Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 142

Merkel Rubs Salt in SPD’s Wounds

With the Social Democrats already well down in the polls of September’s elections, Angela Merkel has opened a new line of attack on her opponents’ former leader. From Reuters:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized her predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, on Monday for taking a new job at Russian oil producer Rosneft and said she did not intend to take any posts in industry once she leaves politics.

The nomination of Social Democrat Schroeder to the board of Rosneft, subject to Western sanctions over Moscow’s role in the Ukraine crisis, has caused an outcry in Germany, especially in a climate of fear about any potential Russian interference in the Sept. 24 vote.

“I do not think what Mr Schroeder is doing is okay,” Merkel, a conservative, told Bild newspaper in an interview broadcast live online.

“I don’t intend to take any posts in industry once I am no longer chancellor,” […] added Merkel, 63.

Much of the press coverage outside Germany has suggested that Merkel’s criticism is all about Russia. Her remarks amount to a “Russia row” with Schröder, according to the Reuters headline, or an effort to “[distance] herself from Schröder’s Russia ties,” per Politico. But that Russia-centric framing is deceptive, and it misrepresents both German attitudes toward Russia and Merkel’s real tactic in slamming Schröder.

Russia is not the kind of wedge issue that German politicians typically use to attack their opponents. After all, the German public has long taken a more favorable view of Russia than many of their European neighbors, for both historical and economic reasons. It is true that views of Russia have soured since the Ukraine crisis, and Merkel herself has taken a tough stance in upholding EU sanctions against Moscow. But she is hardly a dyed-in-the-wool Russia hawk. Merkel has refused to scuttle Gazprom’s controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, prioritizing German business interests over concerns from Eastern Europe that the deal will preserve Moscow’s energy dominance on the continent. And for similar reasons, she has joined the European opposition to the U.S. Congress’s recent sanctions on Russia—a stance that has surely put a smile on Schröder’s face, ironically enough, since he serves as chairman of the Nord Stream board in addition to his recently acquired position at Rosneft.

In other words, Merkel is hardly a principled opponent of German-Russian business cooperation. Her criticism of Schröder is less about tying him to Russia than painting him more generally as an unprincipled and unscrupulous businessman, eager to cash in after his years in the government. This is a tried-and-true political tactic across the world, of course—just ask Hillary Clinton about her paid Wall Street speeches—but it’s one that may have particular resonance in Germany.

As a revealing snapshot from the Financial Times demonstrates, the Social Democrats have been bleeding blue-collar support for years thanks to the perception that the erstwhile workers’ party has shifted to favor big business. And among the many disillusioned voters who hold that view in Germany’s industrial regions, Gerhard Schröder is Enemy Number One:

“There are a lot of people in parts of the Ruhr who have been left behind economically, and they see the SPD as the cause of their problems,” says Karl-Rudolf Korte, politics professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen. “They never forgave the party for Schröder’s reforms.” […]

Guido Reil, a burly coalminer from Essen, symbolises that shift. A former SPD town councillor in Essen, he defected to the AfD last year. “The SPD is no longer the party of the workers — the AfD is,” he says.

Given that context, Merkel’s latest remarks look like an attempt to reinforce negative views of the SPD, tie the party’s image to her fat-cat predecessor, and paint herself as a virtuous public servant who will not follow his money-grubbing example after leaving office. That argument may help earn her a few more votes among the disaffected SPD base, although the latest polls suggest she doesn’t need the help: Merkel’s CDU is currently polling at a confident 39% compared to the SDP’s 24%.

Of course, even if Merkel’s CDU beats the SDP at those levels, she may still need to work with them in a coalition. And even if Merkel trounces her opponents convincingly enough to rule without them, a seriously hobbled SDP could bring dangerous long-term consequences for Germany. Many of the SDP’s lost voters have flocked to the far-right AfD, after all, and there is plenty of reason not to discount that party in future contests.

When it comes to her electoral odds in September, though, Merkel is still sitting pretty—and a savvy attack designed to reinforce the worst assumptions about her opponents can’t hurt.

The post Merkel Rubs Salt in SPD’s Wounds appeared first on The American Interest.

Erdogan to German Turks: German Politicians Are The Enemy

The past year has seen the relationship between Europe and Turkey grow increasingly toxic. Turkey’s President Erdogan repeatedly used Europe as a foil during his presidential powers referendum. When the Netherlands forced Turkish campaigners out of the country, Turks responded by stabbing and squeezing oranges:

Going bananas. Turks squeeze oranges in anti-Dutch protest after #Erdogan calls the Netherlands a “Banana republic”. https://t.co/YocB5G4cmq pic.twitter.com/1oIlPYXadW

— euronews (@euronews) March 13, 2017

But much of that animus seemed to be directed at achieving a specific political goal. Now, ahead of the German elections, Erdogan is taking aim at Germany, and by extension Europe, more generally. As Hurriyet Daily reports:

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on Turks in Germany to not vote for “enemies of Turkey,” claiming that the main reason for the recent crisis between Ankara and Berlin is the “race for votes” ahead of the general elections in Germany.

“Right now in Germany the [Social Democrats] SPD and the [Christian Democrats] CDU are saying, ‘We can get many votes if we batter Turkey.’ I am telling all my citizens in Germany to never support those parties.

Do not support the CDU, the SPD or the Greens. They are all the enemies of Turkey,” Erdoğan told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul on Aug. 18.

While Erdogan cited his displeasure at Germany’s failure to release funds from the EU-Turkey refugee deal and stonewalling on an EU-Turkey customs union, this goes beyond any simple political issue. It’s true that all three of Germany’s largest political parties have taken a harder stance against Erdogan. That includes the Greens, whose co-chair Cem Ozdemir (the son of Turkish immigrants) in an interview Deutsche Welle last month seemed to describe the situation perfectly:

In that same context, he also criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for being too “soft.”  He claimed that “integration-minded people” on the executive boards of mosques are being removed “and replaced with people that are getting their orders from Ankara.” Özdemir said that was unacceptable: “Erdogan wants to exercise power inside Germany.”

Alluding to the increased influence he says Erdogan is seeking, the Green party leader insisted: “In the future there will be no more money from Turkey for mosques here.”

Özdemir said that there are simply states – like Turkey, or even Russia under Vladimir Putin – that “clearly do not want their citizens here to integrate.”

That’s precisely the leverage that Erdogan seems to be wielding. If he can’t direct German Turks towards a viable party that would achieve his aims, he can try to undermine the relationship between Germany and immigrant Turks entirely. No one in Germany, including German Turks, should fall for it.

The post Erdogan to German Turks: German Politicians Are The Enemy appeared first on The American Interest.

The Framework of the Power Structures

The defining characteristic of the Putin era, so far at least, has been the repeated and cumulative choice of centrally imposed order in the face of new challenges demanding new approaches. The question as Putin’s third term approaches is whether Russia’s power structures1 will continue to be governed by this rule, by choice or because they must.

There is a clear line of descent between the Yeltsin years and what has happened on Putin’s watch. The Kremlin has drawn succor from a story of chaos before 2000 and the benefits of stability since then. Both propositions are persuasive in their different ways, but also misleading. The problems of the 1990s were also problems of transition. Yeltsin’s legacy was patchy, but not without its achievements. Other actors, his opponents among them, also shaped events. Putin inherited options for transition toward a better form of liberal democracy that he chose not to take, preferring instead the option of working towards authoritarian rule.

