Foreign Affairs May June 2021 Issue

VLADIMIR PUTIN: RUSSIA'S WEAK STRONGMAN
MAY/JUNE 2021
MAY / YUU U
sosı • vo UUMU ıoo •
Trade Wars
The Fight Over the
Global Economy’s Future
U U M B UR
$ •
TRADE WARS
F O REIGNA F FA I RS .COM
Volume 100, Number 3
TRADE WARS
Globalization’s Coming Golden Age 10
Why Crisis Ends in Connection
Harold James
Can Trade Work for Workers? 20

The Right Way to Redress Harms and Redistribute Gains
Gordon H. Hanson
The Price of Nostalgia 28

America’s Self-Defeating Economic Retreat
Adam S. Posen
CO VE R : CA RLO G IAM B A R R E S I
How Not to Win Allies and Influence Geopolitics 44

China’s Self-Defeating Economic Statecraft
Audrye Wong
Data Is Power 54
Washington Needs to Craft New Rules for the Digital Age
Matthew J. Slaughter and David H. McCormick
May/June 2021
ESSAYS
Crisis of Command 64
America’s Broken Civil-Military Relationship Imperils
National Security
Risa Brooks, Jim Golby, and Heidi Urben
America’s Military Risks Losing Its Edge 76

How to Transform the Pentagon for a Competitive Era
Michèle A. Flournoy
The Home Front 92

Why an Internationalist Foreign Policy Needs a Stronger
Domestic Foundation
Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz
The Resurgence of the Rest 102
Can Emerging Markets Find New Paths to Growth?
Ruchir Sharma
Russia’s Weak Strongman 116

The Perilous Bargains That Keep Putin in Power
Timothy Frye
The Vaccine Revolution 128

How mRNA Can Stop the Next Pandemic Before It Starts
Nicole Lurie, Jakob P. Cramer, and Richard J. Hatchett
Competition With China Can Save the Planet 136
Pressure, Not Partnership, Will Spur Progress on
Climate Change
Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel Collins
ON FOREIGNAFFAIRS.COM
Yanzhong Huang on Denise Dresser on Michael McFaul on
China’s vaccine Biden’s Mexico containing Putin’s
diplomacy. challenge. Russia.
May/June 2021
Practice What You Preach 150
Global Human Rights Leadership Begins at Home
John Shattuck and Kathryn Sikkink
The Singular Chancellor 161
The Merkel Model and Its Limits
Constanze Stelzenmüller
REVIEWS & RESPONSES

Voters Against Democracy 174
The Roots oJ Autocratic Resurgence
Pippa Norris
A Prison Called Tibet 179

How China Controls Its Restive Regions
Howard W. French
The Two Rwandas 185

Development and Dissent Under Kagame
Phil Clark
Recent Books 194
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May/June 2021 · Volume 100, Number 3
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CONTRIBUTORS
An early childhood spent in northern Thailand as the son
of mission doctors sparked GORDON HANSON’s interest in
economic development. Since then, he has dedicated his
career to understanding the relationship among migration,
globalization, and trade. Now, as a professor of urban policy
at the Harvard Kennedy School and a research associate at
the National Bureau of Economic Research, Hanson
studies China’s impact on the U.S. labor market. In “Can
Trade Work for Workers?” (page 20), he calls for strong
domestic policies that help people adapt to globalization.
MICHÈLE FLOURNOY is one of Washington’s most accom-

plished defense policymakers. She got her start in govern-
ment during the Clinton administration and eventually
rose to be undersecretary of defense for policy under
President Barack Obama—at that point becoming the
highest-ranking woman in the Defense Department’s
history. Outside government, she has worked as a business
consultant and co-founded the think tank the Center for a
New American Security. In “America’s Military Risks
Losing Its Edge” (page 76), Flournoy argues that the
United States must reimagine how it fights wars.
CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER got her first taste of foreign

policy as a writer for the German weekly Die Zeit, where she
covered foreign, military, and international security policy.
Now, 27 years later, Stelzenmüller is a top expert on
transatlantic relations and European foreign policy. In “The
Singular Chancellor” (page 161), she argues that Germany’s
Angela Merkel, who is set to leave office in September, has
proved remarkably adept at holding on to power but failed
to prepare the country for current and future challenges.
After getting his start as an English-French translator

and freelance reporter in Côte d’Ivoire in the early 1980s,
HOWARD FRENCH joined The New York Times and went on to
serve successively as bureau chief for a number of regions
around the world, including in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America. He has published four books—three works of
nonfiction and one volume of documentary photogra-
phy—and his next, Born in Blackness, is set to come out this
fall. In “A Prison Called Tibet” (page 179), French reviews
Barbara Demick’s Eat the Buddha, discussing how China
has suppressed dissent in the formally autonomous region.
Return to Table of Contents
TRADE WARS
globalized economy was sup- centric” policy, as the Biden administra-
A posed to bring people to-

gether—or so went the domi-
nant strain of thinking in the foreign
tion has promised, will not be enough
to get trade on a better track. A bolder
approach is needed.
policy world for most of the last few Adam Posen contends that blaming
decades. In a few short years, the near trade and openness for the United
consensus has collapsed. Gone are the States’ ills gets the problem exactly
prophecies of ever-accelerating integra- wrong: the culprit is a two-decade
tion and the paeans to trade and invest- retreat from international economic
ment promoting prosperity and comity engagement, which has increased
for all. Now, the discussion centers on inequality and hindered growth. Audrye
just how much the world’s two largest Wong oRers a similarly damning assess-
economies should “decouple,” on ment of China’s “economic statecraft,”
pandemic-addled governments taking including headline-grabbing eRorts such
control of supply chains and vaccine as the Belt and Road Initiative, which
doses, and on techno-democracies vying backfire as often as they succeed.
with techno-authoritarians to shape the Finally, Matthew Slaughter and
digital commons. Far from tempering David McCormick observe that even as
geopolitical competition, trade has overall trade has plateaued, 2ows of
oRered another means of waging it. data across borders have grown expo-
Yet might today’s pessimism miss as nentially—yet spurred little in the way
much as the Pollyannaish visions of the of international action to manage the
recent past did? Tracing patterns over momentous economic, political, and
two centuries, Harold James foresees a security implications. The United
new wave of globalization, not in spite States, they argue, must take the lead
of today’s fragmentation and discord in crafting new rules for a world in
but because of it: in a crisis, leaders which data is power.
tend to respond at first with nationalist These diagnoses diRer, and the
posturing, only to accept before long prescriptions point in varying directions.
that recovery demands more coopera- But a common thread runs through them
tion and connection, not less. all, highlighting what old assumptions
Gordon Hanson—building on his got wrong: ultimately, not immutable
in2uential research documenting the economic forces but policy choices—
magnitude of the so-called China shock foolish or wise, myopic or farsighted—
to the U.S. economy—highlights the will determine where we go from here.
broken promises and acute harms of —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, Editor
past trade agreements. Even a “worker-
Far fromtempering
Far from tempering
geopolitical competition
geopolitica l competition,
trade has o$ered another
means of waging
wagingitit.
Globalization’s Coming Golden Age How Not to Win Allies and

Harold James 10 Influence Geopolitics
Audrye Wong 44
CA RLO G IAM B A R R E S I
Can Trade Work for Workers?

Gordon H. Hanson 20 Data Is Power
Matthew J. Slaughter and David H.
The Price oJ Nostalgia McCormick 54
Adam S. Posen 28
ILLUST RAT IONS BY TK

to extrapolate and see a future of

Globalization’s “nobalization”—globalization vanishing
TRADE WARS
in a viral haze.
Coming Over the past two centuries, the
course of trade and globalization has been
Golden Age shaped by how governments and people
have responded to such crises. Globaliza-
tion comes in cycles: periods of increas-
Why Crisis Ends ing integration are followed by shocks,
in Connection crises, and destructive backlashes. After
the Great Depression, the world slid into
Harold James autarky, nationalism, authoritarianism,
zero-sum thinking, and, ultimately,
war—a series of events often presented
he thought that trade and
T
as a grim parable of the consequences of
globalization might make a globalization’s reversal. Yet history shows
comeback in the 2020s, picking that many crises produce more, rather
up renewed vigor after the pandemic, than less, globalization. Challenges can
may seem far-fetched. After all, covID-19 generate new creative energy, better
is fragmenting the world, destroying communication, and a greater willingness
multilateralism, and disrupting com- to learn from eRective solutions adopted
plex cross-border supply chains. The elsewhere. Governments often realize
virus looks like it is completing the that their ability to competently deliver
work of the 2008 financial crisis: the the services their populations demand
Great Recession produced more trade requires answers found abroad.
protectionism, forced governments to Modern globalization, for instance,
question globalization, increased began as a response to social and finan-
hostility to migration, and, for the first cial catastrophes in the 1840s. The most
time in over four decades, ushered in a recent wave of globalization followed
sustained period in which global trade scarring economic disruptions in the
grew more slowly than global produc- 1970s. In both cases, shocks laid the foun-
tion. Even then, however, there was no dation for new international connections
complete reversal or deglobalization; and solutions, and the volume of world
rather, there was an uncertain, sputter- trade surged dramatically. The truth is
ing “slobalization.” In contrast, today’s that historic ruptures often generate and
vaccine nationalism is rapidly driving accelerate new global links. CovID-19 is
China, Russia, the United Kingdom, no exception. After the pandemic,
and the United States into open globalization will come roaring back.
confrontation and sowing bitter
con2ict within the uU. It is all too easy THE FIRST TIME AROUND
The 1840s were a disaster. Crops failed,
HAROLD JAMES is Professor of History and
International Affairs at Princeton University and
people went hungry, disease spread, and
the author of the forthcoming book The War of financial markets collapsed. The best-
Words: A Glossary of Globalization. known catastrophe was the Irish potato
10 R O R U Ig u A r rA I R S PACKAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAN BEfAR

Harold James
famine, which began in 1845 and led to food was unfamiliar, but above all, it
the deaths of nearly one million people, was because London couldn’t work out
mostly from diseases caused by malnu- how to pay for the goods. Trade deficits
trition. The same weather that made generated currency shortages, which
potatoes vulnerable to fungal rot also led pushed up interest rates in the United
to widespread crop failures and famine Kingdom and France. This intensified a
across Europe. In The Communist Mani- manufacturing crisis—itself the result
festo, published in 1848, Karl Marx and of a decline in purchasing power caused
Friedrich Engels articulated how global by surging food prices. Although the
integration was driving the world toward best solution was to sell more goods
social and political upheaval. “The abroad, that would have required
development of Modern Industry,” they governments to lower trade barriers
argued, “cuts from under its feet the and open up their markets.
very foundation on which the bourgeoi- These shortages generated popular
sie produces and appropriates products.” demands for more competent govern-
Europe was a tinderbox. In 1848, it ments. Although it was only in 1981
ignited in an inferno of nationalist that the economist Amartya Sen’s
revolution, with populations rising up in pioneering work on the 1943 great
France, Italy, and central Europe. But the Bengal famine definitively showed that
economic shock of the 1840s did not famines are often manmade, that
reverse the course of global integration. intuition was already widely shared in
Instead, trade expanded, governments the 1840s. John Mitchel, an Irish
reduced tariff barriers, capital mobility nationalist who emigrated to the United
surged, and people moved across conti- States, concluded, “No sack of Magde-
nents. Migration was not only a response burg, or ravage of the Palatinate, ever
to social and political immiseration; it also approached in horror and desolation to
reflected the promise of new prosperity. the slaughters done in Ireland by mere
Historians now think of the second official red tape and stationery, and the
half of the nineteenth century as the first principles of political economy.”
age of globalization. Food shortages Governments everywhere eventually
highlighted the need for broad and responded to these demands. That
diversified supply chains, and leaders meant learning from successful efforts
realized that a modern state needed elsewhere. The United Kingdom en-
reliable access to supplies from beyond acted a series of civil service reforms,
its borders. In the United Kingdom, the adopting a competitive examination
British government initially responded to process in place of arcane patronage.
the Irish famine by importing corn from The most striking extension of state
outside Europe. At the time, The Econo- capacity, however, occurred across the
mist argued that “except Russia, Egypt, English Channel, where Louis-Napoléon,
and the United States, there are no the nephew of the emperor, was elected
countries in the world able to spare any president of France in 1848. After a
quantity of grain worthy of mention.” coup and a series of plebiscites advertis-
Imports, however, failed catastrophi- ing his competence and activism,
cally. This was in part because the new Napoleon made himself president for life
12 F O R E Ig n Af fAI R S
Globalization’s Coming Golden Age
and, eventually, emperor—Napoleon III. with the Great Exhibition—an interna-

His policies were designed to show the tional fair intended to display British
benefits of an efficient autocrat over ingeniousness and mechanical superior-
divided liberal regimes. He initiated ity, as well as the virtues of peaceful
large-scale public works projects—in- commerce. Some of the most stunning
cluding railroad expansions and Baron products, however, were neither British
Haussmann’s famous rebuilding of Paris. nor particularly peaceful—among them,
Napoleon also demonstrated his the steel cannon, invented by a Ger-
competence by negotiating the Anglo- man, Alfred Krupp, and the revolver,
French tariff agreement of 1860, which developed by an American, Samuel
reduced duties on important goods Colt. British observers saw continental
traded across the channel. Other coun- Europeans catching up and overtaking
tries quickly followed suit and negoti- their own country. To the British
ated bilateral trade deals of their own scientist Lyon Playfair, the exhibition
across Europe. But even before 1860, showed “very clearly and distinctly that
improved communication and transpor- the rate of industrial advance of many
tation meant commerce was surging: European nations, even of those who
global trade in goods accounted for just were obviously in our rear, was at a
4.5 percent of output in 1846 but shot greater rate than our own.” He went on:
up to 8.9 percent in 1860. “In a long race the fastest sailing ship
The events of the 1840s also laid the will win, even though they are for a
foundation for a wave of institutional time behind.” The event taught world
changes to address the proliferation of leaders a powerful lesson: international
small states with a limited ability to deal trade was vital for enhancing national
with migration. The creation of new performance. Competition was central
nation-states with novel currencies to generating competence.
and banking systems, notably Germany The result was an abrupt psycho-
and Italy, and administrative reform logical shift from catastrophism to
in the Habsburg empire—ending optimism, and from despair to self-
internal customs duties and serf labor— confidence. This new mood initiated
were all designed to push economic the first wave of globalization—its
growth. In this context, the American so-called golden age, in which interna-
Civil War and the Meiji Restoration in tional trade and finance expanded
Japan were also nation-building efforts rapidly. Eventually, however, this
meant to maximize the effectiveness optimism gave way to complacency,
and capacity of institutions. The aboli- then doubts about the benefits of
tion of slavery in the United States globalization and increasing disillusion
and feudalism in Japan were profound among those left behind (notably
social and economic transformations. European farmers). The upswing came
Both upheavals, moreover, led to to an end with World War I. That
monetary and banking reforms. conflict prompted a massive interna-
Business competence was also newly tional rebuilding effort that faltered
in demand. In 1851, the United King- bloodily with the rise of fascism in the
dom celebrated its industrial strength 1930s and the advent of World War II.
May/June 2021 13
Harold James
A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM In the United Kingdom, where the

The makers of the postwar settlement in balance-of-payments problem appeared
1945 had learned a great deal from the earlier than elsewhere, the government
mistakes of the last century. They tried a domestic purchasing campaign,
created an extensive framework of supported by all the major political
international institutions but left sub- parties. Leaders encouraged citizens to
stantial economic control in the hands of wear stickers and badges with the
national authorities. As a result, the end Union Jack and the message “I’m
of World War II did not immediately backing Britain.” (The press magnate
unleash waves of capital mobility like Robert Maxwell distributed T-shirts
those that had characterized the nine- with a similar slogan, but they turned
teenth century. Nearly three decades out to be made in Portugal.) In the
later, however, the dilemmas raised by mid-1970s, after the first oil shock, the
shortages and scarcity that had led to government briefly flirted with what
earlier versions of integration finally the Labour Party’s left flank called a
returned—setting the stage for the “siege economy,” including extensive
current era of globalization. import restrictions. In the United
In the 1970s, after two large oil price States, there was acute anxiety about
hikes, the industrialized world saw its Japanese competition, and in 1981,
way of life threatened. Oil prices had Washington pressured Tokyo to sign an
been stable in the 1960s, but a surge in agreement that limited Japanese car
demand taught producers that they exports. The move backfired, however.
could exploit control over the world’s Because of the new restrictions, Japa-
most important commodity. Adding to nese producers merely shifted their
the crunch, the first oil shock, in 1973–74, focus away from cheap, fuel-efficient
was accompanied by a 30 percent rise in cars and toward luxury vehicles.
wheat prices, after the Soviet Union Despite these gestures at economic
experienced poor harvests and bought nationalism, the oil shock—paradoxically
up U.S. grain to compensate. Shortages at first—created more globalization. In
reappeared. Some oil-importing coun- conjunction with price increases, a
tries imposed “car-free days” as a way of financial revolution driven by the
rationing gasoline consumption. As emergence of large international banks
states spent more on oil, grain, and other transferred huge surpluses accumulated
commodities, they found their balance of by oil producers into lendable funds.
payments squeezed. Unable to afford The new availability of money made
vital goods from abroad, governments resources easily accessible for govern-
had to make hard choices. Many floun- ments all over the world that wanted to
dered as they tried to ration scarce push development and growth. Interna-
goods: mandating who could drive cars tional demand thus surged. In contrast,
when or struggling over whether they in the United Kingdom, Labour’s siege
should pay nurses more than teachers, economy looked like it would cut off
police officers, or civil servants. access to markets and prosperity.
The immediate and instinctual Thus, crises in the 1970s led to the
response to scarcity was protectionism. same realization as in the 1840s: open-
ness produced resilience, and financing
needed to be available for trade to
expand. The eventual impact was
obvious: trade in goods and services,
which in 1970 had amounted to 12.1
H
percent of global GDP, increased to 18.2
percent by 1980. The cycle swung back
to globalization once again.
Protectionism in the 1970s also
triggered a discussion of whether ˜e implicit message
governments were handling the crisis of Ukraine’s Nuclear
competently. At first, the debate was Disarmament is clear:
there is no substitute for
personalized and highly caricatured: in a nuclear deterrent when
the United States, it centered on you live in a dangerous
Richard Nixon’s crookery, Gerald Ford’s neighborhood.
supposed inability to chew gum and — John J. Mearsheimer,
R. Wendell Harrison
walk, or Jimmy Carter’s micromanage- Distinguished Service
Professor of Political
ment. In the United Kingdom, com- Science, U. of Chicago
mentators focused on the detached
bachelor existence of Prime Minister
Edward Heath and then on allegations
of cronyism against his successor, Kis is not afraid to
Harold Wilson. France went into the tackle all of the aspects
of life in the camps,
oil shock under the very sick President from pregnancy and
Georges Pompidou, who died of cancer motherhood to rape and
in 1974. In West Germany, the revela- torture... Survival as
Victory is a must-read...
tion that Chancellor Willy Brandt’s
—Anne Applebaum,
closest assistant was an East German Pulitzer Prize-winning
spy undermined the country’s reputa- author of Gulag: A History
tion for competence. His successor,
Helmut Schmidt, believed that Ger-
many was returning to the chaos of the ˜i s book... explains in
interwar Weimar Republic. meticulous, spell-binding
The many examples of personal detail how Dontsov—a
highly polarizing
incompetence in rich industrial democ- ÿgure—became the
racies generated the thesis that such spiritual father of
countries had become ungovernable. the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists.
The political theorist Jean-François
—Karel C. Berkhoff, NIOD
Revel concluded that democracies were Institute for War, Holocaust
perishing and that the Soviet Union was and Genocide Studies
winning the Cold War. Autocracies
such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet Order at
and Iran under Mohammad Reza Shah
books.huri.harvard.edu
Pahlavi appeared better suited to handle
May/June 2021 15
Harold James
modern global challenges. The autocrats lending in France and central Europe.
lectured others about their superiority. By giving people apparently greater
In reality, however, they were bloody, wealth, this increase in the supply of
corrupt, and, in many cases, spectacu- money (and the resulting mild infla-
larly unsuccessful. tion) helped governments appear more
The real insight of the debate over competent and made businesses and
administrative effectiveness was that consumers more confident. It
governments could overstretch them- prompted a genuine global surge in
selves by taking on too many tasks. production, which generated greater
That realization inspired a key tenet of prosperity and security.
what was later widely derided as “neo- After 1971, when Nixon finally
liberalism”: the belief that if govern- severed the link between the dollar and
ments took on microdecisions, such as gold, monetary policy was no longer
determining wage and price levels (a constrained by a metallic standard. In
central part of both Nixon’s and the times of crisis, governments could now
British government’s bids to contain print more money to drive growth. In
inflation), they risked their legitimacy many countries, the immediate response
and reputation for competence. Official to oil price increases was therefore to
decisions would appear both arbitrary accommodate the shock through expan-
and unenforceable because powerful sive fiscal and monetary stimulus:
groups would quickly make sure that people could still go on buying. That
new settlements favored their interests. reaction spurred inflation, which by 1974
had risen to 11 percent in the United
INFLATION NATION States and beyond that in some other
The shortages of the 1840s and the countries: in 1975, the United Kingdom’s
1970s both seemed to have an apparent inflation rate reached 24 percent.
cure: inflation. Inflation can help Although inflation initially seemed
accommodate shocks, often painlessly. to be the solution to the scarcity prob-
Because people have more cash or bank lem, it soon appeared in diagnoses of
credit, monetary abundance generates government incompetence. The econo-
the impression that they can have mist Arthur Okun developed a popular
everything they want. Only gradually “misery index” by simply adding
do consumers realize that prices are inflation and unemployment. The
rising and that their money buys less. metric became an important political
In the 1850s, inflation may have weapon. The Democratic presidential
been partially unintended. It was challenger George McGovern used it
largely the result of the 1849 California against Nixon in 1972, Carter used it
Gold Rush, which vastly increased the against Ford in 1976, and Ronald
world’s gold stock. Price increases were Reagan used it against Carter in 1980.
also driven by financial innovation, High inflation at first superficially
primarily Europe’s adoption of new stabilizes societies, but over time, it
types of banking that drove money becomes a threat. Inflation often
creation, such as the so-called crédits pushes interest groups—internationally,
mobiliers, which developed industrial producer cartels such as oPeC, and
domestically, labor unions—to mobi- PAST AS PROLOGUE

lize, organize, and lobby in the hope of Today, the CoVID-19 pandemic has
acquiring a greater share of monetary produced a deep economic crisis, but it is
and fiscal resources. Depending on the different from many past ones. The shock
extent of that mobilization, it can pull is not a demand-driven downturn, like
societies apart, as unions leapfrog each the Great Depression or the 2008 reces-
other with aggressive wage demands sion. Although lockdowns have inter-
and inflation erodes the pay and rupted supply and caused unemployment
pensions of the nonunionized and the to soar, there is no overall shortage of
retired. By demonstrating that govern- demand. Large rescue and stimulus
ments are vulnerable to organized packages in rich countries have generated
pressure, inflation is thus a destabiliz- a financial buffer, and savings have shot up
ing force in the long term. Indeed, as people spend less. The best estimate is
analysts have argued that it was at least that in 2020, the United States piled up
in part generalized international $1.6 trillion in excess savings, equivalent
inflation in the 1960s that pushed oil to seven percent of GDP. People are
producers to organize—leading to the waiting to unleash their pent-up purchas-
price hikes of the 1970s. ing power. On top of that, finance
Monetary experiments of this sort ministers and international institutions
created demands for new ordering are listening to U.S. Treasury Secretary
frameworks. After the surge in economic Janet Yellen’s demand that “the time to go
growth of the mid-nineteenth century, big is now” when it comes to fiscal relief.
the world internationalized the gold Yet the current crisis does share key
standard to create a common framework characteristics with the crises of the
for international payments. Although 1840s and the 1970s. The world of
policymakers went a different route after scarcity, for one thing, is already here.
the inflation and liberalization of the The pandemic has led to shortages of
1970s, they were also looking for a return medical supplies such as face masks and
to stability. To end the monetary disor- glass vials for vaccine storage. Food
der, central banks targeted a low inflation prices have soared to their highest level
rate, and governments engaged in new since 2014—the result of a combination
patterns of cooperation abroad—creating of dry weather in South America that
the G-5 and then the G-7 and the G-20 has hurt wheat and soybean crops and
as forums for discussing collective pandemic-induced shipping disrup-
responses to global economic challenges. tions. In the initial stages of the pan-
The quest for stability was also aided by demic, laptops became scarce as em-
the steady march of globalization. ployees scrambled to update their
Greater global integration lowered work-from-home setups. There is also a
production costs and thus helped correct worldwide chip shortage, as the demand
the inflationary surge that initially for microprocessors in medical, mana-
accompanied the shortage economy. gerial, and leisure use has increased.
Inflation, which first fueled globalization Freight rates between China and
in the 1850s, was, by the end of the Europe quadrupled at points in 2020.
twentieth century, eventually tamed by it. Steel, too, is in short supply.
May/June 2021 17
Harold James
Much as the crises in the 1840s and face masks as a hygiene measure, a
the 1970s did, the pandemic has also movement calling itself the Popular
raised questions of government compe- Sovereignty Party organized “cluster
tence. At first, China seemed able to deal protests” again mask wearing.
with the crisis better than its Western Given these challenges, it’s easy to
competitors—its cover-up of the severity assume that governments and citizens
of the pandemic notwithstanding— alike would prioritize nationalization—
which prompted many observers to cultivating supposedly resilient domes-
question whether democracies were tic supply chains to hedge against the
capable of swift, effective action. Donald next crisis. But that’s unlikely to hap-
Trump’s presidency collapsed because of pen. Instead, people are desperately
his chaotic handling of the crisis. British looking for new leadership and new
Prime Minister Boris Johnson faced a visions. As was true during previous
revolt among conservative members of supply shocks, leaders can make a good
Parliament because of his complex, case for the importance of foreign
contradictory, and constantly shifting models: some countries have done
lockdown rules. The European Commis- much better than others in dealing with
sion lost credibility because of its poor the health and economic consequences
management of vaccine purchases. As in of CoVID-19. Although some of these
the past, citizens personalized the incom- countries are small or relatively iso-
petence. Americans debated, for exam- lated, by most metrics, the country with
ple, how much blame to put on Trump’s the most competent response was the
son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who led part biggest: China. That is not without
of the response. In the United Kingdom, irony, to put it mildly: the country
much of the outrage focused on Dominic responsible for unleashing the virus has
Cummings, the prime minister’s policy also been a major beneficiary—with
adviser, who had violated the country’s some states now looking to Beijing for
lockdown rules. leadership. But instead of condemning
For other observers, the unifying China’s response or demanding repara-
theme behind the mismanagement was tions for the pandemic’s costs, other
populism, with Trump, Johnson, Brazil- countries should consider how to use
ian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Beijing’s example, just as the United
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Kingdom in the 1850s realized that it
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte could learn from foreign producers.
all botching the response. But even in
countries where the crisis has been NO SURPRISES
handled relatively well, there have been Familiar historical forces will drive
surges of protests against the way post-pandemic reglobalization. In a world
governments have reacted to the pan- facing enormous challenges, not just the
demic. In Germany, “alternative think- pandemic but also climate change,
ers” protesting new lockdown measures solutions are global public goods. In 1945,
attacked the parliament building in the architects of the postwar order
August 2020. Even in Japan, where believed that peace and prosperity were
there is a long tradition of the use of indivisible and could not be the property
of one nation. Now, health and happiness vaccine—one of the miracles of 2020.
are the same. Both are impossible for Success was the product of intense
individual states or regions to enjoy alone. international collaboration. This story of
Technology is also transforming a innovation also applies to government
globalizing planet, as it did in the 1840s competence. No state can succeed alone.
and the 1970s. In the mid-nineteenth Even if one particular decision is by
century, the drivers were the steamship, chance spectacularly successful—say,
the undersea cable, and the railroad. In Germany’s impressive testing record or
the last quarter of the twentieth century, the United Kingdom’s fast vaccine
it was computing power: the first widely rollout—it is usually difficult to repeat
available personal computers appeared in that success in other policy areas. Policy-
the early 1980s. Today, data occupies the makers may stride confidently past their
same position—linking the world and first victory, only to slip on a banana peel.
offering solutions to major problems, The United States, in particular, may
including government incompetence. find this a hard pill to swallow. Ameri-
New types of information might help cans have long been attached to the idea
leaders attack some of the inequalities of their country’s superiority, akin to the
and injustices highlighted by the CoVID- belief held by the British in the mid-
19 pandemic. More automation might nineteenth century. CoVID-19, like the
mean that machines can take on some of 1840s famines and the 1970s oil shocks,
the repetitive and dangerous tasks presents both a crisis and a learning
performed by low-paid essential workers. opportunity. The United States has
Telemedicine and data-driven public coasted on the idea that the world needs
health can trigger faster and more the English language and the U.S.
precisely targeted pharmaceutical or dollar. Neither of those assumptions can
medical interventions. hold forever. Just as automatic transla-
As in past crises, there is also an tion technology is increasing linguistic
immediate and powerful global demand accessibility, a different currency could
for cheap and reliable products. In the become a new international standard.
mid-nineteenth century, it was foodstuffs, The dollar is not an adequate insurance
and in the 1970s, it was oil and commodi- policy or a viable basis for Washington
ties. In the 2020s, it is medical supplies, to reject the need for change.
data chips, and rare-earth metals. To be The challenge of the new upswing in
resilient to new shocks, these commodi- the cycle of globalization will be to find
ties need to be produced and traded inter- ways to learn and adapt—increasing the
nationally, by a multiplicity of suppliers. effectiveness of government and busi-
Governments and businesses also need ness—without compromising funda-
to continuously innovate. As it did in the mental values. As in the 1840s and the
1840s, isolationism today would mean 1970s, financial and monetary innova-
cutting off opportunities to learn from tion, or the tonic of inflation, will drive
different experiments. No single country, transformational change. Memories of
or its particular culture of science and crisis will push countries and govern-
innovation, was responsible for the ments to adapt in 2021 and beyond, just
development of an effective CoVID-19 as they have before.∂
May/June 2021 19
growth, and free trade remains a net

