Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 534

Beijing Issues “Red Alert” Make-Up Call

China issued its highest level alert for air quality today for the first time ever, enacting a spate of measures meant to last for three days in an attempt to bring down pollution levels in Beijing. The WSJ reports:

City officials restricted industrial production and urged schools to shut their doors among other three-day emergency measures enacted on Tuesday after the city issued what it calls a red alert over pollution levels. Beijing’s more-than-20 million area residents were told to wear face masks outside. Cars with odd-numbered license plates were ordered off the road, while 800 additional public buses and 50 extra subway trains were mustered to take up the slack. […]

The air-quality index topped 300 by Tuesday afternoon, a level the Chinese government deems “heavily polluted.” By contrast, the air-quality index in the New York City area at the same time was 49. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said an index reading above 300 is “extremely rare” in the U.S. and generally occurs only during events such as forest fires.

Pollution in Beijing this week was not at as dangerous a level as it was last week, and the authorities’ decision to raise the warning level to its highest degree was seen as a belated acknowledgment that they had tried to underplay the severity of the situation—that lack of alert-setting invoked the ire of a citizenry that, thanks to social media platforms like Weibo, can now be more expressive.

And going forward it seems the Chinese public may have more about which to be expressive, after we learned two weeks ago that the government’s official air pollution numbers were grossly underreporting the problem. This is a problem that, in the short-term, is going to get worse before it gets better: China’s air quality is worst during the winter, when heating demand spikes. So while this may be Beijing’s first “red alert,” it doesn’t look likely to be its last.

U.S. Sends Spy Plane to South China Sea

In a move that upset China, the United States has announced it will be deploying the Poseidon P-8 aircraft to Singapore to help with disaster relief and “maritime security efforts.” Reuters:

The United States has agreed with Singapore on a first deployment of the U.S. P8 Poseidon spy plane in Singapore this month, in a fresh response to China over its pursuit of territorial claims in the South China Sea.

China, which is at odds with Washington over the South China Sea, said on Tuesday the move was aimed at militarizing the region.In a joint statement after a meeting in Washington on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Singapore Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen welcomed the inaugural deployment of the aircraft in Singapore from Dec. 7 to 14.

Since the United States conducted a freedom of navigation exercise in the South China Sea in October, high-level American officials have been in the region rather often. Some of that is routine. The ASEAN summit was in Kuala Lumpur and President Obama had already been planning to go. But many of the visits, particularly those by Secretary Carter, have been directly related to security in the South China Sea.

So far, fears that any escalation would provoke China into action appear to have been baseless. All Beijing has done is issue verbal rebukes. On the other hand, U.S. measures haven’t been especially intense. Sailing ships and flying planes in disputed territory sends a signal, but it doesn’t actually stop China from continuing to build infrastructure. For now, these moves go a long way toward reassuring our allies. But if Beijing continues to build anyway, pressure on the U.S. to do more will likely increase.

NATO Moves Forward with Montenegro

NATO’s invitation to Montenegro to become its 29th member is an important step forward for the Alliance. The Brussels ministerial meeting on December 2 overcame any latent opposition to further NATO enlargement, demonstrated that the Alliance does not retreat in the face of Moscow’s threats, and indicated its commitment to bringing the entire Balkan peninsula under one effective security umbrella.