Three linked strands in the process between then and now, together with the consequences for Russia’s relationship with the outside world, need sketching in before a look at future possibilities:

Putin began by enacting economic reforms that Yeltsin had been unable to get past the Duma, and earned further credit in the West for the responsible fiscal policies followed under Kudrin as Finance Minister, and largely since. But what initially appeared to many to be a market-based and liberal approach was compromised from the first by a parallel determination to assert state control over “strategic industries”, oil and gas not least. The destruction of Yukos in 2003 was a milestone on that score. It was also confirmation of the Kremlin’s intention to prevent Russian companies from becoming multinational corporations with the potential to escape its control. Russia’s economic difficulties in the wake of the global financial crisis were not enough to persuade Putin on his return to the Kremlin in May 2012 of the need to pursue ideas for economic reform discussed during the Medvedev interregnum. On the contrary, state control, and the participation of security factions within that, have since then become the guiding realities to a still greater degree—along with the concomitant rise in corruption.
Putin’s return to the Kremlin in May 2012 also heralded a qualitative political change. The process of establishing the authority of the Executive at the expense of the Legislative and Judiciary branches of constitutional government, including at the expense of regional authorities, was set in train from the beginning of Putin’s first term as President. Putin’s choice in May 2012 was for a tougher form of authoritarianism. By now, the Prime Minister may on occasion be a convenient scapegoat for the Kremlin, but he and the government he heads are plainly no more than the instruments of the Kremlin. The Duma is a stage prop not a place for effective political debate: On July 16, Vedomosti reported that all parties with the exception of United Russia, including those representing the official opposition in the existing Duma, were finding it difficult to persuade potential candidates to run in the future because of the reduced status of deputies, the greater risk of their mandates being revoked, and a wish not to spoil candidates’ relations with Russia’s organs of power. The next Duma is unlikely to be any more effective, in short, than the present one. The same goes for the Judiciary. Regional Governors are elected in form but selected in practice by Putin.
The regime has, thirdly, by now made public criticism, whether hostile or constructive, increasingly dangerous. That process, too, has been in place from the beginning of the Putin years. A July Human Rights Watch report, On Line and On All Fronts: Russia’s Assault on Freedom of Expression, outlined the present state of affairs. It had already become harder over the course of the 1990s to face up to the crimes of the Soviet era, or to recognize the societal and economic problems inherent in its legacy. Russia is not of course the only country whose people and rulers prefer not to look too hard at past wrongs, and such reluctance is all the more understandable given the perception among Russians of the territory now ruled from Moscow as the Soviet Union writ small, not as a Russia newly set free. But it is also the case that history has been rewritten in the Putin era, and falsified in the interests of a narrow patriotism in the interests of the presently ruling regime. No country ought to hold the likes of Ivan the Terrible or Stalin as its heroes. Nor is it healthy for a distorted worship of an eventual victory in World War II (The Great Fatherland War) to be entrenched and celebrated with military pomposity each May. The search for legitimacy by such means masks a failure to denote a persuasive vision for the future.

What I describe above as a narrowing of vision and choice over the past two decades has been extensively analyzed and interpreted over the years, most recently in the new English version of a work by Andrei Kovalev, Russia’s Dead End: An Insider’s Testimony from Gorbachev to Putin. Russia’s domestic evolution has been a principal force behind Russia’s retreat into itself as a Fortress to be defended against the outside world, and especially the United States. There is a clear link between the proposition that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a tragedy that, at least by implication, could have been avoided had Gorbachev not been in charge, on the one hand, and the allegation, on the other, that Russia was exploited by the West during its years of weakness. That allegation fits neatly into the story of the Yeltsin years as ones of chaos and failure. The present Kremlin narrative scarcely acknowledges the Soviet roots of change in Central and Eastern Europe, or in the former USSR. One could in any case hardly expect a country to be law-based and market-oriented in its relationships with the wider world yet building corrupted state capitalism at home, politically open to new ideas abroad yet closed to them at home, or liberalizing its international preconceptions yet nurturing national myths at home. The Putin regime had it comparatively easy in dealing with its contradictions when the oil price was high and seemed likely to continue to rise. But since 2008 things have become tougher and Russia’s relationships with the West have worsened.

Putin’s problem in securing another term in the Kremlin is not one of getting the votes, but one of doing so on the strength of a fresh and convincing mandate that will last him and his circle through the six years after his inauguration. The nation wide street demonstrations against corruption in March and their convincing follow up in June this year showed up the acclaimed 80-plus percent poll approval ratings for Putin as less impressive than they seem to be to outside observers. They came as an unpleasant reminder for the ruling cabal of the 2011-12 demonstrations against electoral fraud. Blaming the United States and the West in general for unexpected unrest is one instinctive reaction, but not an adequate answer for the regime. The fears expressed from time to time by Putin and his circle of color revolutions also reflect an understandable degree of doubt as to how far and how long the Russian public can be expected to behave itself. The current mood of the electorate is apathetic, as far as next year’s presidential context is concerned as well as for Duma elections. Russians have after all good reason to doubt if their votes will make a difference to the outcome. Putin, however, needs a reasonably convincing opponent for the contest to seem anything other than one only for show. Hence the current mix of harassment of Navalny and his organized supporters but reluctance to press home the threat of his imprisonment or preventing him running by some other means.

Significant policy changes, promised for 2018-24 or possibly delivered, might therefore arguably be in the Russian national interest yet too risky for Putin and his entourage to pursue:

Economic approaches need rethinking, with more urgency than attempted in the run up to Putin’s re-election in 2012. It was recognized by then that the rent-dependent model based primarily on world oil and gas price rises, had run out of road. Russia had been particularly badly hit by the 2008 financial crisis. The hope of returning to the days of $100 or more per barrel of oil on a long term and sustainable basis seems even vainer now than it did nine years ago. The Russian economy is now more dependent on oil and gas than it was even under the Soviet Union. The reputable energy analyst Dieter Helm wrote in his recent book, “Russia, as a fossil fuel economy, is a big loser from the fall in prices, and will struggle to come to terms with the consequences of medium to long term declines.” Helm noted Russia’s few advantages in the new technologies, its corruption, autocracy and the absence of leading global companies in the country. These weaknesses were “not accidents” but “what you would expect of a resource cursed country…. Russia faces a bleak future.”

The past several years have indeed been difficult for ordinary Russians. The country will be hit hard in the event of a further global financial crises. Health and education have suffered at the expense of security spending. Regional budgets have come under particular strain. There are at present indications that the economy is bottoming out, and that modest growth of the order of 1.5 percent is in prospect for 2017 and 2018, but as the OECD has reported, the upturn is fragile and rests mainly on a rebound of commodity prices. There have been no bankable indications of significant planning for the sorts of changes in the structure of the economy or the political and societal framework necessary to secure long-term prosperity. Those changes would be disruptive. They would have to be clearly set out, and consistently argued through. That argument would have to include recognition of past failures to address the difficulties. There would be losers among those who benefit from current conditions, corruption and all. And destruction, even if necessary and ultimately creative, is never well received by those who lose out, be they ordinary or privileged. The temptation for Putin will therefore be to argue in seeking re-election that the economy is recovering despite the hostility of the West, as proof of the validity of the policies his Administration has overseen. But events will test such a claim over 2018-24 will be another. Putin’s future authority will suffer without a more significant economic recovery than is in prospect at present, with the consequence that without such a recovery his dependence on the security forces to preserve his regime might well deepen still further. That would indeed be “bleak.”


The instruments of government need attention if Putin’s next term is to move beyond the sterile and potentially dangerous ground of self-preservation for its own sake. The unspoken but necessary condition behind the ideas for economic diversification discussed during the Medvedev presidency was political change, notably an independent and effective judicial system. Russia has moved further since then into governance by “understandings” executed through a compromised and largely corrupted bureaucratic hierarchy. Such a system is inherent in the Putinist idea of a country run by a vertical of power, that being in contradiction with a country governed by the rule of law, with all its citizens subject to that law. Russia’s Constitution favors presidential rule, and its other branches have been drained of independent authority. It is not evident that any successor to Putin, however liberally inclined, could now devolve authority and public accountability to the Duma or the courts. Nor is it clear how far such a person—or an improbably transfigured Putin—could change the nature of the bureaucracy to respond to such a possibility. The governmental machine is for now geared toward the understanding that its purpose and interest lie in protecting the status quo, while its operators profit from the task as best they can. There is no sign so far of a further Putin term proclaiming a different mandate, or of defining the nature of its policies more closely. The risk is that without such guidance as to what is needed and what is forbidden the bureaucratic machinery on which the executive must rely will continue to decline in its effectiveness, biddability and sense of public duty.
The search for Great Power status will remain a constant, and has over the past decade or more acted as a necessary counterbalance to Russia’s inability to sustain the political and economic momentum of Putin’s first two terms. Putin’s proclaimed intention in 2012 as he re-claimed the presidency was to build a Eurasian Union with Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan as its core elements and Russia as in practice its dominant power, or hegemon. The right or even duty of protecting Russians beyond the borders of the Russian Federation has for years been proclaimed by Moscow—meaning ethnic Russians. Ethnic Russians had in practice a directing role to play in the USSR despite their relative demographic decline, and the Russian assumption of an inborn right to rule in ”their” space is still very much alive. But believing something is right and achieving it in reality are different. Ukraine has yet to collapse and return to what Moscow sees as its natural home, in effect as part of Russia. Belarus and Kazakhstan work with the Kremlin as best they can, but guard their independence as best they can too. It would be sensible for Putin and his colleagues to reflect on why it is that trying to force others to be friends does not work, but for now there are no signs of rethinking Russia’s approach to its immediate neighborhood, or the wider world. Nor are there indications that the Russian push for greater military strength will relax.