Can Trade Work benefit for the U.S. economy as a
TRADE WARS
whole. But the overall gains have been

for Workers? far less dramatic than promised, and
many American workers suRered when
well-paid manufacturing jobs dried up
The Right Way to as factories moved abroad. Those who
Redress Harms and managed to stay employed saw their
Redistribute Gains wages stagnate. The federal govern-
ment, meanwhile, did little to build a
Gordon H. Hanson safety net to catch those who lost out.
Unsurprisingly, Americans have
complicated views on trade. Although a
or decades, the promise of majority of voters see free trade as a
F globalization has rested on a

vision of a world in which goods,
services, and capital would 2ow across
good thing, barely one-third believe
that it creates jobs or lowers prices. In
response, political elites and elected
borders as never before; whatever its officials across the ideological
other features and components, con- spectrum have scrambled to distance
temporary globalization has been themselves from free-trade policies and
primarily about trade and foreign from the major pacts of the past. For
investment. Today’s globalized economy its part, the Biden administration has
has been shaped to a large extent by a made a noble-sounding but vague
series of major trade agreements that pledge to pursue a “worker-centric”
were sold as win-win propositions: trade policy. The specifics are still
corporations, investors, workers, and unclear, but such an approach will
consumers would all benefit from likely include more aggressive so-called
lowered barriers and harmonized Buy American provisions, which
standards. American advocates of this require government agencies to give
view claimed that deals such as the preference to U.S. products when
North American Free Trade Agreement making purchases; increased pressure
would supercharge growth, create jobs, on trading partners to respect workers’
and strengthen the United States’ collective-bargaining rights; and a
standing as the world’s largest and most hawkish relationship with China.
important economy. According to then Despite the rhetoric, these proposals
President George H. W. Bush, “NARTA put the administration well within the
means more exports, and more exports bounds of existing U.S. trade policy—
means more American jobs.” tweaking margins here and there.
A quarter of a century later, such That approach is unlikely to fix the
optimism appears profoundly mis- problems caused by free trade—which,
placed. NARTA and other deals did boost despite the appeal of protectionist
talking points, isn’t going anywhere.
GORDON H. HANSON is Peter Wertheim
Professor in Urban Policy at the Harvard Instead, the Biden administration
Kennedy School. should establish targeted domestic
20 R O R U Ig u A r rA I R S
May/June 2021 21
Gordon H. Hanson
programs that protect workers from the their competitive advantage in global
downsides of globalization. A respon- markets. But nAfTA worked no mira-
sible policy would capture the gains of cles. Although the deal hastened the
free trade but make up for domestic industrialization of northern Mexico,
losses. In recent years, the United the south of the country remained poor,
States has done neither. overall productivity growth languished,
and Mexican immigration to the United
BIG TALK States surged to new highs during the
The skepticism about globalization that late 1990s and the early years of this
now pervades U.S. politics has its century—contrary to Clinton’s and
origins in the failed promises of 1990s Salinas’s promises.
trade liberalization. NAfTA and China’s In the United States, the aggregate
accession to the World Trade Organiza- gains in real income from nAfTA were
tion disrupted economic life in the positive but meager—less than 0.1
small and medium-size American percent, by some estimates. Mexico’s
cities that once formed the country’s economy, roughly the size of Ohio’s at
manufacturing backbone. Resentment the time of the deal’s signing, simply
over those changes helped Donald wasn’t large enough for the agreement
Trump win the presidency in 2016. If to have a substantial impact. Running
President Joe Biden hopes to launch or for U.S. president as an independent
modernize U.S. trade policy, he will populist in 1992, the American busi-
have to address this legacy. nessman Ross Perot famously predicted
NAfTA was a bipartisan effort initi- that Americans would hear a “giant
ated in 1990 by Bush and concluded in sucking sound” as jobs crossed the
1994 by his successor, Bill Clinton. border into Mexico. No enormous shift
Leaders in Canada, Mexico, and the materialized, but many U.S. workers,
United States heralded the deal as an especially those in labor-intensive
economic miracle. Mexican President manufacturing industries, did lose their
Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his aides jobs. Some eventually found employ-
promised that the agreement would ment in new truck and jet-engine
turn Mexico into the next South Korea. factories, but most did not. For them,
Clinton waxed poetic not only about the upsides that nAfTA presented to
conventional economic gains from trade others offered no solace.
but also about how nAfTA would foster Freer trade in North America,
“more equality, better preservation of however, was just the warm-up act for
the environment, and a greater possibil- the real show: China’s emergence as a
ity of world peace.” global economic powerhouse, a process
These were bold but arguably that began in the late 1970s under the
irresponsible claims. In the end, nAfTA leadership of Deng Xiaoping, who
did what standard economic models reduced the state’s stranglehold on the
predicted: it delivered modest net economy, allowed private enterprise to
benefits, primarily by giving U.S. flourish, and opened China up to
companies access to manufacturing limited forms of foreign investment.
components at lower prices, enhancing The impact of Beijing’s outward turn
was immense. Almost overnight, China into northern Georgia, Alabama, and
became the world’s factory. Between Mississippi. In 1990, 41 percent of the
1990 and 2015, the country’s share of working-age population in the three
global manufacturing exports rose from counties surrounding Martinsville
2.8 percent to 18.5 percent. worked in manufacturing, with half of
Aside from the speed and scale of those workers employed by just two
the transformation, however, another industries: furniture and knitted
factor amplified the disruptive power of outerwear. This made Martinsville
Chinese growth. In the 1990s and at the what economists call an “industry
turn of the twenty-first century, the cluster,” a place that enjoys a productiv-
Chinese model of export-driven growth ity boost from workers and firms
relied almost exclusively on labor- specializing in a narrow set of indus-
intensive products—apparel, footwear, tries operating in close proximity to
and other consumer goods that China one another. That benefit, which the
could produce more cheaply than other British economist Alfred Marshall
countries owing to its low labor costs, famously identified in his analysis of
its proximity to suppliers in East Asia, the nineteenth-century Lancashire
and a willingness to let private compa- cotton textile industry, explains why
nies make exacting demands on work- firms in certain industries tend to
ers. Although China has since diversi- locate near one another.
fied its economy, this initial surge in Specialization, however, also leaves
labor-intensive exports proved deadly regional markets exposed in the event of
for U.S. manufacturing. Between 2000 an adverse economic shock—which is
and 2011, the United States’ share of precisely what China’s rise represented.
global manufacturing exports slumped Between 1990 and 2012, furniture was
from 14 percent to 8.6 percent, and one of the U.S. industries hit hardest by
according to my research with the Chinese import penetration. For
economists David Autor and David Martinsville, the impact was devastating.
Dorn, between 600,000 and one million Its main industry, furniture and fixtures,
U.S. manufacturing jobs disappeared. saw employment drop nationally from
378,000 to 283,000 between 2000 and
THE CHINA SHOCK 2007. Many of Martinsville’s factories
Part of what made the surge in closed, and by 2018, only 12 percent of
Chinese exports so painful for Ameri- the area’s adults still worked in the
can workers was that many of them sector. This pattern of concentrated
lived and worked in industry towns. job losses in manufacturing repeated
When manufacturing jobs in those itself across the United States. It was
towns disappeared in response to rising one of the most immediate conse-
import competition, it wasn’t just quences of the China trade shock—the
factory workers who suffered: everyone period of rapid Chinese productivity
else did, too. Consider Martinsville, a and export growth following the coun-
small town in southern Virginia that try’s market-oriented reforms.
is part of a manufacturing belt that In theory, there are many ways in
stretches through North Carolina and which a community such as Martinsville
May/June 2021 23
Gordon H. Hanson
could adjust to a major change in its spend less on restaurants, entertain-

economic landscape. Its furniture and ment, home renovations, childcare, and
textile firms could have invested in other services, pushing the economy
innovations that improved product into a downward spiral of further job
quality and allowed them to maintain losses and spending cuts.
their market share. Local governments Although the newly jobless can and
could have attracted new firms seeking to do often claim unemployment benefits,
take advantage of a newly available labor these cover only a fraction of previous
force. Or workers could simply have given earnings and expire after six months.
up on Martinsville and moved elsewhere The Trade Adjustment Assistance
in search of gainful employment. program, established by Congress in
In reality, however, communities 1962, covers up to two years of basic
rarely adapted in these ways. For retraining for workers displaced by
reasons economists still don’t entirely import competition. But between 2000
understand, when workers without a and 2007, when Chinese exports were
college degree lose their jobs, few doing the most damage to U.S. manu-
choose to move elsewhere, even when facturing, the program was still small
local market conditions are poor. and provided workers with little help.
Consequently, manufacturing job losses Autor, Dorn, and I estimate that for
usually result in lower earnings for every $1,000 increase in Chinese
former factory workers and lower imports per U.S. worker, TAA provided
employment rates in their communities. just 23 cents per worker in benefits.
Martinsville was no exception. The For able-bodied Americans who wished
proportion of the working-age popula- to continue working, government
tion that had jobs—a strong barometer benefits were paltry.
of economic well-being—fell from a Still, the long decline of U.S. manu-
healthy 73 percent in 1990 to an anemic facturing employment is not the result
53 percent in 2015. The same story of international trade alone. Job losses
played out in hundreds of places across in the sector since the 1960s likely have
the United States. had much more to do with technologi-
Why was the China shock so disrup- cal change than globalization. Other
tive? After all, job losses in the United forces—including deunionization and
States are common. In a typical year, the declining real value of the mini-
millions of jobs are eliminated, but mum wage—have also suppressed
slightly more jobs are created, and so incomes for less educated workers. Yet
U.S. employment expands. That’s how wage and employment losses from
the labor market normally operates. foreign competition stand out because
Mass job loss due to factory closures, they were highly localized and because
however, is not normal. Among workers policymakers didn’t prepare for them.
without a college degree, manufacturing Rather than lifting all boats, globaliza-
pays relatively well. When those good tion pushed the Martinsvilles of the
jobs disappear, so, too, do the generous United States into deindustrialization
paychecks. The result is essentially a and decay. These tectonic shifts gave
localized recession: displaced workers many Americans the sense that they
had been left behind—the victims of trading partners and make it a priority
globalization and free trade. to rejoin the Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship—a wide-reaching trade agreement
THE UPSIDE among a dozen countries. Doing so
Despite these downsides, globalization would deepen the economic relation-
has undoubtedly helped the U.S. ship between the United States and the
economy. There is robust evidence that countries that will produce parts,
freer international trade, including with components, and goods for the next
China, has raised real incomes for U.S. generation of U.S. technology. It would
households by about 0.2 percent—not a also strengthen U.S. ties with countries
transformative amount, but substan- that would like to see Beijing live up to
tially more than the net benefits its commitments as a member of the
brought by nAfTA. The backlash against World Trade Organization, providing
globalization—rooted in the painful Biden with allies he will need if he
experiences of manufacturing commu- wants China to improve its behavior.
nities—puts those gains at risk. As the More broadly, the Biden administra-
Biden administration seeks to make its tion should focus on the consequences
trade policies more worker-centric, it of job losses rather than their causes.
would do well to keep that fact in mind. The China trade shock hurt many U.S.
China’s rise, although disruptive for workers and their communities. But so,
many workers, has nevertheless ben- too, have automation, the Great Reces-
efited the U.S. economy. The expansion sion, and the CoVID-19 pandemic. And
of global value chains, which meant that because the scarring effects of job losses
different stages of manufacturing could are the same whether imports, robots,
happen in different places, allowed or a virus is responsible, responses to
U.S.-based multinationals, such as the damage should not depend on the
Apple and Qualcomm, to fully commer- identity of the culprit. On its own,
cialize their intellectual property. The making U.S. policies on trade more
patents and product designs for the worker-centric won’t do the trick. All
iPhone, for instance, were developed in economic policy needs to be more
California, at Apple’s Cupertino head- worker-centric, in terms of being
quarters—but they became valuable attuned to the destructive effects of
only because the Chinese manufactur- concentrated layoffs and plant closures.
ing giant Foxconn could assemble huge The administration should assume
numbers of handsets in Shenzhen. that in response to a large and localized
These innovations are economically employment decline, few workers
valuable for U.S. workers and share- without college degrees are likely to
holders, as well as the millions of relocate—especially older ones who
people lifted out of poverty in China. were born in the United States. It is a
American consumers benefit from mistake to believe that because of the
China’s rise, too, through lower prices dynamism of the U.S. labor market,
on the goods they purchase. localized spikes in joblessness will sort
With these advantages in mind, themselves out; they don’t, and they
Biden should reengage with U.S. require immediate remedies. In its
May/June 2021 25
Gordon H. Hanson
current form, however, the U.S. unem- regions, it is important to acknowledge

ployment insurance program usually that most of the U.S. jobs that were lost
extends benefits only when the national to import competition (or to automa-
economy is in a severe recession. Such tion) are not coming back. The China
an approach did little to help communi- trade shock ended almost a decade ago.
ties such as Martinsville weather Today, China’s economy is slowing, its
greater foreign competition. A better comparative advantage in labor-intensive
system would consider the severity of products is slipping, and its government
regional shocks when setting the is directing resources away from the
duration and generosity of benefits. private sector and toward state-owned
Abundant evidence suggests that and state-approved enterprises whose
such help reduces the fallout from record of productivity growth is unim-
sudden job losses without creating pressive. As China tries to pivot into
disincentives for displaced workers to high-tech sectors such as robotics and
find new jobs. But policymakers do artificial intelligence, Bangladesh,
need to be mindful of that risk if they Vietnam, and other countries in South
expand similar programs. Doing so and Southeast Asia are positioning
would be a matter of providing workers themselves to capture market share in
with assistance and incentives to return the sectors in which China used to
to work quickly. Also problematic is the dominate. For that reason, it would be a
way that TAA encourages people to stay mistake to try to foster a manufacturing
out of the labor force to receive ap- renaissance in places such as Martins-
proved forms of job training. And such ville; furniture and apparel companies
training may not even be the best may no longer find cheaper labor in
prescription for many workers, who China, but they will find it elsewhere.
might be better off receiving money to Encouraging optimism about the
help pay off bills or to finance a move reshoring of jobs would only lead to
to a place with better employment more disappointment, and might
prospects. The legislation that created further fuel the backlash against free
TAA makes such aid possible, but it is trade and globalization.
rarely offered in practice. An improved The Biden administration should
system would give workers more instead try to help communities such as
flexibility in how they could use extra Martinsville thrive. Doing so will
unemployment insurance. For some, require ingenuity and experimentation.
paying for retraining or occupational Federal officials should give their local
licensing may be the right choice. For and state counterparts wide latitude to
others, covering moving costs or invest- pursue policies that are right for the
ing in a new business might be the places they serve. Conventional ap-
better investment. Congress should give proaches won’t necessarily be the most
workers freedom of choice, rather than effective. Take tax incentives, for
saddling them with the burden of a example, which officials often use to
one-size-fits-all program. entice businesses to move to their
Finally, when considering how to states or municipalities. The economist
promote job creation in distressed Timothy Bartik has found that al-
though such measures expand output in placate labor unions will do little to
targeted industries, they appear to do help workers who are already hurting or
little to raise local living standards. to help others avoid a similar fate.
And for each job they create, such Better to help the unemployed get back
incentives impose costs that are nearly on their feet with generous and direct
ten times as high as those of some assistance and to create a far stronger
other options for creating employment, safety net to protect future generations
such as redeveloping defunct industrial of American workers.∂
sites known as brownfields.
So what actually works? Evidence
shows that active labor-market pro-
grams, designed to help young and
disadvantaged workers succeed in the
labor market, are a good bet. Successful
approaches provide people with assis-
tance in their job searches, help the
young build the soft skills required to
find and hold a job, and deliver techni-
cal training tailored to promising local
industries, such as health care or
information technology. Other alterna-
tives to tax incentives include attract-
ing college-educated workers to dis-
tressed communities through
student-debt forgiveness or the prom-
ise of an immigration visa, providing
services to help local firms expand
into new markets, and improving
access to capital for small and medium-
size businesses—many of which are
owned by members of minority groups
and are poorly connected to existing
sources of finance.
Helping left-behind regions should
be a core goal of Biden’s administration.
But trying to undo three decades of
structural change in the global economy
isn’t the right way to get there. Biden
and his team need to be clear-eyed
about what trade policy can and cannot
do to help workers hurt by globaliza-
tion. The damage has been done, and
free trade isn’t going anywhere. Protec-
tionist measures and narrow attempts to
May/June 2021 27
crats, who are determined to recapture

The Price of an industrial working-class base, and
TRADE WARS
many Republicans, who use it as

Nostalgia evidence that the government has sold
out American workers in the heart-
land. For politicians of any stripe,
America’s Self-Defeating playing to districts where deindustrial-
Economic Retreat ization has taken place seems to oRer a
sure path to election.
Adam S. Posen Every step of this syllogism, how-
ever, is wrong. Populist anger is the
result not of economic anxiety but of
new consensus has emerged in
A
perceived declines in relative status.
American politics: that the The U.S. government has not been
United States has recklessly pursuing openness and integration
pursued international economic open- over the last two decades. To the
ness at the expense of workers and the contrary, it has increasingly insulated
result has been economic inequality, the economy from foreign competi-
social pain, and political strife. Both tion, while the rest of the world has
Democrats and Republicans are now continued to open up and integrate.
advocating “a trade policy for the Protecting manufacturing jobs benefits
middle class.” In practice, this seems to only a small percentage of the work-
mean tariRs and “Buy American” force, while imposing substantial costs
programs aimed at saving jobs from on the rest. Nor will there be any
unfair foreign competition. political payoR from trying to do so:
Any presidency that cares about the after all, even as the United States has
survival of American democracy, let stepped back from global commerce,
alone social justice, must assess its anger and extremism have mounted.
economic policies in terms of overcom- In reality, the path to justice and
ing populism. The protectionist political stability is also the path to
instinct rests on a syllogism: the prosperity. What the U.S. economy
populist anger that elected President needs now is greater exposure to
Donald Trump was largely the product pressure from abroad, not protectionist
of economic displacement, economic barriers or attempts to rescue specific
displacement is largely the product of industries in specific places. Instead of
a laissez-faire approach to global demonizing the changes brought about
competition, and therefore the best by international competition, the U.S.
way to capture the support of populist government needs to enact domestic
voters is to firmly stand up against policies that credibly enable workers to
unfettered global competition. This believe in a future that is not tied to
syllogism is embraced by many Demo- their local employment prospects. The
safety net should be broader and apply
ADAM S. POSEN is President of the Peterson to people regardless of whether they
Institute for International Economics. have a job and no matter where they
The Price of Nostalgia
May/June 2021 29
Adam S. Posen
live. Internationally, Washington other countries—growing from 20

should enter into agreements that percent in 1990 to 30 percent in
increase competition in the United 2008—all the while staying well below
States and raise taxation, labor, the global average. It fell at the same
and environmental standards. It is the rate as the world at large’s during the
self-deluding withdrawal from the financial crisis, but it has yet to re-
international economy over the cover. Of course, as a country that has
last 20 years that has failed American a large, advanced, and diverse economy
workers, not globalization itself. and is separated by oceans from much
of the rest of the world, it is only
GLOBALIZATION UNDONE natural that the United States has a
Contrary to popular belief, the United lower trade share than the average
States has, on balance, been withdraw- economy. There is no fundamental
ing from the international economy for reason, however, for it not to be
the past two decades. For all the claims opening up at roughly the same rate as
that globalization is the source of the the rest of the world—especially
country’s political woes, the reality is considering that the entry of China,
the opposite: tensions have risen as India, eastern Europe, and parts of
international competition has fallen. In Latin America into global markets ran
fact, the country suffers from greater its course long ago.
economic inequality and political These trends run counter to the
extremism than most other high- oft-told story that American workers
income democracies—countries that suffered gravely after China joined the
have generally increased their global World Trade Organization. After much
economic exposure. That is not to say debate, economists have agreed on an
that competition from China and other upper-bound estimate of the number
countries has had no effect on U.S. of U.S. manufacturing jobs that were
workers. What it does say, however, is lost as a result of Chinese competition
that the effect has occurred even as the after 1999: two million, at most, out of
U.S. government has swum against the a workforce of 150 million. In other
tide of globalization, suggesting that words, from 2000 to 2015, the China
more protectionism is not the answer. shock was responsible for displacing
Global trade has been growing for roughly 130,000 workers a year. That
decades as countries have opened up amounts to a sliver of the average
their economies. As a share of global churn in the U.S. labor market, where
GDP, total imports plus total exports about 60 million job separations
rose from 39 percent in 1990 to 61 typically take place each year. Although
percent in 2008. Trade then fell approximately a third of those total job
sharply as a result of the global finan- separations are voluntary in an average
cial crisis, but it crept upward after- year, and others are due to individual
ward, nearing its pre-meltdown level circumstances, at least 20 million a
in 2019. The United States has bucked year are due to business closures,
this trend, however. Its trade-to-GDP restructurings, or employers moving
ratio has risen more slowly than that of locations. Think of the flight of jobs
from inner cities or the displacement have had essentially no impact on the
of secretarial and office workers due to openness of the U.S. economy. In the
technology—losses that, for the work- last 20 years, only the 2012 U.S.-Korea
ers affected, are no different in terms Free Trade Agreement, a deal with
of local impact and finality than the South Korea, has required any measur-
manufacturing job losses resulting able liberalization, and even it included
from foreign competition. In other greater protections for U.S. manufac-
words, for each manufacturing job lost turers of light trucks. A U.S.-Japanese
to Chinese competition, there were agreement concluded in 2019 was so
roughly 150 jobs lost to similar-feeling limited that it required no congres-
shocks in other industries. But these sional approval. The Trans-Pacific Part-
displaced workers got less than a nership (TPP) would have significantly
hundredth of the public mourning. opened the United States up, but it
An American who loses his job to was rejected by Trump on the third
Chinese competition is no more or less day of his administration, to the cheers
deserving of support than one who of many Democrats. The U.S.-Mexico-
loses his job to automation or the Canada Agreement put up more
relocation of a plant to another state. protections for U.S. auto production
Many jobs are unsteady. The dispro- than its predecessor, the North Ameri-
portionate outcry about the effect of can Free Trade Agreement.
Chinese trade ignores the experiences The rest of the world has been
of the many more lower-wage workers moving in the opposite direction. The
who experience ongoing churn, and it eU has added 13 new member states
forgets the way that previous genera- since 2000, thereby achieving the
tions of workers were able to adapt deepest economic integration anywhere,
when they lost their jobs to foreign including the largely free movement of
competition. Why the outsize political labor. It has also matched the United
attention? It may have to do with the States in concluding comparable trade
fact that the China-shocked workers deals with Japan and South Korea and
are predominantly white and live in has struck additional agreements with
exurban areas or small towns, fitting a Canada, Singapore, and Vietnam. Japan
nostalgic image of men doing heavy has not only joined the TPP’s successor
work on big stuff in the heartland. but also opened up its economy to
Concern for such workers has been China and South Korea by joining the
highly successful in preventing new Regional Comprehensive Economic
free-trade agreements. Since 2000, the Partnership. Australia, New Zealand,
U.S. government has brought into and Singapore have also signed on to
force deals with a number of extremely both deals. The only high-income
small economies, primarily for foreign democracy to retreat from trade more
policy, rather than economic, reasons— than the United States is the United
with Bahrain and Jordan in the Middle Kingdom, whose exit from the eU has
East and with Colombia, Panama, Peru gone about as badly as most economists
and a group of Central American states predicted. But even it promptly sought
in Latin America. Cumulatively, these to join the TPP’s successor.
May/June 2021 31
Adam S. Posen
The U.S. economy has retreated States. Whatever the reason, the fact is
from global economic integration in that the U.S. labor market has been
another way, too: by discouraging increasingly insulated from the arrival
foreign companies from building new of foreign workers.
plants, offices, research facilities, or The trends tell a clear story about the
outlets in the United States. “Green- United States over the past two dec-
field investment,” as this type of ades: even as trade barriers have
activity is known, is much more desir- accumulated and immigration has
able than corporate takeovers, mergers, more than halved, inequality and
or the cross-border sale of businesses— nativism have risen. Washington has
forms of foreign investment that may given the angry, mostly white and male
entail only a change of ownership, swing voters much of what they
without creating any new jobs. In fact, wanted on the international front, and
foreign greenfield investment is gener- they are still angry. Meanwhile, the lot
ally associated with increases in higher- of the United States’ lower-wage
paying jobs and R & D spending. But service workers—predominantly
since 2000, the inflow of greenfield female and disproportionately non-
investment to the United States has white—has worsened.
been trending down sharply, from $13
billion annually in 2000 to $4 billion THE MANUFACTURING OBSESSION
annually in 2019. Blame goes to a Nostalgia is not a good look for a
succession of nationalist policies that progressive agenda. That is just as true
have increased the threat of arbitrary for economic policy as it is for social
restrictions on technology transfers policy; nostalgia privileges a status quo
and foreign ownership. that locks in incumbents’ advantages
Immigration tells the same story of and ignores the difficulties that many
U.S. disengagement from the global people are already suffering. Politi-
economy. The trend started well before cians’ sentimental obsession with
Trump took office. Net immigration to “good jobs” in manufacturing is
the United States has been declining doomed to fail politically as well as
since the 1990s. In that decade, the economically, while failing to address
U.S. immigrant population (including long-standing injustices.
undocumented people) was growing at For more than 50 years, ever since
4.6 percent annually; in the next German and Japanese exports began
decade, it grew at 2.5 percent annually; seriously competing with U.S. goods,
and in the decade after that, it grew at pundits and politicians have bemoaned
1.3 percent annually. Some of the the decline of American manufacturing.
decline is owing to weaker “push” If only the government supported
factors, such as the diminished incen- American producers, the argument
tive for Mexicans to head north as went, they could stave off competition
wages in Mexico have increased, and from the Germans and the Japanese,
some of it is the result of weaker “pull” then the Mexicans and the South
factors, such as the growth of anti- Koreans, and now the Chinese. The
immigrant sentiment in the United notion that elites betrayed the common
“A lucid, multifaceted, and —Tatiana Schlossberg, “A valuable book for students of
fascinating investigation of the New York Times Book Review geopolitics and the
centrality of in the imagining turbulent Middle East.”
of international relations.” Kirkus
—Robbie Shilliam,
Johns Hopkins University
“[A sweeping history. “This is must-read, for everyone