To date, NATO enlargement throughout Europe’s East has enhanced security, promoted stability, encouraged investment, fostered inter-state cooperation, and helped protect against future challenges to national integrity. However, since the accession of Croatia and Albania in April 2009, NATO leaders have been reticent in bringing in qualified candidates such as Montenegro or Macedonia and reluctant to even offer Membership Action Plans (MAPs) to aspirants such as Georgia and Ukraine, partly as a result of “out of area” missions and partly in attempts to pacify Russia.After the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001, NATO’s attention was riveted on Afghanistan, Iraq, and the broader Middle East. Throughout the 2000s, the European homeland was largely neglected as NATO capitals assumed that the continent was permanently safe from armed conflict. In the aftermath of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in early 2014, however, NATO is now returning to its core mission in Europe as the primary mechanism for mutual defense against outside aggression.In announcing Montenegro’s invitation at the foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg aimed his comments at Moscow. He underscored that every nation has the right to decide its own security arrangements and no one can interfere in that decision. Montenegro’s accession talks, or “technical negotiations,” will be completed early in 2016, but ratification by all NATO member state parliaments could take longer.In Montenegro itself, the benefits of NATO accession must be explained more effectively, as there is still significant opposition to it, mostly among the sizeable Serbian population. Resistance to NATO accession is predominant among Serbs for two main reasons. First, they view NATO as an organization that bombed Serbia during the war over Kosovo in 1999. Second, they exhibit some latent nostalgia for Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia and membership in the now-defunct “Non-aligned Movement.” However, the era of neutrality is no longer credible, as NATO is developing into a security structure for the whole of democratic Europe.Montenegro has no constitutional obligation to hold a referendum on membership in international organizations, and indeed few NATO members have organized such a vote. Parliament is likely to decide on accepting membership and the general elections scheduled for October 2016 will become a de facto plebiscite on NATO entry.Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin has been adamantly opposed to further NATO enlargement. Following NATO’s invitation to Montenegro, Russian officials immediately asserted that they would be forced to react. But it is unclear what steps Moscow could take, as no European state seeks membership in organizations that Russia dominates, such as the Eurasian Economic Union or the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and many former Soviet republics are seeking closer ties with the West as protection against Russia.Quite possibly, the Kremlin may endeavor to destabilize the Western Balkans by supporting Serbian separatism in Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina or by stirring inter-ethnic conflicts in Macedonia and Kosovo. But Russia possesses no committed allies in the region and even Serbia uses Russia for diplomatic and economic purposes rather than having any ideological, political, or strategic commitments to the Kremlin.Paradoxically, the Alliance response to Russia’s aggressive words and deeds can revitalize the core mission for which NATO was created. One essential component of this mission is to bring qualified European democracies into the organization both to enhance their security and to contribute to the security of the Alliance. In this strategic context, much of the Western Balkans still remain a missing piece in the NATO mosaic.NATO interests throughout the Balkans have come into sharper relief since the onset of the war in Ukraine and the stark reality that forcible partition, territorial acquisition, and military aggression are realities that persist into the 21st century. To counter such temptations, the entire West Balkan zone needs to join the rest of the peninsula under the NATO umbrella.As Central Europe has demonstrated, NATO accession enhances regional security, solidifies existing borders, promotes democratic consolidation, attracts foreign investment, and improves each country’s economic prospects. It will also help neutralize Moscow’s attempts to sow discord and conflict in the region, efforts designed to preoccupy Western capitals and shift attention away from its ambitions in the post-Soviet neighborhood.Just as it led regional opposition to Slobodan Milosevic and helped to terminate the Yugoslav experiment, Montenegro can now take the lead in bringing the rest of the Balkans into the Alliance. Conversely, one of the most effective ways for NATO to demonstrate its own vitality and determination is to include Montenegro and underscore that all remaining West Balkan states will become members.Montenegro’s inclusion in NATO represents a congruence of both interests and values. NATO is not only a military alliance, but also a community of democracies membership in which brings several practical domestic and regional benefits. Accession will eliminate any doubts about Montenegro’s future and encourage Western investment, rather than the corrupt and politically linked Russian investment witnessed in recent years. It will bring the entire Adriatic coastline within the NATO zone and thereby assist in joint operations and interoperability in such endeavors as emergency response, humanitarian assistance, anti-smuggling, and anti-terrorist coastal patrols. In addition, it will boost confidence in Montenegro during its already advanced accession talks into the European Union.Montenegro’s membership will also encourage Serbia to look toward a NATO future. While this will necessitate a political decision by Belgrade, Serbia’s military appears to support NATO entry, as membership would help modernize the armed forces. Montenegro can also encourage Bosnia-Herzegovina to push toward accession and move Kosovo in the same direction as it develops its security structure. Additionally, a new initiative is needed to bring Macedonia into NATO and overcome the veto that Greece continues to wield in opposition to the country’s name.If this ambitious agenda is accomplished, there will be no black holes or grey zones left in the Western Balkans and common security will enhance inter-state cooperation in other spheres, from culture and education to economic investment, energy linkages, and infrastructural development. The Balkan states have been misperceived as the land of ancient hatreds. Now, they have the chance finally to assume a modern identity as a zone of ethnic, religious, and inter-state coexistence.

