Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 579

TPP Exposes Contradictions in the American Left

12 nations, including Japan and the U.S. have agreed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal (TPP). Commentators will now be picking through the agreement to explore the details of one of the most complicated deals ever negotiated, but in the meantime, a few points stand out.

First and foremost, the TPP undercuts much of the rhetoric we’ve been hearing about the BRICS and the ability of emerging powers to reshape the world system. At its heart, this is an agreement by two status quo powers (the U.S. and Japan) and their closest allies (like Australia and Canada) to sidestep forums like the WTO in which BRICS and other strong minded emerging economies can block deals they don’t like. This, like the parallel effort for an EU-U.S. trade deal, is an elaborate workaround in which the “old” economic powers are taking advantage of their immense markets and fiscal clout to set the rules for the 21st century. If countries like China and Brazil want to get “into” these new clubs, they will have only a limited ability to renegotiate rules that all the existing members have already bought into.Second, the TPP is a huge win for Japan in its contest with China. China wants to lay down the rules for Asian development and trade, but in this deal Japan has worked with its American and other allies to create a system without Chinese participation.Third, the Middle East is once again largely absent when the global rules of the road are being written—and that may not be a good thing for anybody in the long run. The existence of deep trade integration between the Pacific Rim and North America isn’t going to make it any easier to promote rapid industrialization and job creation in countries like Egypt, and the Middle East is arguably the part of the world where a failure to generate steady, wealth-creating, job-promoting growth has contributed the most to international instability. Are the Europeans, the Americans, and others really being smart when they develop global economic rules that don’t accommodate the need for some kind of special treatment for a troubled part of the world?Finally, trade deals like TPP expose the contradictions at the heart of the modern American left. The unions and the left generally will denounce this deal, as they’ve denounced all trade deals for the last generation. They will say that the TPP is a cynical corporate giveaway that creates inequality by facilitating the outsourcing of American jobs. Obviously that rhetoric points to a real problem, and outsourcing, immigration, and automation are indeed eating away at the industrial working class in rich countries like the United States. But, globally, these trade agreements tend to reduce inequality between countries even if they and related developments can promote inequality within some countries. These deals allow desperately poor people in other countries to escape lives of rural poverty, tenant farming, or utter urban destitution for factory jobs. And however poorly paid these jobs may initially be, and however polluting and dangerous the factories may be, they do give the global poor a chance to get a foot on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.That’s not a problem for nationalist right-wingers. America first isolationists can ignore the plight of poor people overseas in order to protect high-wage union jobs in the United States. One might not agree with the values of America firsters or with the long-term strategic efficacy of their program, but protectionism and nationalism go hand-in-hand. However, that’s not the case with any serious form of leftist, cosmopolitan political thinking, for the essence of the left is its claim to speak for poor people globally. A true global left movement might sacrifice the living standards of American car workers to help Bangladeshis get basic incomes just as easily as the global green movement would be willing to slash living standards in first world countries in order to allow poor people in the developing world to get ahead.However, this kind of consistent left-wing position, one that prioritizes the needs of poor people overseas to those of the American middle class, is political rat poison in the U.S. And there’s the bind. We will see a lot of rhetorical dodges and fancy footwork, but there is nothing less cosmopolitan and universal than industrial protectionism. Even a flawed trade agreement that helps workers in countries like Vietnam deserves the support of people who seriously care about the global poor.The new trade agreement faces a difficult ratification process in the United States and in several other countries where it is contentious. Parts of the deal will be controversial, and rightly so. But bringing this agreement this far may ultimately be remembered as the Obama administration’s most significant contribution to American prosperity and to world peace. Certainly, the defeat of this trade deal in Congress would be, if anything, a more crushing blow to the Obama Administration than the defeat of the Iran nuclear deal would have been.

Saudis Race to Bottom of Oil Market

What do you do when the world is flooded with more crude than it knows what to do with? If you’re Saudi Arabia, you boost production and start selling your oil at a discount. Riyadh has strong-armed OPEC into a policy of inaction over the past year, choosing to endure low prices as the cartel competes for a share of a more competitive market rather than cutting production, as it has done in the past, to help set a price floor.

But the Saudis aren’t content to just go on with business as usual. As the WSJ reports, Saudi Aramco is actively looking to woo customers with discounts on already bargain-priced crude:

In a list of official prices sent to customers, state-oil company Saudi Aramco cut the price of its light-crude deliveries to Asia by $1.7 a barrel. As a result, it switched to a discount of $1.6 a barrel against the rival Dubai benchmark from a premium of 10 cents a barrel previously. The company also cut its prices for heavy oil by $2 a barrel to the Far East and by 30 cents a barrel to the U.S.

The move come as Iran, Iraq and other countries in the Middie East made deeper cuts in their official prices than Saudi Arabia last month.