Kreike offers stark corrective from students of law
and implicit warning: negotiators of policy.”
Humanity is distinct from —Christina Davis, author of
nature and assuming it is Why Adjudicate? Enforcing Trade
have tragic outcomes.” Rules in the WTO
“One of the best books in
the past decade look
military history and policy
from theoretical
perspective.”
—Allan C Stam, coauthor of
Why Leaders Fight
“Illuminating AWar
Global
Poverty shows for the first time
how the practice of extending
small loans in the
global South became orthodoxy
among US development experts
and institutions.”
—Amy C Offner,
University of
Pennsylvania
Adam S. Posen
man has echoes in the stabbed-in-the- any industry, manufacturing responds

back myths that recur in nationalist to incentives, and trade protectionism
politics. It is just as misguided. imposes substantial costs on manufac-
Germany and Japan have indeed run turers. These costs are passed on to
manufacturing trade and overall trade those U.S. firms that pay more for
surpluses for decades, and yet over the tariffed inputs. As a result, these
past 40 years, their manufacturing companies have a harder time compet-
workforces have also shrunk as a share ing against other producers or find
of their total workforces, and at about their goods subject to retaliatory
the same rate as the United States’ has. foreign tariffs, and so jobs are de-
In fact, manufacturing employment has stroyed. The costs to American con-
been falling sharply in all high-income sumers from protectionism are sub-
economies, irrespective of their trade stantial, as well. They particularly hit
balances. It is true that the share of poorer households, which spend a
manufacturing in total employment larger portion of their income on
remains higher in some of these coun- affected goods such as cars, clothing,
tries than it is in the United States, but food, and housewares. As three econo-
even in the top manufacturing coun- mists who worked in the Obama White
tries, the current share is below 19 House—Jason Furman, Katheryn Russ,
percent. (The last time the share in the and Jay Shambaugh—have put it,
United States stood at 19 percent was “tariffs function as a regressive tax that
in 1982; today, it is around ten per- weighs most heavily on women and
cent.) In China, the share peaked at 30 single parents.”
percent in 2012 and has been falling Protectionism distorts incentives in
ever since—even though the country another way, too. Manufacturing
boasts the world’s most extensive companies that feel politically protected
subsidies and government protections because they are “too big to fail” engage
for manufacturing. in moral hazard every bit as much as
Only about 16 percent of non-college- the banks did before the financial crisis,
educated Americans work in manufac- whether that takes the form of Volks-
turing. What about the remainder, who wagen and other German automakers
are not blessed with those “good” cheating on emission tests and poison-
manufacturing jobs? This is not an idle ing the air or Boeing denying the
question. Even after assuming a design flaws in the 737 MAx airplane and
massive change in government priori- causing crashes. As the U.S. auto
ties, it is completely unrealistic to industry proved in the 1970s, and as
think that a country can raise the share Chinese heavy industry is proving
of employment in manufacturing by today, corporate political privilege
more than a small fraction; no country destroys productivity, at a minimum,
has ever done so after becoming a and usually the environment, too.
developed economy. Sustainable Moreover, the fetishization of
growth in desired employment is not a manufacturing jobs is hardly a neutral
matter of wishing. Nor is it costless to policy. The image of men doing dan-
pursue more manufacturing jobs. Like gerous things to produce heavy stuff
seems to resonate with nostalgic voters those who already have advantages
in a way that women providing human rather than pursue economic policies
services does not. This is a fiercely that would also improve the lot of
gendered view: only 30 percent of service-sector and part-time workers.
manufacturing workers in the United
States are women, and the overwhelm- LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
ing majority of manufacturing workers Overlapping with those who worry
have always been men (even during the about trade dislocation are those who
wartime days of Rosie the Riveter). express concern for the communities
When manufacturing contracted, the hit hardest by it. The archetype is one
jobs hit first and hardest were the of those towns in Ohio or Pennsylva-
already less well-paid jobs in the nia whose main manufacturing plant
garment industry, a higher proportion moves its work offshore, devastating
of which were held by women. the local economy that has been built
Manufacturing also favors white around that employer. The suffering of
men over men of color. Black and less educated workers in such commu-
Latino workers make up more than a nities is real, profound, and mounting.
third of the non-college-educated Some of this suffering has been
workforce, and so one would expect that exacerbated by the opioid epidemic
they would have a higher share than and by the lasting harm of combat
the less than 25 percent of manufactur- faced by the significant number of
ing jobs they do. Black and Latino military veterans and their families in
workers are also paid less, on average, these communities.
than white workers for the same jobs. The natural instinct of any compas-
Whatever the causes of these dispari- sionate human being, let alone any
ties, to favor manufacturing jobs is to responsive politician, is to try to fix
favor white male workers—which is this situation. Preventing job loss in
part of the reason the policy is so the first place seems to be the way to
popular among this demographic. do so, and when that cannot be done,
Ultimately, the worst thing about what comes next are efforts to revive
holding up the ideal of “good jobs”— the hard-hit communities. Accord-
whether in factories, as coders, or in the ingly, much of the writing from policy
trades—is that it distracts from the real- wonks in recent years has called for
ity facing most lower-wage American plans to recognize the importance of
workers. Many people, not just undocu- local communities and build them back
mented immigrants, effectively work in up. Elected officials, for their part,
the informal sector, holding unstable make a pilgrimage to these places of
jobs that offer limited protections and suffering to show their concern and
few guaranteed hours, let alone any empathy and then follow up with
prospects for advancement. It is unreal- targeted government assistance.
istic to make “good jobs” a central The problem is that there are
aspiration when they simply cannot be precious few examples of a government
delivered for a significant minority of successfully reviving a community
the population. It is wrong to focus on suffering from industrial decline.
May/June 2021 35
Adam S. Posen
Geography is not destiny, but it is the countryside to Tokyo, Osaka, and other
embodiment of economic history in megalopolises. In the United King-
many ways, and accumulated history is dom, the miseries of northern Eng-
difficult to overcome. Growing up near land, which lost coal mines and ship-
Boston in the 1970s, I remember my yards, have been the focus of successive
elementary school teaching me about government efforts to “level up” that
the jobs lost in the textile mills of region to match the wealthy Southeast
Lawrence and Lowell and the efforts to and London. Instead—just as in
bring back those towns. To this day, Germany, Italy, and Japan—the
the towns remain shells of their former younger and more skilled have left for
selves—and that is in Massachusetts, a places of greater opportunity.
state with a generous mindset and The picture is largely the same even
senior representatives in Congress who in China. Its zones of prosperity along
can deliver federal funds. The same its eastern and southern coasts are a
remains true for cities in the Midwest. magnet for workers from the rest of
True, Pittsburgh has transitioned back the country. The lower-income north-
to vitality, and Detroit is past the worst ern and western interior has failed to
of its horrible economic and social catch up in income or employment.
lows, but the former had to experience And this is in a country that has
a nearly complete turnover of indus- protected heavy industry on an un-
tries and to some degree a turnover of precedented scale for years on end, has
population, and the latter is still a long run substantial manufacturing trade
way from full employment and pros- surpluses, and has a government
perity. And those two cities are vastly willing to restrict internal migration
outnumbered by the cities and towns and locate industries by edict.
that have not come back at all. No one should be abandoned simply
The international story is even because of where they live, and no
more cautionary. In Germany and community deserves to decline. But
Italy, fiscal transfers to depressed governments should not lie to their
regions—the former East Germany, citizens, either. There simply is no
the Italian South—went on for decades reliable method of saving local com-
at a scale unseen in U.S. history, munities when they lose their domi-
buttressed by eU funding. Yet cities nant employer or industry, even with a
and towns in the depressed regions of massive amount of resources devoted
Germany and Italy have still not to the effort. Any promises made to
caught up with their more prosperous revive particular communities through
counterparts in terms of employment government action are likely to lead to
or per capita income. Japan, which has disappointment, frustration, and
a political system that is built on the outright anger when they fail.
dominant party funneling pork-barrel Like fixating on manufacturing jobs,
projects to exurban districts, has also holding out the hope that workers can
failed to revive its depressed regions. always find the same kind of work in
In fact, more and more Japanese have the same place as the economy changes
moved from smaller cities and the also requires willfully ignoring the
reality for most lower-wage workers in
the United States. It treats as normal
and attainable the privilege of not
having to change jobs or homes for
economic reasons, a luxury that in
recent decades has been enjoyed
primarily by white workers living in
rural or exurban areas. The creation of
the Black middle class in the United
States over the course of the twentieth DIPLOMACY
century was in large part the product CASE
of massive migration out of the South.
Latinos, too, are no strangers to STUDIES
moving across the country in pursuit
of work and opportunity. (It is a small
irony that almost all of those who wish Bring the
to remain undisturbed are themselves REAL WORLD
the descendants of immigrants who
traveled even further.) The suRering in to your classroom
the United States’ rural areas and Rust U.S. foreign policy
Belt today should not be ignored, nor International organizations
should one make light of the social ties
Conflict resolution
that people moving out of those places
would leave behind. But it is time to Terrorism and security
acknowledge the reality that movement Global health
is sometimes a necessity and often Diplomatic history
benefits lower-wage workers. Women, peace, and security
The dangers of the current attitude And more...
go further. Economists have found that
in many parts of the United States,
there is just one dominant employment Instructors: Join our Faculty Lounge
option, or only a few. Just as having a for free access to this unique online
monopoly over production gives library of over 250 case studies and
companies the power to push up prices simulations — and make diplomacy
at households’ expense, having a part of your course.
monopsony over local labor gives
companies the power to push down
wages—and they exercise it. Thus,
government policies to prop up a local Visit: casestudies.isd.georgetown.edu
employer may enable that employer to
exploit the workforce, and as studies Listen to our podcast, Diplomatic Immunity,
have shown, minorities and women will online, or in your preferred podcast app.
be taken advantage of the most. The
broader community can be exploited,
37
Adam S. Posen
too: companies that know their depar- and match them with jobs, too. It can
ture would ruin a town can also extract change zoning laws to encourage more
generous protections and subsidies affordable housing near where there
from local governments, and in some is job growth. It can provide a safety
cases a de facto exemption from envi- net for those who are too old, too
ronmental and safety regulations. unwell, or just too anchored to move.
Even if place-based aid policies ever It can copy the active labor-market
worked, now is not the time to ramp policies of most European countries,
them up, when there are accumulating putting in place government programs
forces making them more likely to fail. that enhance incentives to seek em-
Climate change will radically alter ployment, improve job readiness, and
which parts of the country are viable help people find work.
for various industries and occupations: Where U.S. economic policy has
agricultural zones will shift, and car- been too neoliberal is not on trade but
bon-intensive industries will shed jobs. on domestic issues. The government
Pandemics will likely be persistent and has worried too much that a stronger
more frequent, perhaps changing safety net might disincentivize people
patterns of schooling, transportation, to find work, relied too much on finely
and health care. The impact of technol- tuned incentives and nudges as the
ogy is less certain. The surge in remote mainstay of policies, and, as a result,
work, jump-started by the CoVID-19 done far too little to directly pay for
pandemic, may make it more possible individuals’ health care, education and
for people in depressed cities to find training, transportation, and childcare.
employment. (The widespread accep- It has failed to seriously enforce laws
tance of virtual meetings, meanwhile, against tax evasion, environmental
has made it easier to sustain social ties dumping, the underpayment of wages,
at a distance, and so it may also make it and unsafe workplaces. The American
easier for people to move for work.) Rescue Plan, passed by Congress in
Still, the rise of remote work is prob- March, includes some measures in the
ably irrelevant for lower-wage and less right spirit, notably the expansion of
educated workers: whether in services the child tax credit, which is now
or manufacturing, their occupations for universal for couples making less than
the most part require them to be in $150,000 a year and for individuals
person to earn their pay. making less than $75,000 a year. Too
few of these provisions, however, are
PROTECTING PEOPLE, NOT JOBS set to last beyond the recovery from
A government’s duty to its people is to the pandemic.
them as individual human beings. The What is needed are universal
state can help people and their families benefits that protect individuals and
move to where there are jobs. It can families, rather than jobs and places.
subsidize faster transportation so that Instead of reinforcing the partitioning
people can commute over longer of the country into districts that define
distances feasibly. It can help people people’s identities, policies should help
prepare for jobs in growing industries people see their security as indepen-
dent of their current location. The income accruing to those owning

United States would be better off capital, as opposed to performing
economically and politically. To that labor, has risen sharply for more than
end, the Affordable Care Act should be two decades, and given that corporate
expanded so that health insurance is profit margins are extremely high,
truly portable. Pension programs there is plenty of room for the govern-
should be consolidated across employment to redistribute income without
ers to reduce the cost of changing jobs. significantly damaging employment.
Gig, temporary, and part-time workers Another key element is the enforce-
should receive most of the same legal ment of existing regulations. The
protections that full-time employees agencies charged with enforcing
do, and they should be allowed to accu- health, safety, labor, and environmental
mulate seniority, savings, and benefits regulations have been chronically
just as many full-time workers do. underfunded, and the fines they hand
These policies would level the playing out for violations have been set too
field for various types of American low. As a result, polluters and wage
workers and make it easier for them to cheats treat them as just a cost of
move between jobs. They would also doing business. As the scholar Anna
force employers to compete for work- Stansbury has argued, the deficient
ers on the basis of better wages by enforcement of labor regulations has
removing their ability to entrap em- not only significantly reduced low-
ployees in a given spot or through wage workers’ income and worsened
their irregular status. their treatment; it would also interfere
Just as is true with minimum-wage with the implementation of a minimum-
hikes, these changes would raise labor wage hike since employers would have
costs and reduce some demand for greater incentives to cheat.
lower-wage workers. But the net Hand in hand with stronger en-
benefits for workers and the economy forcement of existing regulations and
would be ample. There is little evi- higher penalties, the U.S. government
dence to suggest that millions of jobs should put an end to Trade Adjust-
would be lost if the federal government Assistance and other programs
ment simply raised labor standards to designed to help people who have lost
the level of some U.S. states and their jobs specifically to trade alone.
almost all competing high-income These programs have failed on mul-
economies. Australia, Canada, and tiple fronts: there is little evidence
most western European countries have that they have helped workers find new
stricter labor regulations and more jobs faster, they clearly have not
generous health insurance and pension blunted the anger about trade, they
programs—and have prime-age labor- have not succeeded in revitalizing
force participation rates that are declining industrial towns, and they
comparable to or higher than that of have not created any lasting political
the United States and far better wages coalitions in Congress either for
for lower-skilled workers. Given that workers or for trade. As an American
in the United States, the share of Enterprise Institute report noted
May/June 2021 39
Adam S. Posen
earlier this year, compared with other CHANGE IS GOOD

developed countries, the United States There is a popular notion that the
is “unique in its focus on workers who United States has been sacrificing
have lost jobs due to trade, rather than justice in the name of economic
other sources of job loss.” Most Euro- efficiency, and so it is time to correct
pean countries spend 0.5 to 1.0 percent the imbalance by stepping back from
of GDP annually on helping unem- globalization. This is a largely false
ployed people find work; the United narrative. The United States has been
States spends a tenth of that amount. withdrawing from the world economy
This is exactly the wrong approach: for 20 years, and for most of that time,
the U.S. government is stigmatizing U.S. economic dynamism has been
trade-related career changes, to no real falling, and inequality in the country
benefit, while shortchanging all Ameri- has risen more than it has in econo-
can workers by depriving them of mies that were opening up. Workers
proven programs of retraining, job are less mobile. Fewer businesses have
matching, and support. been started. Corporate power has
Can the United States afford the grown more concentrated. Innovation
European approach? Yes. U.S. federal has slowed. Although many factors
tax rates on high earners, corporations, have contributed to this decline, it has
and inheritances are at or near all-time likely been reinforced by the United
lows—substantially below the rates in States’ retreat from global economic
almost all other high-income countries. exposure. Since the takeover of the
Other countries have managed to U.S. Capitol by a mob in January, the
enjoy sustained growth in per capita United States has had to recognize that
incomes with much higher tax rates, as after years of lecturing others on the
did the United States in the past importance of peaceful democratic
century. There is a point at which elections, it is not exempt from politi-
higher tax rates choke off investment cal failures. Similarly, after decades of
and employment, but the United States lecturing others on the stagnation and
is nowhere near it today. Rais- ing corruption of closed economies, it now
taxes on those U.S. taxpayers who have suffers from the same problems, to the
seen their incomes and wealth rise cost of American workers.
substantially over the last 20 years Indeed, many countries have under-
would not only be just and politically taken international opening to spur
stabilizing; it could also pay for an economic changes in stagnant and
expansion of federal labor and social- socially divided societies: consider the
benefit programs by three or four Meiji Restoration in Japan, Kemal
percent of GDP. During economic Ataturk’s reforms in Turkey, Deng
upturns, additional revenues could be Xiaoping’s marketization in China, and
gained through the payroll tax, giving the accession of southern and eastern
workers the sense that, as with Social European countries to the eU. These
Security, they are paying into a pro- were deliberate campaigns of reform,
gram that they deserve to receive not shock therapy, in which the markets
payment from in turn. are allowed to let rip. The countries had
to be honest with themselves about narrative was largely true. It had the
their shortfalls in international com- unfortunate effect domestically, how-
parison and admit that their previous ever, of characterizing the United
arrangements were corrupt and prejudi- States as open and the rest of the
cial. They had to accept that economic world as protectionist. The competi-
change was empowering and liberating tion that U.S. firms faced from abroad
for the majority of their citizens, that was seen as the result of unfair trade.
the central government had to play a Those perceptions have now outlasted
stronger role in social support, and that the reality. It is the United States that
workers had to be allowed, if not needs foreign pressure and inspiration.
encouraged, to migrate to cities, to The United States should have a
move to where the opportunities are. constructive international economic
Although the United States is not, policy, rather than a defensive one that
of course, a pre-market economy under blames global forces for its ills. Such a
an authoritarian government, it does policy would start with the recognition
need to recognize how far it has fallen that the United States has not been
short of its ideals and potential in the subjected to reckless economic opening
economic sphere, as well as how much by Washington elites and that the rest
better its peers and rivals around the of the world is continuing to further
world have done on many counts. Just integrate without it. Globalization goes
as the statement “this is not who we on no matter what, and trade in par-
are” in the face of racist violence lets ticular is more resilient to U.S. with-
Americans off too easily, talk about the drawal than many would like to believe.
United States as the most open, Where there are real comparative
vibrant, competitive, or opportunity- advantages in production, yielding
rich economy in the world is a form of large cost or quality differentials,
self-delusion. Some politicians may purchasers will find a way to get the
want to appeal to American leadership goods and services they want. No
as a motivator for reengaging with the single economy’s tariff regime can ever
global economy, but what the U.S. control a significant part of world
economy needs now is a jolt of follow- trade, even when leveraging a large
ership. The United States needs to be internal market; the rest of the world is
willing to conform to international always larger, and the opportunities
standards, to learn lessons from other missed are always found by someone
countries, to accept that competition else. As technology makes international
should be a source of change. commerce ever more transparent and
Since World War II, the United efficient, the U.S. economy’s unilateral
States has approached international efforts to defensively withdraw from it
economic integration as something it will become only more futile.
encouraged others to do. Trade deals Instead, the United States should
were framed as being about foreign actively seek to encourage the type of
countries opening their markets and change in its own economy that it once
reforming their economies through sought to make other countries under-
competition. For a long time, this take through trade deals. Washington
May/June 2021 41
Adam S. Posen
should agree to international standards still time. In not having a national

defined by limited but strong and carbon tax, the United States lags
well-enforced rules, ones that focus on behind the eU member states and a
observable behaviors of companies and few other countries. If it does not
governments, not on numerical targets catch up, those countries would be
or institutional aspirations. Four areas justified in instituting a carbon border
of potential international agreement adjustment—a tax on imports to offset
are particularly ripe for the United the underpricing of carbon inputs in
States to pursue. places such as the United States.
The first is international corporate Washington should also seek inter-
taxation. Corporations often evade national agreement on labor standards.
taxes by shifting their profits to low-tax The updating of the North American
jurisdictions, a practice that erodes Free Trade Agreement as the U.S.-
government capacity and the political Mexico-Canada Agreement to protect
legitimacy of market economies. The worker representation and unions was
digital economy has made these distor- positive in two senses: first, it helped
tions even greater, although large secure rights for Mexican workers, and
technology companies are far from the second, it demonstrated that the U.S.
only firms to exploit the loopholes. On labor movement can at least tacitly
this front, progress may be imminent. support trade deals if their concerns
Members of the Organization for about labor rights are addressed.
Economic Cooperation and Develop- Washington should now turn the tables
ment are currently in negotiations on on itself and pursue trade agreements
ways to combat corporate tax evasion, with countries that have higher labor
and some European governments have standards than it does. This would
threatened to levy taxes on digital reinforce the changes in legislation and
goods and services produced by Big enforcement that it should also make.
Tech. Collective international action This move could be combined with an
should give the United States an agreement among democracies to ban
opportunity not only to raise its tax the import of products produced by
policies up to the standards of other unpaid prison labor, as in China’s
advanced economies but also to prevent Xinjiang region.
its own companies from evading taxes. Finally, U.S. officials should prac-
Another area to pursue involves tice what I have called “principled
carbon pricing. The United States plurilateralism.” In this strategy,
needs a carbon tax, and the world groups of countries come together to
needs it to have one, too. The U.S. strike agreements on high standards
economy should accelerate its pace of for international commerce, with
decarbonization. Although technologi- membership in the groups determined
cal advances and private investment solely by compliance with those
decisions are generating meaningful standards. American politicians are
progress, a high and rising carbon unlikely to advocate that the United
price offers the best prospects for States join trade deals in the near
slowing climate change while there’s future, but there is something the
country can do in the meantime: more about adaptability in work

encourage such an approach by major arrangements and stability at home.
democratic allies, such as Australia, Most of all, instead of treating eco-
Canada, Japan, Singapore, and the nomic change induced by trade as
United Kingdom. Even progress inherently unfair, Washington should
undertaken without U.S. membership use international standards and compe-
benefits the United States by making tition to raise up U.S. workers and
more visible its own deficiencies and companies. Fixating on any one sector,
pressuring it to up its own game. let alone any one company in one
place, only divides American society
GOODBYE TO ALL THAT and burdens neglected workers with a
The United States needs to embrace disproportionate share of the costs of
economic change rather than nostalgia. adjustment. Indeed, for the last 20
Telling voters that the “good jobs” of years, it already has.∂
manufacturing are the key to restoring
their prosperity and that the country
must be protected from global compe-
tition is not only misleading; it is also
destructive. That path will cost jobs
overall, further entrench the bias
against lower-wage service workers,
and do little to lure voters away from
right-wing populism. You cannot buy
off nativists and populists by reinforc-
ing their nostalgic sense of status.
Similarly, even well-meaning efforts to
repair rural and exurban communities
by tying people to their local jobs will
in fact make them more vulnerable
economically, which in turn will fan the
flames of reactionary politics.
Instead, the government should
seek to protect people as individuals
separately from their jobs or lack
thereof. People’s jobs should become
less important both to their well-being
and to their self-worth, as is already
the case in most other high-income
democracies. The U.S. government
should promote better livings for all
rather than scarce “good jobs” for a
privileged few. Both the pandemic and
climate change should serve as a
reminder that the future will be even
May/June 2021 43
foreign governments and firms to obey its

How Not to wishes. In 2019, for example, it canceled
TRADE WARS
the visit of a trade delegation to Sweden

Win Allies and after a Swedish literary association
awarded a prize to a detained Chinese-
Influence born bookseller. The following year,
China retaliated against Australia’s calls
Geopolitics for an independent inquiry into the
origins of the covID-19 pandemic by
China’s Self-Defeating imposing tariRs on a range of Australian
products. Many fear that such gambits are
Economic Statecraft only a taste of what is to come as China
goes to greater lengths to use its eco-
Audrye Wong nomic in2uence to bully other countries.
Much of the consternation focuses on
the Belt and Road Initiative, a massive
hina, it is often said, has mas- collection of Chinese-financed infra-
C tered the art of economic

