Peter L. Berger's Blog, page 639

California Court Rules Against Campus Sex Tribunal

A San Diego judge has has ordered UC San Diego to set aside a sexual misconduct finding against a male student in a decision that paints a picture of an adjudication process riddled with due process violations and stacked against the accused.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s Joseph Cohn has a summary of Pressman’s decision, along with commentary. In a nutshell, the University (1) denied the accused student a fair opportunity to cross-examine his accuser, severely restricting the questions he was allowed to ask her, but compelling him to answer all questions directed at him, (2) based its findings in large part on a report by a university administrator who did not testify at the hearing (3) undermined the accused student’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by interpreting his refusal to elaborate on a certain question as incriminating, and (4) improperly increased the sanctions against the accused without explanation, apparently, according to the judge, as retaliation for his appealing the decision against him. The judge, Joel M. Pressman, concluded that “the sequence of events do [sic] not demonstrate non-consensual behavior,” but rather “Ms. Roe’s [the pseudonym of the alleged victim] personal regret for engaging in sexual activity beyond her boundaries.”Pressman may be the first state-level judge to invalidate a university sexual misconduct proceeding since the campus rape controversy began several years ago. (According to this piece by KC Johnson, a federal court made a similar ruling against Xavier University last year). His ruling may reverberate beyond the UCSD campus. As the Los Angeles Times reports, “the case is being watched nationally as concern has grown that the intensified crackdown on campus sexual assault over the last few years has at times skewed too far against those accused.” Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania told the Times that the San Diego decision “could have tremendous persuasive impact on other courts.”We’re hoping she’s right. Recently, campus administrators have sometimes shown themselves to be incapable of handling allegations of sexual assault without violating of the rights of the accused. The courts aren’t perfect, but they are better equipped than a college tribunal to handle these cases according to the standards of due process.

Putin Takes a Small Second Helping of Georgian Territory

According to Tblisi, yesterday Russian troops moved a border in South Ossetia, a chunk of Georgia that Moscow seized control of in a brief 2008 war, including a section of international pipeline. ABC has more:

Georgia says the de facto border was pushed nearly a kilometer (a half mile) deeper into its territory, leaving a section of the BP-operated Baku-Supsa pipeline in Russian-controlled territory.

The new border also is only about 500 meters (yards) from the main highway running from the Georgian capital to the Black Sea.

It may be more a calibration than an annexation, but in case there was any doubt about whether Putin had somehow learned to respect borders since his tanks started rolling into Donbas, here’s a reminder that he hasn’t. Leaders in places like Tallinn and Warsaw—not to mention Kiev—will be taking note.

It’s Tinkering Time For the EU Carbon Market

For the second time in a week, the EU released plans to start trying to a fix its broken carbon market. The WSJ reports:

One of the key measures was a legislative proposal to remodel the region’s carbon-emissions trading system for the period after 2020, by speeding up the reduction of the number of emission allowances the EU doles out.

Under the new measures, the EU wants to shrink the overall number of emission allowances at an annual rate of 2.2%, faster than its current rate of 1.74%. This measure is intended to drive up the price of allowances, which currently trade at €7.74 a metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted, and reduce overall emissions.

Any carbon market faces a significant challenge in alighting on the “right” carbon price: make it too high and firms outsource intensive industry (a process called carbon leakage), but make it too low and companies aren’t incentivized to cut emissions. Europe’s market has run afoul of the latter problem. Sluggish economic growth in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis has kept industrial emissions below levels anticipated by the market’s planners at its inception. And, in an abundance of caution, Brussels overallocated permits, choosing to err on the side of ineffectiveness rather than throttling growth.

Last week the EU outlined a plan to implement by 2019 a corrective mechanism called the Market Stability Reserve. This tool would remove extra permits from the carbon market during periods of slow growth and, in so doing, help keep the price of carbon up. It would also release permits into the system if demand for them spiked.And now Brussels is addressing its overallocation problem in a different way, by drawing up plans to accelerate the phasing out of these carbon permits after 2020. It will also cut “free” allowances given to certain heavy-emitting industries, hoping to only make exemptions in those cases where the sector would truly face a crisis if forced to buy into the carbon market.This is still very much a work in progress, and finding the right balance between green goals and the imperative for economic growth will always be a concern. That said, the EU seems to have figured out that it’s gotten the balance wrong to this point and, encouragingly, is developing a tool to allow its carbon market to stay sensitive to its economic health.

Global Public Opinion on Territorial Aggression Not So Global After All

Pew has released the Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, its latest worldwide poll of what worries whom where. Overall, the survey found that problems seen as global cause the most fretting; climate change took gold and ISIS silver, while economic instability came in third. Further on in Pew’s report, in a section titled “Territorial Tensions Remain within Regions,” we find out why geopolitics doesn’t even make the podium, so to speak:

Concerns about tensions between Russia or China, and their respective neighbors, are largely limited by geography. Just 24% globally are worried about tensions between Russia and its neighbors, but in Ukraine (62%) and Poland (44%), both former Soviet bloc countries, Russia ranks as the top concern. This anxiety is high among Ukrainians and Poles from all walks of life. Within Europe, the British (41%) and Germans (40%) consider tensions with Russia to be one of their top two concerns, second only to fear about ISIS. Elsewhere, relatively few are concerned about tensions with Russia.

