugees. In 2017, parliament
as the product of a conspiracy among passed a law intended to force the
hostile foreigners and corrupt elites: closure of the Central European Univer-
“The most bizarre coalition in world sity, which was founded in 1991 with an
history has arisen,” he declared, “one endowment from Soros. CEU is techni-
concluded among people smugglers, cally an American institution. But it was
human rights activists, and Europe’s top by far Hungary’s most prestigious
politicians, in order to deliver here institute of higher education, led by the
many millions of migrants. Brussels must respected Canadian human rights
be stopped!” scholar Michael Ignatieff and boasting
In the years since, Orban’s govern- a distinguished faculty and 1,440
ment has made life for migrants in students from over 100 countries
Hungary extremely difficult. In 2017, (including 400 students from Hungary).
parliament passed a law forcing all Despite the condemnation of academ-
asylum seekers into detention camps, ics around the world and a series of
with some of them housed in converted protests, the largest of which drew
shipping containers. Amnesty Interna- 80,000 to the streets of Budapest, the
tional condemned the measures as government went ahead with the plan,
“illegal and deeply inhuman” and “a and in 2018, CEU announced that it was
flagrant violation of international law.” moving to Vienna. “It’s a warning,”
A report issued earlier this year by the Ignatieff told The Washington Post.
Council of Europe charged that refugees “Once the rule of law is tampered with,
in Hungary were being deprived of no institution is safe. . . . You can’t have
September/October 2019 53
Paul Lendvai
academic freedom without the rule of fragmented and racked by infighting, has
law, and we’re in a lawless environment.” lost almost all credibility. The inescap-
Finally, Orban has begun to steadily able consequence of public apathy is a
reorient Hungary’s foreign policy, remarkable indifference to the endemic
pulling the country away from the liberal corruption of the Orban regime. Orban
democracies of western Europe and mak- makes no secret of his plans to rule the
ing common cause with other strongmen country for the foreseeable future. “I
and populist parties. Indeed, there is will remain in politics for the coming 15
barely a dictator in the world for whom to 20 years,” he told a German magazine
Orban does not have praise. He has in 2016. “Maybe in the front row, maybe
drawn particularly close to Russian in the third. Exactly where will be
President Vladimir Putin, criticizing, decided by the voters.”
time and again, the EU’s sanctions on Since the end of Soviet dominance
Russia. In 2014, just as the EU and the in 1989, never has the future for the
United States were preparing to sanction liberal values of the Enlightenment
Russia for its annexation of Crimea, and seemed so bleak: for tolerance, respect
at a time when Brussels was urging EU for the importance of fair debate,
member states to reduce their dependence checked and balanced government, and
on Russian energy, Orban announced a objectivity and impartiality in media.
deal under which the Russian nuclear Orban and his acolytes disparage those
agency would build two nuclear energy who disagree with them as unpatriotic
reactors 80 miles south of Budapest, with fearmongers and traitors to their
Russia providing a loan of $10 billion country, government-controlled media
for the $12.5 billion project. outlets play on historical prejudices
“To be considered a good European, and ignorance, and the regime contin-
you have to disparage Putin like he is the ues to blame the EU for its own failings
devil,” Orban scoffed in an interview with and mistakes. Even if the opposition
the Italian newspaper La Repubblica in develops more credible leadership, it
2018. The Russian president, he coun- faces a long, hard road ahead. Given the
tered, “rules a great and ancient empire,” lengths to which Orban has already
adding that “it needs to be recognized gone to maintain his position, one must
that Putin has made his country great ask: Is there anything he will not do to
again and that Russia is once again a maintain his grip on Hungary?∂
player on the world stage.” It is difficult
to reconcile such sentiments with the
memory of a young Orban railing against
Moscow’s domination of his country.
HERE TO STAY
Orban has played his hand with great
skill, outmaneuvering his opponents and
tightening his clutch on power. He has
managed to split and corrupt the discred-
ited Socialists. The liberal opposition,
54 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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Indiana University Solve the World’s Toughest Challenges
Hamilton Lugar School of Global and
Kelly Sims Gallagher
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Promoting Research and Learning on
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Ford Dorsey Program in International
Mary Curtin
Policy Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Stanford Teaches Students How to Be
Changemakers, Not Just Policy Analysts Sciences Po
Francis Fukuyama Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) . . . . . . . . . 15
Shaping Global Actors for a More Secure World
Enrico Letta
NYU School of Professional Studies
Center for Global Affairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Data Analysis and Literacy for the Study Fordham University
of Global Issues Graduate Program in International Political
John V. Kane Economy and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Understanding the Global Economy Issues Through
Interdisciplinary Lenses
Henry Schwalbenberg
2
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Syracuse University
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs . . . . 20 University of Kent
Develop Real-World Adaptable Skills for Improving Brussels School of International Studies ........... 26
Communities Around the World Advancing International Studies in the Capital
Roza Vasileva of Europe with World-Leading Academics and
Experienced Practitioners
Amanda Klekowski Von Koppenfels
Texas A&M University
The Bush School of Government and
Public Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Georgetown University
Meeting the Challenges of Emerging Sources of Walsh School of Foreign Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Power and Influence Looking to the Future
James Olson Joel S. Hellman
3
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SCOTT APPLEBY
Dean
Keough School of Global Affairs
University of Notre Dame
SHIRLEY GRAHAM
Director of the Gender Equality Initiative in International Affairs
Associate Professor of Practice
Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University
The Relevance of
disability, sexuality, and class is a highly complex
and sensitive topic. Elliott School graduate students
specializing in gender are typically majoring in one of
What are some of the most topical gender related Elliott School of
issues you or your students are doing research on? International Affairs
The subject of gender in international affairs and
its intersections with race, religion, age, ethnicity, T HE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
Lens at Seton Hall’s skills that enable students to analyze foreign policy
issues, compare cases, and draw lessons from them
School of Diplomacy and are crucial. After studying the Iranian nuclear deal
or the sanctions against Russia, my students were
Prioritizing
nuts-and-bolts level, what that means is we seek to
leverage our area studies strength and combine it with
multidisciplinary offerings in international studies.
Supporting that goal, we have added more than twenty
Changemakers, Not Our MIP program has a new track in cyber policy, build
around the Freeman Spogli Institute’s (FSI) new Cyber
JOHN V. KANE
Clinical Assistant Professor
NYU School of Professional Studies
Center for Global Affairs
Data Analysis
are not rising, for example, can have the appearance
of being scientific but often rely upon cherry-picked
reference points, which are painfully obvious to those
and Literacy
with some training in statistics.
Further, I became interested in the utilization of
experiments because these often represent the most
powerful means of identifying causal relationships
STEFANIE LINDQUIST
Deputy Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Professor of Law and Political Science
Arizona State University
At the Intersection
degree in global management, according to the Wall
Street Journal in 2019, Thunderbird produces unique
leaders capable of tackling the world’s greatest challenges.
Law: ASU in DC
managers. The nineteen-month program, offered in
collaboration with the McCain Institute, combines an
online curriculum with three-day executive sessions in
Washington, DC, designed to expand the breadth and
Midcareer professionals seeking a global focus for depth of students’ professional networks. Executive
their résumés now have three Arizona State University MPA students are selected based on their ability to
(ASU) master’s degree programs to choose from that demonstrate the value they would add to the learning
are entirely based in Washington, DC. By combining experience of the entire class.
the elite faculty and expertise of ASU’s Thunderbird Finally, the Master of Arts in International Affairs
School of Global Management, Sandra Day O’Connor and Leadership degree, offered by the ASU School of
College of Law, Watts College of Public Service and Politics and Global Studies and the McCain Institute,
Community Solutions, and the McCain Institute for prepares students for international leadership roles in
International Leadership, ASU is able to offer students a dynamic active learning environment led by senior
a curriculum uniquely suited for a new generation of international affairs professionals from the public and
leaders—those who can and must face today’s most private sectors. Drawing on the legacy of the values-
pressing global challenges. driven leadership embodied by Senator John McCain,
the McCain Institute’s access and connectivity in
the international community, and ASU’s extensive
What graduate degree programs does ASU have in academic capacity, students will acquire a distinctive
Washington, DC? edge to succeed in the full spectrum of international
affairs professions.
The university is now accepting students into its first
graduate degree programs based entirely at ASU’s
Ambassador Barbara Barrett and Justice Sandra Day What’s the ASU-in-DC difference?
O’Connor Washington Center, located just two blocks
Many universities have a presence in Washington, DC,
from the White House.
either through a lobbyist, an internship coordinator,
Starting in January 2020, the Thunderbird School
or a few folks who hand out swag and try to wrangle
of Global Management will offer an Executive Master
money out of federal agencies.
of Arts degree in Global Affairs and Management.
But Arizona State University is a presence in
Washington-area professionals will be able to boost
Washington, DC, a place where top researchers share
their marketability by choosing from three pathways:
their insights with leaders who create policy and serve
global business, taught by Thunderbird faculty; inter-
as catalysts for tangible change in an environment
national law, taught by faculty from the Sandra Day
that is often synonymous with partisan dysfunction.
O’Connor College of Law, and global policy, taught in
collaboration with Watts College faculty.
For more than seventy years, Thunderbird has been
the vanguard of global management and leadership
education. Home to the world’s No. 1-ranked master’s
10 washingtondc.asu.edu | [email protected]
SPONSORED SECTION
Preparing
as how it can be used to improve equity and make our
communities more prosperous and peaceful.
Leaders for a
From Global to Local with the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs)
Carnegie Mellon University and Heinz College tackle
Transforming issues that are both global and local. We are especially
excited about opportunities to advance the SDGs that
includes work with cities and next generation leaders
World
in collaboration with a number of partners, including
the International Youth Foundation and the City of
Pittsburgh. Heinz students are on the leading edge of
this work, with opportunities to create new initiatives
The next generation of public policy leaders and social on campus, including helping organizations that want
entrepreneurs needs to understand current problems to take action on the SDGs.
while equipping themselves with new and evolving
skills to manage tumultuous environments. There is
no better place to acquire and hone these skills than The Option to Launch Public Policy Careers in
at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, giving Washington, DC
graduates a competitive edge in the job market. Washington, DC offers students unique opportunities
for professional work, engagement with leaders, build-
ing networks, and applying skills to current, critical
The University at the Forefront of Innovation
policy problems. Our master’s Washington DC track
Carnegie Mellon University is a recognized world provides a pathway to all that Washington has to
leader in technology and innovation in areas such offer. Students spend the first year of their program
as artificial intelligence, data analytics, autonomous in Pittsburgh, completing our highly sought-after core
vehicles, human-computer interaction, and cybersecu- curriculum and engaging experts there. In the second
rity. Innovation happens on our campus every day, and year, students move to Washington, DC, where they
we are thrilled as new ideas meant to solve society’s work in the federal government, for nonprofits, or
problems become reality. for international organizations on Mondays through
Thursdays as Heinz Policy Fellows, taking classes in
the evenings and on Fridays.
Heinz College at the Intersection of People, Policy,
This combination of classroom and experiential
and Technology learning, with direct application centered on innova-
We are intentional about understanding how these tion and transformation, is what sets us apart. We
innovations affect people and policy. Students have encourage you to explore our program and hope
myriad opportunities to engage these issues through you will join us.
coursework, capstone projects, and research opportuni-
ties. At Heinz College, we study, educate, and inform
through leading research and action hubs, such as the
Block Center and the Metro 21–Smart Cities Institute.
We bring together innovators, academics, policymakers,
and practitioners to study the impact of technology on
society: how tech can disrupt in negative ways as well
HITOSHI MITOMO
Dean and Professor
Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies
Waseda University
Creating New
peers from all over the world. Our faculty—all leaders
in their respective academic fields—work with students
to develop a process for identifying their academic
12 waseda.jp/gsaps/en | [email protected]
SPONSORED SECTION
Preparing
that the school recognized their importance long before
they became the hot-button issues they are today. The
work we do here is crucial because the world hasn’t
Tomorrow’s Leaders yet figured out how to reconcile economic growth and
development with environmental protection. The fate
of the planet is at stake.
Toughest Challenges
tives to develop an interdisciplinary, bespoke expertise.
Whether via a national security lens, with a legal eye,
or from a business or human security angle, we’re
preparing students to tackle issues from a variety of
perspectives. When graduates leave Fletcher, they go
As a senior advisor at the White House, you were a into the private sector, government roles, the World
major player in negotiating the U.S.–China climate Bank, consulting firms, the United Nations, politics,
accord, paving the way for the Paris Agreement in NGOs—you name it—and they take their highly cus-
2016. What skills did you draw on that are taught at tomized knowledge and capabilities with them.
The Fletcher School?
Over the years, I often found myself referring to What keeps you coming back to the table?
concepts that we teach at The Fletcher School, such One of the most rewarding aspects of teaching Fletcher
as pursuit of mutual gain and identifying the zone of students is seeing them apply what they learn in the
possible agreement. Originally, as a graduate student, classroom to the challenging situations they face in
and now, as a professor, over the years I have built up the world. Each year, I am a little prouder because I
expertise about China’s economic development and can see how our growing network of alumni is doing
global climate change policy. My interdisciplinary so much good in the world.
background was immensely useful in both the White I’m also excited that The Fletcher School will be
House and the State Department. welcoming our new dean on October 1st. Rachel Kyte
At Fletcher, we endeavor to prepare the next gen- will be Fletcher’s first female dean, and she comes to
eration of leaders to address the world’s most complex us with a wealth of experience, most recently as the
challenges. As a professor, I focus on incorporating CEO and special representative of the UN Secretary
experiential learning into our students’ curricula by General for Sustainable Energy for All. There, she led
focusing on real-world problems in our everyday studies. UN efforts toward greater access to clean, affordable
Additionally, each year I lead a delegation of students to energy as part of its action on climate change and
the international climate negotiations, where they observe sustainable development. We’re also very proud that
and participate in the global negotiations firsthand. our new dean is a graduate of The Fletcher School’s
Global Master of Arts Program.
You’re the co-director of Fletcher’s Center for
International Environment and Resource Policy and the
director of the Climate Policy Lab. Climate change is
considered one of the “toughest global challenges”; how
does Fletcher prepare students to tackle these issues?
The fact that Fletcher has one of the oldest centers
focusing on climate, energy, and the environment shows
MARY CURTIN
Diplomat-in-Residence
Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Promoting Research
Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva to persuade
its members to put pressure on Colombia to address
intimate partner violence. Professor Ragui Assaad is an
ENRICO LETTA
Dean
Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po
Former Prime Minister of Italy
Shaping
in an open dialogue about a major global policy.
In November 2018, PSIA students and faculty were
important contributors to the Paris Peace Forum, a new
initiative spearheaded by French President Emmanuel
Global Actors Macron. Through such events, PSIA students have the
chance to challenge world leaders and engage with
global policy directly.
for a More
We have also launched new, collaborative initiatives
relating to economic diplomacy and science diplomacy
with our university and institutional partners. Our
Secure World
aim is to contribute and raise awareness of the study
of these important fields and to develop world-leading
training for students and professionals.
sciencespo.fr/psia | +33 1 . 45 . 49 . 50 . 50 15
SPONSORED SECTION
Understanding
Through our summer intern fellowship program, we
fund a number of internships for our students to gain
practical field experience with international businesses,
the Global
government agencies, and nonprofit organizations, not
only here in New York but also in Washington, DC,
as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Interdisciplinary
the Fordham IPED program?
Our curriculum and our location in New York City are
ideal for anyone who wishes to be at the center of the
SCOTT PATTERSON
Master of Advanced International Studies Program 2016–18
Graduate Researcher, Automated Content Analysis on Diplomatic Speeches
Diplomatische Akademie Wien
Vienna School of International Studies
Welcoming
Since the campus doubles as a curated forum for
international affairs, student life is an immersion
experience. Intensive trips to areas such as Kurdish
SARAH BERMEO
Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science
Associate Director, Duke Center for International Development
Duke Sanford School of Public Policy
Mastering
year. This creates opportunities for learning from
classmates with diverse experiences and perspectives.
Courses incorporate multiple forms of policy writing
Analysis and
and critical thinking in individual and group assign-
ments. All students complete a master’s project that
allows them to dig more deeply into a client-based or
In the Nation’s How does the school support students’ career goals
and objectives?
ROZA VASILEVA
ICT and Open Data Consultant, The World Bank
2013 MPA/MAIR, Maxwell School of Syracuse University
Develop Real-World
You graduated before Maxwell launched a certificate in
Data Analytics for Public Policy and the Autonomous
Systems Policy Institute. How did the school prepare
for Improving
said to me, “You don’t have any background in ICT.
What are you doing here?” Six years down the road,
I’m still here; he doesn’t want to let me go.
Around the World cially through the internship at the World Bank—to
explore ICT for development. Part of my assignment
was to pilot, in Russia, a new methodology they were
developing: the Open Data Readiness Assessment,
which we’ve since implemented in dozens of countries.
The way Roza Vasileva sees it, the future is data: in par- Every day, I use my leadership and program man-
ticular, data gathered by governments—local, regional, agement training from Maxwell, including budgeting,
national, international—and shared with citizens to proposal writing, identifying and framing problems,
make their communities, and their countries, better. program evaluation, and managing people and teams.
Roza’s desire to make the world a better place drove I often have flashbacks of Maxwell professors and
her to study in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar their modules!
and to launch a career spearheading open data in more
than a dozen countries. What made that happen, more
than anything, were her experiences at the No. 1 ranked One of the benefits of Maxwell is its campus in
Maxwell School of Syracuse University. Washington, DC, where students take classes and
As she puts it, “Maxwell was life changing for me, engage in high-profile internships. What was your
in terms of discovering what I should be doing with
experience like?
my life.”
Roza is an information and communication It was a big draw for me. I took classes in international
technology (ICT) and open data consultant at the programs and foreign affairs, all in the evening, while
World Bank—a Maxwell internship that turned into earning credit for the World Bank internship during
a career—with an eye toward her PhD. We caught up the day.
with her before her latest trip to Tanzania. Maxwell is also famous for networking. It’s one of
the key skills they instill. We established an alumni
network at the World Bank that meets regularly.
What is open data’s role in international development? While I was in DC, our numbers jumped from twenty
Open data for government is an initiative to release raw to fifty to over eighty alumni, who stay in touch and
data for use in everyday applications. In Tanzania, we help each other.
are working with geospatial data in a range of projects:
participatory mapping, using drones for collecting high-
resolution geodata, and developing flood preparedness
plans with communities.
Technology is developing so fast—it’s fascinating
seeing how it can help communities.
JAMES OLSON
Former CIA Chief of Counterintelligence, author of Fair Play: The Moral
Dilemmas of Spying and To Catch a Spy: The Art of Counterintelligence
Professor of the Practice
The Bush School of Government and Public Service
Texas A&M University
Meeting the
academic fields but also have the hands-on skills and
knowledge that employers value. Our intelligence and
counterterrorism classes, for example, include practical
Preparing for an
How does SIS remain at the forefront of international
affairs teaching and learning?
The future of graduate education offers students a choice
Ever-Changing
of where and when they can study. We now offer an
on-campus, skills-based degree in International Affairs
Policy and Analysis; starting this fall, we’ll offer a new
World
online degree in International Relations and Business,
jointly with the Kogod School of Business.
Our faculty continue to take prominent roles in
advancing the scholarship and policy applications of
our field. Our new Center for Security, Innovation,
and New Technology is a forward-thinking collective
that leverages research, engagement, and a commu-
What is the most important change in international nity of scholars to find optimal, humane solutions to
affairs over the past five years? technology-based issues. Our Accountability Research
Global leadership by the United States is no longer a Center, on the other hand, works toward global trans-
given. By turning away from multilateral agreements, parency and responsive governance with an impressive
the Donald J. Trump administration accelerated a roster of partners promoting citizen action. Viewing
shift already underway with the rise of China as a these two together provides a snapshot of the SIS per-
global power. In response, other nations are creat- sonality: engaged in important global questions from
ing new alliances or strengthening existing ones. a human-centered perspective.
A good example of this is the Comprehensive and
Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
When the United States withdrew from the Trans- What responsibility do international affairs schools
Pacific Partnership in January 2017, eleven nations have to adapt to the changing face of work in how we
adjusted goals and proceeded with an agreement that prepare our students?
more closely aligns them with each other. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is breaking down bar-
riers between nations even more than previous moves
toward globalization. This brings both challenges and
How does the School of International Service (SIS)
opportunities. We prepare our students for cultural
prepare students for a world in which the fluency and careers in global service.
United States’ dominance in global affairs is no As a higher education institution, we must advocate
longer guaranteed? for coherent U.S. policy on international education,
We teach our students about the realities and the underpinned by an understanding that “international
potential of an ever-changing world and prepare education” isn’t simply sending our students abroad or
them with skills in international and intercultural bringing international students to our campuses. We
relations, including diplomacy and communication. must holistically develop curricula that include scholars
Our International and Intercultural Communication and thought leaders from the global south. We must
program is the first program of its type in the United engage with cultural nuance and prepare our students
States, and more than fifty years on, it’s still an inno- to flourish in a world where very little is clear cut.
vator in the field. We also offer a graduate program in
International Economic Relations, which focuses on
international trade, finance, investment, development,
and governance.
RENEE BOWEN
Director, Center for Commerce and Diplomacy
Professor, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy
Peace and Prosperity at infects all who live here, in the best way possible.
My experience in California has served to reinforce
ELIOT A. COHEN
Dean
School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University
Preparing
fields like global risk, international economics and
fi nance, European public policy, and energy and
sustainability. We have recently introduced a new
practitioner’s doctorate and are increasingly offering
Era of Change
approach to decision-making informed by the reali-
ties of the world as it is. And hands-on learning is
a hallmark of the Johns Hopkins SAIS experience.
Through summer internships and practicum projects
with professional clients, students apply what they
have learned in the classroom to complex, real-world
Why is the study of international relations problems. They go on dozens of staff rides and study
important today? trips each year. In this year alone, they met with
International relations is an inescapable part of officials in Colombia coordinating that country’s
everyone’s life, from the foods we eat to the goods we response to migration out of Venezuela, analyzed
purchase to whether countries go to war. Everyone is the energy sector in Pakistan, met with authorities
affected by it. planning and overseeing free trade zones and ports
Today, the international order that has made pos- in China, and studied democratization and stabiliza-
sible the remarkable growth and improvements in tion efforts in Tunisia.
quality of life over the past 75 years is at a watershed. Our faculty of practically-minded scholars and
Geopolitics are changing; global forces such as climate scholarly practitioners, are all committed to teaching
change exercise power that no state can control; and and learning. Students gain exposure in the class-
liberal democracy faces competition and challenges room to scholars in the forefront of their field, and
that we have not seen in generations. The world needs to experts who have negotiated treaties and trade
leaders who understand these developments, and who pacts, run multimillion dollar aid programs, and
have the practical skills to respond to them. commanded military forces in the field. Our global
alumni network includes 20,000 graduates working
in leading roles in 140 countries. They mentor cur-
Why study at Johns Hopkins SAIS? rent students, host group visits, and help students
Johns Hopkins SAIS is a unique professional school that make direct connections to employers in their field.
was founded in 1943 at a time when the world was in Studying at Johns Hopkins SAIS means learning
extraordinary flux. Today, our students may focus on from the best, becoming part of a large and growing
different issues, but our tradition of structured learn- community, and preparing to adapt to whatever chal-
ing—rooted in international economics, American lenges a turbulent world will throw your way.
foreign policy, strategic studies, international develop-
ment, and regional studies—combined with practical
skills and policy engagement remains as relevant as ever.
We are integrating new fields of inquiry into the
study of international relations, such as global health,
food insecurity, cybersecurity, and sustainable energy.
And while our two-year Master of Arts degree remains
our flagship program, we are rapidly broadening our
offerings in specialized one-year degree programs in
BRIAN GREENHILL
Interim Director of the Master of International Affairs Program
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy
University at Albany
Rockefeller College at
transnational networks of cities, such as the C40, or
through market-based mechanisms. Many members
of our faculty have had years of experience working
of Europe with World- ing world order. Our master’s degrees in Migration
and International Relations particularly investigate
JOEL S. HELLMAN
Dean
Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
Looking to
an innovator in science, technology, and interna-
tional affairs at the undergraduate level, and we’re
working on expanding it to the graduate level. We
recently launched a partnership between the World
the Future
Bank and our Master’s in Foreign Service program,
Global Human Development program, and Science,
Technology and International Affairs program,
focused on how digital technology is transform-
ing agriculture around the world. Students will be
asked to delve into multiple facets of technology and
agriculture, including digital financial services and
precision crop monitoring with the aim of examin-
The Fourth Industrial Revolution will change the way ing how these will transform markets and individual
livelihoods worldwide.
people work and live. What innovations has your
school promoted to prepare for these changes?