statecraft. Observers routinely
worry that by throwing around its
structure projects, from railways to ports,
that critics portray as a modern-day
imperialist venture. Pointing to the BRI,
ever-growing economic weight, the U.S. officials have accused China of
country is managing to buy goodwill engaging in “debt-trap diplomacy,”
and in2uence. During the coVID-19 whereby it purportedly saddles recipient
pandemic, Beijing has exploited its countries with enormous loans and then
dominance of manufacturing supply extracts strategic concessions when they
chains to win favor by donating masks are unable to repay. Many of these same
and now vaccines to foreign countries. officials worry that at the same time that
And it has long used unfair state China is sharpening its economic tools,
subsidies to tilt the playing field in the United States has let its own grow
favor of Chinese companies. dull, forgetting how to turn economic
Beijing has also weaponized its power into strategic gains.
expanding trade relations. China over- But a close look reveals that China’s
took the United States as the top global record is far less impressive than often
trader in 2013, and it is now the leading thought. For one thing, its attempts at
source of imports for about 35 countries economic statecraft have often sparked
and the top destination of exports for resistance. In many of the 60-plus
about 25 countries. The Chinese govern- countries receiving BRI investment, even
ment has not hesitated to leverage access in those most eager for Chinese invest-
to its consumer market to pressure ment, officials have complained of
shoddy construction, in2ated costs, and
AUDRYE WONG is Grand Strategy, Security, environmental degradation. Beijing has
and Statecraft Postdoctoral Fellow at been forced to go on the defensive, with
the Harvard Kennedy School and the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Chinese President Xi Jinping taking
Studies Program. pains to emphasize the importance of
How Not to Win Allies and Inßuence Geopolitics
May/June 2021 45
Audrye Wong
“high-quality” and “reasonably priced” What does China want to do with all
projects. Many countries have demanded this newfound economic power? The
reciprocal access to the Chinese market; opacity of China’s political system leads
others have bowed out of Chinese many to ascribe its behavior to a central-
initiatives altogether and are seeking ized decision-making process pursuing a
financing elsewhere. coherent grand strategy, but Chinese
China has managed to massively policies are in fact often the product of
expand its economic presence beyond its competition and compromise among a
borders, but so far, it has failed to turn it tangle of actors—local governments,
into long-term strategic influence. The high-level bureaucracies, state-owned
Chinese economy exerts a strong gravita- enterprises, private firms, and more.
tional pull, but as Beijing is discovering, Consider the BRI. What began as a
that does not necessarily mean that other vague and sprawling plan has taken on a
countries are altering their political orbits. life of its own, at times hijacked by
opportunistic government officials and
WHAT CHINA WANTS companies seeking to feather their own
Over the past few decades, China’s nests. Many of the constituent projects
global economic footprint has grown are motivated less by some grand
enormously. In 1995, China accounted strategic blueprint than by the prefer-
for just three percent of global trade, ences of individual actors.
but by 2018, thanks to massive eco- Another error is to assume that
nomic growth, it accounted for 12 China’s actions are driven by a desire to
percent—the largest share of any export its own autocratic political system
country. In 2020, in part due to the and statist economic system. True, Xi has
pandemic, China became the EU’s grown increasingly repressive at home
largest trading partner, displacing the and assertive abroad, but China is still
United States. Chinese foreign invest- preoccupied more with safeguarding its
ment has expanded rapidly in the own interests than with trying to remake
developing world, too, with Chinese other countries in its own image. Even
companies and banks plowing money though China seeks to reshape the
into Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin international system to reflect its priori-
America. Beijing has also taken on an ties, that is a far cry from trying to
active leadership role in global eco- overturn the order altogether.
nomic governance, its confidence What really drives China’s economic
boosted by having weathered the 2008 statecraft is not grand strategic designs or
global financial crisis well. In 2014, autocratic impulses but something more
China unveiled the Asian Infrastructure practical and immediate: stability and
Investment Bank, a multilateral devel- survival. The Chinese Communist
opment bank with an initial capitaliza- Party’s fundamental objective is to
tion of $100 billion that has since grown preserve the legitimacy of its rule.
to include more than 100 countries. China’s economic statecraft, then, is often
Many of them are traditional U.S. employed to put out immediate fires and
partners and allies that joined over protect the CCP’s domestic and interna-
Washington’s objections. tional image. China wants to stamp out
How Not to Win Allies and Influence Geopolitics
criticism and reward those who support table, whereby Beijing buys off political
its policies. This is particularly true when leaders through illicit deals, and by the
it comes to issues involving national book, whereby it empowers foreign
sovereignty and territorial integrity (such interest groups to lobby their govern-
as Taiwan, Tibet, and the East China and ments for closer relations with China.
South China Seas) and domestic gover-
nance (such as China’s treatment of the THE SUBVERSIVE METHOD
Uyghurs in Xinjiang and its handling of China often provides economic induce-
the CoVID-19 pandemic). ments in illicit and opaque ways that
Beijing approaches its efforts to circumvent political processes and
convert economic prowess into geopoliti- institutions. As Chinese companies
cal influence in a number of different have increasingly invested overseas,
ways. China has often leveraged the size state-owned enterprises or private
of its domestic market to impose trade companies, sometimes with the tacit
restrictions on countries it wishes to approval of Chinese officials, have
punish, but in targeted and symbolic offered bribes and kickbacks to elites in
ways that minimize damage to its own countries receiving investment or aid
economy. The Chinese government projects in order to grease the wheels of
imposed sanctions on Norwegian salmon bureaucracy. At other times, Chinese
exports after the dissident Liu Xiaobo companies have bypassed the process
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and of competitive bidding and regulatory
it blocked Philippine banana exports after approval to secure a contract, often at
a flare-up in tensions in the South China inflated costs, generating extra profits
Sea, in both cases on the supposed for both Chinese actors and local elites.
grounds of food safety. It has also taken I call such inducements “subversive
advantage of its size by encouraging carrots.” In many ways, their use
boycotts—urging Chinese consumers, for reflects China’s domestic political
example, not to patronize a South Korean economy, where businesses depend on
department store chain in an attempt to official connections, corruption is
dissuade Seoul from deploying a U.S.-led widespread, and few regulations govern
missile defense system. Capitalizing on foreign investment and foreign aid. My
China’s position as a top foreign investor research shows that this method works
and technology producer, the Chinese best in countries that also have little
government and Chinese firms have public accountability—where the flow
played active roles in international of information is restricted, and politi-
standard-setting bodies and promoted cal leaders need not worry about public
the export of Chinese equipment, opinion and the rule of law.
particularly of emerging technologies— Cambodia stands as a case in point.
some with national security implications, The longtime prime minister, Hun Sen,
such as 5G and artificial intelligence. and his family control the military, the
But perhaps the most prominent police, and much of the economy. Media
feature of China’s economic statecraft is outlets are beholden to the government,
its use of positive inducements. These and journalists, activists, and opposition
incentives come in two forms: under the politicians are routinely silenced through
May/June 2021 47
Audrye Wong
intimidation and violence. As a result, monetary deal” in which Beijing paid off
the details of Chinese aid and invest- the Cambodian government in exchange
ment projects in Cambodia are murky, for its support. In the months before the
but what information has come out meeting, senior Chinese leaders visited
suggests a government deeply corrupted Phnom Penh, offering additional grants
by Chinese influence. and loans for infrastructure and develop-
The projects financed by China tend ment projects worth hundreds of mil-
to enrich elites while evicting the poor lions of dollars. The investment has paid
and degrading the environment. In the off handsomely: since 2012, ASEAN has
southwestern province of Koh Kong, for become more divided and incoherent,
example, a Chinese investment group is allowing Beijing to consolidate its
building a massive development complex position, rhetorically and militarily, in
that is to include a resort, a port, an the South China Sea.
airport, power plants, manufacturing A similar dynamic is playing out in
zones, and roads and highways—all eastern Europe. The increasingly
adding up to an estimated $3.8 billion. illiberal governments of Hungary and
While Cambodian elites have used the Serbia have happily accepted handouts
project to line their own pockets, the in exchange for promoting Chinese
construction has destroyed ecologically foreign policy positions. A high-speed
sensitive areas and forced residents from railway running across the two coun-
their homes. Beijing may stand to tries, for example, remains shrouded in
benefit: the resort seems excessively large secrecy, even as costs have ballooned and
for the number of tourists the area can doubts have arisen about its economic
attract, but the airport and port appear viability. Part of the project is being
well designed for Chinese military use. built by a Chinese state-owned enter-
Such largess has allowed China to buy prise previously blacklisted by the
Cambodian advocacy on its behalf—in World Bank for irregularities, and
particular, regarding its aggressive another part, by a corrupt business ally
maritime claims in the South China Sea. of the Hungarian prime minister. In
At a 2012 summit of the Association of return, Hungary and Serbia have
Southeast Asian Nations, Cambodia behaved obsequiously toward China.
wielded its position as chair to block Hungary has issued official statements
discussions of South China Sea disputes, echoing Beijing’s position on the South
and for the first time in ASEAN’s history, China Sea, and Serbia’s president, in
the organization was unable to issue a addition to kissing the Chinese flag in
joint statement. At one point, the gratitude for receiving medical supplies
Cambodian foreign minister cut off early in the CoVID-19 pandemic, has
delegates who tried to raise the issue, and expressed support for China’s repressive
at another, he stormed out of the room national security law in Hong Kong. In
when they proposed even a watered- Europe, China has plucked the low-
down statement. Government officials hanging fruit, such as public statements
I’ve interviewed in the region have and vetoes within the eU, and no coun-
described Cambodia’s behavior at the try in the region has radically altered its
summit as the result of a “straight-up foreign policy orientation. Still, Beijing
has managed to dampen international
criticism and trigger embarrassing
public divisions about issues on which Celebrating 37 Years of Independent Publishing
European countries used to be united.

Chinese subversion has not worked as
well in countries with greater transpar- ESSENTIAL READING
ency and oversight. Take the Philippines
during the presidency of Gloria Arroyo, “Accessibly written
and timely…offers a
who served from 2001 to 2010—a time compelling argument:
when the country enjoyed a vibrant that profit- and
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system, despite high levels of corruption. development must be
Under Arroyo, China agreed to finance replaced by a global
and build $1.6 billion worth of railway system of sharing
and telecommunications infrastructure. innovation commons.”
—Anthony P. D’Costa,
Many of the projects were awarded The University of Alabama
through vastly overpriced no-bid con- in Huntsville • pb $27.50
tracts. A planned commuter rail line

called Northrail, for example, was A deeply researched
shaping up to have the dubious distinc- account of the
tion of being the world’s most expensive successful campaign
that culminated in
railway per mile. Costs for a national
the Treaty on the
broadband network, to be built by the Prohibition of Nuclear
Chinese state-owned company ZTU, Weapons and the
skyrocketed by $130 million to $329 ongoing challenges
million because of kickbacks to key of ratification and
political players, including the chair of implementation.
hc $75 $37.50 for
the Philippines’ electoral commission Foreign Affairs readers!
and the president’s husband. As if on
cue, in 2005, the Philippines’ national oil
company signed an undersea resource “Not only fills a
gap in the current
exploration agreement that legitimized literature on female
China’s maritime claims. prime ministers and
Yet all this malfeasance was exposed presidents, but also
by the press, and a public backlash provides an impor-
ensued. Over the course of 2007 and tant lens through
2008, the Philippine Senate held 13 which to view the
paths taken by
public hearings, culminating in a long
women executive
and scathing report that took Philippine
leaders in the future. ”
politicians and Chinese companies to —Dianne Bystrom,
task for their corruption. Politicians, Iowa State University • pb $28.50
activists, and civil society groups organ-
ized antigovernment rallies in Manila TEL: 303-444-6684 • www.rienner.com
and other cities. In response, the gov-
49
Audrye Wong
ernment suspended and reviewed a minister, Najib Razak, was mired in

range of Chinese-financed projects, and corruption scandals over the mismanage-
some of the implicated elites were ment of Malaysia’s state investment
charged and tried in court. fund, some of which implicated Chinese-
It would be hard to characterize financed investments in which contract
China’s campaign in the Philippines as a costs were inflated to cover the fund’s
success. In 2010, Benigno Aquino III was debts. Voters dealt his party a resounding
elected president on an anticorruption defeat in elections that year, forcing him
platform and proved to be more skepti- from office and marking the first opposi-
cal of Beijing than his predecessor. Even tion victory in Malaysia’s 61 years as an
though the current president, Rodrigo independent country. His successor,
Duterte, has been more eager for Chi- Mahathir Mohamad, quickly suspended
nese investment, he is still partly con- a number of projects, renegotiated plans
strained by legislators who have pushed for a major railway, and spoke out vocally
for greater transparency and by govern- against Beijing’s actions in the South
ment agencies that have implemented China Sea—unlike Najib, who has been
more stringent review procedures. At sentenced to 12 years in prison. Time
the end of the day, the country’s policy and again, China’s subversive statecraft
on the issue China cares about most, the has run aground on the shoals of ac-
South China Sea, has remained funda- countable political systems.
mentally unchanged: the Philippines has
stuck to its own territorial claims. OUT IN THE OPEN
Such fallout is common. In Australia, China sometimes adopts a more legiti-
Beijing used Chinese businesspeople as mate form of seduction. This method is
proxies to make campaign contributions rooted in a broader logic of economic
and fund academic institutes in an interdependence: China seeks to
attempt to persuade politicians and cultivate foreign stakeholders that have
other voices to support China’s positions an interest in good relations. Beijing
on the South China Sea and human promotes trade and investment across
rights. The backlash was swift: in 2017, a multiple sectors in the hope that the
prominent politician who allegedly groups that benefit from economic
accepted Chinese money and was seen exchange with China can be counted on
as toeing the Chinese line was forced to to lobby their own governments to seek
resign, and the following year, Austra- cooperative relations with the country.
lia’s Parliament tightened the country’s Convinced by these private-sector elites
laws on foreign political interference. In of the importance of the Chinese
2015, the president of Sri Lanka was economy, the logic goes, political
voted out of office after greenlighting leaders will work to minimize any
billions of dollars’ worth of unsustain- disagreements with Beijing.
able and corrupt Chinese infrastructure In countries where elites are held
projects, and three years later, the same accountable by the rule of law and public
fate befell the president of the Maldives. opinion—places less suited to illicit
Something similar happened in inducements—this approach has worked
Malaysia in 2018. The incumbent prime well so far. In 2016, for example, a
Chinese state-owned enterprise bought a cultivating stakeholders is getting harder.

majority stake in Greece’s largest port, As the Chinese economy has moved up
Piraeus, and proceeded to modernize it. the value chain, Chinese companies have
The Greek government, in turn, has become powerful players in high-tech,
become notably more reluctant to call value-added sectors—unfairly helped,
out China. Around the time of the competitors argue, by state subsidies. As
acquisition, Greece watered down an eU a result of this competition, foreign
statement on Beijing’s actions in the corporations have had less reason to push
South China Sea, and a year later, it for closer relations with Beijing.
blocked the eU from issuing one about Indeed, this evolution is already well
China’s crackdown on dissidents. underway in the United States. In the
In Australia, a number of actors have 1990s, U.S. businesses, lured by access to
advocated keeping the peace with the Chinese market, successfully lobbied
Beijing. Prominent businesspeople have President Bill Clinton to extend China’s
criticized legislation seeking to combat “most favored nation” status. Today, by
foreign interference and have lobbied contrast, they complain about discrimina-
for the Australian government to tory policies, intellectual property theft,
support the BRI. Local officials have and restrictions on market access in
signed BRI deals and awarded contracts China and lobby for punitive measures.
to the Chinese telecommunications China’s doubling down on its state
giant Huawei. Australian universities— capitalist model is likely to undermine
dependent on Chinese students for efforts at cultivating foreign stakeholders.
tuition revenue—have canceled events Moreover, Beijing’s increasingly
that might offend Chinese sensitivities, aggressive foreign policy threatens to
have stood silent as lecturers have been overshadow the positive lure of eco-
pressured by students into apologizing nomic engagement. Its ham-handed
for deviating from Beijing’s positions, “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy, an aggres-
and, in one case, suspended a student sive style of foreign policy named after a
activist known for criticizing the CCP. pair of patriotic Chinese action movies,
Compared with its subversive efforts, has worsened relations with many
Beijing’s attempts to cultivate the countries. Its growing tendency to resort
support of vested interests abroad may to economic coercion has further high-
seem like a more powerful, long-term lighted the downsides of interdepen-
approach to economic statecraft, since it dence. When Beijing, in response to
empowers a chorus of voices pushing for Australia’s calls for an investigation into
closer alignment with China. Yet this the source of the pandemic, slapped
strategy also faces its own challenges. For tariffs and trade bans on Australian coal,
one thing, the political payoffs are more timber, wine, seafood, and other prod-
diffuse and take a long time to bear fruit, ucts, it ended up empowering those in
testing the patience of Chinese leaders, Australia who favor a more hawkish
who are preoccupied with forestalling China policy. In Taiwan, Beijing has
public criticism and immediate chal- enjoyed even less success: although it
lenges to their legitimacy, domestically has tried to use burgeoning cross-strait
and internationally. For another thing, economic relations to undercut pro-
May/June 2021 51
Audrye Wong
independence factions, Taiwanese grand strategy and great-power compe-

businesspeople have largely refused to tition, for many leaders in recipient
back the mainland’s policies, because the countries, it is much more about local
issue of Taiwan’s independence is seen political jockeying. These leaders have
as an overriding security concern. Even played considerable roles in shaping
legitimate seduction has its limits. China’s efforts. Consider the China-
Pakistan Economic Corridor, a BRI
LOSING FRIENDS flagship. It has run into its fair share of
For all the breathless talk of the geopo- political and economic obstacles as
litical gains from economic statecraft, so Pakistani politicians pushed for the
far, Beijing has mostly been able to expansion of energy and infrastructure
achieve transactional, short-term projects and then bickered over their
objectives—say, public silence on allocation. In Sri Lanka, the idea and
China’s human rights record from a impetus for the Chinese-financed
legislator or a veto over a resolution Hambantota port, often touted as the
about the South China Sea during an classic case of debt-trap diplomacy, in
ASEAN meeting. Outside a small subset fact came from Sri Lankan politicians,
of countries with little public account- who awarded the contract to a Chinese
ability, China’s long-term strategic state-owned enterprise after being
influence remains limited. Most of the turned down by the United States and
countries China has targeted have not India. The story of Hambantota is not
made major shifts in their geopolitical one of China securing a geopolitical
alignment; at best, they have offered prize—the port is neither economically
rhetorical and symbolic commitments. viable nor geographically suited for
This is a failure of execution; Beijing naval use—but one of Sri Lanka build-
has often been tone-deaf, leaving it ing a white elephant.
particularly vulnerable to the vicissi- Recipient countries are also getting
tudes of democratic politics. In failing better at shaping the terms of their
to recognize how its strategies might deals with China. Fed up with constant
play out in different political contexts, scandals, many have pressured the
China has provoked backlash instead of Chinese government to pay greater
garnering support. Chinese investments attention to domestic regulations. In
have often become politicized, with Malaysia, after an outcry over waste and
out-of-power parties criticizing the fraud in a massive rail project that will
incumbents who signed the deals for connect ports on Malaysia’s east and
caving in to Beijing. The frequent west coasts, China agreed to lower the
corruption scandals that such invest- price tag by a third, from $16 billion to
ments produce have provided even $11 billion. And in 2018, Myanmar’s
more fodder for critics. government sought help from the U.S.
Indeed, China has to contend with State Department to successfully
other countries’ messy domestic politics renegotiate the terms of a Chinese-
far more than it might prefer. Whereas financed port construction project.
U.S. policymakers often view China’s Economic statecraft is never easy.
economic statecraft through the lens of Coercive measures such as sanctions
often fail to convince the target, no announced new financing criteria

matter whether they are imposed by that would take into account recipient
Washington or Beijing. Although the countries’ existing debt loads.
lure of inducements may seem to hold On the flip side, growing illiberalism
more promise, they also come with risks. globally may give China more opportuni-
In China’s case, failure has been more the ties to gain influence in subversive ways.
rule than the exception. That’s because Particularly in countries teetering on the
the success of inducements depends brink of authoritarianism, carrots that buy
greatly on the political dynamics in the off corrupt elites could not only help
recipient countries. During the Cold them maintain their hold on power but
War, for example, American aid to also do long-term damage to political
corrupt developing countries in Africa institutions. China could thus entrench
and Latin America was successful at authoritarianism—even if it is not actively
propping up dictators, whereas in trying to export autocracy. As a preven-
Europe, the Marshall Plan succeeded at tive measure, the United States and its
strengthening U.S. influence in demo- partners can strengthen accountability
cratic countries. Above-board Japanese institutions in recipient countries and
aid and investment have bolstered provide technical expertise to help them
Tokyo’s image in Southeast Asia gener- negotiate with China. But framing the
ally speaking but made few political issue as a U.S.-led club of democracies
inroads in Cambodia, where China’s competing against China’s authoritarian
subversive approach has flourished. camp is almost certain to alienate many of
Beijing may find that its subversive style those countries, which would prefer to
works well in corrupt, authoritarian avoid choosing between two rival powers.
states, but it will likely continue to In the end, China’s rapidly expanding
struggle in countries where accountabil- overseas economic presence, particularly
ity matters—many of which are also when accompanied by subversion and
strategically important. coercion, may exacerbate strategic fears
This is not to say that Beijing’s across the globe. Chinese officials may
attempts at economic statecraft should still think that economic development
be written off. With the BRI, China is naturally promotes goodwill and gratitude
learning from its missteps. It has an- among recipients, but there is good reason
nounced that it will curb “irrational” BRI to believe that they are wrong. China, it
investments, crack down on Chinese turns out, cannot count on automatically
investors’ illegal activities abroad, and converting its growing economic clout
establish a new agency to coordinate for- into a new geopolitical reality.∂
eign aid. At the BRI’s international
forum in 2019, Chinese leaders went
beyond their usual bland “win-win”
rhetoric and for the first time empha-
sized mantras of quality infrastructure,
zero corruption, and ample transpar-
ency. At the same summit, China’s
central bank and finance ministry also
May/June 2021 53
come laden with digital components.

Data Is Power Cars are no longer merely chassis built
TRADE WARS
around internal combustion engines;

they also house complex electronics and
Washington Needs to Craft software capturing massive amounts of
New Rules for the Digital Age data. Trade in physical goods also comes
with digital enablers, such as devices
Matthew J. Slaughter and and programs that track shipping
containers, and these likewise generate
David H. McCormick data and improve efficiency. And now,
coVID-19 has sped up the digital trans-
formation of businesses, pushing even
ata is now at the center of more commerce into the cloud.
D global trade. For decades, inter-

national trade in goods and
services set the pace of globalization.
Digital trade and the cross-border
2ow of data show no signs of slowing. In
2018, 330 million people made online
After the global financial crisis, however, purchases from other countries, each
growth in trade plateaued, and in its involving the cross-border transmission
place came an explosion of cross-border of data, helping e-commerce hit $25.6
data 2ows. Measured by bandwidth, trillion in sales, even though only about
cross-border data 2ows grew roughly 112 60 percent of the world is online. Imag-
times over from 2008 to 2020. ine how much data will grow as broad-
The global economy has become a band access spreads to the developing
perpetual motion machine of data: it world’s rapidly expanding populations,
consumes it, processes it, and produces 5G wireless technology allows even more
ever more quantities of it. Digital extraordinary amounts of data to transfer
technologies trafficking in data now at lightning speed, and the so-called
enable, and in some cases have replaced, Internet of Things dramatically increases
traditional trade in goods and services. machine-to-machine communication.
Movies, once sold primarily as DvDS, These massive changes are not merely
now stream on digital platforms, and transforming trade; they are also upend-
news, books, and research papers are ing global politics. Even more than other
consumed online. Even physical goods elements of the global economy, data is
intertwined with power. As an increas-
MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER is Paul Danos Dean ingly necessary input for innovation, a
and Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of Interna- rapidly expanding element of interna-
tional Business at the Tuck School of Business
at Dartmouth College. He served as a member
tional trade, a vital ingredient in corpo-
of the White House Council of Economic rate success, and an important dimension
Advisers in 2005–7. of national security, data oRers incredible
DAVID H. MCCORMICK is CEO of Bridgewater advantages to all who hold it. It is also
Associates, a global macro investment firm. readily abused. Countries and companies
During the George W. Bush administration, he that seek anticompetitive advantages try
served in senior positions at the U.S. Commerce
Department, the National Security Council, and to control data. So do those that wish to
the U.S. Treasury Department. undermine liberty and privacy.
Yet even as cross-border flows of How can a country raise its produc-
data have surged, and data itself has tivity? It can invest in the capital used
become a critical source of power, it to create things—buildings, machinery,
remains largely ungoverned. The software, and the like. Or it can create
current international trade and invest- new ideas, innovations that allow
ment framework was designed 75 years workers to either make existing prod-
ago, in a very different time. It ad- ucts more efficiently or make entirely
vanced prosperity and security, helped new products. Indeed, innovation has
lift millions out of poverty, and, as part long driven the United States’ rising
of a broader economic order, encour- productivity—accounting for well over
aged democracy, commerce, and indi- half the U.S. per capita GDP growth
vidual rights. But this system is not over the past century.
adequate for the reality of global trade Data has always been an essential
today. Confusion about the value and input for discovering new ideas. Benja-
ownership of data abounds, and major min Franklin needed data on lightning
world powers have competing visions of strikes to improve humans’ understand-
how to manage it. ing of electricity; Gregor Mendel
If the United States does not shape needed data on pea plants to discover
new rules for the digital age, others rules of heredity. But in the past decade
will. China, for example, is promulgat- or so, data has become far more impor-
ing its own techno-authoritarian model, tant to innovation, thanks to major
recognizing that shaping the rules of advances in computing power, cloud
digital power is a key component of storage, and machine learning. The
geopolitical competition. The United algorithms at the heart of artificial
States should offer an alternative: with intelligence (AI) benefit particularly
a coalition of willing partners, it should from vast quantities of high-quality
set up a new framework, one that data, which they use to learn and gain
unleashes data’s potential to drive efficacy. These and other data-driven
innovation, generate economic power, innovations will increasingly shape
and protect national security. people’s professional and personal lives,
improving everything from autonomous
INNOVATION EVER AFTER vehicles to sports-performance apps to
Economists have long recognized that social networks.
productivity per worker is the best The surge in the use of data holds
indicator of a country’s average standard great economic potential for a powerful
of living and overall economic power. yet simple reason: data is what econo-
The higher a country’s productivity, the mists call “nonrival.” Nearly all economic
higher the average household income goods and services are “rival,” meaning
and the higher the population’s material their use by one person or firm precludes
well-being will be. Moreover, the higher their use by someone else. A barrel of
a country’s productivity, the larger the oil, for instance, is rival. But data is
country’s overall tax base will be, giving nonrival: it can be used simultaneously
more funds to the government for and repeatedly by any number of firms
national defense and other interests. or people without being diminished. The
Data Is Power
widespread notion that “data is the new top market positions across the globe.
oil” misses this essential economic Ten years ago, any list of the ten most
difference between the two commodi- valuable firms included oil and gas
ties. Data can power innovation again producers, consumer goods firms, and
and again without being depleted—more banks. Today, technology companies
like the limitless supply of sunshine than that traffic in data dominate the list.
the limited supply of oil. BHP Group, Chevron, and ExxonMobil
Because data is nonrival, innova- have given way to Alphabet, Amazon,
tion—and thus economic power—in- and Facebook. The current crop of
creasingly hinges on the quantity and technology leaders thrives in no small
quality of data available to people, part because they transform vast
companies, and countries. Data can be amounts of data from billions of indi-
used and reused, so the more freely it viduals and organizations into new
flows, the more likely it is to spark new economic value for their customers.
ideas. Consider the world’s fight against Data is crucial to national security,
CoVID-19. On January 10, 2020, more too. It drives productivity and thus the
than a month after the first cases ap- economic power that underwrites the
peared, Chinese scientists posted the United States’ military edge. It is also a
genetic sequence of the novel coronavi- primary domain of U.S.-Chinese
rus online. Armed with this essential competition for economic and geopo-
data, scientists at the U.S. company litical superiority—as demonstrated, for
Moderna took only two days to create example, by the two countries’ battle
the blueprint for what would become over 5G technology. New technologies
the company’s CoVID-19 vaccine. Mod- offer tremendous economic and strate-
erna had already researched the concept gic advantages. In the words of Eric
of a vaccine based on messenger RNA; all Schmidt, former Ceo of Google, and
it needed to create something valuable Robert Work, former U.S. deputy secre-
from this new idea was new data. tary of defense, data-enabled AI will be
Access to data has been revolution- “the most powerful tool in generations
izing other areas of the life sciences. In for benefiting humanity,” but it will also
just 13 years, the Human Genome be “used in the pursuit of power.”
Project, a U.S.-led international public The country that can harness data to
initiative, sequenced and published the innovate faster will gain enormous
data on the three billion DNA base pairs advantages. And so the United States’
that constitute the human genome. One future prosperity and geopolitical
study estimated that from 1988 to 2010, strength will largely depend on the
this project led to a total economic rules governing access to data.
impact of $796 billion—including over
$244 billion in additional personal A PATCHWORK OF RULES
income from over 300,000 new jobs. Current international institutions are not
Data increasingly drives commercial equipped to handle the proliferation of
success. Companies whose competitive data. Nor are they prepared to address
advantages are built by aggregating, the emerging fault lines in how to ap-
analyzing, and using data have seized proach it. The institutional framework for
May/June 2021 57
international trade—that of the World ernments be able to tax the arrival of