On the face of it, this all seems pretty sensible. Each of the top three concerns listed above is a serious threat that citizens and policymakers will have to stay aware of and in some cases adapt to. And it’s obviously reasonable that countries closer to Russia and China should fret more about territorial aggression than other countries. “Threatened countries feel threatened” shouldn’t be a revelation.

But the rest of the world shouldn’t yawn at the tensions in East Asia and in Russia’s environs. It’s not that respondents should care about the problems of others’ regions out of empathy but don’t. Rather, it’s that they are wrong to see these problems as merely regional (which they perhaps do because a complacent post-Cold War media has not quite realized that geopolitics has returned). A quarter-century after the fall of the Berlin wall, the instability of something so abstract and remote as the ‘world order’ may seem unimportant. But it isn’t; the end of history is over. And the tensions in Asian waters and those between Russia and its Baltic neighbors are a real threat, and a global one at that.

Houthis Driven Out of Aden Port

Saudi-backed fighters in Yemen are on the move: a day after capturing Aden’s airport from Houthi forces, the fighters have now captured Aden’s main port, as well as one of its neighboring districts. Reuters :

Houthi forces withdrew from the port and Mualla district into Tawahi and were slowing the militiamen’s advance in another area called Crater, using intense sniper fire from volcanic crags which overlook the seaside metropolis. […]

Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have been bombing the Houthis and their allies from the air since March 26 in the hope of reinstating Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, an ally of Saudi Arabia who fled into exile in Riyadh. […]Residents said scores of southern fighters were in the streets of Aden fighting on Wednesday as part of the offensive dubbed “Operation Golden Arrow”.

So is this the big turnaround that Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman has been looking for in his stalemated war? Not quite. The Houthis’ strongest positions are in the inlands areas of northwest of Yemen, the traditional home of the Shi’a-aligned Zaidi sect. Aden on the other hand, is home to a large Sunni majority. It has always been likely to fall, if only local forces could muster the wherewithal to push the Houthis out.

But regardless of how you slice it, it is a setback for the Houthis, who had been on a bit of roll lately. And if the rollback continues, look for the Houthis to strike back with increasing ferocity, or even directly stir the pot in the Kingdom’s ‘Asir province.

Bad Romance

Looking at the global chessboard, one can’t help but be puzzled. Only yesterday, Russia was dating Europe; today, the Kremlin is trying to persuade the world (and itself?) that it has fallen in love with Beijing. Witness Russia’s hosting last week of the dual summit of the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization—a clear signal of Moscow’s own “pivot to Asia”, as well as its agenda to present the non-Western world as an alternative civilizational model to the West. The same experts, both Russian and Western, who recently viewed Russia as part of Greater Europe, today with the same gusto sing of Russia as a part of Greater Asia. To be sure, states do change course and build new alliances to pursue their interests. However, the Kremlin and its propaganda team have been arguing that the Russian pivot to Asia is about something deeper: about changing Russia’s civilizational identity into a “Eurasian” one. In practice this means erasing the European cultural aspects of the Russian psyche and returning society to its pre-modern state.