It’s a race to the bottom, it seems, as the world’s petrostates look to outdo one another in their attempts to cling to their market position. Though U.S. shale—one of the precipitating causes of the 2014-15 price crash—has shown signs of slowing, it hasn’t crashed in the manner the Saudis expected when they conceived their plan of inaction. American firms have found ways to innovate and stay profitable even at $50 per barrel. For the Saudis and the rest of OPEC (and non-OPEC petrostates like Russia, as well), innovation in the face of a bearish market just isn’t an option. The longer the market stays this oversupplied, and the longer prices are this low, the more strain these regimes must endure. And with China’s economy reeling and Europe hardly looking to play the part of economic dynamo anytime soon, it’s hard to imagine demand for oil spiking anytime in the near future.

Barring some sort of unforeseen price shock caused by a significant disruption to a major supplier (which could happen, as WRM pointed out earlier this week), the global glut will persist, and petrostates are going to continue to feel the pinch. In this scenario, many of these regimes have few options but to crank output up as high as possible in an attempt to rake in what meager revenues they can. And while the producers engage in this price war, it’s consumers—and the global economy, excepting the oil and gas sectors—that are going to reap the benefits of cheap crude.

Defense Contractors Compete for Aussies’ Business

After the replacement of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott with Malcolm Turnbull, we reported on the reduced domestic appetite for a $50 billion submarine deal with two Japanese companies, Mitsubishi and Kawasaki. Now it appears that where many saw doubts about the deal’s future, Germany’s ThysenKrupp and France’s DCNS see an opportunity. The FT reports that these companies have stepped up their bidding efforts to win the contract to build new subs for Australia. The push by the companies includes aggressive attempts to woo unionized workers and their executives, and the Europeans’ hopes were raised this weekend after French firm Thales won a $917 million contract to build light armored vehicles for Canberra.

Last month, some analysts thought that Turnbull, who is more conciliatory than his brash predecessor, would turn Australia away from Japan in an effort to avoid confronting Beijing. But while Japan may yet lose out here, the dangers to the submarine deal have so far come for domestic, not international, reasons. Unions aren’t interested in tweaking Canberra’s geopolitical strategy. Rather, they just want the $50 billion to create jobs at home, and the two European companies seeking the contract may be more willing to help on that front than Japan. It’s now pretty clear that someone will get the submarine contract, and the bottom line is that, whether its financed by Europe or Japan, the militarization of Australia isn’t good news for China.

Putin’s Pianos

Though Russian jets streak over Syria, dispersing ordnance against the remnants of the U.S. trained anti-Assad resistance forces, Putin’s main strategic target lies outside the MENA region. In immediate terms, Putin’s play in Syria is about the survival of the Assad regime and the positioning of Russia to play a key role in the final settlement in Syria. But the score for his “Syrian Concerto” is intended to be played on several pianos at once. Although his audiences in MENA and Washington are important, Putin’s primary audience and his largest concert hall are in Europe. Through his actions, Putin has linked Syria to Ukraine and raised exponentially the stakes for the Europeans. Putin’s message is that the European Union should make a deal on Ukraine, for if it seeks to continue isolating Russia and opposes the lifting of sanctions, he can further destabilize the Middle East.