Trade Organization and its predecessor, data from other nations, just as they
the General Agreement on Tariffs and levy tariffs on the import of many goods
Trade—was built at a time when mainly and services? How would this work
agricultural and manufactured goods when the data flows themselves are
crossed borders and data flows were in often unpriced, at least within the firms
the realm of fiction. The WTo’s frame- that gather the data? What controls can
work depends on two key classifications: sovereign governments impose on data
whether something is a good or a service entering their countries? Can they
and where it originated. Goods are demand that data be stored locally or
governed by different trade rules than are that they be given access to it?
services, and a product’s origin defines The absence of an international
what duties or trade restrictions apply. framework also threatens people’s
Data defies this basic categorization privacy. Who will ensure that govern-
for several reasons. One is that vast ments or other actors do not misuse
amounts of data—such as one’s online people’s data and violate their eco-
browsing before ordering clothes—are nomic, political, and human rights?
unpriced consequences of the produc- How can governments protect their citi-
tion and consumption of other goods zens’ privacy while allowing data to
and services. Another is that it is often move across borders? Today, the United
hard to determine where data is created States and the eU do not agree on
and kept. (From which country does answers to these questions, causing
data on an international flight’s engi- friction that hurts cooperation on trade,
neering performance originate? In investment, and national security.
which country does a multinational China, for its part, has shown little
firm’s cloud storage of its clients’ data commitment to privacy. Without
reside?) Moreover, there is no agreed-on common and verifiable methods of
taxonomy for valuing data. In the event anonymizing data to protect personal
of a trade dispute, WTo members may privacy, the innovative potential of
seek legal recourse and ask the organiza- personal data will be lost—or funda-
tion to make a one-off correction, but mental rights will be violated.
such fixes do not address the fundamen- In the absence of coherent and
tal inconsistencies between the WTo’s collective answers to these questions,
framework and the nature of data. countries and trade blocs are improvis-
The lack of an internationally ac- ing on their own. This has left the
cepted framework governing data leaves world today with a collection of incon-
big questions about the global economy sistent, vague, and piecemeal regula-
and national security unanswered. tions. Recent regional trade deals have
Should sovereign governments be able included several provisions regarding
to limit the location and use of their data and e-commerce. The Comprehen-
citizens’ data within national borders? sive and Progressive Agreement for
What does this concept even mean Trans-Pacific Partnership, which does
when the cloud and its data are distrib- not include the United States, prohibits
uted across the Internet? Should gov- requirements that data be stored within
a given country and bans duties on
cross-border 2ows of electronic content.
It recognizes the growing importance of
the digital services sector, and it forbids
signatories from demanding access to
the source codes of companies’ soft-
ware. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agree-
ment (USMCA) has similar provisions.
Both free-trade agreements aim to allow
unencumbered 2ows of data, but they
are largely untested and, by virtue of
being regional, are limited.
The UU sharpened its data rules on
privacy in the General Data Protection
Regulation. The GDPR attempts to
empower individuals to decide how
companies can use their data, but many
have voiced concerns that the GDPR has
eRectively established trade barriers for
foreign firms operating in UU member
countries by requiring expensive
compliance measures and raising the
European market’s liability risks.
Moreover, the UU’s rules are the subject
of continual dispute and litigation.
Of much greater concern to the
United States is China’s distinct digital
ecosystem. Over a generation ago,
China began building its “Great Fire-
wall,” a combination of laws and tech-
nologies that restrict the 2ow of data in
and out of China, in part by blocking
foreign websites. China has since
adopted a techno-nationalist model that
mandates government access to data
generated in the country. The sheer
quantity of that data fuels China’s
innovation but also enables the coun-
try’s repressive system of control and
surveillance—and at the expense of
open, international 2ows of data.
Beijing now seeks to expand this
model. It has clear plans to use its
indigenous technology industry to
May/June 2021 59
dominate the digital platforms that scientists could, in principle, come

manage data, most immediately 5G together to work on safe and functional
telecommunications networks. To that autonomous vehicles. But the critical
end, it has unveiled an audacious plan, input for success is data: vast quantities
China Standards 2035, to set global of data on driving created by sensor-
standards in emerging technologies. And equipped vehicles. Any country that
through the so-called Digital Silk Road does not permit companies to access
and the broader Belt and Road Initia- individuals’ driving data will struggle to
tive, it is working to spread its model of develop this industry. Or think of all
data governance and expand its access to the AI possibilities in health care that
data by building Internet infrastructure will require vast amounts of x-rays, CAT
abroad and boosting digital trade. scans, and other diagnostic data to
And the United States? At the federal create innovations that will save and
level, the country has not settled on any enhance the quality of lives. Large
legal framework. Nor, beyond the countries—with, for example, many
USMCA, has it engaged in any meaning- people driving many vehicles on many
ful cross-border agreements on data roads or many doctors ordering many
flows. So far, the United States has not CAT scans—have an inherent advantage
answered China’s efforts with a coherent when it comes to data. If small coun-
plan to shape technology standards or tries, such as Singapore and Sweden, do
ensure widespread privacy protections. not have access to data outside their
The United States’ ad hoc responses and borders, they could lose out.
targeted efforts to encourage other To some, this possibility of a data
countries to reject the Chinese company advantage for large nations might not
Huawei’s 5G technology may work in seem worth worrying about. After all,
the near term. But they do not consti- the twentieth century demonstrated
tute an effective long-term plan for that small countries can achieve high
harnessing the power of data. productivity and high standards of
living. They were able to do so because
A FRAMEWORK FOR FLOWS ideas spread relatively easily around the
China has a vision for the digital age. world and because innovation didn’t
The United States does not. Much of the require that much data. But there is
discussion in Washington is too narrow, growing evidence that what’s past will
concerning privacy, antitrust issues, and not be prologue: the quantity of data a
liability. These are essential matters. Yet country can access may result in a
it is vital to keep in mind the immense sustainable productivity advantage.
economic potential of data—and not just Today, a vast amount of data is needed
data produced in the United States. to refine ideas into economically pro-
Because data is nonrival, there will be ductive uses. As the AI expert Kai-Fu
major potential losses for those countries Lee has said, “A very good scientist
that fail to access and use it. with a ton of data will beat a super
Consider autonomous vehicles. This scientist with a modest amount of data.”
idea is no longer new, and in many To avoid missing out on these advan-
countries, new teams of engineers and tages, and to fill the vacuum being filled
Data Is Power
by China, the United States should help sharing arrangements for autonomous
craft a new multilateral framework for vehicles, oncology treatments, and
data. Working with all willing and clean-tech batteries. Relative to their
like-minded nations, it should seek a experience in today’s Balkanized world,
structure for data that maximizes its researchers would be able to discover
immense economic potential without more data-driven innovations—and
sacrificing privacy and individual liberty. in more countries, rather than just in
This framework should take the form of those that already have a large presence
a treaty that has two main parts. in these industries.
First would be a set of binding The second part of the framework
principles that would foster the cross- would be free-trade agreements regulat-
border flow of data in the most data- ing the capital goods, intermediate
intensive sectors—such as energy, inputs, and final goods and services of
transportation, and health care. One set the targeted sectors, all in an effort to
of principles concerns how to value data maximize the gains that might arise from
and determine where it was generated. data-driven innovations. Thus would the
Just as traditional trade regimes require traditional forces of comparative advan-
goods and services to be priced and tage and global competition help bring
their origins defined, so, too, must this new self-driving vehicles, new lifesaving
framework create a taxonomy to classify chemotherapy compounds, and new
data flows by value and source. Another sources of renewable energy to partici-
set of principles would set forth the pating countries around the world.
privacy standards that governments and There is already a powerful example
companies would have to follow to use of such agreements. In 1996, dozens of
data. (Anonymizing data, made easier countries accounting for nearly 95
by advances in encryption and quantum percent of world trade in information
computing, will be critical to this step.) technology ratified the Information
A final principle, which would be Technology Agreement, a multilateral
conditional on achieving the other two, trade deal under the WTo. The agree-
would be to promote as much cross- ment ultimately eliminated all tariffs
border and open flow of data as possible. for hundreds of IT-related capital goods,
Consistent with the long-established intermediate inputs, and final
value of free trade, the parties should, products—from machine tools to
for example, agree to not levy taxes on motherboards to personal computers.
data flows—and diligently enforce that The agreement proved to be an impor-
rule. And they would be wise to ensure tant impetus for the subsequent wave of
that any negative impacts of open data the IT revolution, a competitive spur
flows, such as job losses or reduced that led to productivity gains for firms
wages, are offset through strong pro- and price declines for consumers.
grams to help affected workers adapt to
the digital economy. THE INNOVATION IMPERATIVE
Such standards would benefit every At this time of uncertainty about both
sector they applied to. Envision, for the future of international institutions
example, dozens of nations with data- and the United States’ commitment to
May/June 2021 61
them, orchestrating the creation of this existing efforts to address data flows
framework would bring Washington and security. In 2020, the Trump
many opportunities: to partner closely administration created the Clean
with like-minded countries, to reform Network to strengthen data partner-
and rejuvenate calcified institutions, and ships abroad, empower domestic
to strengthen U.S. economic power and innovation, and protect data privacy.
national security. Indeed, this framework Likewise, a year earlier, the G-20
could serve as an important component leaders produced the Osaka Track
of a renewed vision of the United States’ vision for “data free flow with trust,” an
role in the world. It would be a vision initiative to produce a coherent interna-
that recognizes the need to cultivate tional data framework. And the Organi-
strong multilateral institutions of zation for Economic Cooperation and
like-minded nations to stabilize an Development is laying the intellectual
entropic world but that does not lose foundation for a similar effort. The
sight of the United States’ economic and United States could also build on
security interests, that upholds U.S. momentum within the Quad—its
leadership but never at the expense of cooperative partnership with Australia,
Americans, and that confidently sees the India, and Japan—to advance the shared
country as a force for good. goals of innovation and security. But
There is little doubt that the United these would merely be stopgap meas-
States and its allies would face chal- ures; what is really needed is a major
lenges in establishing an international push for a cohesive framework.
data framework. The landscape today is In July 1944, just weeks after the
characterized by a patchwork of incon- D-Day invasion and with the outcome
sistent and vague data standards, and of World War II still hanging in the
the initial countries and sectors in- balance, the United States hosted
volved would need to work through the delegates from 43 like-minded nations
thicket of various national data regula- in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, for
tions. Some countries would no doubt a conference to agree on new rules for
choose to close themselves off and the postwar international monetary
refuse to share their data. Americans, system. Out of this gathering came the
meanwhile, face deep political divisions, International Monetary Fund and the
and many of them view global engage- World Bank, institutions designed to
ment with skepticism. And yet this help rebuild the world after a devastat-
framework would boost innovation and ing conflict. In the wake of another
the United States’ strategic position in crisis, the United States once again has
an era of trying economic conditions at the opportunity to establish new
home and great-power competition international rules that support peace,
abroad. Those are the benefits that prosperity, and security. The question is
American leaders must communicate to whether it will rise to the challenge.∂
the American people.
If creating an international data
framework proved too difficult, Wash-
ington and its partners could build on
62 F O R E Ig n Af fA I R S
ESSAYS
Too often unelected military leaders

limit civilians’ options that
generals run wars they ßt.
– Risa Brooks, Jim Golby,
and Heidi Urben
Its Edge Can Save the Planet
Michèle A. Flournoy 76 Andrew S. Erickson and Gabriel Collins 136
The Home Front Practice What You Preach

Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. John Shattuck and Kathryn Sikkink 150
Trubowitz 92
The Singular Chancellor
The Resurgence oJ the Rest Constanze Stelzenmüller 161
Ruchir Sharma 102
Russia’s Weak Strongman

Timothy Frye 116
Too often,
limit civilians’ so
can as see ßt
Brooks
Heidi Urben
G E R RY B R OOM E / AP
Crisis of Command
America’s Broken Civil-Military
Relationship Imperils National Security
hen U.S. President Donald Trump left office on January
W 20, many of those concerned about the state of civil-

military relations in the United States breathed a deep
sigh of relief. They shouldn’t have. Yes, Trump used the military as a
political prop, referred to some of its leaders as “my generals,” and
faced a Pentagon that slow-rolled his attempts to withdraw troops
from battlefields around the world. But problems in the relationship
between military officers and elected officials did not begin with
Trump, and they did not end when Joe Biden took office.
Civilian control over the military is deeply embedded in the U.S.
Constitution; the armed forces answer to the president and legisla-
ture. Starting in 1947, Congress built robust institutions designed
to maintain this relationship. But over the past three decades, civil-
ian control has quietly but steadily degraded. Senior military offi-
cers may still follow orders and avoid overt insubordination, but
their in2uence has grown, while oversight and accountability mech-
anisms have faltered. Today, presidents worry about military op-
position to their policies and must reckon with an institution that
selectively implements executive guidance. Too often, unelected
RISA BROOKS is Allis Chalmers Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette
University, a Nonresident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies, and an Adjunct Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
JIM GOLBY is a Senior Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security,
and a co-host of the podcast Thank You for Your Service. He is a retired U.S. Army officer.
HEIDI URBEN is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Georgetown University’s Security

Studies Program, a Nonresident Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and Interna-
tional Studies, and an Adjunct Scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute. She is a
retired U.S. Army officer.
Crisis of Command
military leaders limit or engineer civilians’ options so that generals

can run wars as they see fit.
Civilian control is therefore about more than whether military
leaders openly defy orders or want to overthrow the government. It’s
about the extent to which political leaders can realize the goals the
American people elected them to accomplish. Here, civilian control
is not binary; it is measured in degrees. Because the military filters
information that civilians need and implements the orders that civil-
ians give, it can wield great influence over civilian decision-making.
Even if elected officials still get the final say, they may have little
practical control if generals dictate all the options or slow their im-
plementation—as they often do now.
Resetting this broken relationship is a tall order. It demands that Con-
gress doggedly pursue its oversight role and hold the military account-
able, regardless of who occupies the White House. It requires that defense
secretaries hire skilled civilian staffs composed of political appointees
and civil servants. But most important, it requires an attentive public
that is willing to hold both civilian leaders and the military to account.
PARADISE LOST
Evidence of the decline in civilian control over the military isn’t hard
to find. Over the last few decades, senior military leaders have regu-
larly thwarted or delayed presidential decisions on military policy. In
1993, Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped
block President Bill Clinton from ending the policy that banned gays
from the military, resulting in the now defunct “don’t ask, don’t tell”
compromise. Both President Barack Obama and Trump complained
that officers boxed them in—limiting military options and leaking
information—and forced them to grudgingly accept troop surges they
did not support. Obama’s generals signaled that they would accept
nothing less than an aggressive counterinsurgency in Afghanistan—
despite White House opposition. Obama later fired Stanley McChrys-
tal, then commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, after members of
the general’s staff disparaged White House officials in remarks to a
reporter. Trump, for his part, saw senior military leaders push back
against his orders to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Syria.
Although these moves were signature campaign promises, Trump
eventually backed off when military leaders told him they couldn’t be
done and that the policies would harm national security.
May/June 2021 65
Of course, senior military leaders do not always get everything they

want, but they often get more than they should. Their power also ex-
tends beyond headline-grabbing decisions about overseas deployments
or troop reductions. The military’s in2uence manifests hundreds of
times a day through bureaucratic maneuvers inside the Pentagon, in
policy discussions in the White House, and during testimony on Capi-
tol Hill. These mundane interactions, perhaps more than anything else,
steer decision-making away from civilians in the Office of the Secretary
of Defense and toward uniformed personnel. Inside the Pentagon, for
instance, military leaders often preempt
the advice and analysis of civilian staR
Civilian control over the by sending their proposals straight to
military is deeply the secretary of defense, bypassing the
byzantine clearance process that non-
embedded in the U.S. uniformed staRers must navigate.
Constitution. There are signs of the erosion of ci-
vilian control outside the Pentagon, as
well. Congress too rarely demands that
the military bow to civilian authority, instead weighing in selectively
and for partisan reasons. During the Obama administration, for example,
some commentators and at least one member of Congress suggested
that Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaR, should
resign in protest over the president’s management of the campaign
to defeat the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. The goal was to use
Dempsey’s role as the president’s chief military adviser as leverage in a
partisan battle over Obama’s foreign policy. Under Trump, many Dem-
ocrats cheered on the retired and active-duty generals who pushed back
against the president’s decisions. These “adults in the room” included
James Mattis (the secretary of defense), John Kelly (the secretary of
homeland security and then White House chief of staR), and H. R.
McMaster (Trump’s national security adviser). At the extreme, some of
Trump’s opponents even urged senior military leaders to contemplate
removing Trump from office. In August 2020, two well-known retired
army officers, John Nagl and Paul Yingling, penned an open letter to
Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of StaR, telling him to
do just that if the president refused to leave office after losing the 2020
election. Although these eRorts may have comforted those concerned
about Trump’s erratic policies, they undermined civilian control by sug-
gesting that it was the military’s job to keep the executive in check.
Crisis of Command
When politicians endorse military insubordination that serves their in-

terests, they do long-term damage to the principle of civilian primacy.
Oversight itself has also become politicized. Politicians increas-
ingly turn to those with military experience to run the Pentagon.
Trump decided to appoint a former general, Mattis, as secretary of
defense, and Biden did the same, putting Lloyd Austin in the post.
In both cases, Congress had to waive a requirement that officers be
retired for at least seven years before serving in the department’s top
job. The rule, which had been broken only once before, is designed
to prioritize leaders with distance from the mindset and social net-
works associated with military service. Ideally, defense secretaries
should be comfortable operating as civilians—not soldiers. Mattis’s
and Austin’s nominations, and subsequent confirmations, therefore
represent a break with over seven decades of law and tradition, be-
ginning with the 1947 reforms, stipulating that the secretary of de-
fense cannot be a recently retired general.
There is no obvious reason to think that those with military experi-
ence are better suited to controlling the military on behalf of Con-
gress or the president—and plenty of reasons to suspect the opposite.
In the military, soldiers are taught to follow orders, not scrutinize
their implications, as a cabinet official should. Military personnel,
moreover, are ideally taught to stay out of partisan debates, whereas
the secretary’s job demands well-honed political skill and experience.
Yet as Mattis’s and Austin’s appointments show, military service is
becoming a litmus test for Pentagon policy jobs traditionally held by
civilians, and this is true even at lower levels.
Meanwhile, the public is failing to insist that elected leaders hold
the military to account. Many Americans would rather put troops on
a pedestal and admire the military from afar. Repeating the mantra
“Support our troops” has become a substitute for the patriotic duty of
questioning the institution those troops serve. Large numbers of citi-
zens are now reluctant to even offer their opinions in response to
survey questions about the military, let alone to criticize military lead-
ers. In a 2013 YouGov survey, for instance, 25 to 30 percent of the
nonveterans asked consistently chose “I don’t know” or “no opinion”
in response to questions about the military.
At best, these trends immunize the military from scrutiny; at worst,
they give it a pass to behave with impunity. An October 2017 White
House press conference epitomized this exceptionalism: during a dis-
May/June 2021 67
cussion of Trump’s condolence call to the widow of a slain soldier, Kelly,

who had served in the military for more than four decades and whose
own son was killed fighting in Afghanistan, refused to call on journal-
ists who didn’t know someone who had had a family member killed in
combat. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary,
later admonished journalists for daring to question Kelly. Debating “a
four-star Marine general,” she said, was “highly inappropriate.”
ORIGIN STORY
Part of the decline in civil-military relations can be blamed on insti-
tutional changes. As the United States became a global power,
elected leaders developed a bureaucratic structure to manage the
military on a day-to-day basis. When it became clear at the start of
the Cold War that the U.S. defense establishment had become too
large for the president and the legislature to control on their own,
Congress passed the National Security Act of 1947. The law estab-
lished what would eventually become the Department of Defense
and placed at its head a civilian secretary of defense, who would
bring experience managing bureaucratic and domestic politics. That
person would have the exclusive job of ensuring that the military’s
activities aligned with the nation’s goals as determined by its elected
political leaders. And Congress granted the secretary a civilian staff
composed of individuals who could draw on their experiences in
government, business, and academia.
But in 1986, Congress unintentionally undid much of this work. That
year, it overhauled the 1947 law by passing the Goldwater-Nichols De-
partment of Defense Reorganization Act, which shifted power and re-
sources away from civilian leaders and to their military counterparts.
Since that law passed, large, well-resourced military staffs have displaced
civilians in the Pentagon and across the rest of the government. Today,
for example, ambassadors and other civilian officials frequently depend
on the military’s regional combatant commands for resources, including
planes and logistical support, necessary to do their jobs. Regional com-
batant commanders also have responsibilities that cross national bound-
aries, giving them de facto diplomatic authority and frequent contact not
only with their military counterparts overseas but also with foreign gov-
ernment leaders. The military officials who govern security assistance
and cooperation programs have also grown in number and influence,
further sidelining their civilian counterparts in the State Department.
It is a truism in national security discourse that diplomats are un-

derfunded relative to the military. Even former defense secretaries,
including Mattis and Robert Gates, have warned Congress of the risks
of underfunding the State Department. But no one ever does much
about it. Without a serious attempt at rebalancing, the military’s per-
sonnel and resource advantages will only further undermine civilian
control, giving the military extra speed and capacity that it can lever-
age during bureaucratic fights to make and implement policy.
At the same time, there has also been a hollowing out of the pro-
cesses of civilian control within the Department of Defense itself. In
recent years, the Pentagon has faced immense difficulties recruiting,
retaining, and managing the civilian professional staff responsible
for overseeing the uniformed military. These challenges are the re-
sult of underinvestment in the civilian workplace. There is little sys-
tematic training to prepare civilian officials for their responsibilities,
and they are often thrown into the deep end of the Pentagon and left
to sink or swim. In contrast, service members benefit from thorough
professional military education programs and other developmental
opportunities throughout their careers.
By 2018, this situation had deteriorated to a point where the bi-
partisan National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally
appointed panel, concluded that a lack of civilian voices in national
security decision-making was “undermining the concept of civilian
control.” To be sure, these problems became more acute during the
Trump administration, when the Pentagon was littered with acting
officials and unfilled positions. But the civilian bench was shallow
long before Trump took over.
PLAYING POLITICS
Partisan polarization has also undermined civilian control. After 9/11, the
public’s esteem for the military spiked, and politicians noticed. Elected
leaders became increasingly willing to disregard civil-military norms,
avoid serious oversight and accountability, and encourage military in-
subordination to score political points against their political opponents.
Today, politicians on both sides of the aisle capitalize on the mili-
tary’s prestige to shield themselves from criticism and attack their ri-
vals—often a cost-free strategy, given the military’s popularity. During
campaigns, candidates often claim that troops prefer them over their
opponent; in 2020, a Trump ad featured the tagline “Support our
Crisis of Command
troops,” and Biden cited a Military Times poll to suggest that it was he
who enjoyed their support. Candidates regularly seek the endorse-
ment of retired generals and even use them as partisan attack dogs. At
the 2016 Republican National Convention, the Trump adviser Mi-
chael Flynn, who had then been out of the military for just two years,
criticized Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, and encouraged the
crowd to chant “Lock her up!” As president, Trump repeatedly deliv-
ered partisan speeches in front of uniformed audiences, once telling
officers at MacDill Air Force Base, “We had a wonderful election,
didn’t we? And I saw those numbers—and you like me, and I like you.”
In over-the-top campaign videos, some post-9/11 veterans running for
office use their experience as a means of dividing those who served
from those who did not. In 2020, the Republican Texas congressman
and former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw released an Avengers-themed ad
entitled “Texas Reloaded” that featured attack helicopters, fighter jets,
and Crenshaw himself parachuting out of a plane.
More frequently ignored, however, are the less egregious moments
of politicization, such as presidents donning bomber jackets and flight
suits in public speeches to military audiences or venturing to West
Point to make major foreign policy addresses rather than to a civilian
university. All these actions reinforce the belief that military service
is superior to other kinds of public service.
Even though politicians try to gain electoral advantage through
such behavior, what they are ultimately doing is damaging their
own authority. By lionizing the armed forces, politicians teach the
public to expect elected officials to make concessions to military
leaders or defer to them on important decisions. This same dynamic
motivates civilian leaders to encourage officers to serve as “the
adults in the room,” resist or oppose their partisan opponents’ poli-
cies, or resign in protest against a lawful order from an elected pres-
ident. Although there may be short-term advantages to such
behavior (assuming, of course, that the military leaders are correct),
it subverts the broader principle that civilians get to pursue the
policies they were elected to carry out.
The military has also played a role in the degradation of civilian
control. For one thing, its nonpartisan ethic is in decay. Whereas the
majority of senior military officers did not identify with a political
party as late as 1976, nearly three-quarters do so today, according to
surveys of senior officers attending various war colleges conducted
May/June 2021 71
between 2017 and 2020. Many service members are comfortable air-
ing their partisan political commentary on social media to wide au-
diences, an outspokenness that would have made past generations of
soldiers blush. Retired generals involved in politics—especially
through campaign endorsements—reinforce to those in uniform
that the military is riven by partisan divides. Senior military leaders
have largely failed to address this behavior, either looking the other
way or attributing it to a few bad apples. Their silence, however,
normalizes partisanship in the military, with those in uniform con-
cluding that it is acceptable to openly pick political sides. Recent
surveys of senior active-duty officers found that roughly one-third
had observed their colleagues make or share disparaging comments
about elected officials on social media.
Service members also make civilian control that much harder when
they act as if they are superior to their civilian counterparts. Research
consistently shows that many in the military believe that their decision
to serve in uniform makes them morally superior to those Americans
who did not make that choice. According to a 2020 survey by the re-
search institution NORC, this sense of superiority extends even to their
views of those Americans whose jobs also entail significant risks—in-
cluding doctors fighting the pandemic and diplomats serving in combat
zones or in hardship assignments. At the extreme, military personnel
question the legitimacy of the civilians who oversee them, especially if
they suspect that those leaders don’t share their partisan views.
Another factor undermining civilian authority is the military’s attach-
ment to the notion that it should have exclusive control over what it
views as its own affairs. This concept, endorsed by the political scientist
Samuel Huntington, contends that the military has a right to push back
when civilians attempt to interfere in military matters. According to this
view, autonomy is a right, not a privilege. But military and political af-
fairs are not as distinct as many officers have been led to believe, and the
experience of other countries suggests that alternative models are just as
plausible: throughout Europe, for example, military leaders are accus-
tomed to much more intrusive oversight than their U.S. counterparts.
HOLLYWOOD TREATMENT
Trends in American culture underpin many of these problems.
Americans increasingly fetishize the armed forces and believe that
the only true patriots are those in uniform. According to Gallup poll-
Crisis of Command
ing, the public consistently has more confidence in the military than
in any other national institution. That admiration, coupled with de-
clining trust and confidence in civilian organizations, means that
large segments of the population think that those in uniform should
run the military, and maybe even the country itself.
This adoration has grown in part out of efforts to bring the military
out of its post-Vietnam malaise. In 1980, Edward Meyer, the army chief
of staff, declared his force a “hollow army,” and that same year, an op-
eration intended to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran ended in disaster, show-
ing the public just how depleted its armed forces had become. While
Congress attempted to rectify the situation by ramping up military
spending, the military cannily worked to rehabilitate its image through
popular culture. In the 1980s, the Pentagon cooperated with big-budget
movies such as Top Gun, a practice it has continued to the present with
such superhero films as Captain Marvel. By conditioning its cooperation
and provision of equipment on approval of the script, the military
learned that it could influence storylines and enhance its brand.
Another contributing problem is the military’s tendency to recruit
heavily from particular subsections of American society. With few
calls for shared sacrifice or national mobilization during the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq, the majority of the public had little to do be-
sides thank the troops for their service. The military, meanwhile went
to great lengths to honor soldiers with patriotic displays centered on
the nobility of military service, notably during college and profes-
sional sporting events. These trends all reinforced the notion that
military service members were truly exceptional—better, different,
and more selfless than the civilians who cheered them on.
REFORM OR PERISH
Together, these pressures have weakened the institutional processes,
nonpartisan practices, and societal values that have historically
served to keep the principle of civilian control of the military strong
in its mundane and often unglamorous daily practice. But the dam-
age can be repaired. Institutional reforms have the greatest chance
of success. Politicians on both sides of the aisle stand to benefit
from better civilian oversight.
Congress could start by rebalancing power in the Department of
Defense away from the Joint Staff and the combatant commands
(the 11 military commands with specific geographic or functional
May/June 2021 73
responsibilities) and toward civilians in the Office of the Secretary

of Defense. Legislators can do this by resisting calls to further cut
the Pentagon’s civilian workforce and by eliminating duplicate ef-
forts among the Joint StaR and the combatant commands, which
together account for an estimated 40,000 positions. A parallel pro-
gram to train, retrain, and prepare a civilian workforce would help
deepen the Pentagon’s civilian bench.
Congress should also rethink eRorts to give the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of StaR the mission of “global integration” of U.S. military
capabilities—an initiative that took root
when Joseph Dunford filled the role,
Politicians must stop from 2015 to 2019. The idea was that the
propagating the myth Joint Chiefs could adjudicate the mili-
tary’s competing geographic require-
that serving in the ments, curb the power of the combatant
military is a prerequisite commands, and prioritize resources.
for overseeing it. But that role is best played by civilians
in the defense secretary’s office, not by
a sprawling military staR.
The uniformed military must also address its role in undermining
civilian control. A hallmark of any profession is its ability to enforce
standards of conduct, and yet the military has at times struggled to
ensure that its members refrain from partisan activity. To address this,
active-duty officers should publicly disavow retired senior officers
who damage the military’s nonpartisan ethic through campaign en-
dorsements and other political pronouncements. Retired officers
should also use peer pressure to curb partisan campaign endorsements
among their colleagues. If that fails, Congress should consider insti-
tuting a four-year cooling-oR period that would prohibit generals and
admirals from making partisan endorsements immediately after retir-
ing—similar to what it did with lobbying eRorts.
Finally, military leaders must do a better job of educating service
members about the importance of nonpartisanship, including on social
media. This will require clear regulations and consistent enforcement.
The same leaders should also rethink their view of military profession-
alism, abandoning the notion that they have an exclusive domain and
embracing an approach that accepts the need for civilian oversight.
Other areas in need of reform, including among civilian elected
leaders, are less likely to see change. Politicians today face few reper-
Crisis of Command
cussions for politicizing the military, and they have considerable in-
centives to continue to do so. Still, elected leaders could start to deal
with the problem by ending the practice of soliciting endorsements
from retired generals. They could also stop using the uniformed mili-
tary as a backdrop for partisan political speeches and stop running
campaign advertisements that insinuate that they enjoy more military
support than their opponents. Veterans and active reservists or mem-
bers of the National Guard should also stop weaponizing their service
for electoral gain. That would mean an end to cashing in on public
support for the military through campaign ads that suggest their mil-
itary service makes them superior citizens.
Politicians should also stop propagating the myth that serving in
the military is a prerequisite for overseeing it. This belief not only
diminishes the important role civilians play but also symbolically
raises the military above its civilian superiors in the minds of service
members and the public. Instituting a ten-year waiting period—or at
least adhering to the existing seven-year requirement—before a re-
tired officer can serve as secretary of defense is a necessary step. So is
valuing and investing in the contributions of civilian expertise at all
echelons in the Pentagon.
Finally, those who continue to mythologize the military in popular
culture should rebalance their portrayals. A little more M*A*S*H—
the darkly comedic 1970s television series about a U.S. Army medical
unit during the Korean War—and a little less righteous soldiering
might humanize military personnel and chip away at the public’s dis-
torted view of the armed services. Bringing the military back down to
earth and a bit closer to the society it serves would help politicians in
their effort to scrutinize military affairs and encourage Americans to
see accountability as a healthy practice in a democratic society.
If Americans do not recognize the rot lurking beneath their idyllic
vision of civilian control, the United States’ civil-military crisis will
only get worse. More than most citizens realize, the country’s demo-
cratic traditions and national security both depend on this delicate re-
lationship. Without robust civilian oversight of the military, the United
States will not remain a democracy or a global power for long.∂
May/June 2021 75
America’s Military Risks