The whole argumentation in support of Russia turning to Asia—and of its tango with China—strikes me as either naive or intentionally misleading. One can’t avoid the impression that this is a new game of “Let’s Pretend!” in which the two dancers understand perfectly well what they are involved in. But do the members of the new “axis of convenience” (convenient for whom?) know where their tango will bring them?The new partnership is marked by frenetic activity: the signing of dozens of treaties; the mutual bonhomie of Xi Jinping and Putin at the seventieth anniversary of the Nazi surrender in World War II (while Western leaders stayed home); the joint military drills of Russian and Chinese vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea; the pledge to connect the Eurasian Union with China’s New Silk Road; and even the flabbergasting $400 billion gas deal. All this looks like confirmation of an emerging Grand Alliance that could change the global order. But appearances can be deceiving.The very first cause of the new relationship—mutual desire to deter the U.S.—is not convincing. To be sure, Russia and China are known for their dislike of America. But why unite to contain the U.S. now, when Americans are retrenching and are bogged down in unresolved conflicts, and when the U.S. President has no real appetite for foreign policy, much less grand geopolitical ambitions? Besides, Beijing hardly intends to undermine its relations with America and threaten its profitable access to its markets. If the Chinese are ready to join the Kremlin in its anti-American crusade, why would they sign far-reaching agreements on military cooperation with the U.S.? “Even though Xi and Putin might be in the same bed against the West, their dreams are clearly different”, warns Huiyun Feng. Anyway, we have to remember one truth: anti-American posturing provides convenient justification for actions that have various goals not directly connected to America.I will let the China experts ponder the question of why Beijing is taking part in the game. The impression so far is that China is a reticent partner that has merely allowed itself to be courted by the Kremlin. For me, the more interesting question is why does Moscow, the active partner, need this tango? All political, historical, and psychological considerations should caution Moscow against getting involved in this weird, unnatural partnership that could easily become a noose around Moscow’s neck. On the list of pros and cons, the cons win by a mile.For starters, China still nurses historical grievances toward China. Why should China stoop to buy commodities from its own Outer Manchuria, which was only ceded to Russia in the 19th century as a result of a series of humiliating treaties that Russia imposed on China? Are the Chinese really that forgiving? Henry Kissinger doesn’t think so: “Chinese leaders had not forgotten the series of ‘unequal treaties’ extorted for a century to establish the Russian possession of its Far East maritime provinces. . . ”(On China, Penguin Books, 2011, pp. 98–9).Even more important is the fact that Russia and China are at different stages of development. Russia is in decline, and its current regime appears to have entered an agony that threatens to pull the country down into confusion and turmoil. China, on the other hand, is still on the rise (even if the Chinese stock market tumble over the past couple of weeks has revealed several potentially large cracks in the system). This very asymmetry makes the relationship fragile, creating impetus for the stronger partner to use the weaker one to serve its interests. But if the recent Chinese financial crash is a sign of China’s looming economic plunge, the symmetry of the two authoritarian giants falling down (albeit at different speeds) could propel them into a most disastrous struggle with one another for survival. Let’s add to this the fact that authoritarian powers have no capacity or willingness to be gracious or sensitive when it comes to moral norms. Why should Beijing act altruistically toward a state that has shown no compunction about bullying its weaker neighbors?As the Crimea annexation and the Russian war against Ukraine have demonstrated, Moscow has embarked on the path of undermining the international legal system and stressing its right to maintain spheres of influence. China’s land-reclamation projects in the South China Sea and its nautical forays into the waters of Vietnam prove that Beijing and Moscow might as well be reading from the same playbook. Isn’t it only natural and expected that Beijing’s revisionist tendencies would also extend to the Russian Far East?The economic foundation underlying the Russo-Chinese tandem would seem to soften these geopolitical stumbling blocks, except for the fact that it isn’t very stable, at least when it comes to Russian interests. Russia bases its economic relationship with Beijing on three pillars—Russian gas, oil, and arms—and one hope: massive Chinese investment. According to data provided by the Oxford Institute of Energy Research and CNPC (quoted by the Russian expert Mikhail Krutichin), China needs 180 billion cubic meters of gas, which is already supplied by Central Asia (40 percent) and from other sources. “There is no place on the Chinese gas market for other suppliers”, says Krutichin. China, of course, could purchase the Russian gas if Moscow reduced its price substantially, but this would make the whole project unprofitable for Russia.Moreover, Beijing refused to finance the Russian pipeline “Sila Sibiri” that was to be the jewel of the Russo-Chinese friendship. The Chinese even suggested that Russians should cover the costs of constructing and maintaining the pipeline on Chinese territory. What arrogance! This was no doubt a real slap in the face for Moscow: to pay for its own pivot! Moscow has presented this gas deal as the key proof of the success of the Russo-Chinese tandem; if this one turned out so badly for the Russians, what can we say about the nature of its other deals? As for oil, China has been diversifying its supply through cooperation with Central Asia, and there are no signs that Beijing would like to depend on Russian supply. Last but not least, Russia is China’s biggest source for arms and military technology imports. But Moscow’s reluctance to arm China is known, and Beijing could easily view Russia’s arms trade with India and Vietnam not only as a commercial deal but as deterrent toward China.And finally, Russia’s hopes that the Chinese will help them relieve the pressure of Western sanctions with loans have already proved unfounded. The representatives of VTB, Russia’s leading bank when it comes to dealing with China, issued a statement complaining that “the key hindrance in bilateral relations is the controversial position of China regarding Russian banks. . . . The majority of Chinese banks refuse to have an interbank exchange with Russian banks. Chinese banks have also significantly cut their participation in the trade exchange with Russia.The shrill hurrahs in Moscow for “the intertwining” of Putin’s pet project (the Eurasian Union) with China’s ambitious “New Silk Road Economic Belt” (now the “One Belt, One Road” project) could be perceived as another attempt at concealing the fakery. The Eurasian Union has only been able to swim with subsidies from Moscow, which now has to plug holes in its leaking budget. Meanwhile, Central Asia—including Kazakhstan, Moscow’s leading partner in the Eurasian Union—has been integrating rapidly with China. “Intertwining” may take place, but only as a means for China to develop the infrastructure that will connect it with Europe. Is Russia ready to serve as China’s “bridge”? The irony is that, at a time when China wants to “bridge” itself to Europe, Putin’s Kremlin wants to push Russia in the opposite direction, which makes the whole “intertwining” a mess. I would agree with Bjorn Duben: “Although China has since tried to dispel Moscow’s concerns, insisting that the plan is not directed against Russia, there can be little doubt that Putin’s Eurasian Economic Union and China’s wide-ranging plans to further expand its economic reach in Central Asia are mutually incompatible projects.”The very impetus that is pushing the Kremlin toward China will soon start to ignite Russian suspicions, and even hostility, toward the Chinese. I have in mind here the “Besieged Fortress” model, whose drive to search for an enemy is the foundation of the Kremlin’s current military-patriotic legitimacy. At the moment this model works effectively by making the West, and mainly America, Russia’s arch-enemy. However, the U.S.