The overall conclusion is that Putin has nothing new to offer his country, and that he will have to rely on the drying laurels he has now. Given the central role that he fills in the power structure of Russia, and the reluctance he has displayed toward allowing others to exercise devolved power, the option of shifting real authority to a new set of politically empowered colleagues over the next six years looks like a long shot at best. Even if Putin were minded to diversify power in this way, it would stir uncomfortable rivalries within the ruling group, where support for significant change over the next few years is hard to envisage. If that remains the case, it might well follow in strict but increasingly surreal logic that Putin, health permitting, would have to succeed himself in 2024, or to nominate an untried substitute, perhaps one ready to tandem it again. But strict logic based on present realities rarely applies to developments that far ahead. Much will depend on how ambitions and moods within the elites may shift and how Russian society may develop before the succession issue is faced, as it must be sooner or later. That issue is of course more than just a question of who might take Putin’s place, but how that might come about and what that might mean for Russia’s domestic and international future. Imposing order as the first priority of Russia’s power structures will have its price. Such order itself changes the status quo, narrowing the options of the powers that seek to impose it, and widening the distance between them and broader parts of the nation they seek to control.

1Vlast is the generic term for power structures in Russia and a better one for its spirit of government than “state.”

The post The Framework of the Power Structures appeared first on The American Interest.

Chinese Traders Feel the Pinch From Sanctions

As Beijing enforces the latest North Korean sanctions, Chinese traders are beginning to feel the pinch—and they’re not happy about it. Financial Times:

Protests broke out among Chinese seafood importers on the border with North Korea this week as trucks bearing fresh crabs, molluscs and squid from the reclusive regime were turned away as new sanctions begin to bite.

“It was completely laughable,” said Lang Yulin, an importer from Hunchun, a Chinese city that borders North Korea. “We received the notice of the customs ban only half an hour before everything was totally shut down.”

Mr Lang said that because of the lack of warning, he has Rmb5m ($750,000) of seafood products held up on the North Korean side of the border.

Angered by the sanctions, Chinese seafood importers took to the streets this week to protest, some holding red banners saying: “Money earned from our blood and sweat is sitting on the bridge. Please, customs, let us go.”

A handful of protesting seafood importers may not make Xi Jinping quake in his boots, but the protests do illustrate Beijing’s larger sanctions dilemma. As North Korea’s largest trading partner, China has by far the most to lose from a vigorous application of sanctions (apart from the regime in Pyongyang itself). And though Beijing can surely weather the storm, the latest export bans will have an impact: they mean less seafood going to Chinese restaurants and consumers, less cheap coal powering China’s massive industrial sector, and a whole lot more angry businessmen who now find their livelihoods threatened.

For now, China seems to have calculated that such short-term economic pain is worth it. Cooperating with the export bans helps Beijing placate the United States, and the Chinese received important assurances from the American side in exchange for signing on to the sanctions. But as I wrote last week, that cooperative posture is conditional, dependent in part on U.S. intentions going forward. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reportedly gave the Chinese reassurances that they described as the “Four Nos”: No desire for regime change, no desire to see the regime collapse, no accelerated reunification of the peninsula, and no desire to deploy U.S. troops into North Korea.

For that reason, the Chinese have surely noted with great interest the words of President Trump’s now-former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who admitted in an off-the-cuff interview with The American Prospect earlier this week that a military solution to the North Korean crisis is not in the cards. “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it,” Bannon said. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”

It’s hard to know with any certainty what probabilities Beijing was putting on Trump’s “madman” gambit with regards to North Korea, how they they will weigh Bannon’s apparent admission that it’s all just theater, and how all of that ultimately influences their calculus on playing ball.

China is unlikely to enforce sanctions simply to do the Trump Administration a favor—especially not when that same Administration is plotting a major trade war against China itself. That said, this does not mean that Beijing will suddenly stop enforcing sanctions, either. Beijing has its own reasons to keep doing so: China is clearly exasperated with its erratic neighbor and has shown some willingness to squeeze the regime, as with its restriction of fuel exports earlier this year. With Pyongyang acting more irresponsibly than ever, Beijing may believe that these further punitive sanctions are an effective instrument at this juncture to bring the North Koreans to the bargaining table and re-start the stalled six-party talks.

Still, history cautions against trusting China to strictly implement sanctions. If Beijing concludes that Trump is a paper tiger, and the sanctions’ economic pain mounts (along with public opposition to them), the Chinese leadership may decide not to vigorously enforce them. It would hardly be the first time that Beijing has proven a less-than-reliable partner in solving the crisis, and it will likely not be the last.

The post Chinese Traders Feel the Pinch From Sanctions appeared first on The American Interest.

Can Trump Destroy Obamacare in Two Simple Moves?

With prospects dim for a complete repeal, the future of the ACA may be tied to the Trump Administration’s ability to undermine it. Indeed, the Administration may soon try to throw the program into enough turmoil that Republican voters will pressure their representatives to fix it this fall. But will it work?

Two potential tactics in particular are worrying insurers as they prepare their rates for 2018: the possible suspension of the “cost-sharing reductions” (CSRs), payments made to insurance companies to reduce costs for low-income consumers; and a refusal to enforce the individual mandate, either by not encouraging people to sign up or by not collecting the fines they’re supposed to pay if they don’t.

On the face of it, both seem like credible threats. Without subsidies, insurers may raise prices or drop out of certain markets entirely. If these payments are suspended, the CBO projects an average premium increase of 20 percent for silver plans in 2018 (the insurers won’t have to submit their final rates until this fall). The individual mandate, meanwhile, was designed to keep younger, healthier patients in the market—without them, insurers are left with a sicker, older pool of patients. The result is the same; insurers either raise prices or drop out.

This past week, the Kaiser Family Foundation published a survey of a selection of major cities in twenty different states, plus Washington, DC, in which insurers planning to raise their rates attributed their decision to fears about the suspension of CSRs and the individual mandate. The survey found that “Insurers assuming the individual mandate will not be enforced have factored in to their rate increases an additional 1.2% to 20%. Those assuming cost-sharing subsidy payments will not continue and factoring this into their initial rate requests have applied an additional rate increase ranging from 2% to 23%.”

But will the results really be as catastrophic as the Trump Administration might hope in order to force Republicans’ hand in Congress? A recent CBO report on the estimated effects of the suspension of CSRs suggests it may cause turbulence in the market, but only for a short time. Though a few insurers would leave, by 2020 coverage should bounce back. The critical part that the Administration may not account for is that though premium prices will rise, only a fraction of the individual market goes without any kind of offsetting subsidy (about 6.7 million people). Low-income consumers, the majority of the market, receive help by way of premium tax credits, not just the CSRs. Without CSRs, insurance companies will certainly increase their prices. But since the premium tax credits are tied to those prices, they’ll rise as well.