Turkey Squares Off Against Russia, Iraq

Several hundred Turkish troops arrived in northern Iraq last Thursday, ostensibly to defend a Kurdish training camp near the outskirts of Mosul, a city held by the Islamic State. Analysts saw this move as a poke in the eye to Iran and Russia—a message that Ankara would not stand idly by as Tehran and Moscow had their way in Syria and Iraq. Iraq’s government said the move was an affront to its sovereignty, noting it never invited Turkish troops onto its soil, and called over the weekend for them to be withdrawn within 48 hours. Yesterday, Turkey said it would do no such thing:

Turkey has halted the deployment of troops to northern Iraq for now but will not withdraw those already there, Turkey’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, after Baghdad demanded the withdrawal of soldiers sent to near the Islamic State-held city of Mosul.

In a phone conversation with his Iraqi counterpart late on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu reiterated Ankara’s respect for Iraq’s territorial integrity, Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgic told reporters.Turkey says its latest deployment of soldiers to northern Iraq is part of a mission to train and equip Iraqi forces. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force and will take its case to the United Nations if they are not pulled out.

Relatedly, Russia has asked the UNSC to hold closed-door discussions on Turkish military action in Syria and Iraq. That discussion is expected to take place today at 3PM EST, and will reportedly focus on Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian bomber two weeks ago. It will be a busy week for the Turkish diplomats at Turtle Bay.

So what’s going on here? Take a look at the ground covered in Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu’s speech to parliament yesterday, via Reuters:

Seperately, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said he wanted to visit Baghdad as soon as possible to try to calm the row over the troop deployment.

Turkish troops were in Iraq to protect against a possible attack from Islamic State and those who interpreted their presence differently were involved in “deliberate provocation”, Davutoglu said in a speech to his party in parliament.He also said Ankara had discussed possible measures against Russia at a cabinet meeting on Monday and will impose sanctions if needed, while remaining open to talks with Moscow.[..]Davutoglu also slammed recent “insults and attacks” directed at Turkey from within Iran, warning that Turkish-Iranian friendship would suffer greatly if such attitudes continued. He did not specify to which comments he was referring.

The Turks are fuming at Moscow, which is working in Syria and Iraq with Tehran (the Iraqi government is in large degree a client of the latter). And Turkey is sending a message: Forget your “authority,” we’re taking matters into our own hands. Ankara’s good relationship with the Iraqi Kurds (the “good” Kurds, from a Turkish point of view—for now) should help with that, because it’s hard to see who will eject them from Iraqi Kurdistan. But they’re in a precarious international legal situation, which gives the Russians, Iranians, and Iraqis options. How far Ankara will take this latest move remains to be seen. Keep an eye on the U.N. this week, and on the ground in northern Iraq.

Black Lives Matter vs. Police Unions

Public sector unions are under scrutiny—this time not from conservatives, but from a leftwing activist group. Connor Friedersdorf reports in the Atlantic on an effort by an affiliate of the Black Lives Matter movement to repeal portions of police labor contracts that could unfairly shield officers from being punished for wrongdoing:

Campaign Zero has announced [an effort] to clarify its call for “fair police union contracts.” Its activists researched union-negotiated labor agreements in many jurisdictions and flagged the most damaging provisions. Their efforts are important. These legalistic clauses do tremendous damage to American cities.

Last year in “How Police Unions and Arbitrators Keep Abusive Cops on the Street,” I referenced specific cases to show that “too many cops who needlessly kill people, use excessive force, or otherwise abuse their authority are getting reprieves.”

Police officers have one of the most difficult and under-appreciated jobs in the country, and it could well be that that many of the contract provisions Campaign Zero has highlighted are in fact necessary and appropriate. At the same time, we agree with Glenn Reynolds that today’s public sector unions “are essentially a conspiracy against taxpayers” that have brought pension crises to blue cities from coast to coast and have hampered efforts to improve the quality of public services.