—a distant enemy that has no common borders with Russia and few direct links—could soon lose the role of Russian allergen-in-chief. There are hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese in Russia (and Russians often perceive Vietnamese and other Asians as “Chinese” as well), and Chinese culture is often very strange and difficult to understand for ordinary Russians. Thus mistrust of China could become an even more effective way of reproducing the Besieged Fortress mentality in Russia. The potential for anti-Chinese feelings in Russia has lain dormant for a long time, only sporadically surfacing in worries about China grabbing Siberia and the Russian Far East. Deep mistrust of China on the level of the political class and intellectual environment could easily become fertile ground for a search for new enemies. The inevitable failure of the Kremlin’s attempts to build a partnership with Beijing that can help solve its mounting problems, coupled with misunderstanding the agenda and psyche of the great nation on Russia’s borders, could easily turn China into a new object of hatred.Meanwhile, there are a lot of signs pointing to the fragility of the Kremlin’s “we are friends with China” construct. In June 2015 news spread that Russia’s Zabaikalski region (part of the old Chinese Outer Manchria) promised to grant about 300,000 hectares of land to the Chinese company Huae Xinban under a 49-year lease for mere peanuts—less than $5 a hectare. Simultaneously, a draft law has been submitted to the Russian State Duma to guarantee the Chinese sovereignty over the rented territory; the same Kremlin that is so desperately defending Russian sovereignty from the malicious West is selling it for peanuts to China. This has stirred an angry reaction throughout Russia, and local authorities have been forced to backtrack. This case proves that Chinese penetration into Russia has not received a warm welcome. At best it raises suspicions; at worst, open hostility.The relationship with China has already made for a hot topic in Russian media and internet. One of the causes for worry is the apparent lack of logic or foresight in the Kremlin’s attempts to secure secret deals with China. The same Russian authorities who declare readiness to fight for Russia’s sacred territory in the European part of the country express a willingness to acquiesce to Chinese territorial demands, or to look the other way as the Chinese seize Russian territory. Russia has already given China 1,844,407 hectares of land along the Russian-Chinese border for timber cutting, and Chinese rent large swaths of Russian territory for agricultural purposes. The governor of the Jewish autonomous region in the Far East told one such story at the last Petersburg Economic Forum, “Investors came to me and suggested agricultural projects. I agreed. But then I found that we don’t have land—around 80 per cent of our land is controlled by Chinese, officially or unofficially. They grow soy that kills the soil.” The researchers of the Zabaikal University wrote in their analytical memo, that “Chinese use harmful fertilizers and ruin the ecosystems not only on the rented territories, but on the neighboring territories as well.”The problem here is the Russian state and corrupt authorities who create rules that incentivize predatory business models. There’s not a chance Chinese investors would behave this way in Finland or Poland, for example. In Russia, the end result is clear: Chinese activity is provoking hostile reactions from the local population.For the moment, the pro-Kremlin Russian experts have persuaded themselves (and the leadership) that the friendship with China is a wonderful opportunity—and even an alliance that will change the world order! True, they have to figure out how to apply their favorite realpolitik approach to the new tandem. Considered on balance of powers terms, the asymmetry of this tandem raises significant doubts about its sustainability. Thus all the rhetorical juggling coming out of the Kremlin has one purpose: to prove that Russia’s pivot to Asia makes sense, and that the new entente will serve the Kremlin’s purposes. The key task is to convince the Russian audience that China will not become into an arrogant hegemon. But thus far all the analysis in the service of Russia’s “pivot propaganda” has only raised more doubts. Respected experts all admit that China is the more powerful partner, but say that nevertheless “Moscow most certainly will find a way to create a ‘special relationship’ with its partner.”Some experts admit that they are not sure how Moscow can preserve its sovereignty and independence from Beijing. Other experts are more upbeat, believing that Russia will remain “a great power,” and Beijing will concede Russia’s status as such. But one can plainly see their difficulties in their attempts to define the roles within the Russo-Chinese tandem: China is a leader, not a hegemon, the experts suggest. But how feasible is leadership without hegemony? And why would a state operating on the international scene on the basis of the Hobbesian rules have any reason to believe that its competitors will all play by Kantian rules? It seems pathetic for Russia to hope that Chinese will accommodate the Kremlin’s longing for great power status (an accommodation, incidentally, that the West has already been making for a long time). As Kissinger has observed, “China was never engaged in sustained contact with another country on the basis of equality for the simple reason that it never encountered cities of compatible culture or magnitude” (On China, p. 16–7). Has there been some sign that the Chinese political mentality has changed that everyone else missed?The simpler and likelier explanation is that the new entente is a mirage. This is not to say that Russia hasn’t been able to squeeze advantage out of false friendship in the past. Russia’s rent-seeking elite managed to use fake friendship with the West in order to secure personal integration and to build its Western-based money laundering machines. But China is a different case entirely—much less prone to altruism and accommodation, proud, self-reliant, ambitious, and patient. Why should China help cure Russia’s complexes, or give its elite the means to secure their vanity or personal wealth? In this new entente, the Kremlin has but two choices: play the role of lap dog, or get ready to whine about how it is being humiliated all over again. The West, in treating the Russian elite with kid gloves, failed to teach it a lesson; China is much less likely to err on the side of lenience.Some Western experts have been sounding the alarm about the anti-Western potential of the Russo-Chinese love affair. I would worry more about the implications of their relationship going down in flames. How might Moscow react to the dashing of its hopes for Chinese partnership? How might Beijing react to the decay of the Russian system and the ill will toward China that it might prompt? Does China understand what a mess it has walked into?Loneliness and uncertainty have forced the Russian ruling elite to make a move that they either know or suspect won’t pay off. Perhaps its time for the Kremlin to look for a new pivot? How about Myanmar? Wouldn’t it be a safer bet?