The thing is, the White House can’t do anything about those premium tax credits going up without Congress. And the budget hit for the Federal government will be substantial. While those in the lowest income bracket (100 to 200 percent of the Federal poverty line) will pretty much break even as the tax credits take over from the CSRs, the CBO report says that “increases in premium tax credits for those with income between 200 percent and 400 percent of the FPL would substantially exceed the small reductions in CSR payments for this group.” The result: a $6 billion increase in the deficit next year, and $21 billion in 2020. Worse, from the Administration’s point of view, the suspension could actually be an upside for Obamacare: The expansion of premium taxes could attract people to the exchanges and away from employer health plans.

And what about the individual mandate, without which, people often warn, there may be the dreaded death spiral? Well, recent research concludes that the individual mandate isn’t doing all that much for the moment. The penalties have been too low to make a difference one way or another, at least until this past year. While they are slated to increase, Trump has pledged himself to ending Obamacare sooner rather than later, so waiting until the mandate has a substantial effect and then refusing to enforce it is not a useful strategy.

It’s hard to game out what will happen here; there is still too much uncertainty. But Trump may not have as much leverage over his congressional colleagues as he hopes—or as much support from the public.

The post Can Trump Destroy Obamacare in Two Simple Moves? appeared first on The American Interest.

The Golden Age of Natural Gas

Jamie Horgan: I’m here with Agnia Grigas, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of the new book, The New Geopolitics of Natural Gas. Agnia, thanks for taking the time to talk with me today.

Agnia Grigas: Thank you, Jamie. It’s a pleasure to be here.

JH: In your book, you look at the transition to a new era of gas that you characterize as “a golden age.” What were the characteristics of the old era of gas, and what’s changed?

AG: Throughout the 20th century, natural gas was a much more localized commodity than oil, due to the difficulties of transporting it over long distances and across seas and oceans. It was also a much more politicized commodity, precisely because it was so difficult to transport. Oftentimes, gas-exporting and gas-importing countries had to forge long-lasting trade relationships with each other, co-investing in land-based infrastructure.

But within the past decade, things have changed. First, trade in LNG (liquefied natural gas) has grown, because it is easy to transport across the sea—and it’s now at its highest level in history. Second, the market has become much more liquid, largely due to the U.S. shale revolution flooding it with supplies. In addition, American exporters support flexible gas trade, which means more spot and short-term trading rather than the traditional long-term, oil-linked contracts.

Meanwhile, countries around the world have built up their gas infrastructure—and in Europe especially. Of course, we can’t forget the greater appetite for natural gas, now perceived as a cleaner commodity, due to climate-change goals.

JH: Natural gas being a cleaner option than coal, both in terms of local air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.

AG: Yes, and in comparison to oil.

JH: To go back to the United States, we are now exporting LNG, but only a decade ago we were still building import terminals. The shale boom has completely remade our domestic natural gas landscape, but how is it affecting the global market?

AG: U.S. LNG exports, which began just this past year, have traveled pretty much across the globe. Before 2016, experts debated furiously over what would happen if such exports were legalized—would they go only to Asia, where at the time there was a significant gas price differential, or perhaps also to Latin America due to its proximity? But in fact they even went to Europe—and this past June, to Poland. It was a wakeup call for the global gas markets and traditional gas exporters like Russia.

The overall implications are very significant, especially for Europe, where natural gas exports have long been dominated by Russia. Europe has spent the past twenty years trying to come up with strategies to diversify its gas imports, and with U.S. LNG making it to the Continent, and the greater supply in the global gas market overall, European importers have many more options to choose from. The same goes for China. Beijing is hungry to meet its vast energy needs, and is particularly concerned with obtaining cleaner sources like natural gas due to its significant pollution problem. The Chinese had been eyeing Russia, but now they also have the option of importing U.S. LNG.

JH: We’ll come back to Europe and Asia soon, but sticking with the United States, where do we stand in the global ranking of LNG exporters? Alongside Qatar and Australia? And what does our growth outlook look like?

AG: As U.S. LNG exports increase, America’s rank is changing fast. In 2016, the United States was 16th in the world in terms of LNG export volumes and accounted for just over 1 percent of the total market. However, it is expected to become one of the leading LNG exporters in the coming decade alongside Qatar and Australia, which currently account for nearly 30 percent and 17 percent of the market respectively. By 2020, the United States is expected to add about 20 percent of the total LNG volumes traded globally in 2014 to the international gas market.

JH: You talk in the book about the potential strategic use of U.S. LNG to support our allies overseas, and also to win over new allies. But if private companies are selling these cargoes, how much control can Washington actually exert over them?

AG: That’s a very good point. U.S. energy markets, and indeed our energy industries, are quite different from those in many other parts of the energy-producing world. The United States has private energy companies, as you say, not state companies like Gazprom or those in the Middle East. But there is still room for strategic vision and diplomacy on Washington’s part—and even legislative decisions. For example, the United States lifted its decades-long ban on oil exports at the end of 2015. Another example: The U.S. government is actually quite supportive of U.S. LNG exports and readily grants various licensing rights to domestic LNG-exporting terminals.

JH: For the time being, however, Louisiana’s Cheniere terminal is our only LNG export facility. How many more are slated to come online and how could the Trump Administration do more to support U.S. LNG?

AG: In addition to Cheniere, the United States has the long-standing Kenai plant in Alaska. But soon half a dozen new terminals could start operations, including the Freeport in Texas, the Cameron in Louisiana, and the Dominion Cove Point in Maryland.

In terms of the Trump Administration, it should keep a steady course and support the great work going on right now rather than make any great shifts. Both American exporters and our gas-importing allies welcome Trump’s political backing of U.S. LNG exports. One note of caution, however: Analysts and experts worry that if, for example, natural gas prices were to rise, American industries that have been enjoying cheap gas might push to stop LNG exports. While that would certainly provide some temporary benefits to these industries, over the long term it wouldn’t be a wise course for U.S. policy.

Right now, the United States has a first-mover advantage, due to its shale boom, which has not been replicated anywhere else in the world. Thus, it can rapidly expand into natural gas markets almost everywhere—Europe, Asia, and so forth. Other countries don’t want to stand on the sidelines for too long, however, and a number of them are pursuing their own shale gas development programs—China in particular.

JH: China has the world’s largest reserves of shale gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

AG: Yes, and China has already fracked successfully and produced natural gas from shale. Yet its program is still in its infancy and as of now not producing significant commercial volumes. But like other countries, it is gearing up, and it’s only a matter of time before it starts replicating America’s shale success. The United States should make the most of its first-mover advantage while it has the chance.

JH: Your book is about the intersection of this new natural gas market and geopolitics, and we can’t discuss natural gas and geopolitics without mentioning Russia and Europe. European countries have long hoped to reduce their dependence on Gazprom gas supplies, given the strings attached to them. Is LNG going to be their savior?

AG: I wouldn’t say that LNG is going to be Europe’s savior, but it will be one important element of their overall strategy. The European countries have pursued a fairly comprehensive energy program over the past 10-15 years and the pieces of that program are starting to come together. This strategy involves reducing overall consumption of fossil fuels, increasing the use of renewables, and improving energy efficiency. It also includes the regulation of energy monopolies, such as through its “Third Energy Package” for gas and electricity markets and the “unbundling” of Gazprom’s gas assets in Europe.

Another crucial element of this strategy is the search for new sources of gas imports, including LNG, for which Europe intends to build additional infrastructure. They also aim to build new pipelines to bring Caspian gas into Europe, and to increase the gas transport infrastructure that connects European countries to each other, in hopes of producing a vibrant and viable European domestic gas market.

The current developments in the natural gas markets are very favorable to Europe’s energy strategy. The greater liquidity, the rise of LNG trade, and the increase in American LNG exports all further Europe’s goals.

JH: You mentioned that Poland just received its first cargo of U.S. LNG—possibly a historic moment. Back in April, Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller was gloating about his company’s comfortable position in Europe, saying that pipeline gas is winning against LNG and will continue to do so in the future. Do you agree that Gazprom is on the ascent in Europe, and that it will continue to be one of the most important exporters into the region?