Public sector employees, like their counterparts in the private sector, must be able to be swiftly dismissed if they are found responsible for wrongdoing. But as Daniel DiSalvo wrote in these pages, “police unions have negotiated extensive procedures that shield workers accused of misconduct from disciplinary action.” This type of arrangement, along with other special privileges for public employees, must be undone, and Black Lives Matter is performing a valuable service by calling attention to it, even if one believes the movement has sometimes exaggerated the scale of police abuse.It will be interesting to watch the conflict between the black left and police unions unfold. It could be that Democratic politicians will be able to take on police unions without alienating their broader coalition of public sector employees. But this seems like a hard needle to thread. Police unions, along with other organized public sector unions, are an integral part of the urban blue model edifice. Renegotiating their contracts when it comes to hiring and firing could lead to demands for rethinking things like teacher tenure, as well. The blue civil war continues apace.

Did Emissions Take a Dip This Year?

While delegates from around the world sit down for a second week at the negotiating table in Paris to try to hammer out a Global Climate Deal, a group of scientists is reporting something surprising: Global greenhouse gas emissions might actually have decreased this year. The FT reports:

It was already known that emissions from burning fossil fuels barely grew last year. But preliminary estimates from an international group of scientists show they may have actually fallen by 0.6 per cent in 2015.

That would be a dramatic turnround from the 2-3 per cent annual emissions growth recorded since 2000 and a rare occurrence in a year when the International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to grow by about 3 per cent. Global emissions normally only fall when economic crises slow the power plants and factories that pump out carbon pollution.

The data this research team is using only runs through October of this year, which is why these are preliminary estimates and not definitive results. And while we’re on the subject of caveats, it should be noted that the team’s margin of error allowed that this year’s emissions could be down by as much as 1.5 percent, or even up by 0.5 percent.

But all of that being said, the simple fact that we’re discussing the tapering off of and even a potential drop in global emissions is significant. This is yet another nail in the coffin of Malthusian climate panic, and another sign that managing humanity’s global environmental footprint is getting easier, not harder, as technology advances. Greens have a natural tendency to play the role of Chicken Little and little capacity for acknowledging any positive climate news. But good news is exactly what this new research is.

History Doesn’t Take Sides

As President Obama’s speech from the Oval Office after the San Bernardino terrorist massacre limped to its close, he attempted to reassure a shaken nation by declaring “I am confident we will succeed in this mission because we are on the right side of history.” This is one of the President’s favorite formulations, a rhetorical comfort blanket, if you will. In his inaugural address he told us “those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history.” He followed that, of course, by offering to “extend a hand” to and cut a deal with Iran, which, to the Supreme Leader’s relief, he has. Later, on February 14, 2011, he insisted “at every juncture in the situation in Egypt, […] we were on the right side of history.” A month later, “Gaddafi is on the wrong side of history” (true: he ended up stickily dead not long after), and two months after that, on July 31, 2011, President Assad’s “use of torture, corruption and terror puts him on the wrong side of history.” At the moment, Assad is doing just fine, unfortunately. In March 2014 the inhabitants of the Crimea and Ukraine were glad to learn from the President that “Russia is on the wrong side of history.” Presumably Putin went even further wrong by deploying thermobaric weapons and S-400 missiles to Syria, but as yet the President has not pronounced upon it.