By striking into Syria, Putin has made his position clear that there can be no resolution in the Middle East without Russia, and that to achieve this goal Moscow is prepared to brush aside Washington’s objections. He has directly inserted Russian power into an issue that is now at the heart of the increasingly troubled EU project: the flood of migrants entering Europe from the Middle East driven by the war. Even if Putin ultimately fails to save Assad in Syria, he has already accomplished a major gain: Although no European official will say so publicly, Putin has established a linkage between Syria and Ukraine, having just secured at the Normandy Group meeting the de facto endorsement by Germany and France of his goal to change Ukraine’s constitution by federalizing the country’s East. He is now positioned to extract further concessions from the EU when the sanctions against Russia come up for review.The most significant deliverable from Putin’s latest visits to New York and Paris is that he has broken out of international isolation, or rather, that the purported isolation of Russia—notwithstanding the public ostracism of Putin—was largely a lark. This is about much more than Putin’s speech-making in the UN, his brief handshake with President Obama, or his interview with Charlie Rose. Having been repeatedly condemned, shunned, and ridiculed by the West, with economic sanctions cutting deeply into his bottom line, Putin has turned the tables on his critics, defiant in his tone and action, and confident that his adversaries in the West will break before the Russian people turn against him. Instead of caving in to the West on Ukraine, as many have been predicting, Putin has linked Syria and the larger MENA crisis to a settlement on Ukraine along largely Russian terms. By abruptly challenging the United States in Syria and leaving the Obama administration to scramble for a response, Putin has again seized the initiative and rendered further talk of Russia’s isolation largely a moot point. The most enduring impact of Putin’s Syria gamble will be felt in Europe. The Europeans are being sent a message that if a solution to the migrant flows into Europe is to be found, Russia must have a say in the matter (read: if you are in Kiev, think long and hard about what the “final settlement” of the Donbas crisis will look like).Russia is positioning itself again as a global player, either as an enabler or as an obstructionist power. Sounding like a 21st-century version of Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, who used to proudly declare that nothing in the world could be decided without the Soviet Union taking a position on the issue, Putin has confronted the United States directly, sending a message to the states in the Middle East and to Europe that Russia’s priorities as a great power must be factored into any decision. To appreciate the effectiveness of his approach, one need only look at the attention he has been getting, from Israel through Saudi Arabia to Iran, Berlin, and Paris. His message to the United States is that Russia is back as a great power, and that it will continue to assert itself at the United Nation or elsewhere, unafraid to move militarily against U.S. proxy forces in Syria.The danger of Russia’s campaign in Syria, notwithstanding the attendant risk that it will spiral out of control, lies with his timing. Putin has been betting on America’s intervention fatigue, and thus far his calculation seems to add up. Even more importantly, he has gauged the deepening crisis in Europe, which had already been shocked by his Ukraine venture, shaken to the core by the Eurozone crisis, and now is being rocked by waves of migration from the Middle East that it cannot control or even manage effectively.Last but not least, Putin has again dealt a blow to U.S. credibility. If there ever was a classic “in your face” foreign policy, Putin’s actions against American interests in MENA are just that, with the goal of further undermining U.S. influence with its allies. For Moscow, Syria and Ukraine are parts of the same strategic design: to target the Transatlantic security link, to undermine U.S. influence in Europe, and ultimately to dismantle the NATO alliance. Regardless of whether the Russians will ultimately succeed in saving Assad, Putin’s decisive move into Syria against rebels trained and supported by the U.S. has delivered a powerful message to the Europeans: America lacks the resolve to act, even in areas as important to its global position as the Middle East. The Europeans, especially the allies along the northeastern flank of NATO, will not miss this lesson.There is a larger point to be made as the Obama Administration considers its options in Syria. The United States’ risk aversion has become an important variable in Putin’s strategy. The lesson the White House has drawn from the past decade of American intervention has been to minimize the risk of negative outcomes emblematic of Iraq and Afghanistan—that is, events that would fit the famous line by Colin Powell on Iraq: “You break it, you own it.” But Putin’s gamble in Syria is predicated on the assumption that, while there is indeed always the risk that an outcome may turn out badly, there is also another side to Powell’s dictum, namely that the payoff of a forward-leaning if admittedly risky policy can be substantial.It is time we appreciate the larger stakes of the war in Syria for the future of U.S. influence in the Middle East, our relations with Europe and the cohesion of the NATO alliance. It is time we make sure Putin’s piano is not the only one to sound a tune in Syria.

It’s Past Time to Make Recess More Inclusive

It’s long been obvious that the most acute problem facing America’s education system is recess: Too many children engage in rough-and-tumble games during school play periods. Thankfully, two elementary schools in Minnesota are pioneering a promising program, spearheaded by expert play consultants, to finally make recess safe and inclusive for all students. The Star Tribune reports:

Two Edina elementary schools, worried about the politics of the playground, are taking an unusual step to police it: They have hired a recess consultant.

Some parents have welcomed the arrival of the firm Playworks, which says recess can be more inclusive and beneficial to children if it’s more structured and if phrases like, “Hey, you’re out!” are replaced with “good job” or “nice try.” […]

The two schools have joined a growing number of districts that have hired consultants to remake the playground experience into more structured and inclusive play time. The games and activities, like four square and jumping rope, are overseen by adults and designed to reduce disciplinary problems while ensuring that no children are left out.

We’re been encouraged that over the past few years, some elementary schools have banned or discouraged aggressive games like tag and dodgeball, and that other schools have created more inclusive game options like “circle of friends.” But tinkering around the edges is not enough; as the Star Tribune notes, many children still struggle with competitive play, like four-square, which can make less athletically gifted students feel excluded. It’s time for more schools to hire firms like Playworks to manage and regulate recess, cut down on the available spaces for students to experiment with possibly dangerous activities, and, ultimately, make all play inclusive and supervised. After all, students are unlikely to be confronted with serious challenges or competition once they leave school and enter the twenty-first century workforce.

Colleges are increasingly coming around to the idea that young people shouldn’t be exposed to any activity that might make them feel uncomfortable. This is a good start, but it’s too little, too late; there is no reason why the coddling process shouldn’t start earlier. We’ll be watching the experiment at these two elementary schools, and we hope that other schools follow suit.