AG: First, I would say that Miller is putting on a brave face. If you look at Russia’s official energy strategy, it explicitly says that demand for their gas is declining in the European market, and it is not expected to grow again. Indeed, in order to compensate for its anticipated losses in Europe, Russia’s leaders decided to turn to Asia, because that’s where they see a future. Furthermore, if they were so confident in pipeline gas trade, they wouldn’t be as worried about boosting their own LNG exports. Russia is quite behind in that area, especially given its historical position in natural gas markets.

At the same time, Russian gas will continue to play an important role in Europe’s energy mix, simply due to geography. Russia is a significant gas exporter; the European Union is the largest natural gas importer. Plus, the gas pipeline infrastructure is already in place. However, Gazprom won’t have the same kind of monopolistic position that it used to have in many European countries, which will have many more choices in the current market.

JH: That does seem to be the defining characteristic of this new era of gas—that there are a lot more choices for importers.

AG: Absolutely—choices, liquidity, and flexibility. It’s a buyers’ market.

JH: In Europe, Gazprom is trying to increase its own options for pipeline routes. You have the TurkStream pipeline that’s been on and off, and now there’s increasing interest in NordStream II, which recently secured financing from a consortium of European countries. Will Gazprom’s pursuit of these two entryways into Europe slow the transition to a more global market? Or is this simply more evidence of Europe gaining more choices?

AG: I see the NordStream II and TurkStream pipelines as Gazprom’s last stand, a desperate attempt to hold onto the European market. Turkey is a very important market for the Russians; it’s their second-largest import market in Europe. The pursuit of TurkStream is also key to their effort to hold onto southeast Europe, where Russia still has a monopolist position in a number of countries. Meanwhile, NordStream II is about maintaining Russia’s relationship with Germany, its number one gas import market, and about eliminating Ukraine from the transit corridor. Of course, as you note, both pipelines would also provide Russia with greater flexibility and more buyers for their exports.

Germany would like to see NordStream II come online so it can establish itself as a gas hub in Europe. In my opinion, given the current gas markets, Germany has so many more choices today that it shouldn’t be so fixated on the pipeline. Whether or not these two pipelines are built, Europe is still going to be in a much better position in the current natural gas markets than before.

JH: As you point out in the book, the increase of interconnectivity within the European gas market dilutes Gazprom’s power over the Continent.

AG: Yes, and we’ve already seen that with Ukraine. During the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kyiv, Gazprom tried to shut off the gas in Ukraine and hike prices to exorbitant levels. But today Ukraine gets the same Russian gas it always did, only from European countries via alterative pipeline routes rather than directly from Russia.

JH: Again, that takes us right back to the choices. Speaking of which, those two potential Russian routes aren’t the only ones in the cards. Israel inked a preliminary deal earlier this year to construct one of the world’s longest and deepest underwater pipelines, which would transport its offshore findings in the Leviathan field via Cyprus and Greece to Italy and the rest of the European market. Do you see this as another opportunity for Europe to diversify away from Russian gas?

AG: Yes, the east Mediterranean gas reserves are another option for Europe. It’s more of a long-term option, however. There are a number of issues regarding security, Israel’s own energy needs, and the natural gas needs of its neighbors that must first be resolved. Furthermore, the infrastructure will be extremely costly and complex.

Meanwhile, depending on how things unfold, Iran’s natural gas resources could be another alternative for Europe in the future, most likely in the form of LNG.

JH: Let’s switch to Asia. For decades, Asian countries paid a premium for liquefied natural gas and natural gas. How is that changing with the advent of the global gas market, and what does it mean for Asian countries, especially for those like Japan that are so energy-resource poor?

AG: As for Europe, the changes mean good news for Asian importers. We’ve certainly seen the price differential contract. This is again because of the increase in liquidity and flexibility in the natural gas markets. The various Asian countries are in different positions, however. Japan and South Korea historically have been LNG importers, and they don’t have any natural gas pipelines enabling imports. (Interestingly, Russia has been trying to pitch a gas pipeline project to Japan.)

China and India are two up-and-coming juggernauts with vast appetites. While recently their demand hasn’t increased as fast as anticipated, they will still be the most energy-hungry countries in the world going forward. By contrast, in Europe gas demand and overall energy demand is decreasing, or at least plateauing.

In this new era of gas, China has a very smart strategy. It is focusing on full diversification—not only diversification of its source countries, but also diversification of means. It is pursuing pipeline construction and LNG imports at the same time, as well as its own domestic natural gas program, including, as noted, a shale program.

JH: A few years back, Russia and China inked a landmark $400 billion-dollar pipeline deal, which has since failed to materialize. What is the current status of that relationship?

AG: Initially, there were plans for two pipelines to deliver Russia gas to China, the Power of Altai and the Power of Siberia. As of now, it seems that only the Power of Altai—China’s preferred route—will go forward, albeit after a delay.

When examining this emerging commercial relationship, it becomes immediately apparent that China has the upper hand. It has a vast market and understands well the power of its demand, putting it in a strong negotiating position. It can also access many alternative sources—pipeline gas from Central Asia, Myanmar, and soon Russia, as well as LNG from a variety of countries. For China, Russia will be just one of many options. For Russia, because of the pushback it has faced in Europe, China and Asia are much more important for maintaining its robust position in the global gas markets.

JH: As we mentioned before, China has a lot of shale gas—the world’s largest reserves, according to the EIA. What are the chances that China can start commercially producing it in sufficient quantities to put a dent in their own demand for foreign natural gas supplies?

AG: This a big debate. Some experts say that any other country would have trouble replicating the American achievement in the shale revolution. Such success has many prerequisites—the availability of financing, an entrepreneurial culture in the country, access to the latest and best technologies, and so on. China lacks a number of those advantages—sometimes companies even lack access to water, which is crucial for fracking.

JH: Or even roads into the sites.

AG: Indeed, not to mention the infrastructure needed to move the gas efficiently throughout the country.

Yet looking at the scale of Chinese spending on its shale program, it’s clear this has become almost a political project for Beijing. Furthermore, China is one of only four countries (including the United States, Canada, and Argentina) that have successfully fracked. As I said earlier, it is only a matter of time. We shouldn’t expect it in the near or even medium term, but eventually China will start producing significant quantities of shale gas to meet its vast energy needs.

JH: What is this new era of gas going to mean for the Caucasus and Central Asia? They’re gas-rich regions that have been isolated in the past.

AG: In Caucasus, Azerbaijan is starting to break out of its isolation and access gas import markets, with an eye toward Europe. The same has happened with Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. Previously these countries were dependent on Russian infrastructure to export their natural gas resources, which would travel from Central Asia, through Russia, and then onward to Europe. Since the 2000s, however, they’ve started exporting directly to China, and they could eventually reach Europe as well through Azerbaijan, via the Southern Gas Corridor pipeline system.

However, as landlocked countries they can’t export their natural gas resources as LNG by themselves. That limits their participation in the natural gas markets. In the future, however, I expect them to work around this limitation, given their recent success in accessing new markets via pipelines. They have strong geopolitical reasons for doing so.

JH: Stepping back a little bit, what would be the wild cards to look out for in the global gas market? What might be disruptive?

AG: Technological breakthroughs are always potential wildcards. I think we can expect more, though it is difficult to predict when they will come. Indeed, the shale boom we’re seeing today is itself a wildcard. Companies were exploring fracking techniques decades before we began seeing real results in the 2000s. Going forward we can expect more trade in CNG (compressed natural gas) and in smaller volumes of LNG, for example, as well as the increasing substitution of gas for gasoline.

An environmental disaster involving the shipping of LNG or fracking would count as a negative wildcard. That could really put a damper on the current industry and lead to a reassessment of its operations. Since the United States is the current leader in shale production and a rising leader in LNG trade, we are in a way responsible for modeling best practices.

JH: Speaking of being responsible, what does this new global gas market mean for greenhouse gas emissions? Do you see it as a net positive or a negative in the international fight to mitigate climate change?

AG: The debate over this is fierce. Some argue that natural gas is indeed a positive force for climate change goals, as a cleaner fossil fuel that will help reduce overall emissions. Others counter that the process of fracking has significant environmental costs. Also, the greater use of natural gas, due to its low prices, may offset any gains from its lower emissions.