OPEC Braces For New Reality

This week’s nuclear deal between the West and Iran could heighten tensions within OPEC as Tehran prepares to boost its exports in a global market that’s already oversupplied.

Western sanctions cut Iranian oil exports nearly in half in just a few years, and Tehran is already on record as saying it’s prepared to increase sales by as much as one million barrels of oil per day once those sanctions are lifted. The country hopes to raise total exports above 5 million barrels per day (bpd) by the end of the decade. Analysts think that’s an overly optimistic outlook, and after a brief dip yesterday oil prices ticked upwards as traders reacted to the fact that sanctions haven’t yet been lifted. There’s no clear timeline for when they will be, and therefore for when Iran might once again ply its crude in Western markets.But while questions remain over how much more oil Iran will be able to export, and by when they’ll be able to do it, OPEC still has to start preparing for another one of its members to increase production in a bear market, as Reuters reports. The cartel is hoping that demand, which has been tepid this last year on weak growth in Asia and Europe, will tick upwards again and help to absorb new Iranian supplies. Time will tell if that bet pays off.While historically OPEC has cut production in times of oversupply as a way to keep prices high, this time around it’s chosen to sit tight and try to squeeze out non-OPEC producers for market share. But shale’s resilience is throwing a wrench in that plan, and a flood of new Iranian crude looms ominously on the horizon. Saudi Arabia is the only realistic candidate capable of cutting production to make room for Iran, but it’s hard to imagine Riyadh willingly doing that for its regional rival.What we’re left with are some strong long-term forces acting to keep the global oil supply booming, likely ensuring cheap prices for the foreseeable future. For producers like OPEC’s petrostates or American fracking firms, that could be a big problem. For everyone else, well, it’s a buyer’s market.

Will Foxhunting Split the United Kingdom?

It may be a vote on fox hunting that forces the latest British constitutional crisis.

Fox-hunting has been contentious in England since Tony Blair’s Labour government voted to ban the practice in 2004. The anti-hunting position combines a potent mix of class consciousness and modern elite environmentalism. Yet, not only did the hunts continue after the ban, but they actually increased. Hunt enthusiasts, which include a substantial proportion of the rural population as well as the ‘squirearchy’, want to continue hunting as their fathers did, and their fathers before them, and see no reason why elites from central London should be sticking their nose in it.But what makes this interesting for our readers who don’t have a set of “pinks” in their closet is the role the Scottish National Party is playing in a vote to alter the ban. The Guardian reports:

The government has withdrawn its attempt to relax the UK’s foxhunting ban after the Scottish National party said it would vote against the change.

Downing Street is expected to revisit the issue in autumn after the proposed introduction of English votes for English laws (Evel) in parliament. This would make clear whether a majority of non-Scottish MPs were in favour of weakening the foxhunting ban.[…][A spokesperson for David Cameron] said: “It’s now for [SNP Leader] Nicola Sturgeon to explain why they are going against their longstanding principle that she set out very clearly in February of this year of not voting on matters that purely affect England and why they are going against the principle of something that applies to Scotland will not apply to England and Wales.

Since the granting of “devo max” to Scotland last year after the failed referendum, the authority of the Scottish parliament on local issues is greater than ever. And yet the SNP appears to be torpedoing a law that might well otherwise pass on English-only votes. This raises the dreaded “West Lothian question”—why do the Scots get their own Parliament to vote on their own local laws, but still vote on English domestic matters in Westminster?