A Dozen Pacific Countries Agree to Free Trade Deal

This is big: A consortium of negotiators from a dozen Pacific countries agreed to the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) in Atlanta this morning. Bloomberg has the details:

The agreement will provide duty-free trade on most goods, and reduced tariffs on others. It will also provide mutual recognition of many regulations, including an exclusivity period for biologic drugs, which are derived from living organisms, and patent protection for pharmaceuticals. That was one of the final topics that was settled in marathon talks, as developing nations sought to have quicker access to generic medications […]

China was left out of the agreement, which supporters promoted as a counterweight to its growing influence […]If implemented, it would be the largest trade deal the U.S. has negotiated since the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994. The three signatories to that agreement, the U.S., Canada and Mexico, are included in this one, as is Japan.

President Obama is expected to have an easy time getting the deal through Congress after a bipartisan bill to fast-track TTP was passed in June. The trade agreement is a big loss for unions, which fought it tooth and nail, and it will continue to create headaches for Hillary Clinton, whose advisors have reportedly told donors they wish the deal would “go away.” Senator Bernie Sanders strongly opposes the deal, and has been pressing Clinton to take a position on it.

But domestic politics aside, the TTP is a major victory for the Obama Administration and should prove to be a win for the U.S. in the medium to long term. Although the deal is surely imperfect, more and freer trade is in general a good thing. And if it also frustrates Beijing’s efforts to increase its power in the region—well, that’s just icing on the cake.

President Rousseff Enters Survival Mode

As the Brazilian economy tanks and her poll numbers continue to plummet, Dilma Rousseff seems focused on only one goal: staying in office. To that end, she is virtually ceding control over the policy process, giving key positions to the PMDB and to people associated with her predecessor, Lula Inácio Lula da Silva. Folha de Sao Paolo has the story:

President Rousseff has bowed to pressure from her predecessor…as well as the PMDB, and decided to replace her Chief-of-Staff Aloizio Mercadante with Jaques Wagner, the current Defense minister.

This change, alongside Rousseff giving the PMDB control of seven ministries, up from six, should guarantee the support of at least 50 of the PMDB’s 66 deputies, thus preventing the opening of a process of impeachment against the President.She needs at least 172 deputies onside to block an impeachment request, which needs 342 votes in Congress out of a possible 513 to pass.

Though Rousseff hopes these measures will give her the support of enough deputies in parliament to block the start of impeachment proceedings, the question remains how a weak government and unpopular president can deal with both the worst corruption scandal in the history of Brazil and a failing economy. Although intervention by the central bank has brought it off its lows of around 4.5 to the dollar, the Brazilian real remains one of the worst-performing currencies in the world. Inflationary pressures are building, and the commodity price slump continues to affect the price Brazil gets for its exports.

It isn’t a pretty picture, and at the moment there is not much hope for improvement. Expect both the economy and the political situation to get worse before we see any signs that they might get better.

The Syria Mess and the Pentagon’s Serial Failures

When Robert Gates was Secretary of Defense, he found that the Pentagon was ruled by a culture of bureaucratic delay and careerism. This culture affected even such vital issues as getting effective armor to military vehicles, leading to many unnecessary deaths and mutilations by IEDs. In the middle of war, that is, the Pentagon was still in a peacetime military mode, a mode in which buck-passers, bureaucrats, and time-servers push paper, and award one another certificates of merit. One hand washes the other as everybody gets trophies, medals, and promotions at the end of the year.

The pathetic failure of the Pentagon’s efforts in Syria indicate that if anything, this culture of self-congratulation and failure is getting more entrenched. An extensive autopsy of the now-infamous Syria training program in the Wall Street Journal today has plenty of damning details about the White House’s lack of decisiveness and micromanagement. But it also details numerous lapses from the military leaders tasked with carrying out the training, all of which culminated in this farce:

“We, who are directly in contact with the Pentagon, I swear to God, we have no clue what is going on. It is very complicated,” [U.S.-trained rebel commander] Abu Iskandar said in late August as his group was falling apart.

Pentagon-trained fighters said they stopped wearing military uniforms provided by the Americans, fearful of being attacked. On Sept. 19, Col. Daher withdrew from Division 30, citing a lack of American support and coordination.Col. Patrick Ryder, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, said nine of 54 members of the first class were still operating with the U.S. in Syria. Abu Iskandar said all but three fighters remain.

This isn’t the Pentagon’s only embarrassing, dangerous, and costly failure of late. Think of the collapse of the Iraqi army in the face of ISIS, or the Afghan military. After 14 years of U.S. force building efforts in Afghanistan, we seem to have created a force that is better at raping boys than at fighting the Taliban. The failures in that country show that we have a military culture in which the greatest sin is rocking the boat. It’s apparently far better to let corrupt Afghan soldiers chain slave boys to their beds than to create some kind of public disturbance. This is a strategy of “hearts and minds” that will win popular support against the Taliban?