President Obama has taken this cant phrase and worked it to its limit, but he is not the first. In a 1998 speech to the National Geographic Society, President Clinton was quite definite in saying that when it came to human rights, “China remains on the wrong side of history.” Arguably, civil liberties in China have deteriorated since then. A month earlier, the Indians had gotten on the wrong side of history, according to the President, by lighting off five nuclear bombs. This has not bothered multiple Administrations, including Clinton’s, which have pushed for ever closer relations with New Delhi. George W. Bush got into a spat with Governor Bill Clinton in October 1992 about whether history was on the side of the Democrats or the Republicans (judging by the results of the election a month later, the Democrats had it). Later, as President himself, Bush told soldiers at Fort Hood that the terrorists were on the wrong side of history. So there was at least some agreement between our 43rd and 44th presidents.According to Google’s Ngram analytics tool, which surveys all printed words in the Google Scholar library, invocations of “the wrong side of history” began to increase in the mid-1960’s, rising by something like 1,000 percent from 1975 to 2005. That statistic does not mean a whole lot (like most attempts to resolve arguments by counting things) but is interesting even so. The use of the term says something not only about the decline of rhetoric—it is a tired, hackneyed phrase—but about a deeper misconception of politics.History does not take sides. My colleague here at The American Interest, Francis Fukuyama, may have famously claimed that it was over, but he has pulled back a bit from that audacious and highly questionable proposition. More seriously, as Tocqueville once observed, a belief in general causes is the usual resort of lesser politicians. If you really think history is going one way or another, you do not have to do very much, after all. History—capitalized, of course—will take care of matters for you.Where does it come from, this falling back on History to rescue us from our predicaments? Great statesmen do not turn to this form of consolation. In the peroration to one of his most glorious World War II speeches, Churchill explicitly acknowledged the possibility that matters could go very ill: “But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.” Nor was this a pose for the public. At the end of May 1940, when Germany was crushing France, Churchill rallied Britain’s anxious politicians with these grim words: “If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.” He did not say, “Don’t worry, chaps. History is on our side.”We live in an era when Big Data is supposed to remove elements of uncertainty from political life, and when slipshod and lazy thinking substitutes for statecraft. The study of history, on the other hand, reaffirms the power of contingency, fortune, and personality. Had John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln in 1862, would Hannibal Hamlin have steered the Union to eventual victory? If, conversely, he had been wrestled to the ground on that fateful night at Ford’s Theater three years later, would Reconstruction have been the same tragedy it became?Invoking History is a way of avoiding hard truths. It is a hollow phrase because it is supposed to sooth, not arouse, rally or inform. More importantly, it is simply not true. It presumes that the good guys win. Not always—just ask Rwandans, Cambodians, or surviving family members of Mao’s seventy million victims. Furthermore, the bad guys think the same thing, particularly Marxists, who shortly before their doctrines imploded were supremely confident that they knew in which direction History was marching. In 1956 Nikita Khrushchev famously said to Western ambassadors at a reception in Moscow, “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.” What he said next, depending on which translation you prefer, was “We will bury you.” Less than 35 years later, the Soviet empire collapsed into ruin. It was a useful warning for lazy politicians: Believe too strongly that your country has a destiny guaranteed by History, and you may ensure that it doesn’t have much of a future. A public that hears the phrase has a right to be skeptical—and nervous.

Russia Prepares to Sue Ukraine

Russia says it is preparing to take Ukraine to court over an outstanding $3 billion loan Moscow issued to the government of former President Viktor Yanukovich in the weeks leading up to his abdication in the face of tenacious street protests in early 2014. Reuters:

Russia has offered to restructure the debt in equal installments over the next three years if the West provides guarantees. But Ukraine has included it among the sovereign and sovereign-guaranteed bonds to be restructured in a deal with a group of its largest creditors.

“This week we received an official refusal from the U.S. government to provide guarantees on Ukraine’s liabilities. In this regard, there is nothing left but for us to file a legal case against Ukraine if the debtor does not fulfill its liabilities fully on Dec. 20,” RIA news agency cited the Finance Ministry as saying in a statement.

The ministry added that Russia had offered Ukraine better terms than those the International Monetary Fund had asked for.

Russia’s ostensibly generous restructuring of Ukraine’s outstanding obligations was, in reality, anything but. As we wrote at the time, it was actually a shrewd strategic move whereby Russia’s downsides would be minimized and pressure would be ratcheted up on Kyiv. Putin’s lawsuit is likely to cause cash-strapped Ukraine real headaches at best and lots of money at worst. As this Bloomberg article explains, the loan was structured with some rather unusual and tough provisions.

Some Western leaders would like the Ukraine problem to go away so they can focus on collaborating with Moscow in the Middle East. Indeed, many have speculated that Putin himself preferred to keep things quiet in order to build support for Russia’s exploits in Syria and hopefully persuade the EU to lift sanctions. Yet between Putin’s continued provocations and reports that the sanctions regime will remain for at least another six months, it looks likely that tensions will continue to rise.

Surprise: Appeasement Isn’t Working

A common response of publicity-conscious university presidents to the social justice protests rocking their campuses these days is to apologize to the protesters and capitulate to the majority of their demands (which often seem to involve spending huge sums of money on the protesters’ favored programs). President Christina H. Paxson of Brown University, for example, has promised to spend $100 million on, among other things, promoting “university-wide research and academic programming on Power, Privilege, Identity and Structural Racism” and creating workshops to “foster greater awareness and sensitivity on issues of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.”