We recognize that technological innovation is the Cities and other subnational areas are becoming
underlying foundation of the international system. more influential on international issues. How do
Everything is rooted in how changes in technology you prepare graduates to lead on the local,
impact the way people engage with each other, national, and global levels?
either the way they do harm to each other or the
Increasingly, there are more entities outside of the
way they cooperate and create opportunities. If the
U.S. federal government who are playing roles in inter-
forms of engagement change, as they have with
national affairs. Our students need to be prepared
changing technology, that will have ripple effects
for that. They need to understand how Washington,
on all the other elements based on that founda-
DC, works, but they also need to be able to make
tion. Changing technology has also impacted the
innovations outside of the Beltway. With the federal
ways that great powers, nonstate actors, and small
government pulling back on issues such as climate
powers engage with each other and the interna-
change and the recent changing trade policies, states
tional community.
are building up their own apparatuses to handle
We are making a major investment to try to
international affairs. Our alumni are taking the lead
understand the implications of new technology. In
on that; for example, Bud Colligan, class of 1976,
January 2019, we launched the Center for Security
recently became senior advisor for international
and Emerging Technology (CSET), a research orga-
affairs and trade to California Governor Gavin
nization focused on studying the security impacts of
Newsom. Although we’ve always been a Washington
emerging technologies, supporting academic work
school, that doesn’t mean we only train students for
in security and technology studies, and delivering
the Washington power structure.
nonpartisan analysis to the policy community. As
one of the biggest centers on how emerging tech-
nologies reshape the security landscape, CSET will
initially focus on the effects of progress in artificial
intelligence and advanced computing.
We have hired new faculty who are working on
cybersecurity, and students in our Security Studies
graduate program can choose to concentrate on
technology and security. Georgetown has always been
LBJ School
minister of finance looked closely at one of the maps
and, with great excitement in his voice, declared,
“We’re putting all of resources in the wrong spot! I
have to talk to the donors about this!” It was a great
DIRECTORY
29
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DIRECTORY (CONTINUED)
About APSIA
The Association of Professional Schools of Visit APSIA.org to discover what you can do
International Affairs (APSIA) brings together the with an APSIA degree, learn about hiring APSIA
leading graduate programs dedicated to profes- students and alumni, register for admissions
sional education in international affairs. Members events around the world and online, and find
have demonstrated excellence in multidisciplinary, fellowship and scholarship information.
policy-oriented international studies.
30
ESSAYS
China is more of a match for
the United States today
than the Soviet Union ever
was during the Cold War.
– Odd Arne Westad
System
Chad P. Bown and Douglas A. Irwin 125 Can America Still Protect Its Allies?
Michael O’Hanlon 193
The Dictators’ Last Stand
Yascha Mounk 138
Return to Table of Contents
The Sources of
Chinese Conduct
Are Washington and Beijing Fighting a
New Cold War?
Odd Arne Westad
I
n February 1946, as the Cold War was coming into being, George
Kennan, the chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, sent
the State Department a 5,000-word cable in which he tried to
explain Soviet behavior and outline a response to it. A year later, the
text of his famous “Long Telegram” was expanded into a Foreign Affairs
article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct.” Writing under the byline
“X,” Kennan argued that the Soviets’ Marxist-Leninist ideology was
for real and that this worldview, plus a deep sense of insecurity, was
what drove Soviet expansionism. But this didn’t mean that outright
confrontation was inevitable, he pointed out, since “the Kremlin has
no compunction about retreating in the face of superior force.” What
the United States had to do to ensure its own long-term security,
then, was contain the Soviet threat. If it did, then Soviet power would
ultimately crumble. Containment, in other words, was both neces-
sary and sufficient.
Kennan’s message became the canonical text for those who tried to
understand the conflict between the United States and the Soviet
Union. Always controversial and often revised (not least by the author
himself), the containment strategy that Kennan laid out would define
U.S. policy until the end of the Cold War. And as Kennan predicted,
when the end did come, it came not just because of the strength and
steadfastness of the United States and its allies but even more because
of weaknesses and contradictions in the Soviet system itself.
ODD ARNE WESTAD is Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and
the author of The Cold War: A World History.
86 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Sources of Chinese Conduct
Now, more than 70 years later, the United States and its allies again
face a communist rival that views the United States as an adversary and
is seeking regional dominance and global influence. For many, includ-
ing in Washington and Beijing, the analogy has become irresistible:
there is a U.S.-Chinese cold war, and American policymakers need an
updated version of Kennan’s containment. This past April, Kiron Skin-
ner, the director of policy planning at the State Department (the job
Kennan held when “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” was published),
explicitly called for a new “X” article, this time for China.
But if such an inquiry starts where Kennan’s did—with an attempt
to understand the other side’s basic drivers—the differences become
as pronounced as the parallels. It is these differences, the contrast
between the sources of Soviet conduct then and the sources of Chinese
conduct now, that stand to save the world from another Cold War.
September/October 2019 87
Odd Arne Westad
88 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Sources of Chinese Conduct
Sea, its contest with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and its
attempts at punishing South Korea over the acquisition of advanced mis-
sile defenses from the United States have all backfired: East Asia is much
warier of Chinese aims today than it was a decade ago. (The percentage
of South Koreans, for example, who viewed China’s rise favorably fell
from 66 percent in 2002 to 34 percent in 2017, according to the Pew
Research Center.) Despite this dip in China’s popularity, people across
the region overwhelmingly believe that China will be the predominant
regional power in the future and that they had better get ready.
This assumption is based primarily on China’s spectacular economic
growth. Today, China’s economic power relative to the United States’
exceeds what the Soviet Union’s relative power was by a factor of two or
three. Although that growth has now
slowed, those who believe that China will
soon go the way of Japan and fall into eco-
China is a de facto empire
nomic stagnation are almost certainly that tries to behave as if it
wrong. Even if foreign tariffs on Chinese were a nation-state.
goods stayed high, China has enough of an
untapped domestic market to fuel the country’s economic rise for years
to come. And the rest of Asia, which is a much larger and more econom-
ically dynamic region than Western Europe was at the beginning of the
Cold War, fears China enough to refrain from walling it off with tariffs.
It is in military and strategic terms that the competition between the
United States and China is hardest to gauge. The United States today
has tremendous military advantages over China: more than 20 times as
many nuclear warheads, a far superior air force, and defense budgets
that run at least three times as high as China’s. It also has allies (Japan
and South Korea) and prospective allies (India and Vietnam) in China’s
neighborhood that boast substantial military capabilities of their own.
China has no equivalent in the Western Hemisphere.
And yet within the last decade, the balance of power in East Asia has
shifted perceptibly in China’s favor. Today, the country has enough
ground-based ballistic missiles, aircraft, and ships to plausibly contend
that it has achieved military superiority in its immediate backyard. The
Chinese missile force presents such a challenge to U.S. air bases and
aircraft carriers in the Pacific that Washington can no longer claim
supremacy in the region. The problem will only get worse, as China’s
naval capabilities are set to grow massively within the next few years, and
its military technologies—especially its lasers, drones, cyber-operations,
September/October 2019 89
Odd Arne Westad
PLUS ÇA CHANGE
The similarities between China today and the Soviet Union of old may
seem striking—starting, of course, with communist rule. For almost 40
years, blinded by China’s market-led economic progress, the West had
gotten used to downplaying the fact that the country was run by a com-
munist dictatorship. In spite of occasional reminders of Chinese lead-
ers’ ruthlessness, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the
Western consensus held that China was liberalizing and becoming
more pluralistic. Today, such predictions look foolish: the CCP is
strengthening its rule and intends to remain in power forever. “The
great new project of Party building . . . is just getting into full swing,”
Xi announced in 2017. He added, “We must work harder to uphold the
authority and centralized, unified leadership of the Central Commit-
tee. . . . The Party remains always the backbone of the nation.”
Another similarity is that just as the Soviet Union sought predomi-
nance in Europe, China is seeking it in East Asia, a region that is as
important to the United States today as Europe was at the beginning
of the Cold War. The methods China is using are similar—political
and military extortion, divide-and-rule tactics—and its capabilities are
in fact greater. Unless the United States acts to countervail it, China is
likely to become the undisputed master of East Asia, from Japan to
Indonesia, by the late 2020s.
Like Soviet leaders, Chinese ones view the United States as the
enemy. They are careful and courteous in public, and often declare
their adherence to international norms, but in the party’s internal
communications, the line is always that the United States is planning
to undermine China’s rise through external aggression and internal
subversion. “So long as we persist in CCP leadership and socialism with
Chinese characteristics,” went one 2013 communiqué, “the position of
Western anti-China forces to pressure for urgent reform won’t change,
and they’ll continue to point the spearhead of Westernizing, splitting,
and ‘Color Revolutions’ at China.” Such anti-Americanism bears a
90 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Sources of Chinese Conduct
September/October 2019 91
Odd Arne Westad
some two-thirds of the population have known nothing but peace and
progress. The country’s last foreign military intervention, in Vietnam,
ended 30 years ago, and its last major conflict, the Korean War, ended
almost 70 years ago. On the one hand, the past few decades of success
have demonstrated the value of peace, making people wary of risking it
all in war. On the other hand, the lack of near-term memories of war has
led to a lot of loose talk about war among
people who have never experienced it.
Chinese society is more These days, it is increasingly common to
similar to American hear Chinese, especially the young, espous-
society than Soviet society ing the idea that their country may have
to fight a war in order to avoid getting
ever was. hemmed in by the United States. Xi and
his group are not natural risk-takers. But in
a crisis, the Chinese are more likely to resemble the Germans in 1914 than
the Russians after World War II—excitable, rather than exhausted.
The global balance of power has also changed since Kennan’s time.
Today, the world is becoming not more bipolar but more multipolar. This
process is gradual, but there is little doubt that the trend is real. Unlike in
the Cold War, greater conflict between the two biggest powers today will
not lead to bipolarity; rather, it will make it easier for others to catch up,
since there are no ideological compulsions, and economic advantage
counts for so much more. The more the United States and China beat
each other up, the more room for maneuver other powers will have. The
result may be a world of regional hegemons, and sooner rather than later.
The U.S. domestic situation also looks very different from the way
it did at the beginning of the Cold War. There were divisions among
voters and conflicts between parts of the government back then, but
there was nothing compared to the polarization and gridlock that
characterize American politics today. Now, the United States seems
to have lost its way at home and abroad. Under the Trump adminis-
tration, the country’s overall standing in the world has never been
lower, and even close allies no longer view Washington as a reliable
partner. Since well before the presidency of Donald Trump, U.S.
foreign policy elites have been lamenting the decline of any consensus
on foreign affairs, but they have proved incapable of restoring it.
Now, the rest of the world questions the United States’ potential for
leadership on issues great and small, issues on which American guid-
ance would have been considered indispensable in the past.
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The Sources of Chinese Conduct
September/October 2019 93
Odd Arne Westad
Even though the pattern of conflict between the United States and
China will look very different from the Cold War, that doesn’t mean
that Kennan’s advice is irrelevant. For one thing, just as he envisioned
continued U.S. involvement in Europe, the United States today needs
to preserve and build deep relationships with Asian countries that are
fearful of China’s rising aggression. To counter the Soviet threat, Wash-
ington rolled out the Marshall Plan (which was partly Kennan’s brain-
child) in 1948 and created NATO (of which Kennan was at least partly
skeptical) the following year. Today, likewise, U.S. alliances in Asia
must have not only a security dimension but also an economic dimen-
sion. Indeed, the economic aspects are probably even more important
today than they were 70 years ago, given that China is primarily an eco-
nomic power. The removal of U.S. support for the Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship was therefore much as if the Americans, having just invented NATO,
suddenly decided to withdraw from it. The Trump administration’s
decision may have made domestic political sense, but in terms of foreign
policy, it was a disaster, since it allowed China to claim that the United
States was an unreliable partner in Asia.
Kennan also recognized that the United States would be competing
with the Soviet Union for decades to come, and so U.S. statecraft would
have to rely on negotiations and compromises as much as on military
preparedness and intelligence operations. Kennan’s fellow policymakers
learned this lesson only gradually, but there is little doubt that the process
of developing a mutual understanding contributed to the peaceful end of
the Cold War. U.S. and Soviet officials had enough contact to make the best
of a bad situation and stave off war long enough for the Soviets to change
their approach to the United States and to international affairs in general.
China is even more likely to change its attitude than the Soviet
Union was. The current struggle is not a clash of civilizations—or,
even worse, of races, as Skinner suggested in April, when she pointed
out that China is a “competitor that is not Caucasian.” Rather, it is a
political conflict between great powers. A substantial minority of Chi-
nese resent their current leaders’ power play. They want a freer and
more equitable China, at peace with its neighbors and with the United
States. The more isolated China becomes, the less of a voice such
people will have, as their views drown in an ocean of nationalist fury.
As Kennan stressed in the Soviet case, “demands on Russian policy
should be put forward in such a manner as to leave the way open for a
compliance not too detrimental to Russian prestige.”
94 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Sources of Chinese Conduct
The United States also needs to help create a more benign environ-
ment beyond Asia. At a time when China is continuing its rise, it makes
no sense to leave Russia as a dissatisfied scavenger on the periphery of
the international system. Washington should try to bring Moscow into a
more cooperative relationship with the West by opening up more oppor-
tunities for partnership and helping settle the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
If Washington refuses to do that, then the strategic nightmare that
haunted U.S. officials during the Cold War yet never fully materialized
may actually come true: a real Sino-Russian alliance. Today, the combina-
tion of Russia’s resources and China’s population could power a far greater
challenge to the West than what was attempted 70 years ago. As Kennan
noted in 1954, the only real danger to Americans would come through
“the association of the dominant portion of the physical resources of Eu-
rope and Asia with a political power hostile to [the United States].”
One of Kennan’s greatest insights, however, had nothing to do with
foreign affairs; it had to do with American politics. He warned in his “X”
article that “exhibitions of indecision, disunity and internal disintegra-
tion” within the United States were the biggest danger the country faced.
Kennan also warned against complacency about funding for common
purposes. Like 70 years ago, to compete today, the United States needs
to spend more money, which necessarily means higher contributions
from wealthy Americans and corporations, in order to provide top-
quality skills training, world-class infrastructure, and cutting-edge re-
search and development. Competing with China cannot be done on the
cheap. Ultimately, Kennan argued, American power depended on the
United States’ ability to “create among the peoples of the world generally
the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping
successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the respon-
sibilities of a world power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of
holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time.”
Although one might phrase it differently, the challenge is exactly
the same today. Will the competition with China focus, to use one of
Kennan’s favored phrases, “the American mind” to the point that the
United States abandons domestic discord in favor of consensus? If
some unifying factor does not intervene, the decline in the United
States’ ability to act purposefully will, sooner than most people imag-
ine, mean not just a multipolar world but an unruly world—one in
which fear, hatred, and ambition hold everyone hostage to the basest
instincts of the human imagination.∂
September/October 2019 95
Return to Table of Contents
Competition Without
Catastrophe
How America Can Both Challenge and
Coexist With China
Kurt M. Campbell and Jake Sullivan
T
he United States is in the midst of the most consequential
rethinking of its foreign policy since the end of the Cold
War. Although Washington remains bitterly divided on most
issues, there is a growing consensus that the era of engagement with
China has come to an unceremonious close. The debate now is over
what comes next.
Like many debates throughout the history of U.S. foreign policy,
this one has elements of both productive innovation and destructive
demagoguery. Most observers can agree that, as the Trump adminis-
tration’s National Security Strategy put it in 2018, “strategic competi-
tion” should animate the United States’ approach to Beijing going
forward. But foreign policy frameworks beginning with the word
“strategic” often raise more questions than they answer. “Strategic
patience” reflects uncertainty about what to do and when. “Strategic
ambiguity” reflects uncertainty about what to signal. And in this case,
“strategic competition” reflects uncertainty about what that competi-
tion is over and what it means to win.
The rapid coalescence of a new consensus has left these essential ques-
tions about U.S.-Chinese competition unanswered. What, exactly, is the
United States competing for? And what might a plausible desired out-
come of this competition look like? A failure to connect competitive
KURT M. CAMPBELL is Chair and CEO of the Asia Group. He is 2018–19 Kissinger Fellow
at the McCain Institute and was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific
Affairs from 2009 to 2013.
JAKE SULLIVAN is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Interna-
tional Peace. He served as National Security Adviser to the U.S. Vice President in 2013–14
and as Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State in 2011–13.
96 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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means to clear ends will allow U.S. policy to drift toward competition for
competition’s sake and then fall into a dangerous cycle of confrontation.
U.S. policymakers and analysts have mostly, and rightly, discarded
some of the more optimistic assumptions that underpinned the four-
decade-long strategy of diplomatic and economic engagement with
China (which one of us, Kurt Campbell, detailed in these pages last
year, writing with Ely Ratner). But in the rush to embrace competition,
policymakers may be substituting a new variety of wishful thinking for
the old. The basic mistake of engagement was to assume that it could
bring about fundamental changes to China’s political system, economy,
and foreign policy. Washington risks making a similar mistake today, by
assuming that competition can succeed in transforming China where
engagement failed—this time forcing capitulation or even collapse.
Despite the many divides between the two countries, each will need
to be prepared to live with the other as a major power. The starting point
for the right U.S. approach must be humility about the capacity of deci-
sions made in Washington to determine the direction of long-term de-
velopments in Beijing. Rather than relying on assumptions about China’s
trajectory, American strategy should be durable whatever the future
brings for the Chinese system. It should seek to achieve not a definitive
end state akin to the Cold War’s ultimate conclusion but a steady state of
clear-eyed coexistence on terms favorable to U.S. interests and values.
Such coexistence would involve elements of competition and coop-
eration, with the United States’ competitive efforts geared toward se-
curing those favorable terms. This might mean considerable friction
in the near term as U.S. policy moves beyond engagement—whereas
in the past, the avoidance of friction, in the service of positive ties,
was an objective unto itself. Going forward, China policy must be
about more than the kind of relationship the United States wants to
have; it must also be about the kinds of interests the United States
wants to secure. The steady state Washington should pursue is rightly
about both: a set of conditions necessary for preventing a dangerous
escalatory spiral, even as competition continues.
U.S. policymakers should not dismiss this objective as out of reach.
It is true, of course, that China will have a say in whether this outcome
is possible. Vigilance will thus need to remain a watchword in U.S.-
Chinese relations in the period ahead. Although coexistence offers
the best chance to protect U.S. interests and prevent inevitable ten-
sion from turning into outright confrontation, it does not mean the end
September/October 2019 97
Kurt M. Campbell and Jake Sullivan
98 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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September/October 2019 99
Kurt M. Campbell and Jake Sullivan
cities; its factories are the forge for much of the world’s advanced tech-
nology. This thick web of ties makes it difficult to even start to deter-
mine which countries are aligned with the United States and which are
aligned with China. Ecuador and Ethiopia might look to Beijing for
investment or for surveillance technologies, but they hardly see these
purchases as part of a conscious turn away from the United States.
Even as China emerges as a more formidable competitor than the
Soviet Union, it has also become an essential U.S. partner. Global
problems that are difficult enough to
Washington should heed the solve even when the United States and
China work together will be impossi-
lessons of the Cold War ble to solve if they fail to do so—cli-
while rejecting the idea that mate change foremost among them,
its logic still applies. given that the United States and
China are the two biggest polluters. A
host of other transnational challenges—
economic crises, nuclear proliferation, global pandemics—also demand
some degree of joint effort. This imperative for cooperation has little
parallel in the Cold War.
While the notion of a new Cold War has brought calls for an up-
dated version of containment, resistance to such thinking has come
from advocates of an accommodative “grand bargain” with China.
Such a bargain would go well beyond the terms of U.S.-Soviet dé-
tente: in this scenario, the United States would effectively concede to
China a sphere of influence in Asia. Proponents defend this conces-
sion as necessary given the United States’ domestic headwinds and
relative decline. This position is sold as realistic, but it is no more
tenable than containment. Ceding the world’s most dynamic region to
China would do long-term harm to American workers and businesses.
It would damage American allies and values by turning sovereign
partners into bargaining chips. A grand bargain would also require
stark and permanent U.S. concessions, such as the abrogation of U.S.
alliances or even of the right to operate in the western Pacific, for
speculative promises. Not only are these costs unacceptable; a grand
bargain would also be unenforceable. A rising China would likely vio-
late the agreement when its preferences and power changed.
Advocates of neo-containment tend to see any call for managed
coexistence as an argument for a version of the grand bargain; advo-
cates of a grand bargain tend to see any suggestion of sustained com-
100 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Competition Without Catastrophe
plexities involved. Yet Taiwan is not only a potential flash point; it is also
the greatest unclaimed success in the history of U.S.-Chinese relations.
The island has grown, prospered, and democratized in the ambiguous
space between the United States and China as a result of the flexible and
nuanced approach generally adopted by both sides. In this way, the di-
plomacy surrounding Taiwan could serve as a model for the increasingly
challenging diplomacy between Washington and Beijing on a variety of
other issues, which are similarly likely to include intense engagement,
mutual vigilance and a degree of distrust, and a measure of patience and
necessary restraint. Meanwhile, in the South China Sea, Beijing’s un-
derstanding that threats to freedom of navigation could have devastat-
ing consequences for China’s own economy might help—when combined
with U.S. deterrence—modulate its more nationalist sentiments.
To achieve such coexistence, Washington will need to enhance both
U.S.-Chinese crisis management and its own capacity for deterrence.
Even as Cold War adversaries, the United States and the Soviet Union
worked concertedly to reduce the risk that an accidental collision
would escalate to nuclear war; they set up military hot lines, estab-
lished codes of conduct, and signed arms control agreements. The
United States and China lack similar instruments to manage crises at
a time when new domains of potential conflict, such as space and cyber-
space, have increased the risk of escalation.
In every military domain, the two countries need agreements that
are at least as formal and detailed as the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea
Agreement, a 1972 deal that established a set of specific rules aimed
at avoiding maritime misunderstandings. The United States and
China also need more communication channels and mechanisms to
avoid conflict—especially in the South China Sea—to allow each side
to quickly clarify the other’s intentions during an incident. The bilat-
eral military relationship should no longer be held hostage to political
disagreements, and senior military officials on both sides should en-
gage in more frequent and substantive discussions to build personal
ties as well as understandings of each side’s operations. Historically,
progress on some of these efforts, especially crisis communication,
has proved difficult: Chinese leaders fear that crisis communication
could embolden the United States to act with impunity and would
require devolving too much authority to senior military officers in the
field. But these worries may be easing, given China’s growing power
and military reforms.
102 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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ESTABLISHING RECIPROCITY
Unlike the Soviet Union, which focused its resources on military power,
China views geoeconomics as the primary arena of competition. With
an eye toward the future, it has invested heavily in emerging industries
and technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced
manufacturing, and biotechnology. China seeks dominance in these
fields in part by denying Western companies reciprocal treatment. The
United States granted China permanent normal trade relations, sup-
ported its entry into the World Trade Organization, and has generally
maintained one of the world’s most open markets. But through a com-
bination of industrial policy, protectionism, and outright theft, China
104 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Competition Without Catastrophe
has put in place a range of formal and informal barriers to its markets
and has exploited American openness.
This structural imbalance has eroded support for stable U.S.-
Chinese economic ties, and the relationship faces a heightened risk of
rupture even if Xi and U.S. President Donald Trump are able to reach
a near-term trade truce. Many in the American business community
are no longer willing to tolerate China’s unfair practices, which in-
clude employing state hackers to steal intellectual property, forcing
foreign companies to localize their operations and engage in joint
ventures, subsidizing state champions, and otherwise discriminating
against foreign companies.
Alleviating these growing frictions while protecting American
workers and innovation will require making China’s full access to ma-
jor markets around the world contingent on its willingness to adopt
economic reforms at home. Washington, for its part, will have to invest
in the core sources of American economic strength, build a united
front of like-minded partners to help establish reciprocity, and safe-
guard its technological leadership while avoiding self-inflicted wounds.
The most decisive factor in the economic competition with China is
U.S. domestic policy. The notion of a new “Sputnik moment”—one that
galvanizes public research as powerfully as seeing the Soviet Union launch
the world’s first satellite did—may be overstating the point, but govern-
ment does have a role to play in advancing American economic and tech-
nological leadership. Yet the United States has turned away from precisely
the kinds of ambitious public investments it made during that period—
such as the Interstate Highway System championed by President Dwight
Eisenhower and the basic research initiatives pushed by the scientist Van-
nevar Bush—even as it faces a more challenging economic competitor.
Washington must dramatically increase funds for basic science research
and invest in clean energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and com-
puting power. At the same time, the federal government should scale up
its investments in education at all levels and in infrastructure, and it
should adopt immigration policies that continue to enhance the United
States’ demographic and skills advantage. Calling for a tougher line on
China while starving public investments is self-defeating; describing
these investments as “socialist,” given the competition, is especially ironic.
Indeed, such strange ideological bedfellows as Senator Elizabeth Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of
Florida, are making a convincing case for a new U.S. industrial policy.
106 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Competition Without Catastrophe
these values for their own sake, not to score points in the context of
U.S.-Chinese competition. As China’s presence around the world
grows, the United States should avoid a tendency that was all too
common during the Cold War: to see third countries only in terms of
their relationship to a rival government. Some of the Trump admin-
istration’s policies—such as invoking the Monroe Doctrine in Latin
America and delivering an address on Africa that is largely about
countering China—echo this old approach. A tack that intentionally
engages states on their own terms would do more to advance American
interests and values than knee-jerk responses to Chinese initiatives
that leave states feeling that Washington cares about them only as
battlegrounds in its competition with Beijing.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative offers the most obvious opportunity
to apply this principle in practice. Rather than fight China at every
turn—on every port, bridge, and rail line—the United States and its
partners should make their own affirmative pitch to countries about
the kinds of high-quality, high-standard investments that will best
serve progress. Supporting investments not because they are anti-
Chinese but because they are pro-growth, pro-sustainability, and pro-
freedom will be much more effective over the long term—especially
because China’s state-led investments have provoked a degree of
backlash in countries over cost overruns, no-bid contracts, corruption,
environmental degradation, and poor working conditions.