Losing Its Edge
How to Transform the Pentagon for a
Competitive Era
or almost a decade, U.S. defense officials have deemed the return
F of great-power competition to be the most consequential chal-

lenge to U.S. national security. In 2012, during the Obama ad-
ministration, the Defense Department announced that “U.S. forces will
no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability opera-
tions,” such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, marking a sharp departure
from the United States’ post-9/11 defense strategy. In 2016, Secretary
of Defense Ashton Carter highlighted a “return to great-power of com-
petition.” And in 2018, the Trump administration’s National Defense
Strategy crystallized this shift: “Inter-state strategic competition, not
terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security,” it de-
clared, with a particular focus on China as the pacing threat.
Yet despite such a widespread and bipartisan acknowledgment of
the challenge, the U.S. military has changed far too little to meet it.
Although strategy has shifted at a high level, much about the way the
Pentagon operates continues to re2ect business as usual, which is
inadequate to meet the growing threats posed by a rising China and
a revisionist Russia. That disconnect is evident in everything from
the military’s ongoing struggle to reorient its concepts of operations
(that is, how it would actually fight in the future) to its training,
technology acquisition, talent management, and overseas posture.
Some important steps have been taken to foster defense innovation,
MICHÈLE A. FLOURNOY is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of WestExec Advisors and
Co-Founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Center for a New American Security.
From 2009 to 2012, she served as U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
America’s Military Risks Losing Its Edge
but bureaucratic inertia has prevented new capabilities and practices

from being adopted with speed and at scale.
The Biden administration has inherited a U.S. military at an inflec-
tion point. The Pentagon’s own war games reportedly show that current
force plans would leave the military unable to deter and defeat Chinese
aggression in the future. The Defense Department’s leadership, accord-
ingly, must take much bigger and bolder steps to maintain the United
States’ military and technological edge over great-power competitors.
Otherwise, the U.S. military risks losing that edge within a decade,
with profound and unsettling implications for the United States, for its
allies and partners, and for the world. At stake is the United States’ abil-
ity to deter coercion, aggression, and even war in the coming decades.
Averting such an outcome will require fundamental reforms in
how the Pentagon operates. But changing organizational cultures is
far harder than revising defense strategy—necessitating not just a
clear and compelling vision but also realigned incentive structures
and greater accountability. Ultimately, the strategy will fail unless
these operational changes succeed.
The imperative is clear: the U.S. military must reimagine how it
fights and must make the technological and operational investments
necessary to secure its edge. It’s not about spending more money; it’s
about spending smarter, prioritizing investments to sharpen the mili-
tary’s edge. Time is no longer on the United States’ side in this com-
petition, and the stakes could not be higher. The Defense Department’s
actions—or inaction—in the next four years will determine whether
the United States is able to defend its interests and its allies against
great-power threats for the next four decades.
THE WARS OF THE FUTURE

In the months and years after 9/11, the U.S. armed forces prioritized
counterterrorism operations against al Qaeda and its affiliates around
the globe, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan. After the 2003 in-
vasion of Iraq, counterinsurgency operations consumed even more
U.S. forces and more of the attention of the Defense Department’s
leadership. For a decade, the wars being fought in the present left
little capacity to prepare for the wars of the future.
By 2012, a small but growing chorus of defense experts began sound-
ing the alarm that greater challenges were looming on the horizon and
that the United States needed a new strategy to meet them. The shift
May/June 2021 77
was driven in large part by China’s more assertive behavior and new
capabilities. Since the Gulf War, the Chinese military has gone to
school on the American way of war. It developed an expanding set of
asymmetric approaches to undermine U.S. military strengths and ex-
ploit U.S. vulnerabilities, including ro-
bust “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD)
The imperative is clear: the capabilities. These new capabilities—
cyber and electronic weapons, air de-
U.S. military must fenses, arsenals of precision missiles
reimagine how it ßghts. such as antiship weapons—are designed
to disrupt and destroy U.S. command-
and-control networks and thwart U.S.
power projection into the Indo-Pacific. As a result, the U.S. military
can no longer assume that it will have the freedom of action in a con-
2ict that it could have had in the past by gaining early superiority in the
air, space, cyberspace, and maritime domains. In any future con2ict,
U.S. forces will need to fight for advantage across these domains—and
then continue fighting to keep it—in the face of continuous Chinese
eRorts to disrupt and degrade U.S. battle-management networks.
One necessary shift is rethinking where U.S. military forces are
deployed—with a reduced focus on the greater Middle East, which,
even now, accounts for about one-third of U.S. forces deployed or
stationed outside the United States. An ongoing global force posture
review, initiated earlier this year at the direction of the president, aims
to give greater priority to deterring China, which is likely to mean
drawing down forces in the Middle East in order to make more avail-
able in the Indo-Pacific. To succeed, however, this change in strategy
must be matched by more than a shift in global posture; it will require
a wholesale realignment of concepts, culture, service programs, and
budgets. Otherwise, there will be a gradual erosion of U.S. military
superiority in the face of competition from other great powers. As a
consequence, the United States could no longer be confident in its
ability to deter Chinese aggression or protect its interests and allies in
Asia. And in the event of con2ict, it would pay a far higher price in
both blood and treasure. The costs of inertia and inaction are unac-
ceptably high.
Although the Pentagon has made some progress in stimulating in-
novation, it has not been at the pace or magnitude required. A number
of new organizations within the Defense Department have become
Wired for war: U.S. Air Force members at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, September 2020
quite eRective at surveying the technology landscape, identifying
promising solutions to priority problems, and then rapidly prototyping
new capabilities. The Defense Innovation Unit scouts innovation hubs
such as Silicon Valley, Austin, and Route 128 in Massachusetts to part-
KAY LA W H I T E / U .S. AI R F O RC E C EN T RA L COMM AN D PU B LIC AF F AI R S / AP
ner with commercial technology companies. ArwURX and sorwURX

play a similar role for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Special Operations
Command, respectively, acting as early-stage investors to accelerate
the adoption of commercial technologies for military missions. In late
2020, Will Roper, then the assistant secretary of the air force for acqui-
sition, technology, and logistics, estimated that over the previous three
years, ARwURX brought 2,300 companies into partnership with the U.S.
Air Force and the U.S. Space Force, most of which had never worked
with the U.S. military before. But few of these eRorts have been able
to cross the “valley of death,” the gap between developing a successful
prototype and being able to produce a system and field it at scale.
Similarly, in the last few years, the military services and the Joint
StaR have belatedly begun to develop and experiment with new con-
cepts of operations for dealing with great-power rivals. These eRorts
so far include ways of gaining the information advantage, coordinat-
ing long-range strikes, and providing logistical support to geographi-
May/June 2021 79
cally distributed forces in a contested battle space. But they remain

nascent. The Defense Department has yet to field new concepts and
capabilities, rapidly and at scale, that would deter great-power rivals.
When Chinese officials or strategists look at the U.S. military to-
day, they see key systems—those used to detect threats, to communi-
cate and navigate, and to target enemy
forces—that are vulnerable to attack.
Fundamentally reforming What’s more, U.S. forces will be at a
how U.S. forces ßght growing disadvantage, both quantita-
tively and qualitatively, in the face of
requires a wholesale shift expanding Chinese military forces and
in mindset. Chinese investments in capabilities
designed to prevent the U.S. military
from getting within range of China’s
shores. If Beijing believes it could thwart an eRective U.S. military
response, it might be tempted to use force against Taiwan or to seize
additional disputed territories in the South China Sea. Such a crisis
could quickly escalate into a military con2ict between two nuclear-
armed powers. Hence the imperative of ensuring that Chinese mili-
tary action would be unsuccessful and costly—and that Chinese
leaders are convinced of that fact.
So why the resistance to change? Driving change in large bureau-
cratic organizations is notoriously hard. In the Pentagon, it can seem
nearly impossible. The prevailing bureaucratic culture remains risk
averse: avoid making mistakes, don’t rock the boat, stick to existing
ways of doing business. In addition, top officials face a wide variety
of urgent challenges, from overseeing current operations (many of
them counterterrorism in the greater Middle East and Africa) to
dealing with sexual assault in the forces and extremist groups recruit-
ing members of the military. Moreover, the most senior Defense De-
partment leaders generally rotate through every two to three years,
making it difficult for them to impel a workforce of more than 730,000
civilians and 1.3 million men and women on active duty to embrace
new behaviors and hold them accountable for results. Too often, the
Defense Department has also failed to bring Congress along as a
partner, leaving a backdoor wide open for those who want to oppose
reform (since members of Congress often protect the status quo by
funding established priorities that create jobs in their districts, leav-
ing little room in the budget for anything new).
HOW CHANGE HAPPENS

To overcome this inertia, the new Pentagon leadership must do more
than make great-power competition a top priority in the Biden admin-
istration’s first National Defense Strategy, likely to be released later this
year or early next year. Even more important, great-power competition
must be a top priority when it comes to the way senior officials and of-
ficers spend their time and political capital. Change of the necessary
magnitude simply will not happen without senior Defense Department
leaders clearing the way and driving it forward every single day.
The first step must be developing new concepts of operations for
deterring and defeating great-power aggression in more contested
and lethal environments—a task just as important as that of equip-
ping U.S. forces with new capabilities. History shows that new con-
cepts can be even more powerful than new technologies alone. For
example, although tanks were introduced during World War I by the
British, they did not have a major impact until World War II, when
the Germans married this new capability with the concept of blitz-
krieg, using tanks with mechanized infantry and close air support to
break through Allied lines.
Fundamentally reforming how U.S. forces fight will require a whole-
sale shift in mindset. The U.S. military is used to having the upper
hand in any conventional military situation. It expects to be able to
rapidly gain superiority in any domain—in the air, on the land, at sea.
In the near future, however, this is unlikely to be the case when the
United States is up against another great power. Both Beijing and Mos-
cow have invested in cyber, electronic, and kinetic weapons designed to
disrupt the ability of U.S. forces to deploy, navigate, communicate, and
strike, as well as layer upon layer of defenses to shoot down U.S. aircraft
and sink U.S. ships before they can get within range of their targets.
Given these new capabilities, U.S. planners and commanders must
think about how to asymmetrically counter an adversary’s advan-
tages—including the fact that U.S. forces are likely to be outnumbered
and under persistent attack in any conflict. Rather than being confi-
dent that they can destroy the adversary’s defenses upfront and then
operate with relative impunity, U.S. forces must expect to remain un-
der attack throughout their operations. Under such conditions, U.S.
warfighting concepts can no longer rely on attrition-based warfare—
the notion that the side that can inflict the greater losses in personnel
and materiel will prevail, which has long shaped U.S. war planning.
Instead, they must shift to more creative approaches to deterring an

adversary, by disrupting its ability to see and target U.S. forces while
also putting its critical forces at risk. That could mean, for example,
using cyberattacks; electronic warfare, such as signals jamming; and
swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles to
confuse or blind an adversary’s surveil-
lance and targeting systems. In the wake of the pandemic,
The good news is that all the mili- defense budgets are likely to
tary services and the Joint Chiefs of
StaR have been working to develop new be constrained, which will
ways of fighting. The bad news is that require hard choices.
these concepts are still mostly in a Power-
Point stage. Defense Department and
military leaders must put considerably more resources—both financial
and intellectual—into accelerating the development, testing, and re-
finement of new concepts for both deterrence and operations.
Conceptual innovation needs four key ingredients: a mandate from
the top to break with current doctrine, a genuine competition of ideas,
an approach that engages as many of the brightest people with as di-
verse a range of experiences and perspectives as possible, and a will-
ingness to check rank and position at the door, to allow for the
possibility that the best ideas may come from the most junior partici-
pants. Both the military services and the Joint StaR must alter their
approaches to include these ingredients.
The secretary of defense should also establish a forum of senior
leaders to review and debate alternative proposals, in order to identify
gaps and to support the development of the most promising concepts.
Such support must involve considerably more analysis, war-gaming,
and experimentation in the field. Creating a virtuous cycle—from
concept development to war-gaming to experimentation—would help
turn promising ideas into usable new concepts. It would generate a
clear demand signal, build buy-in from senior leaders who must make
difficult but necessary tradeoRs, and begin to shift the culture of and
approaches to warfighting in the military services themselves.
Investing in training will also be essential. Consider the Navy
SUAus, which since 9/11 have been heavily used in land-based counter-
terrorism and counterinsurgency operations. In the future, the SUAus’
role should be very diRerent, centered more on maritime and clandes-
tine operations, which will be critical to deterring China across the
May/June 2021 83
Indo-Pacific. Making this shift will require investments not only in

equipping the force with new, cutting-edge capabilities but also in
giving them the time and space to reorient their training and develop-
ment. Similar modifications will be necessary across the entire force.
In addition, defense leaders will have to institute a more disciplined
approach to force management—that is, where and when U.S. forces
are deployed for routine operations around the world. The regional
combatant commands all naturally want resources for their respective
areas. The secretary of defense must curb their appetite for force de-
ployments in places where a degree of risk can and should be man-
aged. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should play a key role
here, providing concrete recommendations on where the United
States should be willing to accept more risk in order to shift more
resources to the places that matter most.
This assessment should be accompanied by a review of contingency
plans relevant to China and Russia, where new concepts and capa-
bilities are needed especially urgently, as well as an appraisal of how
basing arrangements and security-assistance programs can be strength-
ened. The Strategic Capabilities Office—which tests the use of exist-
ing capabilities in novel ways to give commanders new options in the
near term—has been underutilized in recent years. It should be em-
powered to identify new ways of using current U.S. capabilities to
strengthen deterrence against China and Russia—be it putting the
U.S. Navy’s long-range antiship munitions on U.S. Air Force bomb-
ers or enabling U.S. fighters to disperse hundreds of microdrones to
conduct surveillance or overwhelm an adversary’s air defenses.
HARD CHOICES
The Pentagon leadership also needs to rethink how it decides what to
buy. In the wake of the pandemic, defense budgets are likely to be
constrained, which will require hard choices and smarter spending.
Today, the Defense Department is investing too much in legacy plat-
forms and weapons systems already enshrined in the budget—such as
tactical fighter aircraft and large surface ships—at the expense of the
new technologies that will determine whether such platforms can sur-
vive and succeed in a more contested future. Too frequently, major
acquisition decisions are framed in terms of replacing one aging plat-
form with another more modern version of the same thing (such as
replacing fourth-generation fighters with fifth-generation fighters),
instead of asking the more fundamental question of how a given mis-

sion (such as achieving air superiority) can be performed most effec-
tively and affordably. Consequently, the discussion narrows to focus
on platform replacements rather than considering how to use new
technologies and capabilities to solve problems in new ways.
The Pentagon must change its basic approach, adopting a portfolio-
management strategy: for each mission, it should identify the mix of
capabilities that would produce the best outcomes at an acceptable
cost and risk. That would allow decision-makers to make informed
tradeoffs between competing procurement priorities. Based on these
priorities, the Pentagon could send clearer signals to industry, in or-
der to stimulate private-sector investment in the technologies most
critical to sharpening the U.S. military’s edge.
In recent years, Defense Department spending in such areas as arti-
ficial intelligence (AI), autonomy, unmanned systems, and high-powered
computing has been unpredictable and uneven. Spending varies year by
year and is spread across multiple, not clearly visible accounts, weaken-
ing the signal being sent to industry to invest alongside the government
in priority areas. To send a more powerful message to industry, includ-
ing venture-backed cutting-edge technology companies, and to attract
capital to augment public R & D investment, the secretary of defense
should announce a set of “big bets”—areas in which the Defense De-
partment intends to invest billions of dollars in emerging technologies
over the next five years. Such areas could include developing a secure
and resilient “network of networks” for what is known as C4ISR—com-
mand, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance—which enables U.S. forces to continue to operate
effectively even in the face of enemy attacks; using AI to help warfighters
make better decisions faster or to deploy fleets of autonomous systems
teamed with human operators; developing logistical solutions to sup-
port a more distributed force; and strengthening cyber-capabilities to
protect legacy weapons in the face of China’s A2/AD capabilities.
One of the biggest obstacles to fielding emerging capabilities quickly is
the traditional requirements process—the painstaking procedure the mil-
itary uses to define the performance specifications for every major weap-
ons system it buys. Designed to ensure that the Defense Department
has fully specified its needs when purchasing complex weapons systems,
this rigid, sequential, years-long process is antithetical to the agile, itera-
tive development necessary for making progress on new capabilities.
A better acquisition process would be diRerentiated, distinguishing

between major hardware platforms, such as a new bomber or aircraft car-
rier, and emerging technologies, such as AI, 5G, robotics, biotechnology,
quantum computing, and directed-energy weapons (such as lasers and
rail guns). Rather than setting requirements in stone upfront, agile de-
velopment methods allow for iterative
design and testing, with ample oppor-
tunities for interaction and feedback Strategy can be changed
among engineers, operators, and pro- with the stroke of a pen,
gram managers. This approach has be-
gun to be used in pockets across the
but changing culture means
services (especially in the air force), altering how human beings
Special Operations Command, and actually behave.
the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.
And last year, the Department of De-
fense published a new “adaptive acquisition framework,” which aims to
enable the more rapid and agile procurement of software systems. But
much more is required. A good start would be adopting the recommen-
dations of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence,
an independent federal commission, including its advice on training and
educating the defense workforce and investing in digital technologies.
Although focused on AI, these recommendations would accelerate the
adoption of other new technologies, as well.
The Defense Department also needs a better way of helping prom-
ising prototypes cross the so-called valley of death and make it to
production—one of the biggest hurdles to fielding emerging capabili-
ties at scale. Part of the problem is the disconnect between the officials
sponsoring the prototypes and the officials responsible for acquisition.
A technology company may win a prototype competition, only to be
told that it must wait 12 to 18 months to compete for a production
contract. Unless this valley of death is bridged, many investors will
counsel their companies to stay away from the defense market.
That will require new types of funding to help companies transition
from a prototype to production. One approach would be to ask Congress
to authorize bridge funds, managed and allocated by the Defense De-
partment’s undersecretary for research and engineering, for which each
service could compete. More fundamentally, it will require altering the
training and incentives of acquisition officials, who must be given the
tools and encouragement to use 2exible authorities and agile develop-
May/June 2021 87
ment for emerging technologies. A sub-cadre of officials—Pentagon

“product managers,” with tailored training, performance metrics, re-
wards, and career paths—could focus on integrating best practices for
agile development from the commercial sector. Over time, these prod-
uct managers would become the Green Berets of technology acquisition.
The Defense Department will also need to update its digital infra-
structure—everything from cloud computing to AI development tools
to data storage and management systems—to support more rapid in-
novation. There have been ongoing delays in upgrading and investing
in software development and digital design, with a corresponding gap
in physical science and technology infrastructure spending, impeding
the Defense Department’s ability to keep up with testing and devel-
opment in areas such as AI. According to a 2017 study by the Defense
Science Board, a committee of experts who advise the Department of
Defense on scientific matters, the average army lab is 50 years old.
PEOPLE ARE POLICY

The final obstacle is the shortage of technology talent across the De-
fense Department’s workforce, both civilian and military—a “digital
readiness crisis,” in the words of a March 2020 report by the Defense
Innovation Board. Existing recruitment programs are both too small
and too narrowly focused on cybersecurity, and the existing tools for
“nontraditional” hiring are hardly used. The barriers to recruiting
technology talent—a security clearance process that can take years
and an opaque, antiquated, and painfully slow hiring process that av-
erages 150 days—are considerable. And the relatively limited pay,
professional-development opportunities, and career paths for tech-
nologists make it difficult to retain the small pool of technology talent
that the Defense Department does manage to recruit.
Although most coding and engineering will continue to be done by
private industry, the Pentagon needs a skilled technology workforce
of its own. It should assess its talent needs across its innovation net-
work and throughout the product lifecycle and start fully using the
hiring authorities it has, while also creating new career paths for sTEM
graduates from the service academies and the Reserve Officer Train-
ing Corps. A new Defense Department digital corps would also help,
as would partnerships with nonprofits and the private sector to allow
highly skilled personnel to do a tour of duty working on national se-
curity without making a permanent career change. Technology com-
panies could also do much more to help, by encouraging their own

employees to take up such opportunities and by offering public ser-
vants more technology training and exposure to the private sector.
Efforts by the new Defense Department leadership team, under
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, to increase diversity and inclu-
siveness will also enhance the Pentagon’s performance. Developing a
military force and a civilian defense cadre that look more like the
American people they are sworn to protect is not just a social good; it
will lead to teams that are likely to make better decisions and drive
progress toward an even higher-performing military.
Strategy can be changed with the stroke of a pen, but changing cul-
ture means altering how human beings actually behave, which is consid-
erably more complicated. It requires a clearly communicated vision
from the top, sustained leadership engagement, buy-in from managers
at multiple levels, revised incentives to realign behavior toward desired
outcomes, and a greater emphasis on holding people accountable for
results. Consider a simple example. When I served as undersecretary of
defense for policy, I sought to prioritize training and professional devel-
opment in order to improve staff morale and performance. For starters,
every employee would receive two weeks of training per year. Supervi-
sors nodded their heads in agreement. But in the weeks that followed,
few training requests came in, just excuses about why it couldn’t be
done. Only when I clarified that no supervisor could receive the highest
performance-evaluation rating unless his or her office met the new re-
quirement did behavior change: I received hundreds of training requests
in a matter of weeks. Sharpening the military’s edge requires a whole
host of these kinds of behavior changes. They will succeed only if incen-
tives are aligned to reward and promote the changes required for suc-
cess and people are held accountable for delivering results at all levels.
THE DANGERS OF DECLINE

If the Pentagon maintains its inherited course, the United States’ abil-
ity to deter coercion and aggression will atrophy over the coming dec-
ade. That is especially dangerous as it relates to China: given Beijing’s
persistent assumption that the United States is in decline, Chinese
leaders could become increasingly aggressive, using their growing po-
litical, economic, and military might to pursue their claims in the East
China and South China Seas or with Taiwan. The risk of miscalcula-
tion—and conflict—will rise sharply as a result.
May/June 2021 89
A decline in relative military power would also undermine U.S.

credibility with allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific, making it
difficult to reassure them of the United States’ ability to deliver on
commitments to their security. Some smaller countries would likely
bend to Chinese coercion and influence in ways that could affect not
only regional stability but also trade and economic relationships criti-
cal to U.S. economic recovery and future growth. Larger countries
might pursue more independent security policies that could range
from appeasing Beijing to acquiring their own nuclear weapons as a
deterrent, neither of which would be in U.S. interests. Overall, U.S.
influence would diminish in the very region on which the future pros-
perity and security of Americans most depends, lowering perceptions
of U.S. power and leadership globally.
Averting this deterioration would not only have security benefits;
it would also help reverse the narrative of U.S. decline and bolster
American confidence at home. Changing the Pentagon is just one part
of a larger effort to reinvest in the domestic drivers of U.S. competi-
tiveness—from innovation and infrastructure to education and im-
migration. This moment offers a chance to do more than strengthen
the military. It is a chance to strengthen the country.∂
The Home Front

Why an Internationalist Foreign Policy
Needs a Stronger Domestic Foundation
.S. President Joe Biden has declared that under his leadership,
U “America is back” and once again “ready to lead the world.”

Biden wants to return the country to its traditional role of
catalyzing international cooperation and staunchly defending liberal
values abroad. His challenge, however, is primarily one of politics, not
policy. Despite Biden’s victory in last year’s presidential election, his
internationalist vision faces a deeply skeptical American public. The
political foundations of U.S. internationalism have collapsed. The do-
mestic consensus that long supported U.S. engagement abroad has
come apart in the face of mounting partisan discord and a deepening
rift between urban and rural Americans.
An inward turn has accompanied these growing divides. President
Donald Trump’s unilateralism, neo-isolationism, protectionism, and na-
tivism were anathema to most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment.
But Trump’s approach to statecraft tapped into public misgivings about
American overreach, contributing to his victory in 2016 and helping him
win the backing of 74 million voters in 2020. An “America first” approach
to the world sells well when many Americans experience economic inse-
curity and feel that they have been on the losing end of globalization. A
recent survey by the Pew Research Center revealed that roughly half the
U.S. public believes that the country should pay less attention to prob-
lems overseas and concentrate more on fixing problems at home.
CHARLES A. KUPCHAN is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor
of International Affairs in the School of Foreign Service and the Government Department at
Georgetown University, and the author of Isolationism: A History of America’s EVorts to Shield Itself
From the World. He served on the National Security Council during the Obama administration.
PETER L. TRUBOWITZ is Professor of International Relations at the London School of

Economics and Political Science and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House. He is the
author of Politics and Strategy: Partisan Ambition and American Statecraft.
The Home Front
Redressing the hardships facing many working Americans is essential

to inoculating the country against “America first” and Trump’s illiberal
politics of grievance. That task begins with economic renewal. Restoring
popular support for the country’s internationalist calling will entail sus-
tained investment in pandemic recovery, health care, infrastructure,
green technology and jobs, and other domestic programs. Those steps
will require structural political reforms to ease gridlock and ensure that
U.S. foreign policy serves the interests of working Americans.
What Biden needs is an “inside out” approach that will link im-
peratives at home to objectives abroad. Much will depend on his will-
ingness and ability to take bold action to rebuild broad popular support
for internationalism from the ground up. Success would significantly
reduce the chances that the president who follows Biden, even if he or
she is a Republican, would return to Trump’s self-defeating foreign
policy. Such future-proofing is critical to restoring international con-
fidence in the United States. In light of the dysfunction and polariza-
tion plaguing U.S. politics, leaders and people around the world are
justifiably questioning whether Biden represents a new normal or just
a fleeting reprieve from “America first.”
WILL IT PLAY IN PEORIA?