The U.S. is running a vast, multi-country war effort that has become unhinged from any serious strategic vision, and we have a military system in which the commanders who see the futility and try to do something about it (and there are plenty) are sidelined. Go along to get along is the way things work in Obama’s Pentagon, and both the White House and the Congress are more interested in making the military look pretty on the parade ground than making it perform effectively in the combat zone.The President and the political overseers in Congress have made their priorities clear: You can persist with strategies that don’t work for years and still get steadily promoted up the ladder as long as you jump through hoops about integrating women and gays into more military roles. There’s nothing wrong with those goals. Integrating the armed services racially was once attacked by traditionalists as a step that would destroy military cohesion, but it’s made both the U.S. and our armed services much stronger over time. But the essence of military leadership (and effective civilian oversight) is to get the combat missions done with the lowest possible cost and loss of life.Perhaps choosing between successful military operations and reshaping the makeup of the military doesn’t have to be either/or, but under President Obama we have opted for the latter and tanked the former. The Pentagon has failed at its major military objectives in the Middle East. It has not built up the Iraqi Army into an independent force that can defend against ISIS and sectarian militias. It has not made the Afghan army the core of a state that can hold territory and retain the loyalty of its people and so prevent the Taliban’s resurgence. And it has not created an effective rebel force in Syria as a third way between Assad and ISIS. Perhaps these objectives were always unrealistic and the missions should never have been launched, or perhaps they needed more focused and proactive civilian leadership. But in any case, the brass on the Pentagon office doors has been polished to a high shine during the Obama years even as the missions in the field have serially failed.Failures of military leadership are ultimately failures of civilian oversight. Abraham Lincoln fired General McClellan and promoted General Grant because, while McClellan dressed well, handled himself well in social situations, and polished his army to perfection on the parade ground, he didn’t win battles. General Grant was occasionally drunk, almost always slovenly, and didn’t always say the right things to the press. He did, however, win battles. Right now our political leadership seems to prefer an army of McClellans to an army of Grants, and the consequences are visible across the Middle East.

Coming into Alignment

Almost a year ago, a report on Sweden’s international defense cooperation, commissioned by the Swedish Defense Minister, was presented to the new Swedish government. The main conclusion of the report was that some Swedish policies should be reviewed and an official study of the pros and cons of NATO membership undertaken, preferably together with Finland. This conclusion flowed from a stark fact: Sweden can’t defend itself on its own; that is obvious and recognized by everyone.