To the SNP, apparently, nationalist principles are well and good, but not as important as preventing the killing of animals in England. To put it another way, they seem keen to play nationalists on questions of Scottish authority, and yet good leftists on questions of reinforcing traditionally Labour causes in Westminster. The newly-assertive Cameron government (and the English public that elected it) may not be of a mind to take that for long.

500 Years of Protestantism

In 2017 there will be various activities to observe the 500th anniversary of the event commonly taken as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Planning has already begun. I have just received an invitation to participate in the 2017 German Protestant Church Assembly, the huge biennial Kirchentag, which will in that year meet in Berlin. In a German periodical there just appeared a large advertisement for 2017 tours by bus or train through Lutherland, the states of Saxony and Thuringia where the Reformation began. In the issue of July 8, 2015, The Christian Century published two articles by well-known Protestant theologians urging that the anniversary should be observed in a spirit of repentance rather than in the usual feisty celebration. The assumption here is that the big schism in Western Christendom constitutes a grave sin for which both Protestants and Catholics bear common responsibility. There has been some discussion of making the 2017 Kirchentag a joint Protestant-Catholic confession of guilt; as of this writing, no decision has been made on this (the Saxon state tourist board would of course be delighted). A beginning was already made in 2010, when the Lutheran World Federation apologized to the Mennonite World Conference for the bloody persecution, applauded by Luther himself, of the Anabaptists (from which the Mennonites are an offspring). More recently Pope Francis I apologized to the Waldensians (a tiny proto-Protestant group, mostly surviving in northern Italy) for the savage persecution their ancestors suffered between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. I have no doubt that Pope Francis would be happy to extend the apology to larger Protestant groups north of the Alps. In the meantime, just a few days ago, he apologized to the indigenous peoples of the Americas for their oppression by the conquistadores of Catholic Spain.