In this light, the best defense of democracy is to stress the values that
are essential to good governance, especially transparency and account-
ability, and to support civil society, independent media, and the free flow
of information. Together, these steps could lower the risk of democratic
backsliding, improve lives in the developing world, and reduce Chinese
influence. This course of action will require an injection of multilateral
funding from the United States and its allies and partners that can give
countries genuine alternatives. But it will require something more fun-
damental, too: the United States needs to have greater confidence in the
belief that investing in human capital and good governance will work out
better over the long run than China’s extractive approach.
Focusing on principles rather than scorekeeping will also be essential
for setting norms for new technologies that raise hard questions about
human ethics. From artificial intelligence to biotechnology, autonomous
weapons to gene-edited humans, there will be a crucial struggle in the
years ahead to define appropriate conduct and then pressure laggards to
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Competition Without Catastrophe
earnestly about finding common cause. The best approach, then, will
be to lead with competition, follow with offers of cooperation, and
refuse to negotiate any linkages between Chinese assistance on global
challenges and concessions on U.S. interests.
110 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Arm Yourself for the 21st Century
E
urope is beginning to face up to the challenges posed by a ris-
ing China. From the political debates roiling European capi-
tals over the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s
involvement in building 5G mobile networks to the tense EU-China
summit earlier this year, recent events have shown that European
leaders are growing uneasy in a relationship that until recently both
sides saw as immensely beneficial. They worry about the political in-
fluence China has gained, especially over the EU’s smaller members,
and its growing economic clout and technological prowess. They are
starting, tentatively, to push back.
To better promote its interests, Europe should use its economic,
political, and diplomatic power to level the economic playing field with
China, guard against Chinese political influence, and defend demo-
cratic values at home. Yet two things stand in the way of such a strategy.
First, Europe remains divided over how seriously to take the Chinese
challenge. In contrast to the strategic shifts happening in Berlin, Paris,
and the EU capital, in Brussels, the leaders of many smaller states still
see only the economic benefits of deeper engagement with China. Sec-
ond, Europe finds itself caught in the middle of a growing U.S.-Chinese
rivalry. It cannot abandon its long-standing ties to the United States
(even as it squabbles with the Trump administration over everything
from tariffs to defense spending), but it also cannot afford to weaken a
JULIANNE SMITH oversaw Europe and NATO policy in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of
Defense from 2009 to 2012 and served as Deputy National Security Adviser to U.S. Vice
President Joe Biden from 2012 to 2013.
112 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Old World and the Middle Kingdom
trade relationship with China worth well over $1 billion a day. Europe
is walking a fine line by nominally resisting China’s predatory trade and
investment practices but not issuing any meaningful threats. So far,
playing it safe has failed to persuade China to change course.
Europe needs a new approach, one that acknowledges the gravity
of the problems posed by China’s rise and outlines a distinctly Euro-
pean, rather than American, response. Europe and the United States
should better coordinate their policies on China, but they will never
agree on everything. Even without copying Washington’s every move,
Europe can defend its economic and technological sovereignty and
serve as a bulwark against China’s efforts to promote its values and
system of government abroad. To do that, however, Europe will need
to achieve two goals that has so often eluded it: unity and autonomy.
114 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Old World and the Middle Kingdom
East meets West: Xi, Macron, and Merkel in Paris, March 2019
criticized decisions that undercut EU unity on China, such as Italy’s
official endorsement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s
massive global infrastructure-building scheme. She has also made
clear that she values talks between the EU and China as much as direct
German-Chinese ones. Earlier this year, she successfully proposed
that the 2020 EU-China summit, to be hosted by Germany, include
not only EU officials, as is the norm, but also national leaders from all
the EU countries. That will make it harder for China to undermine EU
unity by negotiating with individual countries.
Germany is not alone in its awakening. Europe’s two other biggest
powers—France and the United Kingdom—along with Poland, Spain,
and the Scandinavian countries, all maintain that cooperation with
China on global challenges, such as climate change and nuclear prolif-
eration, serves Europe’s interests. But they also believe that China is
undermining Western values, rules, and standards. During Xi’s recent
visit to Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron declared an end to
“European naiveté” on China. Macron also invited both Merkel and
S I PA U SA VIA AP
116 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Old World and the Middle Kingdom
A HOUSE DIVIDED
The EU has come a long way on China, but internal differences re-
main. Some countries, including Greece, Hungary, and Portugal, con-
tinue to press for more economic investment from China and downplay
the concerns of EU officials in Brussels. In a 2017 survey of public
opinion in Greece, a majority of respondents listed the EU as the most
118 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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EVER-CLOSER UNION
Barring domestic setbacks, China’s economic, technological, and po-
litical power will continue to grow. But China is not preordained to
write the rules of the new international order. Leading democracies
across Asia, Europe, and North America still have overwhelming ad-
vantages when it comes to trade, intellectual property, economic heft,
and political alliances. They can use those strengths to oppose the
more divisive and negative aspects of China’s global influence.
For Europe, that will mean developing a more coherent and dis-
tinctly European strategy that capitalizes on the EU’s unique strengths.
So far, Europe has gone to great pains to avoid confrontation with ei-
ther the United States or China. That is understandable, but it has left
the EU on the sidelines. Brussels does not need to adopt Washington’s
hard-line approach to China, but neither should it accept all of China’s
attempts to expand its economic and political influence in Europe.
Disunity on foreign policy is nothing new for Europe. On crises
from the Balkan wars to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the EU has
had to reconcile the different cultural, historical, and strategic per-
spectives of its member states. Consensus often seems elusive. But it’s
not impossible. During the negotiations that led to the Iran nuclear
deal, for example, a group of large member states managed to unite
the EU around a single position. Similarly, with more impetus from
the countries that have experienced firsthand the downsides of Chi-
nese investment or Beijing’s forced technology transfers, the EU could
120 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Old World and the Middle Kingdom
narrow the gaps between its members over China. Brussels should
invite German industry representatives to brief EU officials on their
knowledge of working inside China or ask Czech and Polish officials
to share their experiences with Chinese investment.
More European autonomy, far from deepening transatlantic divi-
sions, would bring much-needed balance to a spiraling confrontation
between the United States and China. EU members have been calling
for autonomy on defense for years, and nascent initiatives, such as the
Permanent Structured Cooperation (which enables members to develop
joint defense capabilities and invest in shared projects) and the Euro-
pean Defence Fund (which will provide support for joint research
projects and shared military hardware), suggest that the EU may finally
be moving in the right direction. France and Germany now need to
work together to ensure that those initiatives meaningfully strengthen
Europe’s defense capacity.
Even more important for its competition with China, Europe must
boost its economic and technological sovereignty. That could mean
more state investment in key industries, such as transportation and
technology, as Germany’s economy minister, Peter Altmaier, has pro-
posed. The EU could also amend its competition laws to allow govern-
ments to foster national and European champions that could compete
with their counterparts in the United States and China. Some French
and German policymakers have called for such an approach, espe-
cially after the European Commission rejected a proposed merger
between a German rail subsidiary of Siemens and the French trans-
port manufacturer Alstom in early 2019 despite increasing competi-
tion from Chinese rail providers. Although building European
monopolies would be a bad idea, the EU should consider allowing
mergers in industries at risk of being swamped by U.S. or Chinese
rivals. Some analysts have suggested creating a cross-border Euro-
pean AI company modeled after Airbus, which was originally formed
as a joint government initiative among France, the United Kingdom,
and West Germany in the 1960s. To complement such policies, EU
countries should do more to encourage entrepreneurs and develop
training and academic pipelines to feed growing technology sectors.
Europe can also help set regulatory and ethical standards for the rest
of the world. Many foreign companies are already moving to comply
with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, even in their opera-
tions outside the EU, highlighting Europe’s ability to project its digital
values. The GDPR is only the first step in Europe’s technology leader-
ship. In April, the European Commission released its first guidelines
on the ethical development of AI. EU policymakers hope that they will
give European technology companies a competitive edge and provide
a distinctly European model for international companies to emulate.
A TRANSATLANTIC STRATEGY
An autonomous EU strategy need not preclude Europe from working
closely with the United States on China. But first, the two sides will
have to repair their deteriorating trade relationship and return to their
2018 joint pledge to work toward “zero tariffs, zero non-tariff barriers,
and zero subsidies on non-auto industrial goods.” Although Brussels
and Washington are unlikely to strike a comprehensive free-trade
agreement, they could pursue a more piecemeal process that could
give them some smaller but much-needed victories, prevent a trade
war, and demonstrate transatlantic unity. Resolving at least some of
their trade disputes would allow Europe and the United States to turn
to a more ambitious global agenda.
That agenda should involve joining with like-minded states to address
China’s trade violations within the WTO. The United States already coor-
dinates closely with the EU and Japan to counter China’s market distor-
tions. All three should do more, particularly on protecting intellectual
property, lowering nontariff barriers, and stopping cybertheft—all issues
that Trump raised with Xi at the G-20 summit in December 2018.
Europe and the United States should also be developing alternatives
to the BRI. For many countries, Chinese investment—even with its as-
sociated debt burdens—feels like the only option to address ailing or
nonexistent infrastructure and build domestic industries. In many
places across the European continent, such as Serbia, the EU has tried to
offer alternatives. But the bureaucracy-laden and painfully slow aid on
offer from Brussels is no match for cheap, unconditional Chinese loans.
The West needs better options. The EU’s Europe-Asia Connectiv-
ity Strategy, which was unveiled in late 2018 and aims to strengthen
digital, transport, and energy links between Europe and Asia and pro-
mote development, could provide alternatives to the BRI. So could the
United States’ BUILD Act, which Congress passed last year, creating a
new development finance institution with a $60 billion budget to in-
vest in developing countries. Yet such efforts will inevitably pale in
comparison to the BRI, whose funding already amounts to more than
122 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Old World and the Middle Kingdom
$200 billion and could run as high as $1.3 trillion by 2027. If either
project is to succeed, therefore, it will need clearer priorities, more
money, and greater political backing.
Another, less ambitious approach would be for Brussels and Wash-
ington to send policymakers and economists to independently evalu-
ate projects that countries are considering with China. Last year, the
U.S. Treasury Department sent a small team to Myanmar to help the
government there renegotiate a Chinese port deal. The Wall Street
Journal reported that Myanmar officials got a better deal and steered
clear of debt traps thanks to U.S. assistance. Brussels and Washington
should offer the same expertise in places such as Portugal and Serbia.
EU member states and the United States should also work together to
counter Chinese influence in their political systems. Washington and
several EU members have already signaled concern over the issue and are
looking to the anti-foreign-interference
legislation that Australia passed last year
as a model for dealing with Chinese po-
Europe and the United
litical meddling. But such resistance States should be developing
should go beyond national governments. alternatives to the BRI.
Europe and the United States must bet-
ter understand the channels of Chinese
influence at the local and societal levels to see the full effects on open
debate, academic integrity, and public discourse. European and Amer-
ican universities that host Confucius Institutes could share best prac-
tices for securing academic freedom in the face of Chinese state
funding. Local and regional government officials on both sides of the
Atlantic should assess Chinese investment plans, such as that in Duis-
burg, Germany, where the mayor has decided to partner with Huawei
to developed a “smart city” based on advanced infrastructure, cloud
computing, and better city logistics.
A transatlantic strategy on China should not focus only on counter-
ing Chinese policies. All three actors—the EU, the United States, and
China—have come together in the past to address common challenges,
such as climate change. They can do so again. China’s environmental
policies will be critical to making global progress on climate change;
Europe and China should pursue every avenue of cooperation until
the United States comes back to the table. Promoting development
need not be solely competitive, either. Western governments and
companies should try to encourage China to raise the labor and envi-
124 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Return to Table of Contents
D
onald Trump has been true to his word. After excoriating free
trade while campaigning for the U.S. presidency, he has made
economic nationalism a centerpiece of his agenda in office.
His administration has pulled out of some trade deals, including the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and renegotiated others, including
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the U.S.-
Korea Free Trade Agreement. Many of Trump’s actions, such as the
tariffs he has imposed on steel and aluminum, amount to overt protec-
tionism and have hurt the U.S. economy. Others have had less obvi-
ous, but no less damaging, effects. By flouting international trade rules,
the administration has diminished the country’s standing in the world
and led other governments to consider using the same tools to limit
trade arbitrarily. It has taken deliberate steps to weaken the World
Trade Organization (WTO)—some of which will permanently damage
the multilateral trading system. And in its boldest move, it is trying to
use trade policy to decouple the U.S. and Chinese economies.
A future U.S. administration that wants to chart a more tradi-
tional course on trade will be able to undo some of the damage and
start repairing the United States’ tattered reputation as a reliable
trading partner. In some respects, however, there will be no going
back. The Trump administration’s attacks on the WTO and the expansive
CHAD P. BOWN is Reginald Jones Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International
Economics.
DOUGLAS A. IRWIN is John French Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College and the
author of Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy.
BATTLE LINES
The first two years of the Trump administration featured pitched
battles between the so-called globalists (represented by Gary Cohn,
then the director of the National Economic Council) and the nation-
alists (represented by the Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter
Navarro). The president was instinctively a nationalist, but the glo-
balists hoped to contain his impulses and encourage his attention-
seeking need to strike flashy deals. They managed to slow the rollout
of some new tariffs and prevent Trump from precipitously withdrawing
from trade agreements.
But by mid-2018, the leading globalists had left the administration,
and the nationalists—the president among them—were in command.
Trump has a highly distorted view of international trade and inter-
national negotiations. Viewing trade as a zero-sum, win-lose game,
he stresses one-time deals over ongoing relationships, enjoys the le-
verage created by tariffs, and relies on brinkmanship, escalation, and
public threats over diplomacy. The president has made clear that he likes
tariffs (“trade wars are good, and easy to win”) and that he wants more
of them (“I am a Tariff Man”).
Although the thrust of U.S. policy over the past 70 years has been
to pursue agreements to open up trade and reduce barriers, every pres-
ident has for political purposes used protectionist measures to help
certain industries. President Ronald Reagan, for example, capped im-
ports to protect the automotive and steel industries during what was
then the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression. Trump,
however, has enjoyed a period of strong economic growth, low unem-
ployment, and a virtual absence of protectionist pressure from indus-
try or labor. And yet his administration has imposed more tariffs than
most of its predecessors.
Take steel. Although there is nothing unusual about steel (along with
aluminum) receiving government protection—the industry maintains
126 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System
128 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System
POINTLESS RENEGOTIATIONS
On the 2016 campaign trail, Trump complained that NAFTA was “the
worst trade deal ever,” a theme he has continued in office. His advis-
ers talked him out of simply withdrawing from the agreement, but
Trump insisted on renegotiating it and proceeded to make the rene-
gotiation process needlessly contentious. The administration made
odd demands of Canada and Mexico, including that the deal should
result in balanced trade and include a sunset clause that could termi-
nate the agreement after five years, thus eliminating the benefits of
C H I NAT O P IX / AP
reduced uncertainty.
The three countries finally reached a new agreement last September.
Unimaginatively called the United States–Mexico–Canada Agree-
ment (USMCA), it is hardly a major rewrite of NAFTA. It preserves
130 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System
the trade wars of the 1930s, when protectionism and economic de-
pression fueled the rise of fascism and foreign governments made
deals that cut U.S. commercial interests out of the world’s leading
markets. In 1947, the United States responded by leading the nego-
tiations to create the WTO’s predecessor, the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade, which limited arbitrary government interference
in trade and provided rules to manage trade conflicts. Under this
system, trade barriers have gradually fallen, and growing trade has
contributed to global economic prosperity.
The United States once led by example. No longer. Trump has
threatened to leave the WTO, something his previous actions suggest
is more than idle talk. He says the agreement is rigged against the
United States. The administration denounces the WTO when the or-
ganization finds U.S. practices in violation of trade rules but largely
ignores the equally many cases that it wins. Although the WTO’s dispute-
settlement system needs reform, it has worked well to defuse trade
conflict since it was established over two decades ago.
Trump’s attacks on the WTO go beyond rhetoric. The administra-
tion has blocked appointments to the WTO’s Appellate Body, which
issues judgments on trade disputes; by December, if nothing changes,
there will be too few judges to adjudicate any new cases. When that
happens, a dispute-settlement system that countries big and small,
rich and poor have relied on to prevent trade skirmishes from turn-
ing into trade wars will disappear. This is more than a withdrawal of
U.S. leadership. It is the destruction of a system that has worked to
keep the trade peace.
That is particularly unwelcome because so much of global trade
has nothing to do with the United States. The system resolves con-
flicts between Colombia and Panama, Taiwan and Indonesia, Australia
and the EU. Most disputes are settled without retaliation or escala-
tion. The WTO has created a body of law that ensures more predict-
ability in international commerce. The system it manages works to
the benefit of the United States while freeing the country from hav-
ing to police global commerce single-handedly.
The dispute-settlement system is not perfect. But rather than
make constructive proposals for how to improve it, something Canada
and others are now doing, the United States has disengaged. The
Trump administration may end up destroying the old system without
having drafted a blueprint for its successor.
What will come next? In the worst-case scenario, the new world
trading system will be dominated by discriminatory trade blocs that
raise the costs of commerce, make trade negotiations harder, and en-
courage retaliation. Size and economic power, not principles or rules,
will determine the outcome of trade disputes. Such a system will
hurt smaller, weaker countries and could push them to align with
more powerful ones for self-preservation. It was precisely that trend
in the 1930s that forced the United States to create the postwar trad-
ing system. And the lack of adherence to trade rules beginning in the
1970s made the United States press for the creation of a stronger,
more effective dispute-settlement system in the 1990s, resulting in
the WTO. For Washington to tear down the trading system it created
would be a tragedy.
CONSCIOUS DECOUPLING
Nowhere has the Trump administration left a greater mark on U.S.
trade policy than with China. In early 2018, it released a lengthy re-
port documenting a litany of concerns with Chinese trade practices.
China had been forcing U.S. companies to form joint ventures with
local firms to access its 1.4 billion consumers. These arranged mar-
riages then allowed China to acquire U.S. technology. Sometimes
companies would hand it over to grease the palms of regulators,
sometimes they would license it at below commercially viable rates,
and sometimes Chinese firms or spies would steal it. Combined with
some of the economic concerns underlying the U.S. steel and alumi-
num tariffs—China’s industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprises,
overcapacity, and failure to more fully transform into a market econ-
omy—the list of U.S. grievances created a recipe for confrontation.
The result was tariffs, and countertariffs, on $360 billion worth of
trade between the two countries, an unprecedented figure.
Many observers assumed that the Trump administration simply
wanted to get a better deal from China. But what constituted a better
deal was always vague. If the primary concern was the bilateral trade
deficit, China could be pressured to go on a massive spending spree,
buying up U.S. soybeans and energy products. If it was intellectual
property theft, China might be persuaded to change a few laws and
commit to international norms.
It has become clear, however, that the administration does not
want a permanent deal, or at least any deal with an explicit path forward
132 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System
that the Chinese government might accept. Even if Trump and Chi-
nese President Xi Jinping come to some superficial agreement, it is
unlikely to be more than a temporary truce in what is now a perma-
nent trade war. The administration’s goal seems to be nothing less
than the immediate and complete transformation of the Chinese
economy or bust—with bust the most likely outcome. To satisfy the
United States, China would have to end forced technology transfers,
stop stealing intellectual property, curtail subsidies to state-owned
enterprises, abandon industrial policies designed to gain technologi-
cal dominance, stop harassing foreign
firms operating in China, and begin to
open markets that the government
The Trump administration’s
deliberately closed to give control to goal seems to be nothing less
domestic firms. In other words, the than the immediate and
United States wants China to turn its complete transformation of
state-dominated economic system into
a market-based one overnight. the Chinese economy.
Such a change would perhaps be in
China’s best interest, but economic regime change is quite an ask for
one country to make of another. The Communist Party leadership
keeps its lock on power by maintaining control over all facets of the
Chinese economy. Losing that control would jeopardize its grip on
political power. No one seriously expects China’s leaders to cede con-
trol of the economy simply because of U.S. threats.
The Trump administration may not even expect them to; it may
have been asking all along for something that it knew China could
not deliver. If so, the objective was never a comprehensive deal; it
was the tariffs themselves. For one thing, if the administration had
been serious about getting a deal from China, it would have maxi-
mized its leverage by bringing along Japan and the EU, both of which
have similar economic concerns. Indeed, Japan and the EU have made
considerable efforts to work with the administration when it comes
to China. They have mostly been rebuffed.
There were hints from the beginning that the administration was
never searching for a deal that would truly end the trade war. In 2017,
Navarro outlined the administration’s view that trade with China
threatened U.S. national security. He also let slip that he wanted to
rip up the supply chains that bound the United States and China
together. At the time, some dismissed him as a rogue eccentric. Now,
134 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Trump’s Assault on the Global Trading System
the TPP after the U.S. withdrawal. Joining the CPTPP would establish
a large zone of trade rules favorable to the United States and unfa-
vorable to China. That would help push China to resume its progress
toward economic reform. Historians will look back on Trump’s pre-
cipitous decision to quit the TPP as a major blunder.
If the Trump administration really does want to separate the U.S.
and Chinese economies, the United States will have to pay an eco-
nomic price. Trump denies that his strategy has costs. China, he says,
is paying the tariffs. “I am very happy with over $100 Billion a year
in Tariffs filling U.S. coffers,” he tweeted in May. This is nonsense:
research shows that firms pass on the cost of the tariffs to American
consumers. And U.S. exporters—mainly farmers facing the loss of
markets due to China’s retaliation—are paying the price, as well. So,
too, are American taxpayers, now on the hook for tens of billions of
dollars needed to bail out the reeling agricultural sector.
Whether Trump appreciates these costs isn’t clear, but it’s evident
that economic considerations aren’t driving policy. The president’s
willingness to look past stock market slumps and continue to push
China shows that he is willing to pay an economic price—whatever
he says in public. For someone whose reelection depends on main-
taining a strong economy, that is a bold gamble.
136 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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I
t has been a good decade for dictatorship. The global influence of
the world’s most powerful authoritarian countries, China and
Russia, has grown rapidly. For the first time since the late nine-
teenth century, the cumulative GDP of autocracies now equals or ex-
ceeds that of Western liberal democracies. Even ideologically, autocrats
appear to be on the offensive: at the G-20 summit in June, for in-
stance, President Vladimir Putin dropped his normal pretense that
Russia is living up to liberal democratic standards, declaring instead
that “modern liberalism” has become “obsolete.”
Conversely, it has been a terrible decade for democracy. According
to Freedom House, the world is now in the 13th consecutive year of a
global democratic recession. Democracies have collapsed or eroded in
every region, from Burundi to Hungary, Thailand to Venezuela. Most
troubling of all, democratic institutions have proved to be surpris-
ingly brittle in countries where they once seemed stable and secure.
In 2014, I suggested in these pages that a rising tide of populist par-
ties and candidates could inflict serious damage on democratic insti-
tutions. At the time, my argument was widely contested. The scholarly
consensus held that demagogues would never win power in the long-
established democracies of North America and western Europe. And
even if they did, they would be constrained by those countries’ strong
institutions and vibrant civil societies. Today, that old consensus is dead.
The ascent of Donald Trump in the United States, Matteo Salvini in
Italy, and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has demonstrated that populists can
indeed win power in some of the most affluent and long-established
YASCHA MOUNK is Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns
Hopkins University and the author of The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in
Danger and How to Save It.
138 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Dictators’ Last Stand
centrate in their own hands, the less plausible that pretense appears.
This raises the possibility of a vicious cycle of populist legitimacy:
when an internal crisis or an external shock dampens a populist re-
gime’s popularity, that regime must resort to ever more overt oppres-
sion to perpetuate its power. But the more overt its oppression grows,
the more it will reveal the hollowness of its claim to govern in the
name of the people. As ever-larger segments of the population recog-
nize that they are in danger of losing their liberties, opposition to the
regime may grow stronger and stronger.
The ultimate outcome of this struggle is by no means foreordained.
But if the past decade has been depressingly bad for democracy, the
next one may well turn out to be surprisingly tough on autocrats.
ERDOGAN’S DILEMMA
In North America and western Europe, populist leaders have gained
control of the highest levers of power over the course of only the past
few years. In Turkey, by contrast, Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in
power for nearly two decades. The country thus offers an ideal case
study of both how populist dictators can seize power and the challenge
they face when increasingly overt oppression erodes their legitimacy.
Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 by running on a textbook
populist platform. Turkey’s political system, he claimed, was not truly
democratic. A small elite controlled the country, dispensing with the
will of the people whenever they dared to rebel against the elite’s
preferences. Only a courageous leader who truly represented ordi-
nary Turks would be able to stand up against that elite and return
power to the people.