JH: Finally, who would you say are the biggest winners in this paradigm shift in the gas market? Following that, who would be the biggest losers?

AG: The biggest winner today is the United States, which has emerged as the largest natural gas producer in the world. It’s also now the world’s largest producer of oil and petroleum products and a rising LNG exporter. The United States finds itself in a rather unique position as an energy superpower, and the full implications of this new-found energy strength are not yet fully grasped. Europe is another winner, after decades of searching for ways to diversify and improve their energy security. China is going to be a big winner as well. It has vast demands for cleaner energy to maintain its economic growth, so the abundance of natural gas is really to its benefit.

The biggest losers are traditional energy producers like Russia and the countries in the Middle East. Ukraine, as one of the key gas transit countries in Europe, is an interesting case. Over time it will be find itself bypassed, in part due to Russia’s actions, and in part because Europe now has alternative routes for importing gas. In the short term this may be a negative development, but in the long run it will benefit tremendously. Once it is no longer dependent on Russian gas transit revenues and prey to the corruption that comes along with them, Ukraine will have the opportunity to rebuild itself as a modern state.

JH: It’s interesting that as the global gas market becomes more like the global oil market, it’s also producing winners and losers similar to those that the cheaper crude in today’s oil market is also producing

AG: Yes, that is a broader story of the U.S. shale boom; it is having a similar impact on both the oil and gas markets.

JH: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me today.

AG: Thank you so much for having me.

The post The Golden Age of Natural Gas appeared first on The American Interest.

In the Shadow of Weimar

This short analysis is very definitely about what happened in Charlottesville this past weekend. I will take you there, rest assured; but the path requires a few brief yet necessary detours lest you arrive to Charlottesville with scales still stuck to your eyes.

How dare I suggest such an indirect excursion? I have credentials. Nearly eighteen months ago, I wrote—and please note the italicized prediction:

Trump is…a political shaman. He is adroit at social magic, stirring emotion and changing anything he likes into anything else he likes. And his followers, hypnotized by the dramatic world of colliding forces that he enchants in simple schematic form, nod in agreement, not with his logic but with his demonic magic.

Donald Trump is therefore not just about the Republican Party’s nomination for President, and he is not even just about the presidential election. He is a harbinger, a warning, of a very deep strain of irrationality rising within the American body politic. He is, too, an incubator of potentially significant political violence. He has organized no para-military organization of course, but every time he threatens to punch someone in the nose he is, in effect, giving permission for his followers to be transgressive, not to exclude being violently so.

Of course things have changed a fair bit since March 2016. Trump won the GOP nomination and then the election. The strain of irrationality has not abated but grown, sparking a dialectic of Right-Left valence that is tending ineluctably to push modest, humble, centrist, thoughtful social peacemaking energies to the margins. This is what always happens in a civil war, and America’s latest rendition seems clearly to be moving rapidly from a “cold” civil war, which we have witnessed worsening for years under the label “culture wars,” toward a “hot” civil war. This time, unless real leadership can avert it, civil war will come with no obvious spatial borders.

Meanwhile, political organization on the extremes—especially the neo-fascist extreme—is turning cultic, and I mean that in a specific social science sense. The leaders of these groups grasp the meaning of “the propaganda of the deed.” The aim of people like David Duke is to generate telegenic polarization, to force choices in the belief that, deep down, more Americans really, privately, think like him than think like elite politicians of either major party. Steve Bannon agrees. On Wednesday he raised a wager from the inner sanctum of the White House as clear as it is portentous: “Just give me more. Tear down the statues. Say the revolution is coming. I can’t get enough of it.”

The so-called antifa types are indeed helping in this staged polarization, because that is how these fringe groups attract recruits and raise money—all thanks to our whorish commercial media that has not thought twice over the past week, in their collective lunge for market share, about sticking microphones in the faces of David Duke, Richard Spencer, and other polarization entrepreneurs. That is what radical left-wing groups have always done in their organizational shape-changing forms from Vietnam antiwar movement days through the nuclear freeze fraud, the anti-apartheid, sanctuary, and other movements, and via any route they could imagine that would allow them to find useful idiots to help build them up, making them look more important and more mainstream than they really are. Nothing they’ve done since the early 1970s has worked very well to move them from the fringe—until, possibly, now.

Ah, you say, but all these groups, Right and Left, involve very small numbers of people. They constitute fringe phenomena; nothing to worry about.

Perhaps. But events in the past suggest that when times become unstuck for ordinary people, for whatever reasons economic and otherwise, and democratic norms and institutions simultaneously decline or break down for all practical purposes, extra-parliamentary activity rises—and with it the prospect of political violence. My first impression upon viewing the video footage from Charlottesville was a single word: Weimar. I castigated myself, because I knew immediately that the analogy was wildly stretched. But that is where my emotional side took me, aided no doubt by the specter of a red-and-black swastika flag.

It is indeed a stretched analogy. But as a heuristic it does not break entirely into pieces as easily as all that. Listen to what Lord Vansittart wrote (in the middle 1950s) in The Mist Procession about events in Germany in the early to mid-1930s:

Parliamentary democracy broke down. Germans could not practise the incomprehensible…. At the end of July [1932] came a general election accompanied by customary street-fighting between Nazis and Communists. A good many of them killed each other. Both extremes increased their votes…. [t]he Socialists and centre lost ground.

Sound a little too familiar? American politics these days often feels like an invitation to practice the incomprehensible, when a single party controls both Houses of Congress and the White House and still cannot manage to get the least constructive thing done. So the extremes prosper.

Charlottesville did not come out of nowhere, of course. My colleague Jason Willick at The American Interest has provided a summary of the ooze of events that I cannot improve upon:

Stretching back at least to Dylan Roof’s mass murder of black congregationalists in 2015, the country has been getting pushed closer and closer to the edge. The summer of 2016 saw the assassination of five police officers in Dallas by a black activist…. A Montana congressional candidate physically attacked a reporter. There have been campus riots against right-wing speakers, and clashes between Leftists and neo-Nazis on the streets of Sacramento and elsewhere. It was less than two months ago that an anti-Trump activist opened fire on a group of Republican Congressmen playing baseball in Alexandria.

What is different about Charlottesville from all of this (save the fairly minor Sacramento episode) is the difference between a sport and a game. Golf is a sport but it is not a game because a game involves active defense. It takes only one person to stick a 9-iron or to throw a javelin into near-earth orbit, but it takes two organized sides to play baseball, basketball, and other real games. Before we had a series of one-off sports. Now we have a true game, one broadcast far and wide on social media and other prime-time venues, whose electric-shock focus is racial hatred.

In this game Donald Trump has visibly striven to appear nonpartisan, but by so doing he has set himself apart from nearly every other member of the American political class. Everyone except the President seems to understand that no “very fine people” would come to a rally, see a Nazi flag in their midst, and stay. So it makes you wonder. But the alt-right thinks it knows what it means, and they may prove correct.

Trump still lacks a Weimar-style private party militia, as he did in March 2016. But even here things have changed. Thanks to insane open-carry laws in places like Virginia and North Carolina, and the rest of America’s relatively recently honed gun-nut culture, Donald Trump can have a private militia if he wants one, just for the asking. Remember how during the campaign he lied about not knowing who David Duke was when Duke endorsed him? You do. Remember how at one rally he asked supporters to pledge their total loyalty, and many responded with a straight-armed salute—in response to which Trump smiled broadly? You do. He refuses to disavow the alt-right supporters he has, despite many opportunities over many months and a torrent of opportunities in just the past week—and this despite the fact that even someone usually as odious on these kinds of topics as Jeff Sessions has done so. So how do we know he’ll not ask for that militia?

Finding the Cause

Quite consistently with the President’s equivocation about who deserves blame for what happened on Saturday, he refuses to describe a white supremacist driving a car into a crowd of protestors as domestic terrorism. H.R. McMaster was quick to do so, and virtually everyone of both parties has since followed. How could they not? This particular tactic is stock terror tradecraft from Israel to France to Great Britain to Germany and now Spain and back again. But not Donald Trump. Why?