We live in an age of official apologies for historic crimes. After all, President Obama has apologized to Muslims for the atrocities committed by the Crusaders, and to blacks for the slave trade. [For the latter apology he went to Senegal to the Island of Goree, from which the slave ships sailed to the Western Hemisphere. Goree was also the place where Arab slave traders sold their captive Africans to Portuguese and other Christian sea captains; it was not quite clear on whose behalf and to whom Obama was apologizing.] But I don’t want to continue with this fascinating explosion of mea culpas. Some of them were admirable and deeply moving; others were a bit absurd. I will just refer to the book by Thomas Berger, War, Guilt, and World Politics after World War II (I don’t see why I should refrain from mentioning an excellent book just because the author is a son of mine!) What I do want to deal with, in rather broad strokes, are two questions: What actually happened in 1517 in this somewhat remote area of eastern Germany? And what were the enduring consequences?As every alumnus of Lutheran Sunday schools knows, on October 30, 1517, Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk and junior theology professor, in a dramatic gesture nailed his “95 Theses” to the entrance door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Actually, he did and he didn’t: He did put up his “Theses” in that location. But the action was hardly dramatic. The location was that of the university bulletin board on which professors announced topics which they wanted to have publicly discussed. Nor was the content of his document terribly inflammatory. He did offer a sharp criticism of the practice of selling indulgences by preacher celebrities like the Dominican Johann Tetzel (1415-1519)—years in purgatory forgiven upon payments of specific fees. Theoretically, if the Church had endorsed Luther’s criticism and stopped the practice, history might have taken a different course. But Luther also questioned the Pope’s authority to issue indulgences in the first place (fee or no fee), and mentioned the Pope’s economic interest in the practice (much of the income went to pay for the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome). What seemed at first a relatively modest call for reform, which probably was what Luther then intended, very quickly morphed into a fundamental challenge to the basic assumptions of the Roman Church. Fortunately or unfortunately, Luther’s “95 Theses” came out not long after the invention of the printing press. The “Theses” and other writings by Luther became tracts, which were rapidly disseminated across German-speaking Europe and beyond. What happened is one of the most instructive cases of the interaction between individual obsessions and much larger, much more mundane interests. The story began with the lonely struggle of one man to overcome his deep sense of total unworthiness and to find acceptance from an overpowering God. The result of this struggle was his rediscovery of the Apostle Paul’s belief in the power of undeserving grace, which led to Luther’s challenge of the whole salvation machinery of the Roman Church. And that in turn led to a split across the middle of Western Christianity. Of course other interests intervened in the development from Luther’s monastic cell to the devastating wars of religion—notably the irritation of the German princes at the earthly powers asserted from Rome, and the princes’ greedy desire to appropriate the vast real estate properties of the monasteries (the Reformation conveniently abolished monasticism).Luther may have hoped that the Pope would be swayed by the eloquence of the “95 Theses”. Instead Leo X, who rightly understood that this uppity provincial monk was dangerous far beyond the matter of Tetzel’s unsavory business enterprise, reacted with savage force. In 1520, after Luther had refused the demand that he recant his errors, the papal encyclical Exsurge Domine condemned him as a heretic. The Emperor Charles V, the most powerful ruler who ruled territories stretching across the world, followed by imposing the “imperial ban” on Luther, who could now be killed by anyone under legal immunity. The dramatic climax of this uneven contest of will came in 1521, when the Emperor convened the Diet (Reichstag) in the city of Worms; the Emperor would preside in person. Luther was ordered to appear. He was afraid to come, with good reason (not so long ago, in 1415, the Czech reformer Jan Hus, who also refused to recant his alleged heresies, was burned at the stake during the Council of Konstanz). Luther later related that he thought to himself, “Little monk, little monk, who are you to defy Pope and Emperor”. Even so, he did. Again he refused to recant. According to Lutheran tradition he said “Here I stand, I can do no other”. He probably did not literally say these words. After explaining that he trusted neither popes nor councils and would only recant if convinced by Scripture or clear reason, he concluded (dramatically enough) by saying “My conscience is captive to the Word of God… It is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen.” Luther avoided arrest by fleeing Worms and took refuge in the Wartburg (a castle owned by one of his princely protectors). He stayed there for about a year, during which he began his translation of the Bible into German. He then returned to Wittenberg, which by then had become the headquarters of a powerful alliance of German states ready to challenge the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire (then and for quite a while afterward under the control of the Habsburgs). And thus, what the American writer Paul Goodman described as “a conspiracy of junior faculty at a provincial university” became the centerpiece of a gigantic power struggle at the center of international politics for several centuries.How is one to assess the empirical consequences of the Reformation that began in 1517?Clarification: The question concerns the empirical assessment: The consequences, many if not most of them unintended by Luther and his companions, for the social and cultural development of Europe and beyond. My assessment here will be attempted within a strictly secular discourse, that of the antiseptic objectivity of the social sciences. This approach must obviously be different from a theological assessment: Did Luther contribute to a deeper understanding of the Christian faith? Or did he generate a distortive one? Put simply: Was Leo X right or wrong in excommunicating the author of the “95 Theses”? As a social scientist I cannot even begin to ask, let alone to answer such theological questions. It so happens that I am a Lutheran myself (though not like those whose Lutheranism is expressed in a narrowly dogmatic form—I have described them as Southern Baptists with better music). I have never understood why it should be so difficult to have a strong faith commitment and to bracket it while one does objective social science (any more difficult than playing Mozart today and Country Western tomorrow). In any case, what I have to say about the empirical impact of the Lutheran Reformation and its enormously variegated Protestant progeny (Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican) would be no different if I were a Buddhist or an atheist.The role of Protestantism in the shaping of the modern world has been debated for a very long time. Any assertions on this topic will necessarily be hypothetical. I will limit myself to four, which enjoy rather broad scholarly support. As a non-historian, I have been influenced by the works of Karl Holl, Ernst Troeltsch, Werner Elert and Max Weber (all long dead before I could say “justified by faith, not by works”), and by many conversations with George Forell, the great American Luther scholar.1. Individual conscience as a central moral and political value. Luther had no intention to propagate this crucial value of the modern democratic creed. Note that in his statement at the Diet of Worms he said that he cannot act against conscience, but only insofar as conscience is “captive to the Word of God”. Thus the understanding of conscience, religiously informed or not, as a fundamental human right is a secularized offspring of the Reformation. But it is an offspring all the same, and Luther defying “Pope and Emperor” in the name of conscience is a plausible democratic icon.2. Different from both Catholicism and Calvinism, Lutheranism insisted on a sharp distinction of Law and Gospel. The original reason for the distinction was to make sure that Christianity was not understood as a new code of law. This, however, opened a space for the secular, both in the mind of individuals and in the social order. Implication: Natural science is emancipated from theological tutelage. Implication: There are no Christian institutions other the Church that preaches the Gospel; strictly speaking, there are no Christian states (Luther: “I would rather be ruled by a just Turk than by an unjust Christian”).3. A morality based not on the quest for sainthood, but on responsible concern for one’s neighbor. Strictly speaking, there are no Protestant “saints”: Every Christian is “both just and a sinner” (“simul iustus et peccator”), justified by God’s grace, not by saintly actions. The priesthood or the monastic life are not (as in traditional Catholic parlance) the only Christian “vocations”; every lawful occupation, carried out conscientiously, can be a “vocation” or “calling” in the full religious sense of the word. I think that Weber was right in seeing this Lutheran concept of “vocation” as the first step toward the “Protestant ethic”, which was a causal factor in the genesis of modern capitalism. The further enhancement of the concept by Calvinism need not concern us here.4. The genesis of the modern conception of sovereign nation states. This consequence cannot be traced to Luther himself, but it unintentionally resulted from the Lutheran Reformation. The Thirty Years’ War between Protestants and Catholics, which had devastated Europe and caused enormous bloodshed, ended in 1648 with the Peace of Westphalia. It consisted in a number of international treaties, signed by both Protestant and Catholic powers in Muenster and Osnabrueck in northern Germany. Its formula of peace was accepted reluctantly and out of practical necessity by the signatories. The formula was simple and of historic import: “Eius regio eius religio”/”whose rule whose religion”. In other words, the ruler decides the religion of his realm; those who don’t like the decision have to leave. To our contemporaries this sounds awfully like religious or ethnic “cleansing”, but it must then have been an attractive alternative to either massacre or forced conversion. But, I suppose without the signatories’ intentions, this laid the legal groundwork for what political scientists call the “Westphalian state system”: Every state is sovereign within its own borders, in religion or anything else. In the two centuries after 1648 this further meant that states increasingly became nation states. That development does have Protestant roots: Luther’s translation of the Bible not only codified the German language, but strengthened the feeling of German nationality (very much as the King James Authorized Version of the Bible standardized the English language and laid the linguistic foundation of English nationalism). Again I will refrain from making value judgments as to whether these developments have been mostly good or mostly bad.There can be little doubt about Luther’s stature as an agent (sometimes intentional, sometimes not) of historic change. To say this is not necessarily an act of homage. He did have some appealing qualities—personal courage, a lively sense of humor, strong devotion to his wife and children. I, for one, find his sense of unworthiness quite disturbing—did he really need Paul’s liberating faith in God’s redeeming grace to be freed from the terror of a wrathful divinity? And then there are the two darkest spots in his later years: his endorsement of the murderous suppression of the Peasant Rebellion, and, worst of all, his viciously anti-Semitic tract Of the Jews and their Lies. Both aberrations were caused by resentful disappointment, against the Jews for not joining his movement (after all the trouble he took in studying Hebrew!), and against the rebels for misunderstanding the Gospel as a call for revolution.A loyal reader told me the other day that she looks forward to my jokes and hopes that there will be at least one in every post. I don’t think that I can promise this. But I like to meet my readers’ expectations, so I will include with a Lutheran joke:Two Lutheran pastors die on the same day and arrive together at the entrance to hell. After the devil-registrar has filled out the intake form, he says: “Okay. I will now take you to the Lutheran section of hell”“What?” says one of the pastors. “There is a Lutheran section of hell?”“Oh yes,” says the devil- registrar. “In a few minutes you will meet Dr. Martin Luther himself.”One pastor turns to the other: “Dammit! So it’s works after all!”