The results of all of Sweden’s ongoing forms of defense cooperation in many directions are positive but marginal, due to current restrictions on such cooperation. These restrictions in turn stem from limitations on what NATO can do with non-members, but also, of course, in the first place from Sweden’s own interpretation of sovereignty and national control of operative resources. Sweden cannot assume binding obligations in this field, and so far, there are clear limits to its participation in joint operative planning and role sharing for conflict scenarios, which seriously restricts the results of its international cooperation.At the same time, however, we in Sweden say that we can only secure our safety together with others, and we have issued a declaration of solidarity to our neighbors, which is binding under international law. Although this solidarity only obliges Sweden to give non-military assistance, the formula in the declaration is dressed in the language of reciprocity. And Sweden itself expects military assistance, if it is attacked. That means help, if not from neighbors, then at least from the United States and bigger NATO countries—not because Sweden counts on their solidarity, but because it assumes that it is in their strategic interest to help it. Unkindly put, when it comes to military assistance, the essence of Sweden’s solidarity is really “not having to give, but counting on getting.” But here one must assume that those who might want to help us also want us to contribute to their own operative goals. Since Sweden cannot take part in their planning, it cannot know the details of what those objectives would be. This asymmetry leads to a certain “patron-client” dimension to the relationship.But after more than twenty years of ever-closer cooperation with NATO, Sweden now has a NATO member’s level of interoperability. Further, after the Russian aggression against Ukraine, Sweden participates in Alliance deterrence and reassurance activities in the Baltic area—for example, by advanced exercises and by accepting AWACS over-flights. The latest discussion on Swedish participation concerns the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force, which will be a part of the VJTF (Very High Readiness Joint Task Force). All this brings an added identification with NATO, but also an increased risk in Sweden’s relations with Russia. But for reasons of sovereignty, Sweden doesn’t want the protection against that risk by formalizing that solidarity through membership in the Alliance.To add to this confusion, Sweden implies things that are difficult to deliver, which few believe in, and for which the armed forces so far have been prohibited to prepare by joint operative planning and role-sharing with others. These contradictions were permitted to grow in a period when other European countries also went through deep cuts and radical defense reform, cashing in the peace dividend and banking on continued fair weather. So Sweden was indeed in good company! When the fair weather ended last year, NATO had to do some deep rethinking, and the inconsistencies of Sweden’s own fair weather solidarity of the past ten years were also exposed in a rather unforgiving way.As for the report presented almost a year ago, the present government rejected the conclusion but has not really criticized the analysis. But since the government shares the gloomy picture of Sweden’s worsened strategic context, it is taking measures to improve the situation. That means more money, more developed partnership with NATO, and the strengthening of existing bilateral cooperation with neighbors, especially Finland, and hopefully with the United States and others, including Poland.The latest budget increase for the next five years does signal an important break with the past. But it still will not raise defense spending as percentage of GDP, and its effects on Sweden’s overall defense capacity will remain marginal, even if some important capabilities will be improved. Sweden shall still be unable to defend itself.The new cooperation with Finland is very important. If carried through, it will enhance Sweden’s capabilities. But it will also break new ground and take its non-aligned policies into untested waters. When it was presented last spring, the Swedish Minister for Defense made it clear that this was a large and qualitatively new step, since it covers some degree of integration of forces and planning for crisis and conflict (“beyond peace”, as it is called). Operative joint planning and exercising with others for war situations is something that up to now has been absolutely off limits according to the traditional interpretation of Sweden’s non-aligned policy. In an attempt to save this tradition, it is now being said that the new cooperation with Finland will only supplement national planning; it will be an option among others which broadens freedom of action, and which in no way will constitute an obligation. That may be true theoretically or in a world of unlimited resources, but in the real world one becomes dependent on alternatives one has invested in through planning and exercises. And this dependence is the price one pays for the enhanced capability that comes from the cooperation. As long as there are no credible national alternatives in terms of planning and exercising, one is likely to be dependent on what one has invested in. This will likely be an important dimension of Sweden’s cooperation with Finland.This argument about creeping dependence has not played a big role in the Swedish discussion. But there are some fears in Finland, where there are more doubts about the reliability of Sweden as a partner, for historical reasons. That is why there are more voices in Finland in favor of a formal bilateral defense agreement with Sweden, where one hardly hears such voices, and where, if the idea is mentioned at all, it is usually rejected out of hand.What is interesting is the impact of the new Finnish cooperation on doctrine. And the relevant question is the following: If Sweden now can combine its non-aligned policy with operative planning for cooperation in wartime with Finland, why can’t the same thing be done with NATO? (Provided that NATO would accept it of course, which is not likely.) Nothing would enhance Sweden’s defensive capabilities in the region—and its cooperation with Finland!—so much as a well prepared coordination with NATO plans. Or is there an assumption that operative planning with Finland would be less compromising to non-alignment than operative planning with NATO, since Finland is non-aligned too?Finally, one cannot neglect the fact that there is a sort of geographical asymmetry to what we in Sweden usually call our common destiny with Finland. For Finland, cooperation with Sweden in some sense represents a step westward. For Sweden in the same sense it represents a step eastward. Such a step would now be taken in the face of a clearly revisionist and aggressive Russia. To many in Sweden, that is a strange step to take, if it is not combined simultaneously with at least a corresponding deepening of Sweden’s ties westward—and that would mean operative planning with NATO. If Sweden integrates militarily with a country that is more vulnerable and exposed than it is but refrains from doing the same thing with the countries whose assistance it would need if attacked…well, then none should be surprised if some think such a policy has an “ersatz” quality to it.So maybe there is some underlying idea that hasn’t been fully articulated here? Maybe the Finnish cooperation isn’t really seen as an alternative to NATO membership, but rather a sort of accelerator, or at least a facilitator, on the road to Brussels? The truth is likely that both interpretations are being made in both countries. This new cooperation bed has room for very divergent dreams—on both sides of the Baltic Sea.Sweden’s bilateral cooperation with other countries is also to be strengthened, in particular with the United States. Sweden has always seen the United States as the ultimate source of the military assistance it would need, and the Swedish Minister of Defense has recently strongly underlined that cooperation has to be deepened. In an important article, he recently wrote that, against the backdrop of Russian behavior, Sweden’s international defense cooperation becomes even more important, and that participation in major exercises is necessary for supporting Sweden’s high-end capabilities. Such exercises are also important as a marker for where Sweden belongs, and they send security policy signals. National and international defense efforts among Europeans are now to be seen as a balance to the Russian activities that have changed the European security order. The United States, according to the Minister, has a necessary role in this, and Sweden’s bilateral cooperation with the U.S. should be deepened in areas such as interoperability, training and education, procurement, research, and international operations. All these forms of cooperation are to be seen as a part of a natural development of Sweden’s policy of non-alliance, but the Minister concluded that Sweden does not seek membership in NATO, because it does not want to influence or unsettle the security order in its near abroad by abruptly changing security doctrine. The impression left by the Minister’s article is that what Sweden really has is, to borrow from earlier terminology, an “entente cordiale” with NATO that defines Swedish strategic interests and lays the ground for joint action but that is not binding on either side. The Minister did not use the expression entente of course, but it is a useful reference.The Minister’s last point about not formally changing the Swedish doctrine—that is, not becoming a member of the Alliance—is really at the heart of the current debate. The four former government parties, now in opposition, are now all in favor of membership. But for the present government this issue is still taboo, even as it seems ready for almost any kind of cooperation short of membership and guarantees. An increasing number of Swedes seem to understand that this policy implies increased risk without a corresponding increase in insurance.To understand the government’s position, one has to examine a large part of its background outside the security area itself. To simplify somewhat, there are