U.S. presidents who have overlooked the challenge of mobilizing and
maintaining domestic support for their efforts to redefine the country’s
international ambitions have often paid a price for their political mal-
practice: their foreign policies ran aground at home. Having won the
election of 1844 in part by embracing an expansionist platform, Presi-
dent James Polk, a Democrat from Tennessee and a protégé of President
Andrew Jackson, took a divided country to war against Mexico in 1846.
The United States handily won the war, and the deal to end it extended
the border of Texas southward and led to the U.S. acquisition of a major
swath of Mexican territory. But this expansion fueled the intensifying
sectional rivalry over slavery between the North and the South, contrib-
uting to the defeat of the Democrats in 1848 and pushing the country
toward civil war. Manifest Destiny overran its domestic foundations.
President Woodrow Wilson’s foreign policy ambitions met a similar
fate. Wilson’s turn to internationalism began smoothly enough, with
Congress overwhelmingly backing his decision in 1917 to abandon neu-
trality and enter World War I in response to a number of German
provocations. But the story ended badly despite Germany’s defeat:
May/June 2021 93
Wilson failed to secure Senate approval of U.S. participation in the

League of Nations. Wilson believed that entering a pact for peace
would afford the United States the “infinite privilege of fulfilling her
destiny and saving the world.” His lofty internationalism, however,
represented a radical departure for the country, far outstripping what
domestic politics would allow. Wilson’s idealistic vision of a new U.S.
role in the world collapsed in a paroxysm of partisanship. The Senate
on three separate occasions rejected the league, and the Democrats
were then pummeled in the election of 1920.
Expansionist and internationalist presidents are not alone in hav-
ing stumbled over domestic obstacles. Trump’s “America first” slogan
initially sounded good to many voters, but it failed to sustain its ap-
peal, particularly among political moderates. Trump imposed slap-
dash tariffs, broke international commitments, ignored human rights,
and shunned allies. His hardcore supporters stood by him, but many
Americans turned against him—and it is easy to see why. Trump’s
trade policies ended up doing more harm than good for American
workers. He blamed China for the CoVID-19 pandemic but largely
idled as the disease ravaged the United States. He left the United
States estranged from its allies and made a hash of his top strategic
priorities, such as reining in nuclear programs in Iran and North Ko-
rea. These failures contributed to his defeat last year.
In contrast, Franklin Roosevelt provides perhaps the best example of
a president who deftly navigated the domestic politics of foreign policy.
He overturned the isolationist consensus that had handcuffed U.S. for-
eign policy during the interwar period and built a broad bipartisan co-
alition behind his wartime response to the threats posed by Nazi
Germany and imperial Japan—and, later, behind his plans for the post-
war world. The success of the New Deal and the wartime boom helped
him convince Americans that U.S. engagement abroad and an open
world economy would enhance the country’s security and yield postwar
prosperity. Roosevelt’s foreign policy emphasized American values as
well as interests. It appealed to idealists and realists alike and paid divi-
dends for Americans from every region of the country and all walks of
life (despite Roosevelt’s less-than-stellar record on civil rights). More
than any other president, Roosevelt helped cement liberal internation-
alism as the guiding ethos of U.S. statecraft in the twentieth century.
Biden has made clear that he wants to model his presidency on Roo-
sevelt’s and has even hung a portrait of Roosevelt in the Oval Office.
The Home Front
Come ßy with me: Biden boarding Air Force One, February 2021
But Biden faces a political moment even more challenging than the one
his hero confronted. When Roosevelt took office in 1933, the Demo-
crats enjoyed a 196-seat majority in the House of Representatives and
a 23-seat majority in the Senate, whereas Biden has thin Democratic
margins in both chambers. By the time Roosevelt set out to sell inter-
nationalism to the electorate after the outbreak of World War II, he had
delivered on much of the New Deal; the eRects of Biden’s ambitious
domestic agenda mostly remain to be seen. The United States is today
more politically divided, economically unequal, and demographically
diverse than it was during Roosevelt’s era. Indeed, the political hurdles
to governing in Washington have become so high that it is now nearly
SAM U E L CO RUM / T H E N EW Y O R K T I M E S / RE D UX
impossible for the majority party to win the minority party’s support
for even hugely popular legislation, such as the covID-19 relief bill ap-
proved in March. If Biden hopes to build a new internationalism, he
must transform the American political ecosystem.
TRADER JOE?
Biden can start reconnecting what the United States does abroad to
the economic and social needs of working-class voters at home by
opening up the making of foreign policy to new voices. For far too
long, Democratic as well as Republican administrations have pursued
policies that have fueled popular mistrust by serving the interests of
May/June 2021 95
the few at the expense of the many. The process of making foreign
policy, although open to big corporations, largely ignores the interests
of American workers. Normally, the concerns of ordinary Americans,
if they figure in at all, come into play only after a foreign policy is
set—especially when it comes to trade. By the time Congress gets in-
volved in a trade deal, it is too late to
build in a workers’ rights or jobs agenda.
If Biden hopes to build A case in point is President Barack
a new internationalism, Obama’s approach to the negotiations
that led to the massive trade agreement
he must transform known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
the American political Prior to striking the deal, the Obama ad-
ecosystem. ministration did not adequately address
elements of the pact that disadvantaged
blue-collar workers, such as a dispute-
resolution system that favored corporate interests and loopholes that
made it possible for China to enjoy duty-free exports of parts and com-
ponents to the U.S. market via other TPP members. During the 2016
presidential campaign, Trump slammed the accord for benefiting special
interests at the expense of workers. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, had
helped negotiate the TPP while serving as Obama’s first secretary of
state, but she distanced herself from the deal during the campaign, as did
many down-ballot Democratic candidates. The TPP was already on life
support by the time Trump pulled the plug on it days after taking office.
To put the interests of working families at the table, Biden should
make the U.S. secretary of labor a permanent member of the Na-
tional Security Council, like the secretary of the treasury. Doing so
would give factory workers, farm hands, and service workers a stronger
voice in White House deliberations over foreign policy. Biden should
also create senior deputy positions on the USC and in the Depart-
ment of State, the Department of Defense, the Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, and other foreign policy agencies to ensure
that the needs of American workers are considered early and often in
the policymaking process. The Biden administration should also
deepen the institutional links among the USC and the offices dealing
with the home front, such as the National Economic Council and
the Domestic Policy Council. The administration could establish a
weekly meeting of an interagency policy committee on economic
security, co-chaired by the USC, the UUc, and the DPC.
The Home Front
Washington also needs a new approach to trade adjustment—that

is, the steps the government takes to mitigate the negative effects
(reduced wages, lost jobs) that trade deals inevitably have on many
workers. Currently, Washington offers displaced workers counseling,
retraining, tuition, and other forms of support through a program
known as Trade Adjustment Assistance. The program is too reactive,
however, since it helps workers only after companies have shuttered
factories or laid off employees. Moreover, TAA fails to address labor-
market disruptions caused not by trade or globalization but rather by
technological change. By training workers in new skill sets and mak-
ing public investments in health care, education, and government ser-
vices, Biden can create more jobs that are less susceptible to
displacement through automation or trade. The administration also
needs to redress the community-level effects of job loss, which in-
clude economic stagnation, population decline, substance abuse, and
increased crime and violence. One possible model is the Pentagon’s
Defense Economic Adjustment Program, which supports economic
diversification in communities adversely affected by military base clo-
sures or defense program cancellations.
These reforms would pay off for years to come, making it more
likely that Washington would aggressively enforce U.S. domestic trade
laws, use existing international forums such as the World Trade Organ-
ization to ensure fairer trade, and pursue policies on taxes, procure-
ment, the environment, infrastructure, and worker development that
would make American businesses and workers more resilient and com-
petitive. Implementing these improvements now, early in the admin-
istration, would increase the chances that Biden’s successor would keep
them in place, regardless of which party holds the White House. In an
age of populism, the next president will see little political advantage in
rolling back reforms that promote the interests of American workers.
FIX THE SENATE

Biden can further shore up the domestic foundations of U.S. state-
craft by bringing strategic priorities back into alignment with political
means. The Biden administration should reduce U.S. commitments
in the Middle East by continuing to downsize the American military
footprint in the region; the “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq
have produced little good. In the meantime, Biden should return to
the time-tested touchstone of U.S. statecraft: working with allies to
May/June 2021 97
defend democracy and promote stability in Asia and Europe. To that

traditional agenda, Biden should add a new focus on combating and
adjusting to climate change, promoting global health, and maintain-
ing the U.S. edge in technological innovation.
This strategic realignment is not only good policy—it is also good
politics. Roughly three-quarters of American voters want U.S. troops to
leave Afghanistan and Iraq. In contrast, staying put in Asia and Europe
alongside democratic allies enjoys strong public support. NATo wins
solid backing from voters of both major U.S. political parties. Democrats
and Republicans also agree on the need to take a firm line toward China,
and the Biden administration is on solid political footing in strengthen-
ing ties to partners in the Indo-Pacific, affirming the U.S. commitment
to Taiwan’s security, and encouraging the world’s democracies to “de-
couple” from China when it comes to sensitive technologies. The Amer-
ican public also prioritizes addressing climate change and global health.
Biden can build further support for a new internationalist consensus by
making significant investments in the domestic economy that raise
living standards, reduce inequality, and restore the social contract. In
taking on that task, Biden cannot afford to wait for bipartisan agree-
ment in Congress, which is unlikely to emerge in an intensely polar-
ized Washington. Biden’s agenda will require ambitious and expensive
legislation the likes of which the United States has not seen since the
New Deal. To get it through, Biden and his allies in Congress will need
to overhaul the archaic filibuster rules in the U.S. Senate. Many ob-
servers claim that the filibuster promotes consensus by forcing the two
parties to find common ground. In truth, however, the filibuster rarely
has that effect: often, it simply serves to kill legislation passed by the
House. By forcing the majority party to assemble a supermajority of 60
votes to pass most laws, the filibuster allows the minority to block bills,
including those that enjoy broad popular support. To liberate policy
from the grips of this manufactured gridlock, Biden should urge Sen-
ate Democrats to ditch the filibuster outright or significantly reform it
so that Congress can get back to the business of passing needed laws.
Republicans will cry foul. But they scrapped the filibuster in 2017
when it came to pushing through the confirmation of Supreme Court
nominees. If doing away with the filibuster makes sense when it comes
to the justice system, surely it also makes sense for rebuilding the
economy and guaranteeing the nation’s security. Moreover, scrapping
the current supermajority requirement might actually increase bipar-
The Home Front
tisanship in the long run. By advancing policies that are popular with
the broader electorate, presidents would, over time, be able to once
again garner support from the minority party. Consider, for example,
Roosevelt’s success in securing bipartisan backing. He was able to win
over numerous Republican members of Congress because they hailed
from states that found much to like in the New Deal and the eco-
nomic benefits of liberal internationalism.
Following Roosevelt’s lead, Biden can reawaken bipartisanship
through strategic public investment, using the $2 trillion “Build Back
Better” infrastructure proposal he campaigned on to bridge the urban-
rural divide that reinforces political paralysis and widens partisan
divisions. Extending broadband networks to rural areas would pro-
mote more equitable economic growth and wider civic engagement.
Repairing the nation’s ailing bridges, roads, and mass transit systems
would spur growth in metropolitan areas. Transitioning from fossil
fuels to renewable energy would create millions of new jobs and boost
U.S. competitiveness in lagging sectors. By targeting infrastructure
and climate investments, Biden can spark private-sector engagement
in the right places and help reduce economic inequality. Strategic in-
vestments at home will also yield payoffs abroad by spurring high-
tech innovation as geopolitical competition plays out over climate
change, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence.
WALK THE WALK

Another way to shore up support for internationalism is to repair the
American brand by standing up for democracy and human rights
around the world. Partners abroad join most Americans in welcoming
Biden’s efforts to put the United States back on the right side of his-
tory. But to make good on that goal, the United States must exhibit at
home the values it seeks to promote abroad.
During the 1950s, segregation and racial discrimination eroded
U.S. credibility abroad, especially in the developing world. The pas-
sage of the watershed 1964 Civil Rights Act did not silence the United
States’ most vocal foreign critics, but it did make it easier for Wash-
ington to promote social justice beyond its borders. The Trump era,
in contrast, seriously compromised American moral authority.
Trump’s nativistic appeals exacerbated racial tensions, and his refusal
to accept the outcome of the 2020 election constituted an assault on
the institutions and norms of American democracy. By the time hun-
May/June 2021 99
dreds of Trump’s supporters launched a violent attack on the U.S.

Capitol on January 6, the country’s image among foreign partners
had already sunk to historic lows.
In the aftermath of these events, Biden will have to couple his de-
fense of democracy abroad with political reform at home if he is to avoid
charges of hypocrisy. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s proposal to estab-
lish a bipartisan, independent commission to probe the attack on the
Capitol is a strong step in the right di-
rection and one that Biden has sensibly
The United States must endorsed. The commission’s charge
exhibit at home the values should include getting to the bottom of
it seeks to promote abroad. what led to the insurrection and why se-
curity provisions at the Capitol were so
inadequate. In addition, it should ad-
dress how to prevent bogus challenges to the certification of future elec-
tions and propose wide-ranging reforms to strengthen the country’s
electoral procedures, including the management of the transfer of power.
The United States should also begin repairing its increasingly unrep-
resentative electoral system. Passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Ad-
vancement Act would reverse years of federal and state eRorts to restrict
access to voting for minority, elderly, and disabled citizens. That bill
should move forward alongside the omnibus legislation known as the
For the People Act, which has passed the House and would make it
harder for lawmakers to gerrymander voting districts in ways that re-
duce the representation of growing nonwhite populations. In the near
term, the passage of those bills would clearly favor Democrats. Over the
longer term, however, such legislation would strengthen U.S. democracy
by incentivizing both parties to compete for the votes of all Americans.
Finally, Biden should encourage state-level initiatives to reform the
way voters elect their representatives. Currently, most states hold sepa-
rate, party-only primary elections. Amid today’s intense polarization,
this system punishes moderates; to secure nomination, candidates cater
to their ideological 2anks instead of the political center. Alaska, follow-
ing the lead of many established democracies around the world, is dem-
onstrating how to reverse this dynamic. It has eliminated party primaries
in favor of a single, open primary. The four candidates who receive the
most votes will then move on to a general election in which voters will
use a ranked-choice system to list the candidates from all parties, from
most preferred to least preferred. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the
The Home Front
first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is

eliminated, and the second choices of voters for that candidate are then
awarded those votes. The process is repeated until one candidate wins
a majority. Ranked-choice voting is not a magic bullet. But because it
incentivizes candidates to reach out to the largest possible number of
voters, it could help detoxify the country’s political ecosystem.
THE ROOSEVELT MODEL

Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, the leading Republican voice
on foreign policy during the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies, is
perhaps best remembered for claiming that “politics stops at the water’s
edge.” Politicians from both parties have invoked Vandenberg’s line
ever since. Yet the phrase, if catchy, is misleading. When it comes to the
conduct of foreign policy, the most successful presidents are those who
master not just the art of statecraft but also the politics of the moment.
Roosevelt may have been particularly adept at diplomacy and
wielding U.S. power abroad, correctly reading the geopolitical land-
scape as he distinguished vital from peripheral interests, friend from
foe, and capabilities from intentions. But what made Roosevelt a truly
great statesman was his ability to read the domestic political terrain:
to know where the redlines were, how to speak to people’s needs and
aspirations, and how to build lasting political support for an interna-
tionalist agenda during a time of crisis.
Biden can learn from Roosevelt’s experience to overcome the do-
mestic obstacles that contribute to today’s crises: a policymaking
process that does not adequately represent the interests of ordinary
Americans, dysfunctional political practices that block bipartisan-
ship and exacerbate divisions, and an electoral system that seems
more dedicated to disenfranchising voters than ensuring that their
voices are heard. Biden’s challenge is not just to bring the United
States back to the global stage through tactical and temporary ad-
justments—he must also reimagine what is politically possible. By
reforming and strengthening the country’s institutions and making
its domestic and foreign policies more economically inclusive, Biden
can build back better in a way that outlasts his presidency and re-
stores the country’s commitment to a steady and purposeful brand of
American internationalism.∂
May/June 2021 101

The Resurgence
of the Rest
Can Emerging Markets Find New
Paths to Growth?
Ruchir Sharma
fter the turn of the millennium, it became commonplace to
A hear pundits say that the future belonged to the developing

world. These countries were enjoying a run of spectacular
growth. Between 2000 and the early 2010s, their share of global GDP
more than doubled, from 17 percent to 35 percent. Their average in-
comes were rapidly catching up to those of developed nations. The
share of the global population living on less than $2 a day was cut
nearly in half, from 28 percent to 16 percent. Assuming the boom
could last indefinitely, writers began to speak of the coming “emerg-
ing markets century,” but the phrase that best captured the Zeitgeist
was “the rise of the rest.” This vision of a leveled planet, with poor
countries growing faster than rich ones and catching up in terms of
average income, appealed to anyone rooting for the underdog.
On Wall Street, analysts marketed Brazil, Russia, India, and
China as the “BRICS,” suggesting rock-solid growth prospects. Copy-
cats followed with acronyms such as “MIUT” (Mexico, Indonesia,
Nigeria, and Turkey) or nicknames such as “the tiger cubs” of South-
east Asia. Each label captured clusters of smaller and smaller emerg-
ing markets, all supposedly destined for prosperity. Some warned
that it made no sense to lump together random countries this way.
Brazil, for example, is a major exporter of iron ore and other com-
modities, whereas India is a major importer of commodities; they
are developing on entirely diRerent paths, and economic conditions
RUCHIR SHARMA is Chief Global Strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management
and the author of The Ten Rules of Successful Nations.
The Resurgence of the Rest
Making it: a worker in Gurgaon, India, May 2007

that favor one can undermine the other. But it was a time of giddy
optimism, and questions were out of style.
Then came the global financial crisis, which exposed the developing
world’s boom as a freak event driven by a perfect storm of forces, in-
cluding surging trade and capital 2ows and rising commodity prices.
JA C O B S ILB E RB E R G / PA N O S PIC TU RE S / RE D UX
In the years that followed, many nations turned inward, nursing their
own wounds and raising barriers to foreign money and imports. Trade
and capital 2ows slowed. Commodity prices plunged. At the same
time, the end of the postwar baby boom was starting to shrink the la-
bor force in more and more countries.
Instead of booming again in the 2010s, half of all emerging econo-
mies grew more slowly than the United States and fell behind in
average income. Their share of global GDP stagnated at around 35
percent. The biggest emerging economies, so recently hyped as fu-
ture stars, began to fade. Skeptics spoofed the BRICS as a “Bloody
May/June 2021 103

Ruchir Sharma
Ridiculous Investment Concept.” By the time the CoVID-19 pan-

demic hit, many developing countries were nearly broke. In 2020,
more than 80 of them were forced to seek financial help from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF).
For the most part, emerging economies had fallen off people’s ra-
dar, written off as lost causes by the global media and investors. But
forecasters who mistakenly assumed a decade ago that the entire de-
veloping world could stay hot indefinitely were equally ill advised to
assume it would stay cold forever. “The rest” were never likely to rise
as a pack—or stagnate as a pack.
The 2020s now appear likely to unfold as a typical postwar decade,
with some emerging economies falling, others rising, and a few stand-
ing out as genuine stars. A few will continue to rise to prosperity
through the tried-and-true method of export manufacturing. But
more are likely to be energized by forces unleashed during or acceler-
ated by the pandemic: rising commodity prices, new economic re-
forms, and, most unexpectedly, the digital revolution.
Most emerging economies depend on commodity exports for
growth, and global prices for those exports have already begun to re-
bound after declining throughout the 2010s. Financial distress caused
by the pandemic is generating a widely overlooked wave of reform,
which could boost growth in some developing countries. Finally, In-
ternet businesses built with digital technology are spreading faster in
developing nations than developed ones, which could also propel de-
veloping nations to grow faster in the future. None of these forces can
boost growth indefinitely, or in all developing countries. But in vari-
ous combinations, they are likely to put at least a few of these forgot-
ten economies on a new miracle path.
THE END OF AN ERA

There was always reason to believe that emerging economies’ wildly
successful run after 2000 would come to an end. In most decades after
World War II, economic growth rates were similar in developed and
developing nations. And since the population was growing faster in
the developing world, the per capita income of most developing coun-
tries was falling behind that of the United States much of the time.
Individual countries might leap forward for a decade or two, moving
up one income class, but more often than not, they hit a crisis that set
them back to where they started. Many developing countries have
been following this pattern since record keeping began. Long-term

success stories are celebrated as “miracles” because they are that rare.
Only a handful of countries have bucked these dominant trends.
The IMF tracks 195 economies but counts only 39 as advanced. Most
of these are Western countries that were already considered advanced
at the end of World War II. But a few big economies did manage to
sustain strong growth for decades, rising out of poverty and into the
wealthy class, including Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan.
These Asian miracles all used the same strategy to catch up to the
West: they built themselves into export-manufacturing powerhouses.
By bringing in revenue from all over the world, exports boosted
growth to rates that would have been impossible to sustain in a do-
mestic market alone. The problem today is that it is increasingly dif-
ficult for developing countries to rise the way the Asian miracles did.
The role of manufacturing in the global economy is shrinking. As
robots replace humans on the factory floor, fewer assembly lines can
produce the same amount of goods. Simultaneously, consumers sated
with household goods are shifting to spending on more services. Ex-
ports have also begun to play less of a part in the global economy, as
the free-market impulses of globalization give way to the protection-
ist instincts of deglobalization. This is the root of the pessimism en-
gulfing the developing world. Where will the growth come from?
Those doubts are, like the hype that preceded them, overdone. Just
because the most successful of the old growth models—export manu-
facturing—is fading doesn’t mean developing countries won’t find
ways to rise from the ashes of the global pandemic.
MANUFACTURING MARVELS
Although manufacturing has historically been the surest path to pros-
perity, it is an increasingly narrow one. These days, only a few coun-
tries benefit, as producers, seeking lower wages and shorter supply
lines, move their factories out of China. For now, the handful of win-
ners are concentrated in eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
The IMF has a complex and partly subjective definition of “advanced
economies,” but one thing those economies have in common today is
an average annual income of at least $17,000. The last large economies
to break that barrier were the manufacturing giants South Korea and
Taiwan, back in the late 1990s. And the next major country to make
that leap is likely to be another export manufacturer: Poland.
May/June 2021 105

Ruchir Sharma
In recent years, Poland has gotten a lot of attention for the right-wing
populist drift of its political culture but little for its extraordinarily
steady economic success. After completing its transition from commu-
nism to democracy in 1991, Poland embarked on more than a quarter
century of rapid growth, averaging more
than four percent per year, unbroken by
Just because export even a single year of negative growth.
manufacturing is fading By the eve of the pandemic, that unusu-
doesn’t mean developing ally long run had increased the average
Polish income tenfold, to nearly
countries won’t ßnd ways $16,000—close to the threshold of the
to rise from the ashes advanced class.
of the global pandemic. The secret to Poland’s success has
been manufacturing. New export pro-
ducers have risen all along its western
border, including in Gdansk and Krakow, which are less populous
than Warsaw but geographically well positioned to serve richer Euro-
pean markets. Many of those producers began as startups launched by
Polish entrepreneurs who openly admire U.S. capitalism and were
animated by disdain for their Soviet communist past. Others are
manufacturing plants established by foreign multinationals, produc-
ing everything from light bulbs to car parts.
Poland is the biggest player in the widening manufacturing hot
zone of eastern Europe, but not the only one. Today, Hungary and
Romania are also within striking distance of the advanced income
level. Candidates are also rising in Southeast Asia, including Indone-
sia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Asian contenders tend to be a bit
behind the eastern European countries, with average incomes below
$10,000, but they also tend to be growing faster.
The most impressive case is Vietnam. Analysts first began speaking
of Vietnam as “the next China” during the boom that began around
2000, and the country is now mobilizing for manufacturing-led growth
as perhaps only a one-party, authoritarian state can. With the govern-
ment urging the population of 96 million to follow covID-19 proto-
cols over loudspeakers and through mass texts, Vietnam has achieved
one of the world’s lowest death rates. Following brief and mild lock-
downs, it was the fastest-growing economy of 2020.
Vietnam’s breakout has been a long time in the making. During
their boom years, the original Asian miracles produced annual export
growth close to 20 percent—nearly double the average for other

emerging economies. Vietnam has sustained a similar pace for three
decades. Even as global trade slumped in the 2010s, Vietnam’s exports
grew by 16 percent a year, by far the fastest rate in the world and three
times as fast as the average for emerging economies. Over the last five
years, no country has increased its share of global exports more than
Vietnam has. Like all Asian miracles in their early years did, Vietnam
invests heavily in new roads, ports, and railways; it now gets higher
World Bank grades for the quality of its infrastructure than any other
developing nation at a similar stage of development.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of the original Asian miracles
was that they managed to grow the pie while sharing it more broadly,
reducing inequality. Vietnam is starting to draw attention for the
same reason. The average income in Vietnam is nearly 30 times as
high as it was in 1990 and has risen to almost $3,000 per person.
Vietnam’s workforce is unusually healthy, well educated, and well
nourished for a low-income country. A 2020 IMF study praised Viet-
nam for investing heavily in the economy while reducing poverty
and “leaving no one behind.”
HOT COMMODITIES
Unfortunately, most emerging economies depend greatly not on ex-
porting manufactured goods but on exporting oil, soybeans, metals,
and other raw materials. And so their fortunes are whipsawed by the
rise and fall of global prices for these commodities. Historically, com-
modity prices have followed a predictable cycle of long booms and
long busts, which have left prices essentially flat in inflation-adjusted
terms since records began in 1850.
No wonder so many emerging economies get stuck in the develop-
ing stage. “The rise of the rest” was a writerly translation of “mass
convergence,” jargon for the period when virtually all emerging econ-
omies were growing fast enough to see their average incomes catch up
to, or converge with, that of the leading developed nation, the United
States. The average incomes of converging nations have tracked com-
modity prices for decades, rising rapidly together in the 1970s, falling
together in the 1980s and 1990s, rising together again after 2000, and
then slipping backward in the 2010s.
So, like commodity prices, the fortunes of major commodity ex-
porters tend to go nowhere in the long run. The average income of
May/June 2021 107

Ruchir Sharma
Brazil, a diverse exporter of oil, soybeans, and other commodities, is

no higher today relative to the United States’ average income than it
was in 1850. South Africa, another diverse exporter, has fallen be-
hind in relative terms over the same period. Of the 18 largest oil-
exporting countries for which data are
available, 17 are no richer today in rel-
A silver lining of ative terms than they were in the year
COVID-19 is that it they discovered oil. (Only Oman has
represents the biggest managed to break out.)
Why are commodities a less reliable
incentive to reform path to growth than manufacturing? The
in decades. export revenue is less steady. Digging
stuR out of the ground requires less in-
novation than manufacturing goods and
therefore generates little or no gains in productivity, which is the real
key to durable increases in prosperity. And the so-called curse of com-
modities is real: commodity price booms often breed corruption, as of-
ficials vie for a piece of the windfall profits rather than focusing on
long-term budget and investment discipline. Thus, commodity-driven
economies tend to not only grow erratically but also suRer from high
levels of corruption and its equally destructive companion, high levels
of wealth inequality.
Nonetheless, after falling in the 2010s, global commodity prices started
to turn upward late last year, and there are many reasons to believe this
revival can endure. One is the weakening dollar. Prices for commodities
such as oil and steel are denominated in dollars, so a weakening dollar
leads, almost by definition, to a rise in commodity prices. And the U.S.
Federal Reserve’s massive printing of dollars, aimed at easing the eco-
nomic pain of the pandemic, is already weakening the dollar. More than
20 percent of the U.S. dollars in circulation were printed in 2020.
The political winds also favor commodity exporters. With China
recently having committed to net-zero emissions by 2060 and the
United States under the Biden administration likely to follow suit,
countries representing more than half of global GDP will have made
this pledge. This campaign will lift economies that export metals
necessary for green electrification programs. Among the main ben-
eficiaries will be platinum exporters, such as South Africa and Rus-
sia, and copper producers, such as Chile and Peru. A sunny and
unusually windy climate also makes Chile a potentially major sup-
plier of renewable power and of green hydrogen fuel—the kind pro-

duced using renewable power.
With more infusions of stimulus already in the pipeline every-
where from China to the United States, government spending will
keep fueling demand, including demand for commodities. Much of
China’s CoVID-19-induced stimulus spending is going to new infra-
structure projects, boosting demand for building materials. Record-
low mortgage rates are driving housing booms from Germany to
the United States, with a similar effect on demand for construction
materials. Many countries are also sharply increasing social bene-
fits, which go to lower-income families—those most likely to spend
the additional income, further lifting consumer demand and prices
of raw materials.
At the same time, weak prices over the last decade greatly reduced
new investment, leaving supplies of commodities tight. Whether the
post-pandemic recovery lasts or not, rising demand will collide with
low supply to push prices up—and not only for environmentally
friendly commodities. Oil could get a similar lift, following a period
when low prices forced many oil fields to shut down.
To be clear, rising prices will not be enough to generate rapid, sus-
tained growth for all commodity exporters. Many will be held back by
incompetent or corrupt leaders, bloated bureaucracies, or other fac-
tors. Still, some will enjoy a good run. A diversified exporter such as
Brazil is likely to benefit from the general rise in prices. And its growth
could last at least as long as the revival of commodity prices does.
RADICAL REFORMS
As the United States and other developed countries spend massively
on stimulus to ease the pain of failing businesses and shelter-at-home
orders, they are ignoring or explaining away the likely consequences
of their spending. Rising deficits and debt will drag down productiv-
ity and therefore economic growth. But developing countries are
moving in the opposite direction: unable or unwilling to borrow and
spend, they are encouraging painful productivity-boosting reforms,
which will spur growth.
This is a familiar pattern. Many developing countries push for eco-
nomic reforms only when forced to in a crisis. They then fritter away
the gains during the ensuing boom and fall back into financial trou-
ble. The bigger the crisis, the greater the incentive to reform. A silver
May/June 2021 109