He had a point. Turkey’s secular elites had controlled the country
for the better part of a century, suspending democracy whenever they
failed to get their way; between 1960 and 1997, the country underwent
four coups. But even though Erdogan’s diagnosis of the problem was
largely correct, his promised cure turned out to be worse than the
disease. Instead of transferring power to the people, he redistributed
it to a new elite of his own making. Over the course of his 16 years in
power—first as prime minister and then, after 2014, as president—Er-
dogan has purged opponents from the military; appointed partisan
hacks to courts and electoral commissions; fired tens of thousands of
teachers, academics, and civil servants; and jailed a breathtaking num-
ber of writers and journalists.
140 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Dictators’ Last Stand
AN AUTOCRATIC FUTURE?
It is tempting to cast the stakes in the struggle between authoritarian
populists and democratic institutions in existential terms. If populists
manage to gain effective control over key institutions, such as the ju-
diciary and the electoral commission, then the bell has tolled for de-
mocracy. But this conclusion is premature. After all, a rich literature
suggests that all kinds of dictatorships have, historically, been remark-
ably vulnerable to democratic challenges.
Between the end of World War II and the collapse of the Soviet
Union, for instance, dictatorships had a two percent chance of collapsing
in any given year. During the 1990s, the odds increased to five percent,
according to research by the political scientists Adam Przeworski and
Fernando Limongi. Clearly, the concentration of power that charac-
terizes all dictatorships does not necessarily translate into that power’s
durability.
Instead of assuming that the rise of populist dictatorships spells an
end for democratic aspirations in countries such as Hungary, Turkey,
and Venezuela, therefore, it is necessary to understand the circum-
stances under which these regimes are likely to succeed or fail. Recent
research on autocratic regimes suggests that there are good reasons to
believe that populist dictatorships will prove to be comparatively sta-
ble. Since most of them are situated in affluent countries, they can
afford to channel generous rewards to supporters of the regime. Since
they rule over strong states with capable bureaucracies, their leaders
can ensure that their orders are carried out in a timely and faithful
manner. Since they control well-developed security services, they can
monitor and deter opposition activity. And since they are embedded
in efficient ruling parties, they can recruit reliable cadres and deal
with crises of succession.
On the other hand, many of the countries these regimes control also
have features that favored democratization in the past. They usually
have high levels of education and economic development. They contain
opposition movements with strong traditions and relatively established
institutions of their own. They often neighbor democratic nations and
rely on democracies for their economic prosperity and military secu-
rity. Perhaps most important, many of these countries have a recent
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The Dictators’ Last Stand
Little big man: supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, May 2019
BROKEN PROMISES
In the twentieth century, democratic collapse usually took the form of
a coup. When feuds between political factions produced exasperating
gridlock, a charismatic military officer managed to convince his peers
to make a bid for power. Tanks would roll up in front of parliament,
and the aspiring dictator would take the reins of power.
The blatantly antidemocratic nature of these coups created serious
problems of legitimacy for the regimes to which they gave rise. Any
LEO CO RREA / RE DUX
144 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Dictators’ Last Stand
also good reasons to believe that populist dictatorships are more likely
than democracies to face crises of their own making. Drawing on a com-
prehensive global database of populist governments since 1990, for ex-
ample, the political scientist Jordan Kyle and I have demonstrated that
democratic countries ruled by populists tend to be more corrupt than
their nonpopulist peers. Over time, the spread of corruption is likely to
inspire frustration at populists’ unfulfilled promises to “drain the swamp.”
Similarly, research by the political scientist Roberto Foa suggests
that the election of populists tends to lead to serious economic crises.
When left-wing populists come to power, their policies often lead to a
cratering stock market and rapid capital flight. Right-wing populists,
by contrast, usually enjoy rising stock prices and investor confidence
during their first few years in office. But as they engage in erratic
policymaking, undermine the rule of law, and marginalize indepen-
dent experts, their countries’ economic fortunes tend to sour. By the
time that right-wing populists have been in office for five or ten years,
their countries are more likely than their peers to have suffered from
stock market crashes, acute financial crises, or bouts of hyperinflation.
Once a populist regime faces a political crisis, the massive contra-
dictions at the heart of its story of legitimation make the crisis espe-
cially difficult to deal with. Initially, the political repression in which
populist regimes engage remains somewhat hidden from public view.
Power grabs usually take the form of complicated rule changes—such
as a lower retirement age for judges or a modification of the selection
mechanisms for members of the country’s electoral commission—
whose true import is difficult to grasp for ordinary citizens. Although
political opponents, prominent journalists, and independent judges
may start to experience genuine oppression early in a populist’s ten-
ure, the great majority of citizens, including most public-sector work-
ers, remain unaffected. And since the populist continues to win real
majorities at the ballot box, he or she can point to genuine popularity
to dispel any doubts about the democratic nature of his or her rule.
This equilibrium is likely to be disrupted when a shock or a crisis
lowers the leader’s popularity. In order to retain power, the leader
must step up the oppression: cracking down on independent media,
firing judges and civil servants, changing the electoral system, dis-
qualifying or jailing opposition candidates, rigging votes, annulling
the outcome of elections, and so on. But all these options share the
same downside: by forcing the antidemocratic character of the regime
out into the open, they are likely to increase the share of the popula-
tion that recognizes the government for what it truly is.
This is where the vicious cycle of populist legitimacy rears its un-
forgiving head. As support for the regime wanes, the populist auto-
crat needs to employ more repression to retain power. But the more
repression the regime employs, the more its story of legitimation suf-
fers, further eroding its support.
Populist dictatorships are therefore liable to suffer from an espe-
cially sudden loss of legitimacy. Enjoying a broad popular mandate,
their stories of legitimation initially allow them to co-opt or weaken
independent institutions without oppressing ordinary citizens or for-
feiting the legitimacy they gain from regular elections. But as the
popularity of the populist leader declines due to internal blunders or
external shocks, the vicious cycle of populist legitimacy sets in. Custom-
made to help populist leaders gain and consolidate power, their stories
of legitimation are uniquely ill adapted to helping them sustain an in-
creasingly autocratic regime.
146 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Dictators’ Last Stand
one hand tied behind their back. Dictators can jail opposition leaders or
order soldiers to fire into a crowd of peaceful protesters; democratic
leaders can, at best, appeal to reason and shared values.
This imbalance raises the prospect of a dark future in which digital
technology allows extremist networks to vanquish moderate hierar-
chies. Once in power, these extremist movements may succeed in trans-
forming themselves into highly hierarchical governments—and in
using brute force to keep their opponents at bay. Technology, in this
account, fuels the dissemination of the populists’ stories of legitimation
when they first storm the political stage, but it fails to rival the power
of their guns once their stories of legitimation have lost their hold.
It is too early to conclude that the populist dictatorships that have
arisen in many parts of the world in recent years will be able to sustain
themselves in power forever. In the end, those who are subject to
these oppressive regimes will likely grow determined to win back
their freedom. But the long and brutal history of autocracy leaves
little doubt about how difficult and dangerous it will be for them to
succeed. And so the best way to fight demagogues with authoritarian
ambitions remains what it has always been: to defeat them at the bal-
lot box before they ever step foot in the halls of power.∂
148 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
NORTH KOREA’S EXTRADITION
EBOLA
MILITARY CAPABILITIES
THE GLOBAL REFUGEE CRISIS
TARIFFS
U.S.-CHINA
RELATIONS
JAPAN’S CONSTITUTION
MODERN SLAVERY
NATO
IRAN’S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS
DEMOCRACY IN
HONG KONG BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE
DEFORESTATION
U.S. FOREIGN AID
AL-SHABAB
IN THE AMAZON
THE FEDERAL RESERVE
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T
he year is 2020. The Russian military is conducting a large
exercise in Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea
that borders the NATO member states Lithuania and Poland.
An observer aircraft from the Western alliance accidentally crosses
into Russian airspace and is shot down by a surface-to-air missile.
NATO rushes air squadrons and combat vessels into the region. Both
sides warn that they will consider using nuclear weapons if their vital
interests are threatened.
Already on edge after the invasion of Crimea, rising tensions in the
Middle East, the collapse of arms control agreements, and the deploy-
ment of new nuclear weapons, NATO and Russia are suddenly gearing
up for conflict. In Washington, with the presidential campaign well
under way, candidates are competing to take the hardest line on Rus-
sia. In Moscow, having learned that anti-Americanism pays off, the
Russian leadership is escalating its harsh rhetoric against Washington.
With both sides on high alert, a cyberattack of unknown origin is
launched against Russian early warning systems, simulating an incom-
ing air attack by NATO against air and naval bases in Kaliningrad. With
only minutes to confirm the authenticity of the attack and no ongoing
NATO-Russian crisis-management dialogue, Moscow decides it must
respond immediately and launches conventional cruise missiles from
Kaliningrad bases at NATO’s Baltic airfields; NATO also responds im-
mediately, with air strikes on Kaliningrad. Seeing NATO reinforcements
ERNEST J. MONIZ is Co-Chair and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Cecil and Ida
Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems Emeritus at MIT. He served as U.S.
Secretary of Energy from 2013 to 2017.
SAM NUNN is Co-Chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and a former U.S. Senator from
Georgia. He served as Chair of the Senate Committee on Armed Services from 1987 to 1995.
150 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Return of Doomsday
arrive and fearing that a NATO ground invasion will follow, Moscow
concludes that it must escalate to de-escalate—hoping to pause the
conflict and open a pathway for a negotiated settlement on Moscow’s
terms—and conducts a low-yield nuclear strike on nuclear storage
bunkers at a NATO airfield. But the de-escalate calculus proves illusory,
and a nuclear exchange begins.
This hypothetical may sound like the kind of catastrophic scenario
that should have ended with the Cold War. But it has become disturb-
ingly plausible once again. Its essential elements are already present
today; all that is needed is a spark to light the tinder.
Even after decades of reducing their arsenals, the United States
and Russia still possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear
weapons—over 8,000 warheads, enough for each to destroy the other,
and the world, several times over. For a long time, both sides worked
hard to manage the threat these arsenals presented. In recent years,
however, geopolitical tension has undermined “strategic stability”—
the processes, mechanisms, and agreements that facilitate the peace-
time management of strategic relationships and the avoidance of
nuclear conflict, combined with the deployment of military forces in
ways that minimize any incentive for nuclear first use. Arms control
has withered, and communication channels have closed, while out-
dated Cold War nuclear postures have persisted alongside new threats
in cyberspace and dangerous advances in military technology (soon to
include hypersonic weaponry, which will travel at more than five times
the speed of sound).
The United States and Russia are now in a state of strategic in-
stability; an accident or mishap could set off a cataclysm. Not since
the 1962 Cuban missile crisis has the risk of a U.S.-Russian con-
frontation involving the use of nuclear weapons been as high as it
is today. Yet unlike during the Cold War, both sides seem willfully
blind to the peril.
Washington and Moscow share a responsibility to prevent a nu-
clear catastrophe, even at a time of mutual distrust and U.S. domestic
divisions. The U.S. and Russian presidents must begin by creating
a climate for dialogue between their governments, managing their
differences and cooperating when they can—most of all when it
comes to addressing the common existential threat of nuclear war.
Reviving and reinventing strategic stability will be a long-term
process, but in the United States, leaders from across the political
spectrum should put this at the top of the priority list and get to
work on mitigating the short-term dangers of confrontation. The
risk of nuclear escalation is too high to wait.
152 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Return of Doomsday
limit and monitor the deployment of U.S. and Russian strategic nu-
clear forces could unravel completely. If it does, any remaining trans-
parency of both sides’ nuclear arsenals, including on-site inspections
by each country, will vanish with it.
At the same time as checks on existing weapons are falling away,
new technologies threaten to further destabilize the military balance.
Sophisticated cyberattacks could compromise early warning systems
or nuclear command-and-control structures, increasing the risk of
false alarms. Prompt-strike forces, including delivery systems that
pair conventional or nuclear warheads with a hypersonic boost-glide
vehicle or cruise missile, can travel at very high speeds, fly at low alti-
tudes, and maneuver to elude defenses. If deployed, they would de-
crease a defender’s warning and decision time when under attack,
increasing the fear of military planners on both sides that a potential
first strike could deliver a decisive advantage to the attacker. Then
there is the militarization of outer space, a domain that remains virtu-
ally unregulated by agreements or understandings: China, Russia,
and, most recently, India have built up their antisatellite capabilities,
and Washington is mulling a dedicated space force.
This toxic mix of decaying arms control and new advanced weap-
onry is made even more dangerous by the absence of dialogue be-
tween Russia and the West—in particular, between civilian and
military professionals in the defense and foreign ministries. The cur-
rent disconnect is unprecedented even when compared with the
height of the Cold War. As tense as that conflict was, Democrats and
Republicans in the White House and Congress understood that en-
gagement with the Soviet Union was essential to keeping Americans
safe. U.S. and Soviet negotiators met regularly in Geneva, New York,
and Vienna. U.S. military commanders spoke regularly in various fo-
rums, including arms control negotiations, with their Soviet counter-
parts, united by a sense of mutual obligation to prevent nuclear disasters.
This precautionary mindset has faded in the wake of Russian ag-
gression in Ukraine and interference in U.S. and European elections.
The United States and its NATO allies are now stuck in a retaliatory
spiral of confrontation with Russia. The West in recent years has
treated dialogue as a reward to be earned by good behavior rather than
a diplomatic tool to be employed out of necessity. Insufficient com-
munication only exacerbates acrimony and tension—further raising
the barrier to dialogue. The NATO-Russia Council, for example—a
154 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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RUSSIA AS IT IS
For all of Russia’s internal problems—an economic and political struc-
ture whose overreliance on one commodity (energy) and one person
(Putin) is by definition fragile—the country will remain a force to be
reckoned with for a long time to come. By virtue of its vast geography,
permanent membership in the UN Security Council, rebuilt military,
and immense nuclear forces, Russia can disrupt geopolitical currents
in areas vital to the interests of the United States, including Europe,
the Middle East, Asia, and the Arctic. Further clashes and crises are
not just possible but probable. Both sides need to start planning now
to make sure that any such confrontations do not spiral out of con-
trol—or, better yet, to prevent them from occurring in the first place.
Strategic engagement with Moscow does not mean ignoring Rus-
sian aggression, be it intervention in Ukraine, interference in Western
elections, a chemical attack on a former KGB agent in the United King-
dom, or violations of the INF Treaty. Even as it seeks to work with
Russia on nuclear threat reduction, the West should continue seeking
to deter unacceptable behavior. The United States and the EU should
not, for example, lift their Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia without
substantial movement on Ukraine. Nor should Washington remove the
sanctions it imposed in response to Russian electoral interference until
such interference has been reliably curtailed. At the same time, Con-
gress must give Trump and his successors the flexibility to selectively
lift sanctions if they have achieved their purpose; if the Russians con-
clude they will never get out of the penalty box, they will have very
little incentive to change their aggressive behavior.
NATO should also maintain its enhanced military posture in Europe,
including its temporary force rotations in the Baltic countries. Yet at
the same time, it should honor its commitment—made in the 1997
NATO-Russia Founding Act, a road map for the normalization of rela-
tions after the Cold War—not to store or deploy nuclear weapons on
the territory of new NATO members in eastern Europe.
Put simply, leaders in Washington and other NATO capitals should
engage Russia with a clear-eyed understanding of their differences.
But dialogue must rest on a recognition of the shared vital interest in
preventing the use of nuclear weapons.
156 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Return of Doomsday
from Congress is essential, and essential now: given the gravity of the
risks, legislators simply cannot afford to wait for new leadership in the
White House or in the Kremlin.
A new bipartisan liaison group—of House and Senate leaders and
committee chairs, on one side, and relevant senior administration offi-
cials, on the other—focused on Russia policy, nuclear dangers, and
NATO could kick-start and help sustain this process. House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, and Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, need not wait for a call
from the White House to get such a group up and running. They should
make this proposal to increase executive-legislative coordination di-
rectly to the president and the secretary of state. The forum would
strengthen the United States’ hand in dealing with Russia by showing
a bipartisan executive-legislative front. If the Trump administration
objects or demurs, Congress should use its legislative and appropria-
tions powers to establish the liaison group regardless and use commit-
tee hearings to call administration witnesses. (With the help of Pelosi
and McConnell, the liaison group could also provide a foundation for
dialogue with parliamentary counterparts and Russian leaders.)
The fact that Trump and Putin reportedly agreed to a new dialogue
on strategic stability and nuclear dangers at a meeting in Helsinki in
July 2018 was a step in the right direction. But their inability to follow
through—including at the level of civilian and military professionals,
who need the green light from their leaders—underlines how dysfunc-
tional relations have become. The talks on “strategic security” between
U.S. and Russian diplomats that began following the June Trump-
Putin meeting in Osaka, Japan, at the G-20 summit this year, should
be expanded to include senior military and other officials from both
governments—with a broader agenda and more frequent meetings.
Congressional leaders should also give bipartisan—or, rather, nonpar-
tisan—backing to this initiative.
To increase transparency and trust between their militaries and
among militaries Europe-wide, the United States, NATO, and Russia
should restart a crisis-management dialogue, one that includes their
nuclear commanders. Previously, the NATO-Russia Council (but-
tressed by arms control compliance commissions) provided a forum
for discussions along these lines, and ideally this dialogue could be
resumed in the council, or as a separate working group. The United
States, NATO, and Russia should also reopen channels of engagement
158 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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F
or Americans who came of age near the turn of the current
century, the war in Iraq was a generation-defining experience.
When the United States invaded the country in 2003, toppling
the government of Saddam Hussein in a matter of weeks, many saw
the war as a necessary or even noble endeavor to stop the spread of
weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam was allegedly develop-
ing—and bring democracy to parts of the world that had long suffered
under the weight of tyranny.
By the time U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011, such illusions
had been shattered. The conflict had cost the United States $731 bil-
lion, claimed the lives of at least 110,000 Iraqis and nearly 5,000 U.S.
troops, and done lasting damage to Washington’s international repu-
tation. The invasion had sparked a virulent insurgency that was only
barely quelled by 2011, and which resurfaced following the U.S. with-
drawal, when a vicious jihadist group calling itself the Islamic State
(or ISIS) seized an area the size of Iceland in western Iraq and eastern
Syria. Most Americans who have been to Iraq remember car bombs
and streets lined with ten-foot-tall concrete blast walls. For those who
have never been, Iraq is less a place than a symbol of imperial hubris—
a tragic mistake that they would prefer to forget.
Yet Iraq today is a different country. Few Americans understand
the remarkable success of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. cam-
paign to defeat ISIS. Some 7,000 U.S. troops (and 5,000 more from 25
countries in the anti-ISIS coalition) provided support to Iraq’s army
and local partners in Syria, who fought to free their towns, cities, and
provinces from ISIS’ brutal grip. By the time these U.S.-backed forces
LINDA ROBINSON is a Senior Researcher at the RAND Corporation and the author of Tell
Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq.
162 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Winning the Peace in Iraq
had ejected ISIS from its final territorial stronghold, in Syria, in March
of this year, the campaign had liberated 7.7 million people at the rela-
tively modest cost of $31.2 billion. Today, Iraqi schools are open,
Baghdad’s nightlife is vibrant, and security checkpoints have been re-
moved. Last May, the country held largely free and fair nationwide
parliamentary elections. Its population is young and forward-looking,
and its government is back on its feet.
The United States has an opportunity to convert this momentum
into a long-term geopolitical gain. Unfortunately, many Americans
are so weary of their country’s involvement in Iraq that they fail to
recognize the opportunity to salvage a positive outcome there that is
far better than what anyone hoped to achieve even a few years ago.
Many U.S. officials, meanwhile, are more focused on treating Iraq as
an arena for combating Iran. They argue that, in the aftermath of ISIS’
defeat, Iraq has become an unreliable ally and even a proxy of Tehran.
Worse, they appear willing to sacrifice the U.S. relationship with
Baghdad—and put at risk the relative success that Iraq has become—
in service of their campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran.
This approach would be a mistake. Cutting off U.S. support right
when Baghdad has managed to achieve a modicum of stability would
risk the hard-won gains of recent years, especially during Operation
Inherent Resolve. And a confrontational U.S. policy toward Iraq
would fan the dying embers of sectarianism at precisely the moment
when the country is emerging as a stable, nonsectarian democracy.
Worse, it would strengthen Iran’s hand in Iraq and provide ISIS with
the chance it needs to rebuild. The only way the United States can
achieve its goals—preventing ISIS’ return and ending Iran’s destabiliz-
ing activities in Iraq—is by working through and with Baghdad.
A NEW HOPE
Iraq’s future looks brighter today than it has at any point in the past
decade. Its progress can be largely attributed to two factors: the coun-
try’s recent evolution away from Shiite-Sunni sectarianism and the
coalition’s victory over ISIS.
Iraq’s 2018 parliamentary elections marked a maturation of Iraq’s
democracy. These were the first elections in which sectarianism took
a back seat to issues of good governance and the daily concerns of
Iraqis. A range of parties formed cross-sectarian or nonsectarian coali-
tions to compete for votes; none of them emerged dominant. Instead,
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UNSTEADY PROGRESS
Iraq has defeated ISIS on the battlefield, but it has not yet won the
peace. The country now faces the massive task of reconstruction. The
Iraqi government, assisted by the UN Development Program and the
U.S.-led coalition, has returned basic services to places such as eastern
Mosul, which was devastated by heavy fighting in 2016 and 2017. But
western Mosul and other areas still resemble the bombed-out cities of
Europe at the end of World War II.
At an international donor conference last year, Iraq secured some
$30 billion in aid, loan, and credit pledges. Yet the government has
estimated that recovery and reconstruction could cost as much as $88
billion. The task will take a decade or more, provided the Iraqi gov-
ernment and international donors remain committed to rebuilding
Sunni areas. Without consistent progress in this effort, hope will wane
and discontent will grow. Already, there are worrying signs that the
momentum for ensuring Iraq’s stabilization and security has begun to
stall. If it does, it could augur a return to a full-blown insurgency.
In the year and a half since December 2017, when Abadi declared
Iraq’s liberation from ISIS, three million internally displaced people
have returned to their homes in Iraq. But 1.6 million Iraqis, most of
them Sunnis, are still displaced. The International Organization for
Migration estimates that most of the remaining displaced people have
now been so for over three years—a tipping point that the organiza-
tion and other refugee experts say threatens permanent displacement.
Many of these people are shunned by their fellow Iraqis, who suspect
them of having supported ISIS.
The risk is that the resulting tensions could reignite sectarian con-
flict, drawing disaffected Sunnis—especially permanently displaced
ones—back into the arms of ISIS. The group has already begun to re-
awaken, as former fighters drift back to their homes, forming sleeper
cells in cities or creating rural safe havens in the Iraqi and Syrian des-
erts. Although ISIS attacks have declined since the destruction of the
territorial caliphate, the group claims to be carrying out several dozen
attacks and inflicting some 300 casualties every week, most of them in
Iraq and Syria, a tally that roughly parallels those of outside observers.
PRESSURE DROP
Despite the progress it has made in recent years, Iraq is in a delicate
position. The United States should be doing what it can to not only
ensure the lasting defeat of ISIS but also assist Baghdad with the dif-
ficult work of reconstruction. Since the election of Donald Trump in
2016, however, U.S. policy toward Iraq has become increasingly con-
frontational, as the administration has made Iraq a central battle-
ground in its fights with Iran.
Trump has presented Iraq with two demands that will be difficult
for the country to meet. In November 2018, as part of its sanctions
policy, Washington ordered Iraq to cease importing electricity and
natural gas (which is used to make electricity) from Iran. In principle,
Baghdad agrees with the goal of achieving energy independence. But
in practice, Iraq currently receives about 40 percent of its electricity
supply from Iran. As Luay al-Khatteeb, Iraq’s electricity minister, ex-
plained to U.S. officials in December, finding alternate energy sources
will require rebuilding Iraq’s decrepit power grid and addressing the
damage done by decades of war, mismanagement, and corruption—a
project that he estimates will take at least two years. The United States
has issued a series of 90-day waivers, most recently in June, to give
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168 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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170 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Winning the Peace in Iraq
country to become a pawn of Iran. Yet the United States must make
sure that the sovereignty card is played against Tehran and not against
Washington. Issuing public demands to Baghdad is counterproduc-
tive—pressure must be exerted behind closed doors, and savvy coali-
tions must be built to empower Iraqis to limit Iranian encroachment.
That said, Iran is and will remain one of Iraq’s major trading partners,
its primary source of tourism revenue, and a much larger and more
powerful country forever on its borders. Only a web of countervailing
influence from the United States, Europe, and the Arab world will
secure Iraqi sovereignty.
The United States has all the tools to help Iraq succeed, and it is
manifestly in Washington’s interest to do so. A strong, independent,
and democratic Iraq will be a boon to U.S. interests in the Middle
East. As the largest Shiite-majority Arab country, Iraq can serve as a
bridge between the region’s Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Persians.
As a neighbor and former rival of Iran, Iraq can also act as a brake on
Tehran’s regional ambitions—provided that it is in a position to look
after its own security needs.