It’s Not Over ‘Til It’s Over

The Greek parliament is voting today on the bailout conditions reluctantly accepted by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras earlier in the week. The vote is expected to pass even as a contentious new report by the IMF leaked to the press. In the starkest terms yet, the report states that without an extended debt holiday the bailout would be destined fail, and that the IMF would not be able to participate if European creditors did not immediately address this fact. It suggested that Greece should not have to pay a single interest or principal payment on the entire stock of European debt until 2053, a time horizon that far exceeds anything European countries, most notably Germany, are reportedly ready to countenance.

The push for Greek debt relief has the belated backing of the Obama Administration, which has seemed to snap into action in recent days in an attempt to stave off disaster in Europe. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is in Brussels today meeting with European finance ministers, urging them to consider further measures. It’s good that the U.S. is exerting pressure behind the scenes, even at this late date. As Walter Russell Mead wrote in an essay a few weeks back, Washington should not have been this passive for this long:

As for Washington, the Obama administration has spent most of its time and dissipated its political and intellectual energy chasing unicorns—remember the reset with Russia, the once-ballyhooed G-20 forum, and the ‘transition to democracy’ in Egypt?—at a time when the European Union, the foundation of America’s alliance system and our greatest single partner for trade and investment, was sinking into crisis. The United States has been AWOL as the EU lost its way. The Obama administration failed to understand just how important Europe is to the United States, and it has never appreciated how important the United States is to Europe.

An intellectually engaged, politically committed Washington might have been able to help the Europeans out of their impasse; that has in many ways been the American role in Europe since the 1920s Dawes and Young Plans. When we commit and engage, things often go well in Europe. When we walk away and close our eyes, they rarely do. This would not have involved wars, drones, troops or huge foreign aid plans. It’s the kind of international project that Democrats could have sold to the base. It would have only required the kind of ‘smart diplomacy’ that the Obama team claimed it was bringing to the table. But unicorn-chasing is more glamorous than attending to the foundations of liberal world order. Washington has criticized everyone and helped no one in the euro crisis; not since the 1930s has America been this absent when its vital interests were this critically engaged.

But will this last-ditch effort by the U.S. be enough? German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble seemed to admit that he would have preferred to see Greece leave the eurozone rather than have the deal signed. “There are many people, also in the German federal government, that are pretty well convinced that [a Greek euro exit] would be a much better solution for Greece and the Greek people,” Schäuble said. “But it’s something that only [the Greeks] can do themselves.” The German parliament will vote on the deal on Friday, if the Greek parliament passes its agreed-upon reforms today.