three roots of resistance to NATO membership: political-tactical, romantic, and realist.The political-tactical roots are really outside the security area as such. They concern things like party identity, party unity, the risk of losing voters, and the risk of having a split in the party or in the government. These concerns are rational and easy to understand.The romantic roots begin in a broader sense of national identity and nostalgia for Swedish exceptionalism in a time when Sweden perhaps had a more independent voice and felt that it could play a more ambitious global role, since the non-aligned niche during the Cold War made that possible. In these romantic roots there is also an element of old anti-Americanism, general pacifism, and anti-nuclear emotions. In part of this, there also seems to be a generational dimension. The romantic arguments should of course be treated seriously and with respect, since they play an important political role, but they are not likely to take center-stage in a serious NATO-debate.The realist argument against a NATO-membership is dressed in language of the so-called realist school of international politics. It focuses on the inherent geopolitical asymmetry between Sweden and Russia, and on the experiences of Sweden’s successful strategic turnaround in 1812, during the Napoleonic wars, when it abandoned its traditional policy of hostility toward Russia (after half a millennium of wars). Almost 200 years of what is perceived as a successful security policy have left a heavy mark, and “realist” opponents of NATO membership claim that this is a “grand strategy” determined by essentially unchangeable geopolitics. Russia’s interest that no direct threat against it should originate from Swedish territory is so basic that to change the strategy would upset the balance in the region and have long-term negative consequences, it is claimed.Leaving the political and romantic arguments aside, there are at least three objections to the realist argument that staying out of NATO is the best way of handling Sweden’s asymmetry problem with Russia. One is itself a realist argument, one is idealistic, and one is existential.The first, realist objection is that Sweden’s asymmetrical relationship with Russia cannot really be treated as a bilateral issue any more. In principle, its security position is much better than during the Cold War. Russia is further away and does not have direct influence and military bases straight across the Baltic Sea. Instead it has independent, democratic, and peaceful neighbors there, being members of NATO. What is new is that, when this beneficial situation now seems to be challenged by Russia, what Sweden does or does not do in the face of this challenge may well have a strong influence on the regional outcome and hence on the stability and security that it now enjoys. There is a feedback loop of direct relevance to Sweden’s own security—of direct interdependence if you like—that did not have such a strong presence before, when Sweden was more of a periphery state. To both sides, controlling Swedish air and sea space in a conflict and denying it to the other side have become essential, for obvious reasons of geography. This is also a geopolitical argument. In the new and better Europe, Sweden faces the unexpected burden of having become more important. Sweden might even have shifted from periphery to pivot. To anyone planning an attack in the Baltic Sea area, parts of Swedish territory may have become what Belgium was to General Schlieffen before the First World War.If you believe in deterrence, and if maintaining deterrence requires Sweden to be part of the balance, then continued non-alignment will weaken, not strengthen, security. Our “entente cordiale” with NATO is not enough. In the original entente cordiale that had lasted for a decade in 1914, Britain and Foreign Minister Grey refused to the very last day before the war in August to commit binding support to France, something that certainly weakened deterrence and invited German miscalculations, at least at the political level. The lack of commitment and the lack of clarity contributed to the instability and, ultimately, to war. But the British Foreign Minister could not be clear, since there was no unity on policy in the British government.So, even if there were still a minute chance that Swedish non-membership in NATO might save it from being dragged into a regional conflict involving Russia, a “realist” calculation would have to weigh the benefit of that slim chance against the cost of the weakening of deterrence itself, which would follow from non-membership in NATO and would thus make a conflict more likely, not less. Additionally, of course, the costs of constituting a grey zone that invites probing and testing, and perhaps surprise territorial grabs, has to be reckoned with too.The paradoxical thing about Sweden’s deepened defense cooperation with Finland is that in a certain way it entails a departure from the famous neutrality policy dating back to 1812. That policy was an adaptation to the lost war of 1809 and substituted clear and naturally defined borders, namely the Baltic Sea and Torne River, for the vast and historically vague territory in the East, which was too close to Russia’s capital and inherently difficult to defend. Operative plans together with Finland would now risk a creeping reduction of clarity about Sweden’s commitments. That is why one might expect the adherents of a traditional realist policy toward Russia to be rather skeptical of a deepened military integration with Finland. The limits and the meaning of that integration will remain as ambiguous as the rest of the Swedish policy. Sometimes ambiguity can be constructive, and even strengthen deterrence, but sometimes it can be destabilizing by inviting miscalculation and misunderstanding.In this case, NATO membership—even more so together with Finland—would bring clarity and predictability and thereby strengthen stability. Of course, the Russians will say that it is provocative, since they love grey areas that can be manipulated, but Swedish membership in NATO would combine clarity with the same kinds of conditions that Norway and Denmark have introduced for reassurance purposes to reduce tensions.The second objection to the realist argument is actually an idealistic one. It focuses on the political and moral costs of the long-term assumption that “there will always be a Russia such as it is that has to be accommodated.” This would mean that Sweden must incorporate into its planning the assumption that revisionist Russia might succeed in undermining the present order, as well as Sweden’s friends and partners: “We don’t want to join the club, because we have to be ready for the day it fails.” Even a successful Russian revanchism would probably allow Sweden to live on in comfort, as during the Cold War, but some neighbors would certainly be worse off. Such an outcome might still make sense to Swedish strategists, but these thoughts would not project an endearing image of Sweden to the outside world.There is also a striking contrast between this pessimism and caution in security issues closest to home, on the one hand, and the DNA of the rest of Swedish foreign policy, on the other—namely, a foreign policy that is activist, values-based, shares burdens, stands in solidarity, undertakes collective action, is idealistic, and fights for noble objectives, even against long odds. In this more idealistic and activist universe, the NATO membership opponents don’t want to accommodate Russia; they want to change it and democratize it. These are all sentiments the present Russian leadership for good reasons finds not only threatening, but even downright aggressive.These value-based components combine to make the UN a centerpiece of Sweden’s international efforts. And they work at home and in the EU frame-work too, as can be seen in the current refugee crisis. Who wants binding obligations on member states for a solution of today’s most sensitive and controversial issue, where core dimensions of sovereignty are at stake? No one more so than Sweden.If NATO membership is not seen as being in Sweden’s interest, it cannot possibly be because NATO is somehow incompatible with Sweden’s core values. Rather it has to do with a gloomy view about Russia and Europe, and a lack of confidence in the program Europe has been trying to achieve for the past twenty years. There is a growing tension between how the government views the NATO issue and how it views almost all other issues. That makes it even more difficult to explain and understand. And the difficulty of explaining Sweden’s security policy to its own people has become one of its growing weaknesses.Finally, the third, “extistential” objection to the realist argument that there should be no change to Sweden’s policy of almost two centuries is simple: It has already changed it in all but name. Sweden did so in 1995, when it joined the European Union. That was the key step, bringing the country back to continental affairs in a political union. Compare Sweden’s situation today to what the father of the neutrality doctrine, King Karl Johan XIV, declared on his accession to the throne in 1818: “Geographically separated from the rest of Europe, our statecraft, as well as our own advantage, should always oblige us never to take part in in any dispute alien to the two nations of Scandinavia [by which he meant Sweden and Norway].’’ Although it was an accession speech, it sounds a bit like President George Washington’s Farewell Address almost two decades earlier, and the King’s policy differs as much from EU membership as Washington’s Farewell Address differs from Roosevelt’s Open Door policy. So, the position of Russia may never change, as the realists say, but that of Sweden already has, just like Norway’s. Or do the realists think that Norway’s geopolitical position is the same today as it was in 1818?One should not preserve a policy or a doctrine, no matter how impressive its pedigree, just because its name has not changed. A series of governments has already changed the contents of Swedish policy profoundly. Indeed, that is why the present policy is so inconsistent—until the last step is taken. The obstacles to doing so are considerable, but they are political and domestic, and have little to do with national security analysis.