A more consolidated Iraqi democracy will also make fewer demands
on the United States. Iraq has the fifth-largest oil reserves in the
world, which should provide it with the resources to care for its own
people. The country is also, finally, beginning to restore diplomatic
and commercial ties with the Gulf states, which had withered after
Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Saudi Arabia has reopened its
embassy in Baghdad, resumed commercial airline service to Iraq, pro-
vided the country with reconstruction aid, and welcomed Abdul-
Mahdi and Sadr to Riyadh. In April, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion
in investment to Iraq, and it has offered to sell Baghdad electricity at
a discount to help wean the country off Iranian energy.
The basic architecture for a mutually beneficial U.S.-Iraqi relation-
ship already exists. After the 2007 U.S. troop surge, U.S. Ambassador
Ryan Crocker worked with Salih, who was then deputy prime minis-
ter, and Salih’s fellow Kurd, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, to de-
velop the Strategic Framework Agreement, which called on Washington
and Baghdad to deepen their relationship from a security partnership
to one spanning cultural, economic, educational, and scientific ties.
Thus far, the United States has focused on winning contracts for U.S.
businesses and gaining more visas as implicit preconditions for other
forms of engagement. This is a mistake. Instead, the United States
172 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Return to Table of Contents
F
or two decades, Washington has had high hopes for India on the
global stage. Gigantic, populous, and resource rich, India is, by all
appearances, a superpower in waiting. And as the world’s largest
democracy, it promises—according to those hopes—to be a crucial U.S.
partner at a time of rising competition from authoritarian challengers.
Almost 20 years ago, acting on such expectations, Washington began
resolving the disagreements that had held U.S.-Indian relations back
through the Cold War and into the 1990s. During George W. Bush’s
presidency, U.S. officials gave up their long-standing insistence that
India relinquish its nuclear weapons, allowing Washington and New
Delhi to sign a landmark nuclear accord and opening the way to heavy
U.S. investments—diplomatic, economic, and military—to facilitate
India’s rise. Successive U.S. administrations provided liberal access to
military technologies and promoted India’s role in international insti-
tutions, culminating in President Barack Obama’s endorsement of In-
dian aspirations to permanent membership in the UN Security Council.
Albeit imperiled by the Trump administration’s disregard for allies and
partners, this basic U.S. approach continues to this day.
Yet the logic of the U.S.-Indian partnership remains misunderstood
by many, especially in the United States. The transformation of U.S.-
Indian ties since the early years of this century has given rise to expec-
tations that, sooner or later, the two countries would become allies in
all but name, closely aligned on virtually every major foreign policy
ROBERT D. BLACKWILL is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the
Council on Foreign Relations. He was U.S. Ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003 and
Deputy National Security Adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush from 2003 to 2004.
ASHLEY J. TELLIS is Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace. He served as Senior Adviser at the U.S. Embassy in
New Delhi from 2001 to 2003.
issue. That such an accord has not materialized has brought creeping
disappointment and doubt about the relationship’s long-term viability.
Critics carp that the United States has overinvested in India—that
the favors accorded to New Delhi have not been worth the return.
They point, for instance, to India’s failure to select a U.S. fighter for
its air force or to its inability to conclude the nuclear reactor pur-
chases promised under the breakthrough nuclear agreement. Even
supporters of the partnership occasionally chafe at how long bilateral
engagement has taken to produce the expected fruits. The Trump
administration has taken such frustration further, focusing less on In-
dia’s potential as a partner than on its unbalanced trade with the
United States. It recently withdrew India’s privileged trade access to
the United States under the Generalized System of Preferences pro-
gram, churlishly announcing the decision just hours after Indian
Prime Minister Narendra Modi was sworn into office for a second
time following his spectacular victory in elections this past spring.
Both critics and supporters of the U.S.-Indian relationship seem to
agree that the new engagement between the two democracies has not
yielded the alliance-like bond once hoped for. These complaints are
off the mark. Since the turn of the century, India has become a strong
supporter of the U.S.-led international order, despite showing no in-
terest in an alliance with Washington. If the United States’ aim is to
turn India into a close ally, formal or otherwise, it will come to grief.
Instead, Washington and New Delhi should strive to forge a partner-
ship oriented toward furthering common interests without expecting
an alliance of any kind. Simply put, the success of U.S. efforts in India
should be measured not by what India does for the United States but
by what India does for itself: if New Delhi puts in the economic and
political work to make itself a major power—especially at a time of
growing Chinese influence—Washington’s ambition to sustain what
then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice once called “a bal-
ance of power that favors freedom” will have been satisfied in Asia.
To achieve that goal, U.S. and Indian officials alike must think
about the relationship differently. Ultimately, the greatest obstacle to
a deeper partnership is wishful thinking about what it can achieve.
STRATEGIC ALTRUISM
U.S.-Indian relations underwent a dramatic change soon after Bush
assumed the presidency, in 2001. After decades of alienation, Bush’s
174 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The India Dividend
predecessor, Bill Clinton, had already made some headway with a suc-
cessful visit to New Delhi in March 2000. But a major point of fric-
tion remained: the insistence that relations could not improve unless
India gave up its nuclear weapons, first developed in the 1970s, in the
face of opposition from Washington.
Bush sought to accelerate cooperation with India in ways that would
overcome existing disagreements and help both sides navigate the new
century. Although the war on terrorism provided a first opportunity for
cooperation (since both countries faced a threat from jihadist organza-
tions), a larger mutual challenge lay over the horizon: China’s rise. Con-
sidering its long-standing border disputes with China, Chinese support
for its archrival Pakistan, and China’s growing weight in South Asia and
beyond, India had major concerns about China. In particular, leaders in
New Delhi feared that a too-powerful China could abridge the freedom
and security of weaker neighbors. The United States, for its part, was
beginning to view China’s rise as a threat to allies such as Taiwan and Ja-
pan. Washington also worried about Beijing’s ambitions to have China
gradually replace the United States as the key security provider in Asia
and its increasingly vocal opposition to a global system underpinned by
U.S. primacy. Where China was concerned, U.S. and Indian national
interests intersected. Washington sought to maintain stability in Asia
through an order based not on Chinese supremacy but on security and
autonomy for all states in the region. India, driven by its own fears of
Chinese domination, supported Washington’s vision over Beijing’s.
For India, neutralizing the hazards posed by a growing China re-
quired revitalizing its own power—in other words, becoming a great
power itself. But Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his
successors recognized that, in the short term, they could not reach this
goal on their own. India’s fractious democracy, institutional weak-
nesses, and passive strategic culture would impede the rapid accumu-
lation of national power. Concerted support from external powers
could mitigate these weaknesses—and no foreign partner mattered as
much as the United States. American assistance could make the dif-
ference between effective balancing and a losing bet.
The Bush administration appreciated India’s predicament. After
many hard-fought bureaucratic battles, it came to accept the central ar-
gument we had been articulating from the U.S. embassy in New Delhi:
that the United States should set aside its standing nonproliferation
policy in regard to India as a means of building the latter’s power to bal-
ance China. Washington thus began to convey its support for New Delhi
in ways that would have seemed unimaginable a few years earlier. The
United States started to work with India in four arenas in which India’s
possession of nuclear weapons had previously made meaningful coop-
eration all but impossible: civilian nuclear safety, civilian space pro-
grams, high-tech trade, and missile defense. That step laid the foundation
for the achievement of Bush’s second term, the civilian nuclear agree-
ment, which inaugurated resumed cooperation with New Delhi on civil-
ian nuclear energy without requiring it to give up its nuclear weapons.
Skeptics in and out of government argued that the United States
ought to offer its support only to the degree that India would recipro-
cate by consistently aligning its policies with Washington’s aims. But
such a demand would have been a recipe for failure. India was too big
to forgo its vital national interests when they collided with U.S. prefer-
ences, and it was too proud a nation to be seen as Washington’s minion.
It was also much weaker than the United States and could not often
make substantial direct contributions toward realizing U.S. objectives.
Generous U.S. policies were not merely a favor to New Delhi; they
were a conscious exercise of strategic altruism. When contemplating
various forms of political support for India, U.S. leaders did not ask,
“What can India do for us?” They hoped that India’s upward trajec-
tory would shift the Asian balance of power in ways favorable to the
United States and thus prevent Beijing from abusing its growing clout
in the region. A strong India was fundamentally in Washington’s in-
terest, even if New Delhi would often go its own way on specific
policy issues. Both Bush and his successor, Barack Obama, turned a
blind eye to India’s positions in international trade negotiations, its
relatively closed economy, and its voting record at the United Na-
tions, all of which ran counter to U.S. preferences.
The U.S.-Indian partnership was built on a careful calculation by
each side: Washington, unsettled by the prospect of an ascendant China,
sought to build up new power centers in Asia. New Delhi, meanwhile,
hoped to balance China by shoring up its own national power, with the
United States acting both as a source of support and, more broadly, as a
guardian of the liberal international order. Under these terms, the part-
nership flourished. The two countries concluded a defense cooperation
agreement in 2005—a first for New Delhi, with any country—and went
on to sign the U.S.-India Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and
Indian Ocean Region in 2015; Indian policymakers, breaking with their
176 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The India Dividend
Neighborhood watch: soldiers at the Sino-Indian border in the Himalayas, July 2006
past reluctance, supported the U.S. goal of “ensuring freedom of naviga-
tion and over flight throughout the region, especially in the South China
Sea,” and agreed to a road map toward, among other things, bilateral
military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. Indian defense acquisi-
tions of U.S. military equipment substantially increased, as well—from
none in 2000 to over $18 billion worth in 2018—as New Delhi began
shifting away from Russia, traditionally its principal arms supplier.
U.S.-Indian cooperation intensified in a number of areas, including
counterterrorism, intelligence sharing, military-to-military relations,
and cybersecurity, as well as such sensitive ones as climate change and
nuclear security. For two countries that had been at loggerheads for
much of the previous three decades, this was a remarkable achievement.
A STRING OF PEARLS
U.S. President Donald Trump has complicated this relationship. His
administration has shifted from strategic altruism to a narrower and more
self-centered conception of U.S. national interests. Its “America first”
vision has upturned the post–World War II compact that the United
States would accept asymmetric burdens for its friends with the knowl-
edge that the collective success of democratic states would serve Wash-
ington’s interests in its struggle against greater authoritarian threats.
GU RIN D E R OSAN / AP
India, of course, had been a beneficiary of this bargain since at least 2001.
In some ways, U.S.-Indian relations have changed less in the Trump
era than one might expect. There are several reasons for this continuity.
For one, New Delhi saw foreign policy opportunities in Trump’s vic-
178 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The India Dividend
affairs of Asia, solve the problems of Asia, and uphold the security of
Asia”—a security vision for the region that excludes the United States.
Buoyed by its hope that Washington will continue to serve as a stead-
fast security guarantor in Asia, India has begun to take a much tougher
stance against China. It has condemned China’s claims to and militariza-
tion of islands in the South China Sea and its efforts to undermine the
unity of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, emphasizing the
importance of “ASEAN centrality” in its own Indo-Pacific policy. New
Delhi has also begun to engage more in the Quadrilateral Security Dia-
logue, an informal group in which Australia, India, Japan, and the United
States discuss how to protect the Indo-Pacific region in the face of Chi-
nese ascendancy. And New Delhi has doubled down on its opposition to
Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative by collaborating with Japan on infra-
structure investments in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
Most important, India began, in the last years of the Obama adminis-
tration, quietly cooperating with the U.S. military through intelligence
sharing, while continuing to expand its military exercises with the United
States. The Trump administration, for its part, has started to resolutely
confront China, much to New Delhi’s satisfaction. It has also articulated
both a South Asia strategy and an Indo-Pacific strategy that stress India’s
pivotal role in the region, has allowed India to buy drones and other ad-
vanced weapons systems, and has put India on a par with NATO allies in
terms of trade in sensitive technologies. Other defense projects, such as
India’s acquisition of advanced military technologies to counteract the
expanding Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean, are still in the plan-
ning stage, but they nonetheless are noteworthy for a country that long
preached the value of nonalignment.
A RELATIONSHIP ADRIFT?
Still, U.S.-Indian relations have hardly been spared from the fallout from
the Trump administration’s disruptive and often counterproductive for-
eign policy. Indian leaders want Washington to sustain the traditional
strategic altruism displayed toward New Delhi while doing whatever is
necessary to protect a liberal international order that will be open to a
rising India. On both counts, Trump’s actions have left them jittery.
Trump has questioned the value of U.S. alliances and raised doubts
about whether the United States would defend its NATO allies against
a Russian attack, leaving even staunch pro-U.S. stalwarts such as
Modi wondering whether India could ever count on the United States
to come to its aid in the event of a major crisis with China. These
worries are compounded by the suspicion that the United States un-
der Trump is too internally divided to muster the strength, unity, and
resolve necessary to compete with China in the long term. Trump
has also initiated trade wars with allies such as Japan and the EU, and
Indian policymakers are now grappling with Trump’s punitive trade
measures against India; in late 2018, Trump labeled India “the tariff
king.” Likewise, given that the Trump administration has taken cru-
cial policy decisions regarding North Korea’s nuclear program with-
out consulting South Korea or Japan, who is to say that Washington
will be forthcoming on issues of vital interest to India? The adminis-
tration’s approach to peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, which
has failed to consider Indian interests, has already driven this point
home in New Delhi. Trump has largely ignored the imperative of
protecting U.S. alliances in Asia in the face of China’s rise—despite
the continent’s centrality in the policy documents issued by his own
administration. Trump, it appears, cares for little beyond major Asian
nations’ trade balances with the United States. He has opted instead
to invest heavily in personal relationships with autocrats such as Xi
and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump’s mercurial personal-
ity, which leaves the credibility of his commitments in doubt, and the
departure of India’s supporters, such as former Defense Secretary
James Mattis, from the administration have only made matters worse,
despite recent efforts by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to correct
the drift in U.S.-Indian relations.
The uncomfortable question facing Indian policymakers is whether
they can continue banking on the cooperation of a Washington that
appears to have abandoned the liberal international order and evinces
little enthusiasm for continued strategic altruism toward New Delhi.
Although they want a stronger relationship with Washington—in part
because Modi has already expended much capital on this cause—they
have already started diversifying India’s international portfolio and re-
pairing New Delhi’s relations with Beijing and Moscow. In June 2018,
Modi himself used a major international address to revive the concept
of “strategic autonomy,” a hoary Indian locution that has traditionally
stood for seeking good relations with the United States without alien-
ating China or Russia. The fact that Modi has opted for such geopo-
litical hedging, knowing full well that the strategy would not protect
India in the face of increased Chinese hostility, speaks volumes about
180 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The India Dividend
182 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The India Dividend
T
he early days of the Internet inspired a lofty dream: authori-
tarian states, faced with the prospect of either connecting to a
new system of global communication or being left out of it,
would choose to connect. According to this line of utopian thinking,
once those countries connected, the flow of new information and
ideas from the outside world would inexorably pull them toward eco-
nomic openness and political liberalization. In reality, something
quite different has happened. Instead of spreading democratic values
and liberal ideals, the Internet has become the backbone of authori-
tarian surveillance states all over the world. Regimes in China, Rus-
sia, and elsewhere have used the Internet’s infrastructure to build
their own national networks. At the same time, they have installed
technical and legal barriers to prevent their citizens from reaching the
wider Internet and to limit Western companies from entering their
digital markets.
RICHARD A. CLARKE is Chair and CEO of Good Harbor Security Risk Management. He
has served the U.S. government as Special Adviser to the President for Cyberspace
Security, Special Assistant to the President for Global Affairs, and National Coordinator for
Security and Counterterrorism.
ROB KNAKE is Whitney H. Shepardson Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations
and a Senior Research Scientist at Northeastern University’s Global Resilience Institute. He
was Director of Cyber Policy at the National Security Council from 2011 to 2015.
They are the authors of The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves
in the Age of Cyber Threats (Penguin Press, 2019), from which this essay is adapted. Reprinted
by arrangement with Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of
Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2019 by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake.
184 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Internet Freedom League
186 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Internet Freedom League
188 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Internet Freedom League
have come to rely—and on which its future growth as a center for legiti-
mate technological development depends. The Ukrainian government
would face a strong incentive to finally get tough on the cyber-
underworld that has developed inside the country’s borders. Such
threats would not lend the U.S.-led coalition leverage over China and
Russia: after all, the Chinese Communist Party and the Kremlin have
already gone to some lengths to cut their citizens off from the global
Internet. The point of the Internet Freedom League, however, would be
not to change the behavior of such committed bad actors but to reduce
the harm they do and to encourage countries such as Ukraine—along
with Brazil, India, and other places with less-than-stellar records when
it comes to fighting cybercrime—to do better or risk being left out.
190 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Internet Freedom League
BUILDING BARRIERS
Establishing an Internet Freedom League would require a dramatic
shift in thinking. It remains part of the gospel of Internet freedom
that connectivity will eventually transform authoritarian regimes. But
it hasn’t—and it won’t. An unwillingness to accept that reality is the
single biggest barrier to an alternative approach. Over time, however,
192 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Return to Table of Contents
S
ince the end of World War II, U.S. strategic thinking has been
dominated by the doctrine of deterrence. At its most simple, deter-
rence refers to one state’s ability to use threats to convince another
that the costs of some action—say, invading one of its neighbors—will
outweigh the benefits. Such was the logic behind the Cold War concept
of mutual assured destruction: if either the United States or the Soviet
Union used nuclear weapons, the other would respond with nuclear
strikes of its own, resulting in the total devastation of both. By making
the costs of war intolerably high, both sides hoped to keep the peace.
Yet for Washington, deterrence was never merely about protecting
the U.S. homeland. As it built the postwar system of alliances that today
forms an essential part of the global order, the United States developed
a strategy of “extended deterrence.” According to this strategy, the
United States would use its military power, including its nuclear arsenal,
to defend its treaty allies—among them Japan, South Korea, and the
states of NATO. The point was not only to discourage Soviet adventurism
in Asia and Europe but also to reassure U.S. allies. If Germany and Ja-
pan (to take just two examples) knew that Washington would guarantee
their security, they would not need to take actions—such as building a
nuclear bomb—that might destabilize the international system.
Today, the Soviet threat is gone, but the strategy of extended deter-
rence remains central to the United States’ global power. Washington
is still, on paper at least, committed to using military (and, if neces-
sary, even nuclear) force to protect its allies from aggression by rivals.
MICHAEL O’HANLON is a Senior Fellow and Director of Research at the Brookings Institu-
tion’s Foreign Policy Program and the author of The Senkaku Paradox: Risking Great Power
War Over Small Stakes (Brookings Institution Press, 2019), from which this essay is adapted.
194 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Can America Still Protect Its Allies?
FRIENDS IN NEED
In some respects, the fact that the United States now faces problems
reassuring its allies should come as no great surprise. Reassurance is
hard to achieve. Indeed, in a world of Westphalian nation-states, it is
196 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Can America Still Protect Its Allies?
the right thing regarding world affairs.”) Yet the same poll showed that
an overwhelming majority of those surveyed still preferred the United
States to China as the world’s leading power. The U.S.-led world order
does not appear to be crumbling. No ally has opted out of the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty or threatened to do so. Indeed, no ally has
even embarked on a major military buildup. NATO has modestly im-
proved its military burden sharing since 2014, but most of the United
States’ security partners still spend a historically modest one to two
percent of GDP on their militaries, much less than during the Cold War.
Poland and the Baltic states have increased their defense spending to
two percent of GDP, but they have not taken the steps, such as fortifying
their borders, that one would expect if they truly feared a Russian inva-
sion. U.S. allies may be nervous, but they do not appear to be panick-
ing or radically changing their own national security strategies.
Despite his rhetoric, moreover, Trump has staffed his administra-
tion with figures who are committed to the United States’ presence
abroad. Neither Secretary of State Mike Pompeo nor National Secu-
rity Adviser John Bolton is known for his dovishness or isolationism.
The U.S. defense budget has continued to grow during Trump’s ten-
ure, and the president has requested additional money from Congress
to develop advanced weapons. U.S. troop deployments have generally
remained static, and in some places, such as on the eastern flank of
NATO, they have actually increased. Trump has hosted high-level meet-
ings with the leaders of most of the countries—Japan and South Ko-
rea, Poland and the Baltic states—on the frontlines of struggles with
China and Russia, assuaging their fears of being abandoned in a crisis.
In these respects, counterintuitively, the transition from George W.
Bush to Barack Obama to Trump shows more continuity than change.
These have been good steps. But there is a fine art to both deter-
rence and reassurance: they require constant attention, as both are
ultimately in the eye of the beholder. In addition to avoiding capri-
cious threats to pull out of alliances, the United States should make
its military commitments more credible in ways that do not require a
major increase in combat forces stationed abroad. Washington, for
example, could improve its capabilities in Poland by strengthening its
logistical and headquarters assets there (as the Atlantic Council has
recently recommended) and agreeing to deploy U.S. troops on a per-
manent, rather than rotational, basis. The most overdue policy
changes, however, lie not in the realm of Department of Defense force
198 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Study with
Purpose
The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies (SAIS) develops leaders who seek a deeper
understanding of how politics, economics, and
international relations drive global change.
sais-jhu.edu
200 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Can America Still Protect Its Allies?
202 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
REVIEWS & RESPONSES
I
n 2004—an ordinary, healthy year for Twenty years ago, public relations
the newspaper business—The Wash- specialists outnumbered journalists by
ington Post earned $143 million in a ratio of less than two to one. Today,
profit. Five years later, in 2009, the paper the ratio is more than six to one.
lost $164 million amid a shift from paid According to Fortune, the only profes-
print to free digital consumption, the sions losing jobs more rapidly than
erosion of its classified and local advertis- newspaper reporter are letter carrier,
ing businesses, and the global financial farmer, and meter reader.
crisis. The collapse of its business model Those who remain at media organi-
forced round after round of cutbacks, staff zations feel themselves losing status and
buyouts, and layoffs. That year, the Post shut credibility. Last year, a Gallup–Knight
all its domestic reporting bureaus outside Foundation survey found that 69
the Washington area, including those percent of Americans had lost trust in
in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. the news media over the previous
decade. For Republicans, the figure was
JACOB WEISBERG is CEO of Pushkin 94 percent. Journalists covering the
Industries, which produces podcasts. He
teaches a course on the ethics of journalism at big story in Washington recognize the
Yale University and is former Editor of Slate. importance of what they are doing.
204 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Bad News
They are also under more or less constant Pressman argues that American
assault from social media trolls, people journalism reached this zenith in
who believe what they hear on Fox News, reaction to its fundamental failure during
and the president of the United States. the Red Scare of the 1950s. During that
But I repeat myself. time, conventions of objectivity led
Following Donald Trump’s election in newspapers to amplify Senator Joseph
2016, a few news organizations with McCarthy’s accusations and smears, lest
international reach—especially the Post they be seen as editorializing. The
and the Times—began exhibiting signs of self-examination that followed McCar-
a return to health. Outrageous abuse has thy’s downfall—combined with the new
provoked support. But local news seems competitive threat from television, the
unlikely to recover, and globally, there are medium that had done the most to
few positive trends. In countries where a expose McCarthy—pushed newspapers
free press was just beginning to emerge, away from just-the-facts recitations and
a cocktail of rising authoritarianism, toward providing more context, expla-
audience cannibalization by social media, nation, and interpretation. Still, well
and financial weakness has thrown it into the 1960s, Pressman shows, news
into reverse. Independent journalism is coverage tended to be bland and deferen-
viable in some places, but not overall. tial to government. It was the U.S.
Everywhere, the same question about the government’s lies about Vietnam, as well
future of news crops up: How can demo- as personal opposition to the war on
cratic societies get the journalism they the part of many journalists, that bred
need in order to function? the adversarial style of contemporary
political journalism. As Pressman
THE GOOD OLD DAYS writes, Vietnam “established a baseline
A good way to start answering that level of antagonism between the press
question is to look at the period when the and the government.”