Two weeks ago, we expressed skepticism that this approach would be effective. “It’s only a matter of time,” we wrote, “before protesters take to the quad with megaphones again, protesting that administrators are trying to buy them off without addressing any of the real underlying issues.” It turns out that it didn’t take that much time at all. According to Emily Shire’s latest dispatch from Brown in the Daily Beast, students are already up in arms, insisting that Paxson’s $100 million dollar plan is not enough:

Despite allocating an impressive amount of financial and academic resources to promoting identity diversity, [the plan] has failed to quell the tide of student anger at Brown.

A group of protesting students declared Dec. 3 “Day of Reclamation.”The Facebook group for the Day of Reclamation reveals a strong hostility to white voices and a desire to restrict their ability to share opinions.“This is NOT a space for white students to be offering their opinions or the ‘issues’ they take with the consolidated, working list of demands,” one Brown University student posted. “People have been building on them for months and have very specific reasons for their asks, but it will never be your place to criticize them.”
The Facebook group also includes a video of students interrupting and shouting at Paxson during the Day of Reclamation.

Shire also quotes some revelatory remarks from a Brown professor who expected that Paxson’s plan would mollify the radical students:

The seeming increase in outrage is the opposite of what the professor expected, having read the plan as incredibly generous to student demands.

“I badly misread the situation,” he said. “The lack of respect for the president, the provost, and the people trying to do what they can here, I’m sort of stunned by it. I thought the draft plan would quell the anger, and it’s sort of like they doubled-down.”

Campus administrations and faculty are overwhelmingly sympathetic to leftwing causes, and they desperately want to find a way to be on the protesters’ side. But as they are now starting to find out, this is very likely impossible. The campus left sees capitulation not as a sign of solidarity, but as a sign of weakness and disrespect. And, of course, they’re not entirely wrong, in a way. If administrators had real moral spine—and if they truly respected their students—they would stand up to, rather than indulge, the illiberalism engulfing their institutions.

Le Pen & FN Triumph in French Regional Elections

The populist, anti-immigrant Front National triumphed in the first round of regional elections in France yesterday, coming in first in six out of the country’s 13 regions and winning 28 percent of the vote nationally. The center-Right Républicains came in second with 26.9 percent of the vote, finishing first in only four regions. The Socialists, who had held all but one of the regions, came in first in only three, with 23.3 percent of the vote. Marine Le Pen, the FN’s leader, won a crushing 40 percent of the vote in her race, and her niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, captured more than 40 percent in her region.

Marine Le Pen’s race is particularly interesting: In winning Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, she captured a historic stronghold of the socialist Left, while also putting herself on the path to govern the region with one of France’s most acute migrant problems. At the port of Calais, thousands of refugees and migrants huddle in a makeshift camp called “the Jungle,” trying to sneak into England—even returning after French attempts to relocate them. This situation, unsurprisingly, has led to exacerbated tensions between locals and the migrants.Le Pen’s victory in the heartland of the Left, however, is less surprising than one might think based on the “far-Right” label usually applied to the party. The FN has always been protectionist and socialist (really, how could one be a French nationalist in this day and age and not be?), and has recently gone out of its way to present itself as the savior of the French economic model. And to say that Le Pen’s victory is “interesting” is not the same as “good.” The FN remains a party with an ugly history of anti-Semitism that espouses anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim views and embraces Putin. Historically, France’s centrist parties have counted on exactly that ugliness to push voters towards them, betting that on the second round of ballots (which in this case come next week) voters would gravitate to whichever of them remained as the only acceptable alternative to the FN.And indeed, the old impulse is still alive: The Socialists had called for the formation of a united bloc with Les Républicains ahead of the election. While Les Républicains leader Nicolas Sarkozy rejected the proposal, the Socialists announced that they were pulling several of their candidates from the second round of voting in hopes of limiting the FN’s gains, and several Les Républicains leaders endorsed the strategy: “When you are third, you pull out,” as ex-Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin put it.But it may not work this time. Projections show the FN still winning at least four regions come next week, and that’s not surprising. The FN was already doing well before the Paris attacks, its surge fueled by the centrists’ steadfast refusal to address issues, starting with immigration, that the public cared about. Throw in a massive security failure and a “stay the course” message on immigration post-Paris, and it may well be enough to break through historic firewalls. Whether that will happen remains to be seen next week.