I cannot answer that question for you. But I can tell you that beyond Charlottesville serious trouble is coming, and some of it is coming this very weekend in Boston and other cities. Now that the “t” word is out there, we will soon hear it plenty of times if violence breaks out again at anywhere near the level it did in Charlottesville. My premonition is that this is all too likely.

And if we do, it is only a matter of time before someone calls for a “war of ideas” against domestic terrorism. Maybe someone has called for such a war already; it’s impossible to read everything these days. But whenever it happens—and it is inevitable—it will be deeply misleading.

For reasons too distracting to rehearse right now, Americans tend to have an abstract, rational-narrative based way of thinking about these kinds of problems. It’s an Enlightenment-lite bias, if you will. We mistakenly thought, way back when, that the problem we had with the Soviet Union was mainly Communist ideology, not Russian imperial strategic culture, and that kind of thinking led us to miss the reality of polycentric communism and helped push us into the Vietnam War. Now we’re making the same mistake with respect to Islamist terrorism. The unstated premise in the terrorism context is that people—Muslims or white supremacist bigots—who engage in violence do so because they have been rationally persuaded by some tract or speech. The conclusion leaps out: We must disabuse of them of their error, and teach them how to think correctly. In short, we must convert them in a war—or more accurately given the real source of the premise—a crusade, of ideas.

It is true that small numbers of twisted intellectual entrepreneurs spew hatred and calls to violence, both in the Muslim world and in fetid pockets of the United States. But the conclusion that the vast majority of rank-and-file violence foddermakers behave as they do for what amounts to intellectual reasons is very close to madness. The ideology, so-called, very much comes after the fact, providing a vocabulary for group intersubjectivity. It is not the cause of the behavior.

So what is the cause? As social animals, all people need three things in order to function acceptably in society: identity, community, and purpose. A person needs to know who he or she is, needs to be able to identify others with a similar identity so as to form a community, and it is out of that community context that purposeful behaviors can be identified and pursued. All ideologies, all ideas about the public realm, are embedded in a social context, the ideology itself being at most, for most, a superficial embossing.1

So consider just little of what we know about James Alex Fields, Jr., the twenty year old who drove the car into the crowd on Saturday. He grew up fatherless, still lived with his mother until a few months ago, was a quiet loner who had trouble making friends, and even washed out of the Army early. Sound like a well-adjusted person to you, someone with a confident personal identity, a community, and a socially sanctioned purpose? Not really, huh?

Alienation from the identity/community/purpose trilogy does not express itself in precisely the same way in all cultures. That is because, to cite just one reason, some cultures raise individual agency above communal agency more than do others. Terrorist groups in the Muslim world thus tend to group brothers and cousins in ways they usually do not in the United States. But the overall pattern is strikingly similar and persistent. People who engage in mob political violence ostensibly for ideological reasons have particular psychological profiles shared by relatively small numbers of people.

This is both good news and bad news. It’s good news in that cultic homicidal terrorist organizations are very unlikely ever to have a mass following, meaning that their political salience can only be measured against the extent of the deterioration or health of political norms in the society in which they live. When the bottom falls out of normality, as it did in Weimar, then a fairly small group can insinuate itself into power, gather and use instruments of coercion to cow the majority, and go onto to do truly horrible things en route to its inevitable self-destruction—for almost by definition, delusional organizations led by mad or delusional people cannot institutionalize themselves for a long haul.

It’s bad news, however, in that there is no simple, rational fix for the problem. No amount of clever counter-messaging coming out of the fifth floor of the State Department could ever fix our Islamist terrorism problem—though it probably does no harm. By the same token, no war of ideas on domestic terrorism is going to help much either. We are faced with a problem whose basic sources are social-psychological, not ideological, and so are very hard to get at from a public policy angle.

Are Social Media and Free Speech on a Collision Course?

Finally a note about social media’s role in what has been happening and what is to come. It used to be that the front page of the printed New York Times sized and shaped electronic new media priorities. Then, at some point, things flipped. The business models changed to the point where the mainstream electronic media began driving what ended up in the front section of the New York Times and other major newspapers. Now we stand at the cusp of another shift, wherein the social media buzz is ahead of and is starting to shape mainstream electronic media editorial choices. We have gone from a serious professional filter era to a looser filter era, and are now entering a zero-filter era in which people are clustered in niche news zones that overlap hardly at all with each other.

The specter of virtual mobs is therefore within sight, a virtual mob capable of sending people into the streets to constitute real mobs the same way, pretty much, as friends can use social media channels to coordinate showing up at a given restaurant, bar, or chic shopping mall. Organizing alt-right demonstrations and antifa protests is now easier than ever.

And what does free speech mean in such a context? The legal tradition inherited from the days of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., tells us that people should have a right to say whatever they want to say so long as it is not a direct instigation to violence. So if web hosting companies or sponsors want to take down alt-right sites that incite to violence they are within the guardrails of the American legal tradition. But what about hateful speech that does not obviously incite to violence? Where is that line, and who gets to draw it?

“Freedom of expression” as the Founders and earlier generations of Americans understood the concept meant that governmental authority should not be able to muzzle principled, even radical, dissent. What does it mean now, at a time when government has become all but powerless even to monitor what is expressed on social media, less alone to moderate or control it? Does “free speech” now really mean the right to say all sorts of crazy things, mostly anonymously over the internet, that are not only deliberately false but hateful? Should it? I’m not sure anyone knows yet. But we’re going to need to find out.

1Want to know more? Read Marc Sageman’s new book, Turning to Political Violence: The Emergence of Terrorism. Sageman is writing about Islamist terrorism, but the analysis applies nearly as well to domestic right-wing American terrorism.

The post In the Shadow of Weimar appeared first on The American Interest.

Britain Drills Its First Shale Well Since 2011

Six years ago, exploratory drilling in Lancashire, England was blamed for two small earthquakes, and the British government put a quick stop to shale operations. It’s been a long road back, but Cuadrilla began drilling the vertical component of what will eventually be a shale well near that fateful Lancashire site.

The stakes are high for Britain. The country’s most important source of domestic oil and gas, the North Sea, is maturing as a resource—companies are having to slash costs to stay competitive in today’s low-price environment, and are all the while coping with decreasing yields as fields pass their prime. The British hydrocarbon industry is bracing for decommissioning costs of offshore rigs in the North Sea that are expected to rise to £17 billion over the next decade, while 10 Downing will be more concerned with a drop in domestic energy production, and the broader concerns that come along with an increased reliance on imports. In that context, shale would seem to be a bright spot in the British energy landscape.

It’s true that there’s plenty of shale gas to be had, too: according to the British Geological Survey, the UK is home to some 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas trapped in shale rock (for reference, Britain consumes roughly 3 trillion cf). And, over the past decade, the United States has demonstrated just how transformative a resource shale can be. Cuadrilla is hoping to start production on part of that resource by the end of the year, and two other companies—iGas and Third Energy—plan to join it. Right now, that trio is playing the part of trailblazer for a shale industry that is, at the moment, bereft of momentum. They’ll also be running up against some tall hurdles, many of which aren’t found here in the United States.

Public opinion may be the biggest challenge for fracking’s future in the UK. As of last October, just 37 percent of Brits aware of what shale gas was said they supported fracking, compared to 41 percent who were against the controversial drilling process. Much of that opposition stems from a peculiarity of British property rights: unlike the U.S., the UK doesn’t afford mineral rights to landowners. Because British property owners don’t also own the oil (or in this case natural gas) that may lie beneath their land, they lack the financial incentive to accede to the extraordinary disruption that accompanies commercial hydrocarbon production.

One year ago, Theresa May created the Shale Wealth Fund as a way to address this compensation problem. It taxes fracking firms and pools that money (targeted to be somewhere in the region of £1 billion), to be used by those affected by shale operations either in the form of direct payments or local infrastructure improvements. That’s better than nothing, but it’s still a far cry from the direct negotiations shale firms in the United States are able to make with property owners in order to access the oil and gas they’re after. Combine that with the higher population density of the UK, and you’ve got yourself a serious NIMBY problem.