U.S. media business was at its healthiest. But journalistic distrust of authority
In On Press, the journalism historian boomeranged: the press soon found
Matthew Pressman examines The New itself on the receiving end, losing the
York Times and the Los Angeles Times almost automatic trust it had enjoyed
between 1960 and 1980. During this when its stance had been less challeng-
seeming golden age, the leading news ing. The right criticized the mainstream
organizations adjusted their fundamental press for adopting an oppositional
relationship to government, shifting relationship to established institutions.
from a kind of elevated stenography to The left criticized the press because it
the critical journalism that has become had become an establishment institution.
the norm. This was the era of the Vice President Spiro Agnew’s attack on
Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, and the media’s left-wing bias presaged
All the President’s Men, when the image Trump’s. In terms that now seem rather
of the reporter as a truth-seeking hero mild, Agnew accused the press of
took hold and investigative reporting departing from its obligation to simply
units proliferated at local newspapers and report the facts and said that by doing
TV stations all over the country. so it was taking sides in political conflicts
and exercising undue influence. Those digital media until just before the era
who produced the nightly news that of Brexit and Trump, and he has
Americans relied on, Agnew charged in produced a memoir that recounts the
a speech in 1969, were “a tiny, enclosed changes he experienced in personal,
fraternity of privileged men elected by anecdotal terms. Abramson, by contrast,
no one” who “bask in their own provin- has written a heavily reported, journal-
cialism, their own parochialism.” istic narrative about a transformational
period in media that happened to include
EDITS AND ETHICS her tenure as executive editor of The
In retrospect, the 1980s and 1990s were New York Times, which lasted from 2011
a kind of fool’s paradise for American until her unceremonious firing in 2014.
journalism. As the elite press corps Rusbridger took the helm at The
became more professionalized, some Guardian in 1995 and committed himself
critics wondered whether reporters were to embracing the Internet, even when
growing too prosperous and comfort- it was less than clear what that would
able. By the early years of this century, mean. Rather than focusing on the
however, the job of leading a major potential disruption to his business, he
newsroom was becoming obviously more saw a journalistic opportunity. The
difficult. It no longer just meant stand- Guardian, originally based in Manches-
ing up to angry officials from time to ter and barely in the top ten of British
time—now, all politicians were perpetu- newspapers in terms of circulation,
ally unhappy with their coverage. Run- could now reach a global audience.
ning a media organization had devolved Because it was effectively a nonprofit
into a constant struggle on all fronts: to organization endowed by the deep-
reinvent a failing business model and pocketed Scott Trust, it could invest
husband shrinking resources while mol- heavily in audience growth and public-
lifying an insecure staff in an atmosphere service journalism. This gave Rus-
of intense public scrutiny. The old defer- bridger license to launch reportorial
ence and respect gave way to second- crusades on issues as varied as climate
guessing of every decision. At the same change and corporate tax dodgers.
time, the rise of digital and social media Not everyone in the British press
meant that leading news organization no had such a high-minded conception of
longer had the same gatekeeping power. their mission, and for decades, British
There were no longer any gates. news organizations had maintained
Two former newspaper editors, Alan something akin to a code of omerta
Rusbridger and Jill Abramson, have around unethical reporting techniques.
written accounts of what it was like to In 2009, The Guardian exposed the
run an important newspaper in this practice, common at newspapers pub-
period of rising pressure and diminishing lished by Rupert Murdoch’s News
control. Their approaches accord with Corporation, of hacking the voicemails
the predominant journalistic styles of of unsuspecting people and harvesting
their two countries. Rusbridger served as their contents for publication. By
editor of the British newspaper The revealing it, Rusbridger effectively
Guardian from just before the dawn of tendered his resignation from the Fleet
206 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Bad News
Street club. In the years that followed, was to assume that since there wasn’t any
as Rusbridger published WikiLeaks’ clear way to make a newspaper at once
revelations about U.S. foreign policy journalistically robust and financially
and, later, information provided to The profitable, the paper would just have to
Guardian by the former National Secu- live with large losses. But in retrospect,
rity Agency contractor Edward Snowden, his view has arguably been vindicated.
Murdoch’s newspapers led the mob Today, The Guardian is one of the most
crying for censorship and punishment. important news organizations in the
In deciding to publish material from world, in a way it never could have been
WikiLeaks, Rusbridger dealt with a set had Rusbridger not embraced the Inter-
of issues no editor had ever confronted in net as he did. It has a larger global
quite the same way. WikiLeaks’ audience than any British news source
founder, Julian Assange, was no Daniel besides MailOnline, the website of the
Ellsberg: Assange was a radical seeking Daily Mail, a celebrity-focused tabloid
to fundamentally transform society that helped drive the campaign for Brexit.
through transparency, whereas Ellsberg, And under Rusbridger’s successor,
who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The Katharine Viner, the newspaper has pared
New York Times in 1971, was a member costs and encouraged digital readers to
of the national security establishment— make donations; in 2018, The Guardian
a hawk turned dove who had the more had a marginally profitable year. It is one
limited goal of hastening the end of the of the few high-quality news organiza-
disastrous war in Vietnam. The poten- tions that now appears to be sustainable.
tial harm contained in the raw files
Assange had obtained went far beyond CHANGING TIMES
any imagined threat posed by the Penta- Compared with Rusbridger, Abramson
gon Papers. “Once, to do journalism, all gave herself a more difficult assignment
you needed was a knowledge of short- in going beyond her own former organi-
hand and to read a couple of books on zation to write more broadly about the
law and local government,” Rusbridger changing news business. Her journalis-
writes. “Now the best journalists had to tic model is The Powers That Be, David
be moral philosophers and students of Halberstam’s long-winded 1979 book
ethics.” He cannily shared his big Wiki- about the rise of modern media, which
Leaks scoop with The New York Times, revolved around the stories of CBS,
ordinarily a competitor, in order to gain Time Inc., The Washington Post, and the
First Amendment protections. The Los Angeles Times. Abramson picks four
great virtue of his book is the way he other organizations to tell the tale of
describes trying to make difficult choices the business’ decline: the Post again,
in stressful situations. His thoughtful plus The New York Times and two digital
handling of these episodes makes him, insurgents, BuzzFeed and Vice. She
in retrospect, the most important editor acknowledges her partiality when it comes
of the era. to her own experience at the Times, an
As a business thinker, Rusbridger’s institution she revered so much that
reputation is more questionable. His she had a T tattooed on her back in the
approach, much derided during his tenure, paper’s iconic gothic-style font. She
remains aggrieved, however, at what she which sank $400 million into Vice in
sees as the unfairness of her firing over 2015, has in the past year written down
management missteps that she partly nearly all of its investment.
acknowledges and partly disputes. Abramson implicitly lumps together
Abramson’s attempt to filter her own, Vice and BuzzFeed. Alongside its
still raw experience through the conven- frivolous lists and personality quizzes,
tions of objective journalism gives her however, BuzzFeed has done a great deal
account a passive-aggressive quality, of high-quality journalism. And it
especially when it comes to her depic- showed genuine courage in early 2017,
tions of the former publisher of the Times, when it published the so-called Steele
Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., and her successor dossier, a document full of troubling but
as executive editor, Dean Baquet, whom unverified allegations about Trump’s
she blames for engineering her downfall. connections to Russia, compiled by a
But that part of the book is at least former British intelligence official.
entertaining as media gossip. In contrast, In supporting BuzzFeed’s still contro-
Abramson herself seems bored by her versial decision to publish the dossier,
own detailed chronicles of the other Abramson parts company with many of
outlets, which might partly explain how her peers. But in other respects, she
she wound up plagiarizing a number of remains a media conservative. She
sources—an act she asserts was inadver- believes there is a correct way to prac-
tent and for which she has apologized— tice journalism: the way that The New
and making some sloppy factual errors York Times did it before the Internet
that were discovered by readers and, in came along and ruined everything.
some cases, by the book’s subjects. Arguably, this reverence for tradition is
A greater fault with the book, however, what made her tenure at the paper so
is that Abramson never comes out and difficult. Rusbridger was inspired by the
says one thing that she seems to think: new opportunities that the Internet
that Vice is a poor excuse for a news brought to journalism, even when he
organization, founded by greedy, dishon- didn’t fully understand them. Abramson
est people without the slightest compre- focused on the risks and losses. She
hension of journalism. During the digital thought that software developers and
media bubble, Vice became the darling data scientists were commercial infiltra-
of middle-aged media executives, who tors in the newsroom and grew increas-
invested in it based on the dubious thesis ingly frustrated over their incursions
that foreign affairs could be made across the church-state boundary. When
relevant to young people through video the company produced a self-critical
content that often focused on sex, drugs, “innovation report,” in 2014, Abramson
and violence around the world. Vice has took it as a personal rebuke. It sealed
produced some worthwhile journalism, her fate in an unexpected way. In answer
most of which resulted from a partner- to the report’s implicit criticism of her,
ship with HBO that the cable network she tried to recruit Janine Gibson, an
recently terminated. But in essence, editor from the more tech-forward
Vice has been a swindle, and investors Guardian, as a deputy, without mention-
are starting to see the light: Disney, ing her plan to her existing deputy,
208 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Bad News
P
eter Hessler, the author of several turmoil and, in Hessler’s view, a drag on
award-winning books on China, social and political change.
spent late 2011 to 2016 in Egypt, Hessler lived with his family in the
reporting for The New Yorker. His new upscale neighborhood of Zamalek,
book, which collects and expands on his within walking distance of the best Cairo
magazine essays, is destined to become the hotels (not that anyone walks in Cairo).
title that all first-time visitors to Egypt He made a habit of visiting archaeological
are urged to pack, slipped neatly between sites along the route of the classic
their guide to the Egyptian Museum and touristic Nile cruise. Everywhere he
the itinerary of their Nile cruise. went, he found offbeat and sometimes
Hessler is an extraordinary writer, revealing people, sights, and sounds. With
and his Egypt is full of scoundrels typical Egyptian hospitality, his garbage
turned heroes and heroes turned scoun- collector Sayyid let this nosy foreigner tag
drels. The book’s reach is wide, from the along on his rounds. Hessler reports that
puzzles of ancient tombs to the preoccu- if he was “curious about anyone in the
pations of contemporary marriage, and neighborhood, I always asked Sayyid”—
it offers beguiling stories about ordinary one can glean a great deal about people’s
and extraordinary Egyptians alike: a drug use, health troubles, and tastes in
garbage collector, a police officer, a devout food and sex from their unsorted garbage.
woman who wears a niqab, a man who Another important source for Hessler was
frequents illegal gay nightclubs, a small- his remarkably open interpreter, Manu,
town politician. Hessler weaves together who revealed to Hessler the largely
rounded portraits of these and other hidden world of gay men in a society in
characters, leavening their stories with which identities and desires are rarely
as straightforward as Hessler expected.
LISA ANDERSON is James T. Shotwell As he observes, for all young Egyptians,
Professor Emerita of International Relations at
Columbia University and was President of the “sexual repression was a constant weight
American University in Cairo from 2011 to 2015. on their psyches.” He adds that “young
210 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
An American in Cairo
its chaos, is still a magnet for migrants from conceptions of time that may be “im-
the countryside and now home to some 20 possible . . . to be grasped by the modern
million people. Hessler’s talks with the mind.” But it also obscures the fact that
Chinese entrepreneurs he meets yields a Hessler himself did not arrive in Egypt
similarly provocative insight. Although until October 2011—eight months after
they profess little interest in Egyptian Mubarak’s overthrow and after the
politics, they are keen analysts of what intense protests against army rule that
they saw as Egypt’s halfhearted revolution: followed during the spring and summer
China, after all, “had experienced truly of 2011. As a consequence, the book
revolutionary change throughout the span focuses not on the revolt and its after-
of the twentieth century, for better and math but on the subsequent election
for worse, and they believed that the campaign, which resulted in the presi-
Egyptians had never committed them- dency of Mohamed Morsi (a leader of
selves to such a wrenching transformation.” the Muslim Brotherhood); Morsi’s one
But there are puzzling omissions in year in office; the coup that deposed
Hessler’s book. Perhaps most surprising, him; and the early days of the tenure of
given that the book purports to be “an Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the general who
archaeology of the Egyptian revolution,” led the coup and has ruled the country
there is relatively little about the 2011 ever since—a tenure that seems likely to
uprising that brought down President continue for a long time to come.
Hosni Mubarak. Hessler starts with a This was a fascinating and tumultu-
sweetly funny and captivating story about ous time. But for many Egyptians, it was
the repercussions of the revolt at the aftermath, a struggle to right a ship that
Upper Egyptian archaeological site that had almost capsized. Hessler joins the
provides the book with its name, “an story midway through and doesn’t always
ancient necropolis that villagers refer to manage to distinguish enduring features
as al-Madfuna: the Buried.” The site of the country from the aftershocks of a
manager grew concerned that the sudden revolution. He admits, as he contemplates
lack of police was emboldening grave leaving Egypt, that he has found his
robbers and looters. So he constructed a life there “difficult,” but it is never clear
large wooden box, painted it black, whether this was born of life in Egypt
added flashing lights and a siren, and in general or reflected a postrevolutionary
mounted it on his truck every night: “In hangover. (Imagine someone who relo-
the dark the vehicle was a strikingly good cated to New York City in the months after
imitation of the armored personnel the 9/11 attacks. To what degree would
carriers that are ubiquitous at any Egyp- his or her impressions have captured
tian tourist site.” Soon, there were the city’s essence, or would they instead
“rumors in the village that the police have reflected the effects of a recent
were active again.” collective trauma?)
This story permits Hessler to muse Hessler remarks that compared with
about disorientations of time and space: China, Egypt seemed disorganized:
Upper Egypt is the south of the country, “This was one grim lesson I had learned
as visitors are always surprised to learn, in Egypt: Unstructured authoritarian-
for example, and ancient Egyptians had ism is worse than structured authoritari-
212 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
anism. . . . Few Egyptians seemed
concerned that after three years of
revolution the authorities still lacked a Not all readers
basic protocol for dealing with unrest.”
Comparative authoritarianism is always a are
The Roleleaders,
of the Highest Courts of
dicey enterprise, but I don’t quite agree
with Hessler’s conclusion. The Egyptian but all
the United leaders
States of America and
areof Justice
readers.
reluctance to insist on more efficient South Africa, and the European
autocracy may have reflected the residual, Court in Foreign Affairs
if fading, hopes for the revolutionary - Harry PhD
by Riaan Eksteen, S. Truman
uprising more than it demonstrated a lack www.riaaneksteen.com
of concern for competent government.
SIGN UP for the
“The book provides a well-structured and original
treament of the theme, bolstered by its use of
THE WORLD OF WOMEN
Foreign Affairs
comparave case studies and careful analysis and
There are other missing pieces in Hessler’s provides new comparave data.”
picture. His focus on Cairo and Upper Books & Reviews
—Chris Alden, London School of Economics
newsletter
Egypt, for example, leaves out quite a bit “It demonstrates that the judiciary does influence
of the country, including the Nile Delta foreign policy making and should not be overlooked.”
and the north coast, which is home to2019-Sept-Oct-FA-Boduszynski-US_Foreign
the Affairs
—Marijke Breuning, University 7/8/19
of North Texas4:08 PM Page 1
famed, faded city of Alexandria and
around 40 million of Egypt’s 95 million Available at www.asserpress.nl
or so inhabitants. Instead of unearthing
the contemporary reality of those areas,
Hessler delves into the Pharaonic past.
As Hessler himself observes, his enthusi-
asm for ancient Egypt is not typical of
Egyptians themselves. “Average Egyp-
tians take pride in their pharaonic history,
but there’s also a disconnect, because the
tradition of the Islamic past is stronger
and more immediate,” he writes. “The
ancients belong to foreigners and Islam
belongs to us” is how Hessler sums up the
typical Egyptian view. And yet Islam
plays a surprisingly modest role in this
book and is usually portrayed as a source “A
nyone who wants to under-
stand the US role in the
of constraint: the demands of the Rama- unhappy outcome of the Arab
dan fast and the inconvenience of the uprisings must read this book.”
niqab feature more prominently than, say, —DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK,
international correspondent, New York Times
the joy Egyptians take in celebrating
hc $79.95 $40 for Foreign Affairs readers!
religious holidays or the satisfaction they
find in communal rituals.
This sense of constraint also seeps into ForeignAffairs.com/newsletters
T : 303-444-6684
EL • www.rienner.com
213
Lisa Anderson
women in Egypt. “It wasn’t until I started night, with no electric lights, no police
visiting Chinese shopkeepers in Upper presence, and guns everywhere, I could
Egypt that I realized how much I had walk safely in the village.” He marvels
missed seeing men and women together,” that “in a country where systems and laws
he writes. “It was relaxing to spend time had always been weak, there were other
with the Chinese—I could sit and talk forces that kept the place from collaps-
with Kiki without worrying about her ing.” In searching for an explanation for
husband’s reaction or whether my male this mysterious stability, he concludes
presence might damage her reputation.” that “the only real structure was the same
Hessler does not seem to have spent one that had shaped local life since long
much time with women during the course before the first royal tombs were dug into
of his reporting, but he developed a the Buried. It has nothing to do with
clear impression of what everyday life is the Brotherhood, . . . or Sisi, or any other
like for most Egyptian women. “I political figure or group. For Egyptians,
imagined that being a woman in Egypt . . . the family was the deep state.” That
required constant energy, thought and the family provides safety and solace to
adjustment,” he writes, adding that a Egyptians confronted with a vast but
typical Egyptian woman would have to sclerotic and disorganized state is a
“accept the judgements of the men typically astute observation on Hessler’s
around her, shifting her dress and behav- part. But even though the family looms
ior according to whoever they might large in Egyptian society, so, too, do
be: husband, close relative, distant religious impulses, neighborliness, patriot-
relative, friend of husband, neighbor, man ism, and a certain ineffable warmth and
on the street.” He then adds: “Of course, lightheartedness.
the culture in America and Europe also Hessler ends his book on a wistful note.
placed unfair demands on women but “Nobody had asked us to go to Egypt,
there was no comparison to Egypt.” As a and nobody was asking us to leave,” he
woman whose life has demanded con- writes of his family’s departure, which was
stant energy, thought, and adjustment prompted by the realization that there
everywhere I have lived and worked, I were “limits to how long [they] could stay
missed a more nuanced account of the in a place where life was so difficult.” He
specific ways in which Egyptian women was admirably reluctant to admit this to
navigate their world. the Egyptians he was leaving behind, and
for whom there is little escape from the
A DIFFICULT COUNTRY difficulties. Like most visitors to Egypt,
Hessler points appreciatively to the many of whom will value his book as a
resilience of Egyptians and Egyptian congenial guide, Hessler found his travels
society, something that surely struck interesting and brought home a lot of
every foreigner who lived in the country good stories, which he tells exceptionally
during the tumultuous years after well—but he was glad to be going home.
Mubarak’s overthrow. In April 2013, when That leaves readers to wonder about
blackouts were common across the the lives of those for whom Egypt is
country, Hessler visited the Upper home. Disappointment with the outcome
Egyptian town of Abydos, where “at of the Arab uprisings has soured many
214 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
An American in Cairo
Western commentators on the Arab days? What might that reveal about
world. The toxic mix of tyranny and religious observance, politics, and family?
anarchy that dashed hopes for freedom, And lastly (although hardly finally), what
dignity, social justice, and prosperity is the legacy of the hopes raised and
surprised and disappointed Western dashed, and the trust extended and
scholars and political analysts; for many betrayed, by the 2011 uprising? Egyptians
observers, curiosity and excitement have were surprised by the depth of the
been replaced by resignation and even differences among them exposed by the
resentment. As activists and Western revolt and its aftermath: the cleavages
officials castigate Arab governments for between Muslims and Christians,
human rights abuses, and Western revolutionaries and reactionaries, liberals
scholars warn their students away from and populists, patriots and nationalists,
research that might be dangerous, much the generous and the stingy, and the
of the Arab world now appears to be fearless and the timid all mattered more
off-limits even to U.S. students wishing than they had thought. The future of
to learn Arabic. Meanwhile, apart from the country will depend to a great
arms dealers and oil companies, foreign degree on how these identities will be
investors have turned away from the expressed and reshaped, now that they
region, worried about both bureaucratic have been revealed.
paralysis and political instability. It is, Today, most of what Westerners write
to use Hessler’s term, just too difficult. and read about Egypt is still, really, about
As a result, Westerners know less and Westerners. Whether filtered through
less about the quotidian lives of people the fascination of tourists justifiably smit-
in Egypt—and more and more of what ten with the pyramids or the indignation
they know is harvested online, from of Western analysts understandably
tweets and blogs and Facebook posts. disappointed by the autocrats, what we
Few Western reporters are based in the are writing involves what matters to us.
country anymore, and Egypt’s media are Perhaps that is the best we can do. But
hardly free, much less representative. it means that what actually matters to
Human rights groups estimate that Egypt Egyptians is likely to remain buried, as it
currently jails around 40,000 political were, under our own hopes and fears.∂
prisoners—an appalling figure, but one
whose accuracy is difficult to assess. And
although I would like to know about the
status of these prisoners, I would also
like to know about the prospects of the
thousands of entrepreneurs in the
country. What are they working on, and
who is funding their projects? And
speaking of business, how are the captains
of industry who thrived during the
Mubarak era faring today? And is it true,
as the local press suggests, that fewer
people are fasting during Ramadan these
F
or most of human history, the and John Ibbitson, the authors of
world’s population grew so slowly Empty Planet, a new book on the rapidly
that for most people alive, it shifting demographics of the twenty-first
would have felt static. Between the year century. But demographics are clearly
1 and 1700, the human population went part of destiny. If their role first in the
from about 200 million to about 600 rise of the West and now in the rise of
million; by 1800, it had barely hit one the rest has been underappreciated, the
billion. Then, the population exploded, potential consequences of plateauing and
first in the United Kingdom and the then shrinking populations in the
United States, next in much of the rest decades ahead are almost wholly ignored.
of Europe, and eventually in Asia. By The mismatch between expectations
the late 1920s, it had hit two billion. It of a rapidly growing global population
reached three billion around 1960 and (and all the attendant effects on climate,
then four billion around 1975. It has capitalism, and geopolitics) and the reality
nearly doubled since then. There are of both slowing growth rates and absolute
now some 7.6 billion people living on contraction is so great that it will pose a
the planet. considerable threat in the decades ahead.
Governments worldwide have evolved
ZACHARY KARABELL is the author of The
Leading Indicators: A Short History of the to meet the challenge of managing more
Numbers That Rule Our World. people, not fewer and not older.
216 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Population Bust
Thomas Malthus. Malthus’ 1798 Essay on from millennia of prior human history,
the Principle of Population argued that during which the population had been
growing numbers of people were a stagnant, contracting, or inching forward.
looming threat to social and political He starts with the observation that the
stability. He was convinced that humans population begins to grow rapidly when
were destined to produce more people infant mortality declines. Eventually,
fertility falls in response to lower infant hundreds of millions of people are going
mortality—but there is a considerable lag, to starve to death in spite of any crash
which explains why societies in the programs embarked on now.”
modern world can experience such sharp Ehrlich’s prophecy, of course, proved
and extreme surges in population. In wrong, for reasons that Bricker and
other words, while infant mortality is Ibbitson elegantly chart in Empty Planet.
high, women tend to give birth to many The green revolution, a series of innova-
children, expecting at least some of them tions in agriculture that began in the
to die before reaching maturity. When early twentieth century, accelerated such
infant mortality begins to drop, it takes that crop yields expanded to meet
several generations before fertility does, humankind’s needs. Moreover, govern-
too. So a woman who gives birth to six ments around the world managed to
children suddenly has six children who remediate the worst effects of pollution
survive to adulthood instead of, say, and environmental degradation, at
three. Her daughters might also have least in terms of daily living standards
six children each before the next in multiple megacities, such as Beijing,
generation of women adjusts, deciding Cairo, Mexico City, and New Delhi.
to have smaller families. These cities face acute challenges related
The burgeoning of global population to depleted water tables and industrial
in the past two centuries followed almost pollution, but there has been no crisis
precisely the patterns of industrialization, akin to what was anticipated.
modernization, and, crucially, urbaniza- Yet visions of dystopic population
tion. It started in the United Kingdom bombs remain deeply entrenched, includ-
at the end of the nineteenth century ing at the center of global population
(hence the concerns of Malthus), before calculations: in the forecasts routinely
spreading to the United States and issued by the United Nations. Today, the
then France and Germany. The trend UN predicts that global population will
next hit Japan, India, and China and made reach nearly ten billion by 2050. Judging
its way to Latin America. It finally arrived from the evidence presented in Morland’s
in sub-Saharan Africa, which has seen its and Bricker and Ibbitson’s books, it seems
population surge thanks to improvements likely that this estimate is too high,
in medicine and sanitation but has not perhaps substantially. It’s not that anyone
yet enjoyed the full fruits of industrializa- is purposely inflating the numbers.
tion and a rapidly growing middle class. Governmental and international statistical
With the population explosion came a agencies do not turn on a dime; they
new wave of Malthusian fears, epitomized use formulas and assumptions that took
by the 1968 book The Population Bomb, years to formalize and will take years to
by Paul Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford alter. Until very recently, the population
University. Ehrlich argued that plummet- assumptions built into most models
ing death rates had created an untenable accurately reflected what was happening.
situation of too many people who could But the sudden ebb of both birthrates
not be fed or housed. “The battle to feed and absolute population growth has
all of humanity is over,” he wrote. “In the happened too quickly for the models to
1970’s the world will undergo famines— adjust in real time. As Bricker and
218 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Population Bust
stagnate, with an aging population and consume less as they age. A smaller,
gradual absolute decline thereafter. older population spells some relief from
Bricker and Ibbitson, on the other hand, the immense environmental strain of so
warn that China’s fertility rate, already in many people living on one finite globe.
free fall, could actually get much worse That is the plus side of the demo-
based on the example of Japan, which graphic deflation. Whether the concomi-
would lead China to shrink to less than tant greening of the world will happen
700 million people in the second half quickly enough to offset the worst-case
of the century. Morland does agree with climate scenarios is an open question—
Bricker and Ibbitson on one important although current trends suggest that if
point: when it comes to global population, humanity can get through the next 20 to
the only paradigm that anyone has known 30 years without irreversibly damaging
for two centuries is about to change. the ecosystem, the second half of the
twenty-first century might be consider-
GREAT EXPECTATIONS ably brighter than most now assume. The
The implications of the coming popula- downside is that a sudden population
tion bust occupy a large portion of Bricker contraction will place substantial strain on
and Ibbitson’s book, and they should the global economic system. Capitalism
occupy a much larger portion of the is, essentially, a system that maximizes
collective debate about the future and more—more output, more goods, and
how to prepare for it. The underlying more services. That makes sense, given
drivers of capitalism, the sense that that it evolved coincidentally with a
resource competition and scarcity deter- population surge. The success of capital-
mine the nature of international relations ism in providing more to more people
and domestic tensions, and the fear is undeniable, as are its evident defects in
that climate change and environmental providing every individual with enough.
degradation are almost at a doomsday If global population stops expanding and
point—all have been shaped by the then contracts, capitalism—a system
persistently ballooning population of the implicitly predicated on ever-burgeoning
past two centuries. If the human numbers of people—will likely not be
population is about to decline as quickly able to thrive in its current form. An
as it increased, then all those systems aging population will consume more of
and assumptions are in jeopardy. certain goods, such as health care, but
Both books note that the demographic on the whole aging and then decreasing
collapse could be a bright spot for climate populations will consume less. So much
change. Given that carbon emissions of consumption occurs early in life, as
are a direct result of more people needing people have children and buy homes, cars,
and demanding more stuff—from food and white goods. That is true not just
and water to cars and entertainment— in the more affluent parts of the world
then it would follow that fewer people but also in any country that is seeing a
would need and demand less. What’s middle-class surge.
more, larger proportions of the planet will But what happens when these trends
be aging, and the experiences of Japan and halt or reverse? Think about the future
the United States are showing that people cost of capital and assumptions of
220 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
The Population Bust
I
n this spirited manifesto, Gopnik BY CARLES BOIX . Princeton
paints a sweeping portrait of modern University Press, 2019, 272 pp.
liberalism’s founding principles and
accomplishments and makes the case for Beginning in the 1980s, Boix argues,
the theory’s continued relevance in revolutions in communications and the
today’s struggle to build decent and globalization of trade and production
inclusive societies. Gopnik traces undermined the old class compromises at
liberalism’s origins to the Enlighten- the heart of Western liberal democracy.
ment and the early modern humanistic Highly educated professionals have seen
tradition. It was rooted in a belief— their incomes soar, and previously
articulated by thinkers such as David well-paid manufacturing workers, the old
Hume and Adam Smith—in the inher- backbone of the middle class, are now
ent sociability of people and the human struggling to survive. Boix places this
capacity for mutual respect. Liberal crisis in perspective, illuminating the
society is grounded not in blood and fraught relationship among technology,
soil, nor in traditional authority, but capitalism, and democracy over the last
rather in an idea of “shared choice,” a two centuries. The book focuses on
vision of a political community held watershed moments, starting with the
together by crosscutting values: liberty, birth of the Industrial Revolution in
equality, and toleration. For Gopnik, cities such as Manchester, where low
liberalism is best understood not as a factory wages, poor living conditions for
ROBERT LEGVOLD has retired as reviewer of the section on eastern Europe and the
former Soviet republics, and we thank him for his outstanding contributions. We are
fortunate to have as his successor MARIA LIPMAN , the editor of Point & Counterpoint,
an online journal published by the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian
Studies at George Washington University, and a former columnist for The Washington
Post and the website of The New Yorker.