Austerity Isn’t Poison

Portugal’s center-right coalition, led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, had a surprisingly strong finish in Sunday’s elections: It lost its majority in the parliament, but beat its Socialist rivals by a mile. The WSJ:

The unexpectedly strong showing boosted the chances, but didn’t assure, Mr. Passos Coelho’s re-election to a second four-year term.

His governing coalition—which joins his Social Democratic Party with the smaller Democratic and Social Center Party—won 104 of the 230 seats in Parliament, according to near-complete official returns.Former Lisbon Mayor Antonio Costa’s Socialist party, which promised to ease some belt-tightening measures but stick to European Union standards of fiscal restraint, won 85 seats.Two radical antiausterity parties—the Left Bloc and a coalition of Communists and Greens—won a total of 36 seats.

The Socialists, who pledged to ease the pain of some austerity measures without abandoning the EU program, led in the polls until late August, at which time waffling voters warmed again to Passos Coelho. On Sunday night, the Prime Minister pledged to seek compromise with the Socialists in order to form a government. Socialist leader Antonio Costa gave no guarantee that he would be receptive, saying, “It is clear that an expressive majority voted for a political change.”

Those are softer words than he used to have for Passos Coelho—Costa said during the campaign that he’d enter into coalition with the current government “only if aliens land on earth.” As one analyst summed it up , the election “wasn’t so much a victory for the government as a defeat for the Socialists.” Other European leaders, especially Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, will be taking heart: Austerity hasn’t proved to be as poisonous as expected.