But even if the public were to cooperate fully with the fledgling UK shale industry, there’s no guarantee that the geology will. By stroke of luck, the layers of rock comprising America’s major shale formations are relatively ordered, stacked neatly atop one another like layers of a cake. In the UK, seismic activity has crunched those underground rock layers into a tangled mess that makes it difficult for companies to identify the locations of suitable, sizable shale reserves, and harder still to drill into those shale layers the horizontal wells that are required for fracking.

Britain’s shale struggles serve to highlight just how unique the U.S. energy renaissance has been. London knows it’s playing catch-up to Washington, and it will hope Cuadrilla’s new well will be the start of a smaller but still significant boom of its own. Still, it’s a long road ahead for UK frackers.

The post Britain Drills Its First Shale Well Since 2011 appeared first on The American Interest.

China and India Face Off at Another Himalayan Hotspot

As Chinese and Indian troops continue to confront each other across the Doklam Plateau, tensions are flaring up in another Himalayan hotspot. As the AP reports:

Indian and Chinese soldiers yelled and hurled stones at one another high in the Himalayas in Indian-controlled Kashmir, Indian officials said Wednesday, potentially escalating tensions between two nations already engaged in a lengthy border standoff elsewhere.

The Chinese soldiers hurled stones while attempting to enter Ladakh region near Pangong Lake on Tuesday but were confronted by Indian soldiers, said a top police officer. The officer said Indian soldiers retaliated but neither side used guns. […]

An Indian intelligence officer said the confrontation occurred after Indian soldiers intercepted a Chinese patrol that veered into Indian-held territory after apparently it lost its way due to bad weather.

Beijing is officially disclaiming knowledge of the skirmish, only issuing vague appeals for India to help calm tensions along the border. And according to on-the-ground reports, both sides have moved swiftly to do so. The punching and stone-throwing supposedly ceased after 30 minutes, with troops from both sides retreating to their original positions. The next day, China reportedly requested a flag meeting with India to re-establish order, which suggests that this may have been an accidental scuffle that got out of hand.

But there is just as much reason, if not more, to believe that the incursion was a deliberate provocation from the Chinese side. The timing and location of the standoff were both loaded with historical significance: the incident happened on India’s Independence Day, near a lake that saw heavy combat during the 1962 Sino-Indian War. By advancing into a sensitive India-controlled territory in Kashmir on the anniversary of Indian independence, Beijing appears to be needling New Delhi, registering disdain for India’s territorial claims while proving that China can go wherever it pleases.

Meanwhile, the original border dispute in Sikkim is still festering after seven weeks. There, on India’s Independence Day, the Chinese rebuffed India by refusing to attend a ceremonial border meeting traditionally held every year. That symbolic snub has been accompanied by a surge of nationalist, anti-Indian rhetoric in the Chinese press—and a new external effort to sell foreign publics on Beijing’s version of events. On Thursday, the state news agency Xinhua released a bizarre English-language propaganda video detailing India’s “seven sins” during the standoff. The video is already generating outrage for its mocking portrayal of India, depicted as a bearded, turban-clad man who is at once a coward, a fool, and a bully:

China’s feeble attempt at foreign propaganda is unlikely to change many hearts and minds abroad, and it certainly won’t help defuse the rising tensions that the crisis has generated. With rhetoric escalating and neither side willing to back down, the two countries’ positions have only hardened over time. China is still demanding that Indian troops withdraw fully from the Doklam Plateau as a precondition for talks, while Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has insisted in a defiant Independence Day speech that India is “strong enough to overcome those who try to act against our country.” With prospects for a diplomatic resolution currently looking dim, both the Chinese and Indian militaries are preparing for the eventuality of armed conflict.

That eventuality is hardly an inevitability—but given the high stakes involved, it cannot be excluded. At stake for New Delhi in Sikkim are the security of the vulnerable Siliguri Corridor, India’s reputation as a reliable ally of Bhutan, and its credibility as a major power that can stand up to China. And with Beijing stirring up new trouble in Kashmir as well, anxieties about Pakistan enter the picture. India has stridently opposed Beijing’s infrastructure plans for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (part of which runs through Pakistan-controlled Kashmir), fearing Beijing’s growing partnership with Islamabad. For that reason, India is sure to take a forceful stance against any further Chinese incursions into Kashmir.

Hopefully, then, the skirmish in Kashmir will be quickly contained, and the Doklam dispute will stay at the level of rhetorical, not physical, confrontation. But if border disputes continue to flare up on multiple fronts, and the bad blood between China and India continues to grow, a more deadly confrontation could well erupt.

The post China and India Face Off at Another Himalayan Hotspot appeared first on The American Interest.

No Mr. President, We Should Not Execute Terrorists With Pigs Blood Bullets

Prompted by the apparent terrorist attack in Barcelona today, President Trump in a pair of tweets pointed to a novel solution to Islamist extremism:

The United States condemns the terror attack in Barcelona, Spain, and will do whatever is necessary to help. Be tough & strong, we love you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

The President was apparently referring to a previous speech he’d made on the topic during the election, in which he claimed:

[Pershing] caught 50 terrorists who did tremendous damage … and he took the 50 terrorists and he took 50 men and dipped 50 bullets in pig’s blood. You heard about that? He took 50 bullets and dipped them in pig’s blood. And he has his men load up their rifles and he lined up the 50 people and they shot 49 of those people. And the 50th person, he said, you go back to your people and you tell them what happened.

Pershing, to the extent that he is remembered at all, is best known to Americans as the commander of U.S. forces in the first World War, and as the only person appointed as “General of the Armies of the United States”, a rank superior to a five-star general. Trump’s reference is to Pershing’s role as Governor of Moro Province in the Philippines from 1909-1913.

There are a number of variations on the story. Some suggest that instead the solution was to bury the executed men with a pigs carcass. Some U.S. commanders in the Philippines did try such things. But not John Pershing. Writing in his book Moroland: The History of Uncle Sam and the Moros 1899-1920, Robert Fulton recounts a letter sent by General J. Franklin Bell to Pershing on what to do about Moro attacks on American troops:

Of course there is nothing to be done, but I understand it has long been a custom to bury juramentados [i.e. Moro attackers] with pigs when they kill Americans. This I think is a good plan, for if anything will discourage the juramentado it is the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven. You can rely on me to stand by you in maintaining this custom. It is the only possible thing we can do to discourage crazy fanatics.

Pershing did not agree, and did not maintain the custom. What’s more, he knew it to be ineffective. Fulton again:

Before Pershing’s arrival and without seeking his approval, [Colonel West, a new arrival to the Philippines] made a public burial of the bodies of the three dead Moros, Rodney’s killer and the two juramentados, all placed beside dead pigs. Once again, most Moros shrugged their shoulders and thought Americans to be a strange and inscrutable race if they thought such a stunt would stop the deranged or dissuade religious fanatics.

Pershing’s actual approach to the violence would be familiar to anyone with knowledge of contemporary approaches to counterinsurgency. He worked to gain the respect of local councils, cooperated with them when possible, and demanded responsibility for any transgressions. His success, such as it was, had nothing to do with pigs. Of course, the violence didn’t actually stop. After Pershing departed the Philippines, incidents of Moro violence persisted. The eventual U.S. solution in Moro province was to end U.S. administration and withdraw with a pair of acts in 1914 and 1920.

And any American with even a passing familiarity of the recent history of the war on terrorism should be familiar with this. How did making a mockery of the Islamic faith work as a tactic at Abu Ghraib? Forcing suspected extremists to lie with dogs, pile on each other naked, or executing them with pigs blood bullets might have some kind of appeal to the ignorance of tough-talking naifs who want to cheer on war crimes, but it certainly did not act as some kind of deterrent in Iraq.

Finally, it’s important to remember that U.S. special forces are currently embedded with the Filipino Army fighting Moro rebels. Do today’s tweets help in those efforts? Does the President know about them? Does he care?

The post No Mr. President, We Should Not Execute Terrorists With Pigs Blood Bullets appeared first on The American Interest.