222 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
workers, and rising wealth for owners engaged in local and nontraditional
brought political struggles over state peacemaking, such as environmentalism
protection and the extent of democracy. and campaigns against sexual violence.
The golden age of capitalism and democ- Many view the Nobel Peace Prize as an
racy emerged in the early twentieth expression of Western liberal values.
century in places such as Detroit, where The Chinese government protested
new technologies of mass production bitterly in 2010 when the award was given
raised labor productivity, boosted wages, to Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese human rights
brought down inequality, and enabled activist. But Lundestad makes an
vibrant liberal democracies. Today, eloquent case that the prize has a univer-
another technological revolution is sal appeal, grounded in humanitarian
generating radical income inequality and and nonviolent ideals on which no
destabilizing political life. Yet Boix country or civilization holds a monopoly.
rejects technological and economic deter-
minism. Industrial societies, he believes, Leadership and the Rise of Great Powers
can still regain control of the future. BY YAN XUETONG . Princeton
University Press, 2019, 280 pp.
The World’s Most Prestigious Prize: The
Inside Story of the Nobel Peace Prize Yan takes on a classic question: Why do
BY GEIR LUNDESTAD . Oxford great powers rise and fall? With an eye to
University Press, 2019, 240 pp. explaining recent Chinese success in
challenging U.S. dominance, he advances
Since it was first awarded, in 1901, the a theory he calls “moral realism.” Borrow-
Nobel Peace Prize has been given ing from ancient Chinese philosophers,
annually to a kaleidoscopic assortment Yan argues that when governments define
of activists, politicians, diplomats, moral a moral worldview, they are more likely to
leaders, and organizations—from successfully take over from their declining
Theodore Roosevelt and Jane Addams peers. Much of the book details how
to Amnesty International and the states can project moral strength in world
European Union. Lundestad, a longtime affairs, which, for Yan, means offering
director of the Norwegian Nobel Insti- sober and consistent definitions of the
tute, argues that despite the diversity of national interest, protecting international
figures and causes, the honorees tend to norms, and establishing credibility in
reflect a “Norwegian approach” to alliances. Yan argues that since the end of
international politics, a mix of realism, the Cold War, China has been more
idealism, and liberal internationalism that successful—or “efficient”—in this project
emphasizes practical efforts to promote than the United States and thus has
democracy, human rights, humanitarian- steadily gained ground on its rival,
ism, disarmament, and international although he admits that China has yet to
cooperation. In its early years, the prize develop a set of postliberal values that can
went primarily to European and Ameri- compete for global influence. It’s not
can men, but the committee has since entirely clear whether Yan’s theory is
broadened its reach, honoring women, distinctively Chinese, but he is surely
non-Western groups, and activists correct that U.S.-Chinese competition
Greenfeld, the author of massive Firefighting: The Financial Crisis and Its
historical-sociological studies of the rise Lessons
of nationalism, capitalism, and moder- BY BEN S. BERNANKE, TIMOTHY F.
nity, here distills the story of national- GEITHNER, AND HENRY M.
ism into a short and captivating historical PAULSON, JR . Penguin Books, 2019,
drama. She traces the origins of “na- 240 pp.
tional consciousness” to sixteenth-
T
century England, when the new Tudor his collaboration by the three
monarchy was attempting to rebuild— U.S. government officials who
and legitimate—the political order led the fight in the United
following the destruction of the aristoc- States against the financial crisis of 2008
racy in the dynastic wars of the previ- presents a mature and revealing assess-
ous century. The old self-understanding ment of the genesis and dynamics of the
of England as a social hierarchy was meltdown—and of the government’s
replaced with an image of “the nation,” ultimate success in halting it, although
made up of a single English people. not before a painful recession had set in.
Greenfeld argues that the notions of One of the most interesting points is
social equality—secular, democratic, that they did not want Lehman Brothers
and egalitarian—that dominated this to collapse in September 2008, despite
English-led “revolution in conscious- some claims to the contrary, but lacked
ness” played out across the rest of the the legal authority to prevent it. The
world in the following centuries. The authors also argue that the many bailouts
Protestant Reformation, the American of other financial institutions worked, as
and French Revolutions, the rise of they stopped a panic that could have
commercial capitalism, the coming of been much worse. In the end, taxpayers
modern science, the emergence of recovered much more than they paid out,
modern Chinese and Japanese national- and executives and shareholders lost
ism—all have their place in Greenfeld’s heavily, as they should have in a capital-
grand narrative. Greenfeld argues that ist system—a point that undercuts fears
nationalism’s appeal flows from the that the bailouts would generate moral
dignity that a vibrant national con- hazard and thus lead management and
sciousness bestows on a nation’s mem- shareholders to take more risks in the
bers. The task for those seeking to future. Bernanke, Geithner, and Paulson
preserve the liberal democratic way of believe that the U.S. economy is much
life is to reclaim nationalism’s progres- better positioned to avoid a financial
sive orientation. crisis today than it was in 2007 but that
224 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
the federal government is now less well the global economy since 2007 should
equipped to deal with one when it change economists’ understanding of
eventually occurs. macroeconomic policy. One obvious point
is that economists should pay much more
Open: The Progressive Case for Free Trade, attention to the financial system and its
Immigration, and Global Capital influence on production and employment,
BY KIMBERLY CLAUSING . Harvard as well as to the policies that might
University Press, 2019, 360 pp. strengthen the system against external
shocks and destabilizing internal dynam-
Amid a growing backlash against inter- ics. Many of the contributors also
national economic interdependence, argue that over the past decade, econo-
Clausing makes a strong case in favor of mies in Europe and North America
foreign trade in goods and services, the have relied too much on monetary
cross-border movement of capital, and policy to shore up weak growth and not
immigration. This valuable book enough on government taxing and
amounts to a primer on globalization, spending to boost demand. They note
explaining without jargon both its that allowing capital to flow freely
benefits and its costs. The former, in her across borders, as it now does in many
view, greatly outweigh the latter, but parts of the world, creates severe
she also offers constructive proposals to problems for emerging-market coun-
reduce globalization’s downsides. tries trying to manage their monetary
Clausing’s field of expertise is tax policies and currency exchange rates.
avoidance and evasion by multinational One disappointing omission is the lack
corporations, which employ hordes of of a discussion of the influence of
well-paid lawyers to take advantage of accounting rules on corporate behavior
loopholes in national tax laws and and economic stability.
swarms of lobbyists to help create and
maintain those loopholes. Clausing Titans of the Climate: Explaining Policy
argues that the tax reform passed by the Process in the United States and China
U.S. Congress in 2017 contains many BY KELLY SIMS GALLAGHER AND
moves in the wrong direction. XIAOWEI XUAN . MIT Press, 2019,
272 pp.
Evolution or Revolution: Rethinking
Macroeconomic Policy After the Great This collaboration between an American
Recession scholar-official and a Chinese counter-
EDITED BY OLIVIER BLANCHARD part seeks to demystify how their
AND LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS . respective governments make and
MIT Press, 2019, 392 pp. execute policy and explores the two
countries’ differing motivations, proce-
This thought-provoking and accessible dures, and constraints. The authors
collection of reflections by economists, focus on environmental policy, espe-
central bankers, and government cially the 2014 agreement between
officials explores how the unusual China and the United States, the two
circumstances that have characterized largest emitters of greenhouse gases,
A
Panagariya puts forth a trenchant case lthough a vast literature has
against import tariffs and other forms of covered every aspect of World
trade protectionism in developing War II, the war’s length, scope,
countries. He carefully reviews both the and intensity mean that authors still
economic theory of import substitution manage to find new angles on the same
(government-led efforts to replace material. Holland adopts a bottom-up
imported goods with domestically pro- approach to the familiar story of the
duced ones) and the empirical evidence June 1944 Normandy landings and the
from the past six decades showing which subsequent fighting on the continent.
trade policies have fostered economic He shows how the commanders laid
growth in developing countries. A their plans and responded to new
vigorous supporter of free trade, he developments, and he conveys well the
criticizes those who advocate import sub- sheer scale of the logistical effort and
stitution as a path to development. He the cleverness of the Allied deception
concedes that rapid economic growth plan. At the heart of the book are the
often raises income inequality even as it stories of individual people caught up
almost always slashes poverty, but he in great events: a teenage German
cautions that some policies aimed at soldier crouching in a bunker watching
reducing inequality, including import the Americans land while his confused
substitution, may thwart growth and superiors try to make sense of the
thus leave most people worse off. invasion, Allied paratroopers dropping
226 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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into hostile territory, resistance fighters Roosevelt’s last ailing months, when
sabotaging German communications, Leahy was virtually the acting president.
exhausted pilots flying sortie after Although Leahy got on well with
sortie with little expectation that they Truman, the field of policymaking
would survive much longer, infantry- became more crowded after Roosevelt’s
men scouring the roads and fields for death, and Leahy’s influence declined.
ambushes, a nurse coping with the Nagorski focuses on the war’s big
wounded. The sheer weight of the decisions, especially those taken during
Allies’ firepower and their command of 1941. The book begins with Hitler in
the air (the Allies flew 14,674 sorties on control of much of Europe but frus-
D-Day; the Luftwaffe flew 80) might trated by the British refusal to agree to
make the result seem inevitable in a negotiated peace. He decides to get
retrospect, but amphibious landings had on with his main project—defeating the
failed before, and Holland brings to Bolsheviks to the east, assuming that
life what a grueling, vicious, and once the Soviet Union collapses, the
terrifying battle this was. British will come to their senses. Thanks
In contrast to Holland, O’Brien tells to Stalin’s refusal to heed repeated
his story very much from the top down. warnings about Germany’s plans, Hitler
Admiral William Leahy was U.S. almost got away with his boldest
President Franklin Roosevelt’s closest gamble, but his troops failed to make
adviser on military affairs from early enough progress before winter set in.
1942 until Roosevelt’s death, in 1945. When the German invasion of the
(Leahy stayed on to advise President Soviet Union began, British Prime
Harry Truman until the end of 1948.) Minister Winston Churchill at once put
During and after the war, Leahy deliber- aside his deep hostility to the Soviet
ately kept out of the limelight, content regime and accepted Stalin as an ally.
to be known for ensuring smooth When another surprise attack, this time
processes rather than deep thinking on from Japan, brought the United States
policy. A dull autobiography, published in into the war, Churchill knew that the
1950, revealed little about his life and tide had turned. Germany had simply
work. O’Brien makes a compelling case too many enemies to win. This is an old
that this reticence has led historians to tale, but Nagorski tells it well.
miss Leahy’s vital role in shaping U.S.
grand strategy during the war and to The War for Gaul: A New Translation
exaggerate General George Marshall’s BY JULIUS CAESAR. TRANSLATED
part in consequence. The son of a Civil BY JAMES J. O’DONNELL . Princeton
War veteran, Leahy attended the U.S. University Press, 2019, 324 pp.
Naval Academy and rose to the rank of
admiral through his professionalism and Julius Caesar’s war stories are so associ-
good judgment, seizing the chance to ated with Latin textbooks that they tend
forge a warm relationship with Roose- to get forgotten as contributions to
velt when the latter was assistant military history. Originally dispatches
secretary of the navy, from 1913 to 1920. sent back to the Senate in Rome, they
Leahy’s peak influence came during explained how well Caesar was doing in
his battles with a variety of rugged foes. or unwilling to devote the requisite
They aimed to boost Caesar’s reputation resources to achieve it. Theorists, such
as a great general and support his bid for as Thomas Schelling, have contributed
power, but they also serve as useful to the muddle by their readiness to talk
records of events, if not quite the unvar- about war as a form of bargaining.
nished truth. O’Donnell has produced a Stoker’s analysis of the United States’
vigorous, modern, and uncluttered failures is convincing, but his argument
translation, removing sections added to that better thinking would enable
the commentaries by later authors and political leaders to set clear objectives
adding few footnotes. He encourages and pursue them to victory is less so.
readers to focus on the candor and
cruelty with which Caesar describes his
victories and his negotiations with Western Europe
foreign leaders. In a jaunty introduction,
O’Donnell demonstrates how to appre- Andrew Moravcsik
ciate the book as a major contribution to
martial literature while deploring its
morals. This is, he declares, “the best bad
man’s book ever written.” How to Democratize Europe
BY STÉPHANIE HENNET TE,
Why America Loses Wars: Limited War THOMAS PIKET TY, GUILLAUME
and US Strategy From the Korean War to SACRISTE, AND ANTOINE
the Present VAUCHEZ . TRANSLATED BY PAUL
BY DONALD STOKER . Cambridge DERMINE, MARC L E PAIN, AND
University Press, 2019, 336 pp. PATRICK CAMILLER . Harvard
University Press, 2019, 224 pp.
Since 1945, the United States’ experience
T
of war has been a frustrating one, full of his book, which sparked consid-
stalemates, setbacks, and only occasional erable debate when it appeared
victories. In this lively and opinionated in French, criticizes Europe’s
book, Stoker pins a major part of the single currency not because it does too
blame on muddled thinking about much (the usual complaint) but because
“limited war.” He is a scholar of Carl von it does too little. The authors, three legal
Clausewitz and frequently turns to the academics and a celebrated economist,
Prussian general as his authority. Stoker charge that the eurozone’s technocratic
believes that in wartime, leaders should obscurantism and self-defeating
first and foremost set proper political tendency toward austerity exacerbate
objectives (and reappraise them when inequality, right-wing populism, and
necessary) and not let the means they Euroskepticism. They propose to coun-
are prepared to use dictate the ends. teract these forces by greatly increasing
Time and again, from Korea to Vietnam fiscal transfers between EU countries.
to the war against the Islamic State (or To do so, they recommend that the EU
ISIS), U.S. leaders have been either too create a powerful new transnational
vague about what they are seeking to do parliament composed of national parlia-
228 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
mentarians. This body would, they the EU’s success: that, when push comes
hope, supplant existing institutions and to shove in Brussels, “politics trumps
allow for transfers of wealth from richer economics,” thereby purportedly over-
EU countries to poorer ones. Yet none coming opposition to integration by
of this has the slightest chance of being special interests. This is the story leaders
realized, and even if it were, it would in Brussels tell. Yet what van Middelaar’s
hardly be sufficient to offset the harm narrative actually reveals is how Euro-
done by the euro. Recent experience pean leaders, buffeted by market forces
and social science findings, moreover, and regulatory failures, craft pragmatic
belie the idealistic notion that referen- responses to real-world problems in
dums and parliamentary elections pursuit of their enduring national inter-
automatically legitimate policies. The ests. Although this is not the technocratic
proposal is important chiefly because it world dreamed of by economists, it is
illustrates the utter failure of Europe’s also far from one in which politics reigns
center-left social democrats—caught supreme over economics.
between their pro-federalist beliefs and
the realities of international economic Dreams of Leaving and Remaining
cooperation—to craft coherent and BY JAMES MEEK . Verso, 2019, 272 pp.
viable proposals for renewing the EU.
This book’s title belies its content: it
Alarums and Excursions: Improvising covers dreams only of leaving the EU,
Politics on the European Stage not of remaining in it. Indeed, the book
BY LUUK VAN MIDDELAAR. belongs to a distinct genre of journalism
TRANSLATED BY LIZ WATERS . that has recently emerged, in which a
Agenda, 2019, 320 pp. distinguished member of the chattering
classes sallies out from London, New
Part insider memoir and part commen- York, or a university town to record (for
tary, this is probably the best analysis metropolitan consumption) the thoughts
yet to appear of how the EU managed its and feelings of populist sympathizers in
recent crises over refugees, Ukraine, and the hinterland. Meek, an editor at the
the euro. Van Middelaar, now a political London Review of Books, visits a fishing
theorist, worked as a speechwriter for village, a farming town, a former
Herman Van Rompuy, the president of Cadbury chocolate factory, and an urban
the European Council, from 2010 to 2014. medical complex. He relates colorful
He repackages the EU establishment and engaging tales of such places that his
consensus in prose largely free of jargon readers rarely visit and of the common
and footnotes. He convincingly shows folk who live there. He concludes that
that the EU has been surprisingly success- British supporters of leaving the EU view
ful at managing crises—although, in themselves as heirs to the legacy of Saint
keeping with the conventional wisdom in George: they must slay a foreign dragon,
Brussels, he suggests some moderate regardless of the practical consequences.
reforms designed to bolster its power It is tempting to think that such stories
and legitimacy. The book is less persua- accurately capture the decisive sources of
sive in its overarching explanation for support for Brexit and other populist
230 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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I
n this welcome antidote to the Ellis is a prolific defense intellectual
many dire warnings that U.S. who recently joined the U.S. State
President Donald Trump could end Department’s Policy Planning Staff. In
liberal democracy in the United States, this comprehensive and thoughtful
a group of seasoned political scientists book, he underscores the serious threat
express confidence that U.S. institu- to U.S. national interests posed by
tions will endure. In contrast to more organized criminal groups in Latin
vulnerable nations where authoritarian America. Ellis usefully catalogs the
populists have triumphed—although major groups and evaluates the uneven
not as frequently as alarmists often efforts by national governments to
suggest—the United States has strong combat them. He finds, controversially,
institutions, and the U.S. Constitution that the formerly distinct roles assigned
is notoriously difficult to amend. The to militaries and police forces are
United States’ well-established two- outdated in an era in which borders are
party system and its deep civil society ever less relevant to security. He also
and independent media have resisted judiciously warns against desperate,
Trump’s power grabs. And the very short-term measures, arguing instead for
political polarization that helped Trump “persistent, adaptive and effectively
win office impedes him from gathering sequenced” approaches coordinated
the overwhelming majority he would across government agencies. Ellis pleads
need to engineer a radical transforma- for close collaboration among partner
tion. Moreover, Trump has not so far governments based on “mutual respect
faced a crisis that he could use to and trust” and for governments to learn
mobilize majoritarian support, and even from one another’s experiences. The
a national security blowup is likely to Trump administration’s new Latin
boost his popularity only briefly. At the America hand issues a pointed warning
same time, Weyland and Madrid against “attempting to isolate the
recognize that serious shortcomings, United States behind a wall that is high
including political gridlock, the undue enough to permit its residents to be
influence of money in politics, and indifferent concerning the conditions
rising social inequality could eventually beyond it.”
Sand and Blood: America’s Stealth War on create legal work programs in the
the Mexico Border United States, and properly staff U.S.
BY JOHN CARLOS F REY . Bold Type immigration courts.
Books, 2019, 256 pp.
Thomas C. Mann: President Johnson, the
Cold War, and the Restructuring of Latin
In this searing eyewitness report on the American Foreign Policy
situation at the U.S.-Mexican border, BY THOMAS TUNSTALL ALLCOCK .
Frey argues that long-standing U.S. University Press of Kentucky, 2018, 294 pp.
policies to deter illegal immigration by
building fences, detaining and mistreating Allcock works hard to rehabilitate the
and then deporting immigrants, and reputation of Thomas Mann, U.S.
now splitting up families cannot stem President Lyndon Johnson’s senior adviser
the flow of desperate people. Harsh on Latin America. Loyalists of Johnson’s
U.S. policies have, however, killed an predecessor, John F. Kennedy, along with
unknown number of immigrants, as other liberal critics, blamed Mann for
people resort to more dangerous routes abandoning the idealism of the Alliance
and some die in overcrowded detention for Progress, Kennedy’s ambitious eco-
facilities. The only winners are the nomic and security assistance programs
federal bureaucracies whose budgets and for Latin America, in favor of supporting
personnel swell, opportunistic politi- military dictatorships and conservative
cians who traffic in fear-mongering, and business interests. Allcock persuasively
the defense contractors that supply the argues that, in fact, Kennedy’s contradic-
facilities and weaponry. Although the tory Cold War security strategies always
Trump administration may have preferred pro-U.S. authoritarians over
adopted “zero tolerance” policies, since potentially pro-Soviet leftists. Moreover,
the 1980s, the U.S. Congress and the administration was already shifting
various administrations, including those away from its lofty early rhetoric and
of Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack unrealistic goals by the time of Kennedy’s
Obama, have laid the groundwork for assassination. Nor was Mann an economic
the mistreatment of immigrants through reactionary, as his detractors have
legislation, executive orders, and anti- claimed; rather, he adhered to New Deal
immigrant rhetoric. Housed within the beliefs in government spending on
military-minded Department of infrastructure projects and public inter-
Homeland Security, the 20,000-strong vention to mitigate market failures. Mann
Immigration and Customs Enforcement supported international agreements to
agency, in Frey’s view, has morphed stabilize the price of coffee, for example,
into an unaccountable, ill-trained and was unafraid to criticize corporate
“clandestine police force” running the executives he considered socially irrespon-
world’s largest immigrant detention sible. A fluent Spanish speaker with years
system. Frey argues that instead of of diplomatic experience, Mann also
locking immigrants up, the United States deserves credit for reducing tensions with
should promote economic development in Mexico and Panama by negotiating
the countries from which they come, bilateral treaties.
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S
blue: the Cuban flag was designed in tent is a veteran Russia watcher
Manhattan. In the nineteenth century, who has served in senior positions
New York hosted a thriving transna- in the U.S. government. She hardly
tional community of Cubans, the qualifies as an apologist for Russian
flag-designing revolutionary general President Vladimir Putin, but she gives
Narciso López among them. In those him ample credit for achieving his main
years, prosperous Cuban investors foreign policy goals: reasserting Russia’s
manufactured, financed, and traded position as a global player, protecting the
sugar and cigars in Cuban and U.S., as country’s sovereignty, gaining respect
well as global, markets. Cuban émigrés from non-Western actors, and overcoming
also organized to liberate their home- the West’s attempts to isolate Russia. To
land from despotic Spain, some Stent, a historical outlook is indispens-
lobbying for U.S. annexation and able for understanding Putin’s foreign
others battling for full independence. policy. For centuries, she explains, the
The Cuban founding father José Martí country’s vast territory and lack of
lived in New York for much of his natural borders have bred a deep-seated
adult life. Writing for several Latin sense of vulnerability. Putin saw the
American newspapers, Martí mixed West as taking advantage of the weak-
admiration for American industrious- ness caused by the Soviet collapse, and
ness and liberty with criticism of the he responded by craftily exploiting his
United States’ social shortcomings and Western rivals’ missteps and lack of
forebodings about U.S. imperial unity. Eventually, these tactics aided
pretentions. Pérez vividly describes Russia’s resurgence on the global stage.
how the tightly knit Cuban émigré He has been particularly successful,
community reproduced the political Stent notes, in handling relations with
cleavages and social mores of its China and the countries of the Middle
homeland. Although some émigrés East. Stent devotes far less space to
absorbed New York’s urbane demo- Putin’s policy failures: the high cost of
cratic modernity, the intransigence and his clashes with the West, Russia’s lack
intolerance inspired by Spanish rule of any real allies, and the country’s
endured in Cuban political culture, persistent economic weakness. In some
abroad and at home. respects, Putin’s Russia looks a bit like
the Soviet Union did in the late 1970s Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Putin
and early 1980s, under Leonid has just consolidated and prolonged
Brezhnev: domestic stagnation com- Yeltsin’s regime. Hence Wood’s central
bined with activism abroad. Stent does message: don’t focus too much on Putin—
not claim to know exactly which policies the system over which he presides is
Western countries should pursue in more important, and it can outlast him.
dealing with Putin, but she counsels
strategic patience and preparedness— Without the Banya We Would Perish:
and suggests that it would be wise to A History of the Russian Bathhouse
expect the unexpected. BY ETHAN POLLACK. Oxford
University Press, 2019, 360 pp.
Russia Without Putin: Money, Power, and
the Myths of the New Cold War Pollack has produced a rarity: a work of
BY TONY WOOD. Verso, 2018, 224 pp. solid scholarship that is also an elegant
page-turner. It traces the history of the
Wood seeks to debunk several common Russian steam bath all the way back to
misconceptions about Russia and its the Middle Ages, exploring how its
relations with the rest of the world. One image and function have shifted over
of them, he contends, is the belief that time. Peter the Great, the westernizing
today’s tensions between Russia and the reformer who led Russia in the late
United States stem from Russian Presi- seventeenth and early eighteenth
dent Vladimir Putin’s long-standing centuries, saw the banya as an outmoded
antagonism toward the West. Wood habit of the common people. Western-
argues that, in fact, the dramatic deterio- ized Russian elites of that era readily
ration of relations witnessed in recent agreed with Europeans who ridiculed
years was all but inevitable and is rooted the bathhouse as barbarous. But after
in the massive power and resource Russia defeated Napoleon in the early
imbalance between the two sides that was nineteenth century, the banya became a
produced by the collapse of the Soviet patriotic symbol: a cartoon published at
Union. Wood also refutes the idea that the time showed the terrified French
today’s standoff is a new Cold War: it emperor in a banya being thrashed by
lacks any clear ideological dimension, he Russian soldiers. In the early twentieth
points out, and, unlike the Cold War, century, amid the louche atmosphere of
leaves many countries and regions late imperial Russia, urban bathhouses
untouched by the tensions between came to be associated with sex and sin.
Russia and the West. Wood criticizes When the Bolsheviks took over after the
some Russian liberals who oppose Putin Russian Revolution, they sought to
for their misplaced faith in an “idealized” recast the banya as a source of modern-
capitalism based on “undistorted” free- izing cleanliness: Stalin declared that
market principles. There is no capitalism Soviet communism would not counte-
outside of history, Wood reminds read- nance dirty people. As the Soviet era
ers, and the kind of capitalism found in drew to a close, the recreational function
Russia today is directly descended from of the bathhouse superseded its utilitarian
the postcommunist order installed by one. In the words of an American
234 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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reporter writing in the 1970s, the banya rise in right-wing nativism in Europe and
was “the closest thing Russian males the United States, further undermining
[had] to a men’s club.” More recently, a Western liberalism’s claim to moral and
highly popular film depicted the banya political superiority.
as a place for tough men who can stand
up for Russia against the corrupt and Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion,
decadent West. Politics, and Strategy
BY DMITRY ADAMSKY. Stanford
School of Europeanness: Tolerance and University Press, 2019, 376 pp.
Other Lessons in Political Liberalism in
Latvia. The role of the Russian Orthodox
BY DACE DZENOVSKA. Cornell Church in post-Soviet Russian society
University Press, 2018, 276 pp. has been much discussed in recent years,
but Adamsky is the first to examine the
What does it take to become European? church’s place in the nuclear military-
For the countries of eastern Europe, industrial complex. He details how a
joining the EU was just the beginning. formerly persecuted church made itself
What followed was a process of remaking indispensable to Russia’s nuclear forces
people and institutions in the name of by providing them with ideological
political liberalism. Dzenovska studied legitimation as they faced a catastrophic
this painstaking effort in Latvia, which loss of funding and social prestige in the
joined the EU in 2004. Her book is an early 1990s. Three decades later, the
anthropological analysis of government church has become a prominent presence
programs designed to promote tolerance throughout the entire military, but the
and to help the “not-yet-European” nuclear branch stands out as the most
Latvians break free of the toxic effects of imbued with clericalism. Priests regu-
two dogmatic systems of thought: Soviet larly minister to its service members,
communism and nationalism. She tells joining their flock on operational
fascinating stories of her encounters with missions. The church has built houses
“tolerance workers” and their “students,” of worship on all of Russia’s nuclear
as well as government officials, border bases, Orthodox icons grace nuclear
guards and asylum seekers, and reveals weapons platforms, and commanders
how the reeducation effort overlooked have increasingly incorporated religious
the essential contradiction of promoting ideas into their strategic thinking.
inclusion in a country that had recently Adamsky convincingly shows that this
liberated itself from the Soviet Union began as a grass-roots process, whereby
and embarked on an ethnonationalist those of lower military rank recognized
nation-building project. Limits to inclu- priests as a source of the kind of pastoral
sion are central to Dzenovska’s analysis of and psychological support they sorely
contemporary Europeans polities that are needed in a high-stress work environ-
built on values of openness yet are forced ment. Only later did the regime take
to keep their borders securely guarded. notice and seek to systematize the phe-
Dzenovska’s critique is worth bearing in nomenon from above. The result is an
mind as increased migration has led to a unprecedented nuclear-religious culture,
whose emergence has significant strategic protect the property rights or political
implications, including the introduction freedoms of potential challengers.
of theological concepts into Russian DAVID SZAKONYI
military planning.
IRINA DU QUENOY
Middle East
Putin’s Counterrevolution
BY SERG EY ALEKSASHENKO. John Waterbury
Brookings Institution Press, 2018, 347 pp.
T
Putin-era Russia. The author hits his hese two books are gut-wrenching
stride in his discussion of the state’s chronicles of human depravity
intervention in the economy. Many that show how ordinary people
previous works have described the can become barbarians. Both describe,
consequences of the Kremlin’s takeover in numbing detail, decades of pillage,
of the lucrative oil industry. But the rape, starvation, and torture. Morris
state’s hand has extended into many and Ze’evi tie together the three
other sectors, as well. Through detailed waves of killing that swept across the
interviews and careful work with Christian population of Anatolia (in
primary sources, Aleksashenko shows modern-day Turkey) from 1894 to 1924.
how the Putin regime has taken on First, the Ottoman Empire, under
oligarchs, pressured international Sultan Abdulhamid II, massacred
investors, built gigantic state-owned hundreds of thousands of Armenians.
enterprises, and bailed out failing Then, in 1914, the Young Turks, who had
firms. The book offers a definitive marginalized the sultan after the revolu-
account of how, since the late 1990s, the tion of 1908, launched their own, far
balance of power in Russia has shifted larger Armenian genocide. Finally, after
decisively in favor of government 1919, the Republicans under Kemal
officials over private firms. The regime’s Ataturk began killing and deporting the
economic dominance helps explain its remaining Christians, many of whom
lack of interest in reforms that would were Greek. Over the three decades,
236 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
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between 1.5 million and 2.5 million victims, heroes, and butchers. As he
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks were shows, this was not the efficient killing
murdered. Morris and Ze’evi convey of Nazi extermination camps but
well the horror of the killings. In a cave individual, face-to-face barbarity. In
where the bodies of at least 100 Greeks both Anatolia and Sudan, the heroes of
were found, they write that “all appar- one era became the killers of the next.
ently had first had their hands and feet In neither case have the leaders respon-
cut off, after that they were either burnt sible ever been held to account in a
alive in the cave or had their throats cut.” court of law.
If anything, the killing in southern
Sudan over the last 60 years has been Yemen in Crisis: Autocracy, Neoliberalism,
even more extensive than that in and the Disintegration of a State
Anatolia. For centuries, the Muslim BY HELEN LACKNER. Saqi, 2017, 342 pp.
north of Sudan systematically raided the
animistic south for slaves. When Sudan This useful survey reflects Lackner’s
gained independence, in 1956, the 40 years of experience studying
southern third of the country was already Yemen. She examines the country’s
in revolt. Apart from a brief interlude in descent into chaos, from the golden
the 1970s, the region has known only period of the 1980s, when oil rents and
suffering and death ever since. In recent out-migration were high, through the
decades, slave raiding has been replaced growing kleptocracy under President
by the competition for oil rents, southern Ali Abdullah Saleh in the 1990s and
Sudan’s only source of revenue other early years of this century, to the civil
than international aid. Today, the war that began in 2015 and the result-
butchers are no longer northerners; they ing humanitarian catastrophe. Along
are southern leaders and their militias. the way, she analyzes Yemen’s tribes,
According to some reports, since 2013, its varieties of Islam, its economy, and
two years after South Sudan gained the mismanagement of its water
independence, South Sudanese Presi- resources. She dismisses the claim that
dent Salva Kiir, a member of the Dinka Iran is supporting the Houthis in the
tribe, may have orchestrated the slaugh- civil war, but she fails to provide
ter of about 300,000 members of the sufficient evidence to support her
Nuer tribe, to which his principal rival, skepticism. She also blames neoliberal
former Vice President Riek Machar, policies promoted by the International
belongs. Like Anatolia at the time of the Monetary Fund for Yemen’s growing
Armenian genocide, southern Sudan has inequality. Her account ends before
large inaccessible areas that have become the assassination of Saleh at the hands
killing fields, rarely observed by outsid- of the Houthis in 2017. Since then, no
ers, except a few courageous missionar- one of his Machiavellian caliber has
ies. As a result, estimates of the number emerged to replace him. Four years of
of victims are uncertain, but they run a Saudi-led, U.S.-backed assault by
into the millions. Martell, an intrepid pro-government forces have devastated
journalist who covered the region for Yemen’s infrastructure and people, but
the BBC, has interviewed many of the Lackner is clear that the Houthis do not
T
fighters from 120 countries; between his book is the definitive
6,000 and 11,000 of them may be left. In statement of Calder’s long-
all, Clarke estimates that some 70,000 standing thesis that technological
jihadists have been killed in recent years. and economic changes are integrating
the Eurasian “super continent,” as
In a Time of Monsters: Travels Through a foreseen over a century ago by the
Middle East in Revolt British strategist Halford Mackinder.
BY EMMA SKY . Atlantic Books, 2019, Beneath the churn of political events,
320 pp. this integration is driven not only by the
familiar dynamics of globalization but
Sky spent three years in Iraq as a also by such less noted factors as the
British civil servant seconded to senior growing efficiency of transport logistics
U.S. military figures, including Gener- and the digitization of customs proce-
als David Petraeus and Raymond dures. U.S. pressure on China and Russia
Odierno. In 2015, she produced an is pushing the two countries together,
238 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
Staggering Forward: Narendra Modi and The crisis in Xinjiang, where Chinese
India’s Global Ambition authorities have locked up an estimated
BY BHARAT KARNAD . Penguin one million or more Uighurs in “reeduca-
Viking, 2018, 512 pp. tion camps” in an attempt, they claim, to
eliminate terrorism, is an object lesson in
Karnad, a prominent Indian conserva- William Faulkner’s aphorism “The past is
tive strategist, deflates Narendra Modi’s never dead. It’s not even past.” Neither
image as a nationalist strongman and the Uighur population nor the Chinese
risk-taker, at least as far as foreign policy authorities have forgotten the short-lived
is concerned. He diagnoses the Indian Islamic Republic of East Turkestan of 1933
prime minister as an authoritarian who to 1934 or the longer and more institu-
is nevertheless averse to the kind of bold tionalized East Turkestan Republic of
change needed to move India beyond its 1944 to 1946. Both grew out of the Uighur
current status of “great power lite.” To enlightenment movement, whose leading
realize India’s proper role, Karnad thinks, thinkers believed that Han rulers had
the country must drop its misguided treated the Uighurs unfairly ever since
obsession with Pakistan and focus on their region was incorporated into China
China; it should, however, avoid align- in the late nineteenth century. Wang uses
ing with an overweening and unreliable original documents in many languages
United States and forge links with other to bring the current crisis into historical
powers, such as Australia, Japan, and focus. The two Uighur independence
movements were led by pro-Soviet not substantiate his claim that the risk of
Uighur intellectuals who had received war is greater in the Indian Ocean than in
modern educations. Although they were the South China Sea, but it shatters any
ethnic nationalists, they used elements complacency the Indian navy and its
of Islam to forge a fragile common partners might have about their ability to
identity with other classes and ethnic dominate these waters without challenge.
groups, including the more numerous,
nomadic Kazakhs. The two short-lived The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect
episodes of self-rule showed what the Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong Un
government of an independent East BY ANNA FIFIELD . PublicAffairs,
Turkestan might look like and that such 2019, 336 pp.
a country would not survive without
Russian support, which in both historical As the younger son of his father’s third
cases proved neither strong nor lasting. wife, Kim Jong Un was an unlikely heir to
the North Korean throne, but from the
The Costliest Pearl: China’s Struggle for regime’s perspective, he turned out to be a
India’s Ocean brilliant choice. He has taken over his
BY BERTIL LINTNER . Hurst, 2019, grandfather and father’s dynastic cult of
288 pp. personality; reportedly killed, imprisoned,
or brought to heel the senior advisers he
The Indian Ocean is scattered with inherited; maintained the system of
islands, some small, some large, some hereditary political castes and the gulag;
inhabited, some not, but all strategically tightened the country’s borders; height-
significant and all more or less milita- ened surveillance of ordinary citizens;
rized. They range from the Comoros and restored some economic dynamism;
Madagascar, near the African coast, to the fostered a small moneyed class of sup-
Maldives and Diego Garcia, south of porters; pushed forward missile and
India, to the Andaman and Nicobar nuclear weapons testing; evaded global
Islands and the Cocos Islands, off the sanctions; resisted Chinese pressure; and
coasts of Myanmar and Indonesia, run rings around two U.S. presidents.
respectively. Lintner recounts centuries of To figure out how Kim has done it all,
competition among pirates, fishermen, Fifield tracked down his aunt and uncle,
slave traders, mercenaries, money laun- who run a dry cleaning shop in the
derers, colonists, and the occasional North United States; interviewed his school-
Korean adviser to an island dictator. In mates from Switzerland; spoke with the
recent times, the Indian and U.S. navies business partner of Kim’s assassinated
have dominated the ocean. But under its half brother, Kim Jong Nam; and visited
Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has been North Korea 11 times. The North Korean
building ports at a rate that suggests system, Fifield concludes, is strong
China may have ambitions to join them as enough to last for a long time. The
a major Indian Ocean power. Lintner’s biggest questions concern the state of the
decades of reporting from all over Asia economy and Kim’s health. If he survives
lend him shrewd insight into the region’s to hand power to a fourth generation,
geography and politics. The book does the man Fifield labels “the most
240 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
Machiavellian figure of our time” will ousted him in what Rudd calls a “cynical
have achieved a remarkable feat. coup.” Their struggle propelled Australia
toward the kind of poisonous politics that
In Plain Sight: Impunity and Human is afflicting so many democracies today.
Rights in Thailand Besides Gillard and “the faceless men of
BY TYRELL HABERKORN . University the [Labor Party] factions,” Rudd blames
of Wisconsin Press, 2018, 376 pp. his ouster on the Rupert Murdoch–owned
media, which opposed his progressive
This deeply researched history focuses policies, and on mining interests who he
not so much on the human rights viola- believes colluded with Gillard and her
tions that have occurred in Thailand allies to prevent the imposition of a new
during its frequent episodes of military tax. The book also details Rudd’s many
rule but on the mechanisms by which the accomplishments on issues such as
perpetrators have avoided accountability. Australia’s response to the 2008 financial
These have included legalizing the crisis, climate change, indigenous affairs,
arbitrary detention of purported “enemies infrastructure, same-sex relationships,
of the nation,” “hooligans,” and persons and health care. Unusually for a political
considered a “danger to society”; author- memoir, the book is unguardedly
izing summary executions when neces- emotional. This, together with Rudd’s
sary to “defend the nation”; giving the elephantine memory, brings the reader as
police the discretion to do anything they close to the daily texture of life in politics
want in the name of eliminating commu- as it is possible for an outsider to get.
nism; holding blameless any person acting
in the line of duty; dismissing cases as
falling outside the jurisdiction of the Africa
courts or for insufficient evidence; and
declaring amnesties. The legal techniques Nicolas van de Walle
have varied, but their purpose has stayed
the same: to protect the monarchistic elite
and its agents. Haberkorn argues that
repression is all the more effective when Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics:
the authorities openly twist the law to How the Internet Era Is Transforming
protect the perpetrators. The more blatant Politics in Kenya
the impunity, the stronger the message BY NANJALA NYABOLA . Zed Books,
that victims have no hope of redress. 2018, 216 pp.
T
The PM Years his survey of the growing role of
BY KEVIN RUDD . Pan Macmillan social media in Kenyan society
Australia, 2018, 672 pp. and politics does not offer a
straightforward answer to the implicit
In this hefty second volume of his autobi- question in its subtitle. Nonetheless, it
ography, the two-time Australian prime develops some keen insights into the
minister settles scores with Julia Gillard, a effects of the Internet in Kenya. With
fellow Labor Party politician who in 2010 more than seven million of its citizens
242 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Recent Books
War II era was independently under- The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian
going major doctrinal changes, affected Economy
at least in part by the end of colonial- EDITED BY FANTU CHERU,
ism. Her research uncovers conclusive CHRISTOPHER CRAMER, AND
evidence, for example, of Diop’s influence ARKEBE OQUBAY . Oxford University
on Pope John XXIII in the lead-up to Press, 2019, 1,008 pp.
the Second Vatican Council.
Over the last two decades, Ethiopia has
Combatants: A Memoir of the Bush War emerged as one of the fastest-growing
and the Press in Uganda economies in the world. This has
BY WILLIAM PIKE . Self-Published, proved a boon for analysts, many of
2019, 304 pp. whom have seized on Ethiopia’s success
as vindication of their particular phi-
In 1984, Pike, then a London-based losophy of economic development. The
journalist fresh out of college, used editors of this massive volume on the
expatriate Ugandan connections to Ethiopian economy have commendably
arrange access to the camps of the sought to include as many viewpoints as
National Resistance Army in the central possible while emphasizing empirical
Ugandan bush, where the group was approaches. The book covers the major
fighting a guerrilla war against the issues, including macroeconomic policy,
regime of Milton Obote, under the the development of the social welfare
leadership of a 40-year-old Yoweri system, agriculture, and industrial
Museveni. Pike’s reports in the British policy. Although the different theoreti-
press, which documented atrocities cal explanations for Ethiopia’s successes
perpetrated by the Ugandan govern- and failures rarely confront one another
ment and cast the NRA in a favorable in the book, the volume as a whole
light, helped the group gain credibility reveals a pragmatic and flexible govern-
in the West. In 1986, when Museveni ment trying to solve developmental
came to power, he invited Pike to edit problems with the resources it has
the government newspaper, the New available. Ethiopia has made mistakes,
Vision, promising him editorial indepen- but unlike many other African countries,
dence. For two decades, Pike ran the it has generally avoided repeating
paper, turning it into Uganda’s newspa- them and has tended to eschew ideol-
per of record, before the regime’s ogy in favor of what works on the
growing authoritarianism forced him ground. The state has taken an inter-
out. Pike tells the story well, mixing his ventionist stance, but it usually pays
personal experiences with an analysis of attention to market signals and the
the last 30 years of Ugandan history. welfare of its population.∂
He follows his detailed account of the
nasty civil war of the 1980s with a
perceptive look at the Museveni regime,
from its early informal idealism to the
ossified personal dictatorship of today.
244 F O R E I G N A F FA I R S
Letters to the Editor
relevance to a clear U.S. national balances so tilted the playing field that
interest. he was able to renew his two-thirds
ZOLTAN KOVACS majority in parliament with less than a
State Secretary for International majority of the popular vote (and did so
Communication, Cabinet Office of the again in 2018). The repeated resort to
Prime Minister, Hungary xenophobic and anti-Semitic prejudice
(directed not only at George Soros)
Diamond replies: cannot alter the facts. Orban has trans-
The test of a democracy is not formed Hungary into not an illiberal
whether the economy is growing, democracy but a pseudo-democracy.
employment is rising, or more couples
are marrying, but whether people can WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT GERMANY
choose and replace their leaders in free To the Editor:
and fair elections. This is the test that Robert Kagan’s thought-provoking
Hungary’s political system now fails. essay (“The New German Question,”
When Viktor Orban and his Fidesz May/June 2019) addresses the important
party returned to power in 2010 with a issue of how a collapse of the European
parliamentary supermajority, they set Union and the liberal international order
about destroying the constitutional might affect Germany and its role
pillars of liberal democracy. First, within Europe. He concludes that such a
Orban packed Hungary’s Constitutional breakdown would bring back the pre–
Court with political loyalists. He did World War II “German question,” which
the same with the National Election European integration and the Atlantic
Commission and the Media Council, a alliance were in part meant to resolve.
newly created watchdog group. Fidesz But Kagan underestimates the deep
then rammed an entirely new constitu- cultural change that has occurred in
tion through parliament, clipping the Germany since World War II. It is hard
authority of the Constitutional Court to imagine any circumstances in which
and politicizing the judiciary more Germany would revert to militarism; the
broadly and extending party control commitment of ordinary Germans to
over such crucial accountability agencies peace is simply too strong. If the United
as the State Audit Office and the central States were to withdraw its security
bank. Orban also purged state-owned guarantee to Europe, or even if the liberal
radio and television stations and made international order were to collapse,
them mouthpieces to justify his creep- Germany would likely defy the expecta-
ing authoritarianism. He pressured tions of realist international relations
critical media outlets, which saw their theorists and simply choose to be inse-
advertising revenues plunge, and cure rather than abandon its identity as a
harassed civil society organizations that Friedensmacht, or “force for peace.”
received international assistance. At the same time, Kagan underesti-
By the 2014 elections, Orban had mates how problematic today’s “democratic
rigged the system. Yes, multiparty and peace-loving” Germany is in the Euro-
elections continued, but his systematic pean context. Germany’s semi-hegemonic
degradation of constitutional checks and position within the EU is one of the main
reasons Europe has struggled to solve the could help resolve the German question
series of problems that began with the in its current form. Thanks to the U.S.
euro crisis in 2010. On the one hand, security guarantee, Germany had no
Germany lacks the resources to solve need for France’s military capabilities and
problems in the way a hegemon would. thus had little incentive to make conces-
On the other, it is powerful enough that it sions to France on other issues, such as
does not feel the need to make conces- the euro. Whatever Trump’s intentions,
sions to other EU member states, and in his threat to withdraw the U.S. security
particular to France, as it used to. As a guarantee has given France greater
result, the EU has become dysfunctional. leverage over Germany and thus has gone
Moreover, postwar Germany has not some way toward restoring the balance of
acted quite as selflessly as Kagan power in Europe. Making good on that
suggests. Although (or perhaps because) threat could mean the end of German
Germans abandoned militarism, they semi-hegemony.
found new sources of national pride—in Kagan worries that Europeans could
particular, a kind of economic national- return “to the power politics that
ism based on the country’s success as an dominated their continent for millen-
exporter. German economic policy is nia.” But power politics never really
often described, with some justification, went away in Europe; it was just no
as mercantilist, and even before U.S. longer pursued using military tools.
President Donald Trump singled out Within the peaceful, institutionalized
Germany for its large current account context of the EU, member states
surplus, the U.S. Treasury had put continued to advance their own national
Germany on a list of countries it was interests. In short, Europe might not
monitoring for currency manipulation. have been such a Kantian paradise after
Kagan is right to ask where “the dark all. In resolving one version of the
path that Europe and the transatlantic German question, the United States
relationship are currently on” might lead, and the EU created another.
but that path might not be as straight as HANS KUNDNANI
he suggests. In particular, the conse- Senior Research Fellow, Europe
quences of a withdrawal of the U.S. Programme, Chatham House
security guarantee to Europe are far from
easy to predict. It is true that, historically, FOR THE RECORD
that guarantee pacified Europe, and so “Democracy Demotion” (July/August
there are good reasons to worry that 2019) misstated the title of a 2018 report
withdrawing it could lead to the disinte- by a group of experts convened by the
gration of the region and even the Hoover Institution and the Asia Society.
reactivation of security dilemmas. But it The correct title is “China’s Influence
is also possible that such a withdrawal and American Interests.”∂
Foreign Affairs (ISSN 00157120), September/October 2019, Volume 98, Number 5. 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
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