Ruchir Sharma
lining of CoVID-19, then, is that it represents the biggest incentive to

reform in decades.
China is a classic case. In 2008 and 2009, Beijing spent so heavily
that its massive stimulus program was praised for supposedly saving
the world. But China’s growth slowed in subsequent years, weighed
down by debt. This time, facing the CoVID-19 pandemic and a sluggish
economy, China has spent less heavily, particularly relative to the
United States, as have many others in its class. On average, big emerg-
ing economies are spending nine percent of GDP—roughly one-fourth
the median of developed countries—on stimulus to fight the pandemic.
Instead, they are pushing for reform. Much attention has been
paid to Beijing’s new focus on self-reliance and its efforts to build its
own technology supply chain, invulnerable to U.S. sanctions. Yet last
summer, the Chinese leadership also announced plans to strengthen
property rights, facilitate the free flow of capital and labor, allow
flexible price adjustments, and encourage competition in ways that
would let productive companies thrive and unproductive ones fail.
Less dead wood could boost growth.
Reform is also in the offing in India. When Prime Minister Naren-
dra Modi came to power, in 2014, he was touted as a radical reformer,
but for the most part, he has only tinkered at the edges. Lately, how-
ever, Modi’s government has started to take decisive steps to address
lagging economic growth, including cutting corporate taxes. After
the pandemic hit last year, it took controversial actions to open up
the labor and agricultural markets, and it is now battling in the Su-
preme Court to see those changes through.
It’s hard to know which types of reforms will have the biggest eco-
nomic impact, or any impact at all. But anyone who has traveled to
certain developing countries has seen how even a single reform-minded
leader with ambition can fire up consumer confidence—and it has been
years since reform plans looked this ambitious. Consider Indonesia. In
recent years, the country streamlined the paperwork for hiring foreign
workers and set up a one-stop shop that processes new business licenses
in three hours. In 2020, it topped all of that when its parliament, over
the protests of unions, passed a bill to boost investment and create jobs
througha sweeping reduction in red tape,laborlaws,and corporate taxes.
It is striking to see other change-averse states sticking to reforms
that were controversial before the pandemic and are even more so
now. Brazil, for example, is pushing ahead with an overhaul of its crip-
Ruchir Sharma
plingly expensive pension system. It aims to cut spending by more

than $140 billion over ten years, in part by raising the retirement age
for both men and women. And in traditionally insular Saudi Arabia,
the government is granting new rights to foreigners, including the
right to own 100 percent of publicly traded companies in a variety of
sectors, including health and education, and the right to obtain (for a
hefty fee) permanent residency permits, which include the legal au-
thority to purchase property.
For all the recent focus on the U.S. election, politics matters more in
emerging economies, where relatively weak institutions mean that a
single leader can have a much greater impact on policies and growth.
The reforms that China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia are
undertaking represent attempts to solidify national finances and open
the economy to market forces. So far, all these campaigns are being
pushed by incumbent leaders. What happens next depends on how long
the pandemic lasts and how many governments it topples.
After the financial crises that hit emerging markets in the late 1990s,
new leaders rose to power with a strong popular mandate for change.
In Brazil, Russia, South Korea, and Turkey, those leaders at least ini-
tially proved to be reformers: they lowered debt and deficits, welcomed
foreign investors, and helped set the stage for the developing world’s
boom. South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who served from 1998
to 2003, implemented the most far-reaching reforms, which is one rea-
son South Korea has continued to advance more steadily than the other
members of this group and most other emerging economies. If the
pandemic brings to power a new generation of reformers, some with a
transformative impact, it would not be the first time.
THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

So far, only export manufacturing has demonstrated the capacity to
sustain almost double-digit rates of economic growth, at least in an
elite few countries. But the digital revolution, by rapidly widening the
reach of online shopping, banking, entertainment, and new business
services to previously unserved markets, offers the promise of a new
development miracle. It is not likely to generate growth as fast as
manufacturing could, because in most countries, digital services are
rising as local industries, with no added boost from exports. But it can
simultaneously and sustainably transform domestic economies across
the developing world, not just in a handful of countries.
Digital services can grow explosively across the greenfield that is the
developing world. Many consumers there have little access or attach-
ment to an old fixed-line world of brick-and-mortar shops, banks, and
theaters, and they are thus quick to adopt the latest digital services. In
China, the prototypical case, the new digital economy is already growing
fast enough to compensate for the decline of aging rust-belt industries.
In fact, the spectacular rise of a parallel Internet universe, dominated
not by U.S. search and social media giants but by Chinese rivals such as
Alibaba and Tencent, is perhaps the main reason China is still growing
faster than—and on track to catch up
with—the United States. Already,
China is a leader, if not the leader, in Digital services can
digital technologies from robotics to grow explosively across
artificial intelligence.
Already, copycats of U.S. and Chi- the greenßeld that is
nese Internet companies are providing the developing world.
search, shopping, and other services,
and gaining momentum, everywhere from Asia to South America and
Africa. Catering to local tastes and languages, these regional Internet
giants are rapidly expanding consumer access to finance, shopping,
travel, and other services, while also greatly increasing productivity.
According to the World Bank, the average cost of starting a busi-
ness has not changed since 2003 in developed economies, whereas in
developing economies, it has fallen from 50 percent more than the
average annual income to 60 percent less. Much of this improvement
stems from the fact that entrepreneurs in developing countries can
now launch a business—from landing a loan to taking payments from
customers—on the increasingly ubiquitous smartphone.
Surprisingly, the digital revolution is as advanced in developing
countries as in developed ones, or even more so—and it is spreading
faster. Although no large developing countries are among the world’s
30 richest countries in terms of per capita income, 15 are in the top
30 in terms of the share of economic output that comes from digital
revenue (which includes revenue from e-commerce, e-media, and
e-services of all kinds). China, Indonesia, Colombia, Chile, and In-
dia are all near the top. These economies are already more digitized
than most of their developed rivals.
And in all of them, digital revenue is growing much faster than the
overall economy—in Colombia, Indonesia, and Turkey, more than
May/June 2021 113

Ruchir Sharma
seven percentage points faster than GDP. In Southeast Asia, digital

technology is outrunning both the forecasts and the hype. Since 2016,
Google has teamed up with Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund to re-
port on the digital economy in Southeast Asia. The first report ex-
pected digital revenue to quadruple, to $200 billion, by 2025, but the
latest one has upped the 2025 forecast to $300 billion.
No developed economy is getting nearly as large a lift from digital
industries. Robotic waiters, drone delivery services, and digital cash
are already far more common in China than in the United States. A
homegrown version of Amazon is rapidly becoming the dominant
e-commerce platform in Poland. Google is building the newest mod-
els of its Pixel smartphone in Vietnam, where e-commerce is growing
at an annual rate of 40 percent. Lagos and Nairobi are rising fast as
the financial-technology capitals of Africa, and some of their leading
entrepreneurs are explicitly aiming to raise the region’s “digital GDP”
by widening access to Internet financing.
A NEW MIRACLE
The celebration and hype that just a decade ago swirled around hot
emerging markets are not likely to return. Shrinking populations, ris-
ing debt, and declining trade and capital flows are slowing growth in
all economies, developed and developing. As late as 2010, the hottest
emerging economies were still growing at a rate close to ten percent a
year, a pace that will be all but impossible to sustain in a world bur-
dened by depopulation, debt, and deglobalization. But emerging
economies also won’t need to grow that fast to catch up with the West,
whose economies are slowing as well. Even five percent growth could
generate new miracles when the average growth rate in developed
countries has fallen to two percent or less.
The idea of mass convergence captured so many imaginations be-
cause it sketched a new arc for humanity, with fewer failing econo-
mies, less poverty and suffering, and more investment opportunities
in emerging economies. From socialists at Berkeley to capitalists on
Wall Street, everyone could buy into this vision of the future.
Instead, the U.S. economy’s rise in the 2010s, led by a small group
of giant technology firms, left a world more grossly out of balance
and arguably more unfair than ever. Today, the United States accounts
for about a quarter of global GDP, and after sucking up the lion’s share
of investment dollars for the last ten years, it also accounts for 57
percent of the value of global stock markets. The leading emerging

markets account for more than a third of global GDP but only nearly
14 percent of the value of global stock markets.
But money tends to follow economic growth, and gaps this ex-
treme between economic output and financial gains tend to rebalance
themselves over time. In fact, since late 2020, investors from around
the world have been returning to emerging markets, which is another
reason to believe that the coming decade could be a good one for
some of these countries. And if those investments help boost the av-
erage growth rate of emerging economies by even one percentage
point over the next decade, that would lift an additional 200 million
people, now surviving on less than $2 a day, above the poverty line.
The 2020s may not offer a new arc for humanity, but it will still be a
good decade for the underdogs.∂
May/June 2021 115


The Perilous Bargains
That Keep Putin in Power
Timothy Frye
or 21 years, Vladimir Putin has reigned supreme over Russian
F politics. A skillful manipulator of public opinion, he wields the

blunt force of repression against opponents at home and the
sharp power of cyber-operations and espionage campaigns against en-
emies abroad. Increasingly, Western analysts and officials portray him
as all-powerful, a ruthless former KGB man who imposes his will on
Russia from behind dark sunglasses. This narrative, which the Krem-
lin goes out of its way to reinforce, is tempting to believe. Putin has
jailed the closest thing he has to a political rival—the opposition
leader Alexei Navalny—and crushed a wave of protests by Navalny’s
supporters. Putin’s intelligence agencies brazenly hacked the U.S.
government, and his troops are gradually eroding U.S. in2uence ev-
erywhere from Libya to Syria to Ukraine.
But if Putin is unrivaled at home, he is not omnipotent. Like all au-
tocrats, he faces the dual threats of a coup from elites around him and a
popular revolt from below. And because of the compromises he has had
to make to consolidate his personal control over the state, Putin’s tools
for balancing the competing goals of rewarding elites who might other-
wise conspire against him and appeasing the public are becoming less
and less eRective. He has weakened institutions such as courts, bureauc-
racies, elections, parties, and legislatures so that they cannot constrain
him, meaning that he cannot rely on them to generate economic growth,
resolve social con2icts, or even facilitate his peaceful exit from office.
This leaves Putin dependent on the 2eeting commodity of personal
popularity and the hazardous methods of repression and propaganda.
TIMOTHY FRYE is Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy at
Columbia University and the author of Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in Putin’s
Russia (Princeton University Press, 2021), from which this essay is adapted.
116 R O R U Ig u Ar rA I R S
Those who acknowledge these vulnerabilities frequently note that

Putin is “playing a weak hand well.” But Putin has dealt his own hand,
and it is weak primarily because of the tradeoffs inherent to regimes
like the one he has built. Eventually, he will have to decide whether to
continue the same balancing act, skillfully playing his weak hand even
as it gradually diminishes his power, or try to strengthen his hand by
introducing economic reforms that will threaten his core constituen-
cies in the security services, the bureaucracy, and the private sector.
Putin was buoyed by an oil-fueled economic boom that sharply
raised living standards in his first decade in office and a wave of na-
tionalist sentiment following the annexation of Crimea in his second.
As the sheen on these achievements has begun to wear off, however,
Putin in his third decade in office has increasingly come to rely on
repression to neutralize opponents both big and small. This trend will
likely intensify as Russia’s problems mount, accelerating a cycle of
political violence and economic malaise that could stymie Putin’s
great-power ambitions and test his political skill.
THE PERILS OF PUTINOLOGY

The narrative of Putin as all-powerful is sustained in part by analysts
who believe that to understand autocracy, one must understand the au-
tocrat. Putinologists scour the Russian leader’s background, his career
path, and even his reading choices for clues to his policies. Their analy-
sis makes for a compelling story of Putin’s Russia, but it does not ex-
plain all that much. After all, Putin was just as much an ex-KGB man in
the early years of this century, when he favored liberal economic poli-
cies and better relations with the West, as he is today, with his strident
anti-Western stance. More important, Russian politics follow patterns
common to a subset of authoritarian regimes that political scientists call
“personalist autocracies.” Studying this type of system, rather than
studying the man himself, is the best way to understand Putin’s Russia.
Personalist autocracies are, as the name suggests, run by lone indi-
viduals. They frequently have political parties, legislatures, and influ-
ential militaries, but power over important personnel or policy
decisions always resides with one person at the top. Contemporary
examples of this kind of regime include Viktor Orban’s in Hungary,
Rodrigo Duterte’s in the Philippines, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s in Tur-
key, and Nicolás Maduro’s in Venezuela. The former Soviet space has
proved especially hospitable to personalist autocrats: such leaders
May/June 2021 117

Timothy Frye
currently rule Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajiki-

stan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Globally, personalist autocracies
are now the most common type of autocracy, outnumbering both
one-party regimes, such as those in Singapore and Vietnam, and mil-
itary regimes, such as Myanmar’s.
Personalist autocracies exhibit a host of pathologies that are familiar
to Russia watchers. They have higher levels of corruption than one-
party or military autocracies and slower
economic growth, greater repression,
Like all autocrats, Putin and less stable policies. Rulers in per-
faces the dual threats of a sonalist autocracies also have a common
toolkit: they stoke anti-Western senti-
coup from elites around ment to rally their base, distort the
him and a popular revolt economy to benefit cronies, target po-
from below. litical opponents using the legal system,
and expand executive power at the ex-
pense of other institutions. Often, they
rely on an informal inner circle of decision-makers that narrows over
time and appoint loyalists or family members to critical positions in
government. They create new security organizations that report di-
rectly to them and appeal to popular support rather than free and fair
elections to legitimate their authority.
These tendencies are readily explicable when one considers what
personalist autocrats stand to lose if they leave office. The leaders of
military dictatorships can retreat to the barracks, and the heads of
one-party dictatorships can retire to plumb posts in the party, but
personalist dictators enjoy their wealth and in2uence only as long as
they stay in power. And once they relinquish it, they are at the mercy
of their successors, who rarely want once formidable rivals waiting in
the wings. Over the last 70 years, personalist autocrats who lost power
have tended to end up in exile, in jail, or dead.
Although he may not show it, Putin is surely aware of this danger.
As Gleb Pavlovsky, a former adviser to the Russian leader and now a
critic, put it in a 2012 interview:
In the Kremlin establishment . . . there has been an absolute conviction
that as soon as the power center shifts, or if there is mass pressure, or
the appearance of a popular leader, then everybody will be annihi-
lated. It’s a feeling of great vulnerability. As soon as someone is given
the chance—not necessarily the people, maybe the governors, maybe

some other faction—they will physically destroy the establishment, or
we’ll have to fight to destroy them instead.
The similarities between Putin and other personalist dictators do

not end with his worries about removal. Like his Filipino, Hungarian,
Turkish, Venezuelan, and Central Asian counterparts, he has gradu-
ally eroded the powers of the legislature, subdued independent media,
subverted elections, and usurped authority from previously powerful
regional officials. Last year, Putin pushed through changes to Russia’s
constitution that will allow him to run for office in 2024 and 2030.
Given the potential downsides of leaving office as a personalist auto-
crat, this effort to prolong his rule came as little surprise. Faced with
similar term limits, every personalist autocrat in the former Soviet
Union has made the same choice.
But by undercutting the kinds of political institutions that constrain
executive power, Putin has reduced certainty about policy and in-
creased the vulnerability of elites. As a result, investors prefer to park
their capital in safe havens outside Russia, and many young Russians
have taken their significant human capital abroad. Even superrich
Russians feel vulnerable: they hold far more of their wealth in cash and
have more volatile incomes than do their peers in other countries, and
they have resisted the Kremlin’s calls to bring their capital home.
Without strong formal institutions to legitimate his rule, Putin
relies on great personal popularity to deter challenges from elites
and keep protesters off the street. Over the last 20 years, Putin’s ap-
proval ratings have averaged a remarkable 74 percent, and there is
little reason to believe that Russians are lying to pollsters in large
numbers. But these high approval ratings were largely driven by the
economic boom that doubled the size of Russia’s economy between
1998 and 2008 and the unique foreign policy success of annexing
Crimea in 2014. Since 2018, Putin’s popularity has wavered. His ap-
proval ratings remain in the mid-60s, but Russians express far less
trust in him than they have in the past. In a November 2017 poll,
when asked to name five politicians they trusted, 59 percent of re-
spondents named Putin; in February 2021, just 32 percent did so.
During the same interval, support for a fifth Putin term fell from 70
percent to 48 percent, with 41 percent of Russians surveyed now say-
ing that they would prefer he step down.
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Timothy Frye
THE IMPOTENCE OF OMNIPOTENCE

Putin is constrained not just by his need for high approval ratings but
also by the challenges of governing a modern society with an unwieldy
bureaucracy. In Khrushchev: The Man and His Era, the political scien-
tist William Taubman recounts how Nikita Khrushchev, who led the
Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and controlled a Communist Party
and a bureaucratic apparatus with far greater influence over society
than Putin has, complained to the Cuban leader Fidel Castro about
the limits of his power:
You’d think I could change anything in this country. Like hell I can. No
matter what changes I propose and carry out, everything stays the same.
Russia is like a tub full of dough, you put your hand down in it, down to
the bottom, and think you’re master of the situation. When you first pull
out your hand, a little hole remains, but then, before your very eyes, the
dough expands into a spongy, puffy mass. That’s what Russia is like.
Russia’s enormous size and bureaucratic complexity mean that Putin

inevitably must delegate some decision-making authority to lower-
level officials, all of whom have their own interests. And because
Russia’s state institutions are weak, Putin must also work with power-
ful businesspeople who are more keen to make money than to serve
the state. As Putin’s authority is channeled down through this chain
of bureaucrats, businesspeople, and spies who may or may not share
his preferences, slippage inevitably occurs, and policies do not always
get implemented the way he would have preferred.
The problem gets worse when the Kremlin seeks to maintain
plausible deniability. To covertly supply rebels in eastern Ukraine,
for instance, Putin partnered with Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian
oligarch who allegedly funded a band of private mercenaries that
maintained indirect ties to the Russian military. In July 2014, how-
ever, these rebels appear to have inadvertently shot down a Malay-
sian commercial airliner, killing almost 300 passengers and crew
members. In order to camouflage its cyberattacks, the Kremlin
similarly relies on hackers who work for private-sector front com-
panies but who answer to the Russian security services. In 2016, it
was the sloppiness of these hackers that allowed the United States
to identify Russia as the source of the Democratic National Com-
mittee hack. The Russia analyst Mark Galeotti has dubbed the
Kremlin’s outsourcing of dirty work to groups with murky ties to
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown: Putin in Sochi, Russia, October 2019
the state “adhocracy.” This method of statecraft hides Moscow’s
hand, but it also loosens its grip on policy.
SER G E I CHI RIK OV / POO L / RE UT E RS
The Kremlin struggles with more mundane tasks, as well. In 2012,

Putin issued a detailed set of targets to increase economic growth, im-
prove bureaucratic efficiency, and support social programs. That these
decrees were poorly formulated was one indication of the bureaucracy’s
weakness (among other 2aws, they optimistically assumed an annual
growth rate of seven percent). But even more telling was the lack of
follow-through. On the five-year anniversary of these decrees, Sergei
Mironov, then the head of the Kremlin-friendly party A Just Russia,
May/June 2021 121

Timothy Frye
reported that the bureaucracy had implemented just 35 of the 179 de-
crees monitored by his committee in parliament. Autocrats have long
struggled to elicit honest information from their subordinates and
make sure their policies have taken hold, and Putin is no exception.
DUAL THREATS
Imperiled and constrained by the very compromises that enable them to
amass power, personalist autocrats struggle to balance defending against
the two main threats to their rule: coups by the political elite and pro-
tests by the public. Those in the leader’s inner circle typically have a
stake in the regime’s survival. This is true of Putin’s cronies, who have
become rich beyond their dreams. But these elites also pose a potential
threat. Cronies can capture personalist autocrats who lean too heavily
on them for support. Moreover, rare is the political insider who thinks
he could not do a better job than his boss if given the chance. According
to the political scientists Barbara Geddes, Joseph Wright, and Erica
Frantz, between 1945 and 2012, leaders of nondemocracies were more
than twice as likely to be replaced by an elite coup as by a popular revolt.
Autocrats also face threats from below in the form of protests. The
“color revolutions” toppled rulers in Georgia in 2003, Ukraine in 2004,
and Kyrgyzstan in 2005. Few worries animate the Kremlin more than
the possibility of a popular uprising, and many analysts argue that it
was the large protests against corruption and electoral fraud in 2011
and 2012 that prompted the Kremlin to sharply increase the penalties
for attending and organizing protests.
These dual threats put Putin in a bind, because steps that might
reduce the risk of a coup by elites can increase the risk of a popular
revolt, and vice versa. Investment in the security services that buys
the loyalty of elites may necessitate cuts to social services that stoke
popular anger and risk igniting protests. Conversely, generous social
programs that placate the public and forestall a revolt may require
cuts to state spending that anger regime insiders and make a palace
coup more likely. In general, Putin must walk a narrow line between
allowing his cronies to engage in enough corruption and self-dealing
to keep them loyal and promoting sufficiently broad-based economic
growth to keep the public from protesting.
In his first decade in office, high energy prices and sound macro-
economic policy obscured this tradeoff, allowing Putin to reward
both elites and the masses with spectacular increases in income. But
the days of $100-a-barrel oil and surging living standards are behind
him, and Putin must now choose between rewarding his cronies and
reforming the economy. Infighting among elites, although always
hard to measure, appears to be on the rise as the regime’s economic
largess falls. The last four years have seen a sitting minister of eco-
nomics jailed for bribery, a senator arrested on the 2oor of the Fed-
eral Assembly for murder, and a prominent American businessman
detained for almost two years. Ar-
rests for economic crimes, which are
often a rough proxy for violent cor- Putin has increasingly
porate raids, increased by a third in come to rely on repression
2019. And spats among Russia’s secu-
rity services surged in 2018 and 2019, to neutralize opponents
until the coronavirus pandemic hit. both big and small.
The public, too, is restless. Real
household income fell every year be-
tween 2013 and 2019. Pension reforms shaved 15 percentage points
oR of Putin’s approval rating over the course of 2018, and Russians
routinely cite economic difficulties as their most pressing problem.
The protests in January in support of Navalny, which occurred in
more than 100 cities, were rooted as much in economic dissatisfac-
tion as in opposition to Putin.
Putin faces a similar dilemma in foreign policy. The policies
needed to generate economic dynamism—opening the economy to
foreign trade, reducing corruption, strengthening the rule of law,
increasing competition, and attracting foreign investment—are dif-
ficult to square with his assertive foreign policy, which has benefited
hard-liners in the security agencies and firms in import-competing
sectors. The Kremlin’s more confrontational foreign policy toward
the West has brought Moscow back as a global force and secured
Putin’s place in Russian history, but it has also impeded much-needed
economic reforms that would strengthen the country’s position
abroad over the longer term and satisfy Russian citizens, most of
whom, according to opinion polls, care more about their own living
standards than their country’s great-power status.
Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and intervention in eastern
Ukraine led to U.S. and European sanctions that have further slowed
the economy. These measures have scared oR foreign investors and
reduced Russian access to foreign technology and financing. That
May/June 2021 123

Timothy Frye
Kremlin elites frequently call for these sanctions to be removed is

evidence of the considerable, if intermittent, pain they have caused
some oligarchs in particular.
Putin likely knows that he could boost economic growth by charting
a less assertive foreign policy. His longtime adviser Alexei Kudrin,
who served as Russia’s finance minister from 2000 to 2011 and is now
the government’s chief auditor, told the St. Petersburg International
Economic Forum in 2018 that the success of Russia’s economic policy
depends on reducing tensions with the West—a comment that brought
a swift rebuke from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Putin contin-
ues to challenge the West, and the United States in particular, to boost
his popularity among nationalist voters. But as with all of Putin’s strat-
egies for managing threats to his rule, stoking patriotic sentiments
comes at a cost—in this case, broad-based economic growth.
RISKS OF REPRESSION
Like all personalist autocrats, Putin has relatively blunt tools for man-
aging the tradeoffs inherent to his position. He has succeeded in exert-
ing control over the media, but he is no master manipulator. If he
were, public opinion would more closely mirror the Kremlin’s line on
foreign policy. Putin’s annexation of Crimea was wildly popular, but
support for using Russian troops in eastern Ukraine and Syria has al-
ways been quite modest. Despite the Kremlin’s harsh anti-Kyiv rheto-
ric, most Russians have a positive view of Ukraine, and just 15 percent
support unification with the country. The Kremlin has also conducted
a noisy anti-American campaign in recent years, but Russians are about
as likely to hold a positive view of the United States as they are to hold
a negative view. According to a January 2020 opinion poll, two-thirds
of Russians believe their government should view the West as a part-
ner rather than a rival or an enemy. Attempts by the Kremlin to shift
blame for Russia’s economic malaise to foreign countries have largely
fallen flat, and few Russians believe that their government is capable
of improving their economic situation. In what Russians call “the bat-
tle between the television and the refrigerator,” the latter is winning.
Part of the Kremlin’s problem is that manipulating information
sometimes backfires. If people believe that the information they re-
ceive is being spun, they will lose confidence in the source. As Rus-
sian television became more politicized over the last decade, Russian
viewers became more skeptical. According to public opinion polls,
viewers’ trust in what they saw on television fell from 79 percent in

2009 to just 48 percent in 2018. Meanwhile, the share of Russians
who cited television as their chief source of news dropped from 94
percent to 69 percent between 2009 and 2020.
Putin retains the trump card of force, a card he has played with in-
creasing frequency as the economy has stagnated and the warm glow
of the annexation of Crimea has faded.
Since 2018, the Kremlin has dealt with
political opposition far more harshly The expectation that
than in the past, making it harder for Putin will stay on as
independent candidates to run for even
local office and using force against president past 2024 will
protesters as a rule rather than an ex- only reinforce Russia’s
ception. In late 2020 and early 2021, economic stagnation.
the Kremlin further restricted protest
activity, sharply increased penalties for
unsanctioned protests, expanded the definition of “foreign agents,” and
made slander on the Internet punishable by up to two years in jail. The
arrest of Navalny, his sentencing to almost three years in prison, and
the brutal treatment of those protesting on his behalf are the logical
extension of this repressive trend.
Putin’s increased reliance on repression is a sign that his other
tools are failing. The danger for the Kremlin is that repression takes
on a self-reinforcing momentum. As the political scientist Christian
Davenport has argued, authoritarian regimes that resort to repres-
sion typically come to rely on it more and more because of its ten-
dency to perpetuate the problems that generate opposition in the
first place. Crackdowns on protests rooted in declining living stan-
dards only heighten popular grievances among the economically dis-
advantaged and further entrench those who benefit from the status
quo. Repression also increases a ruler’s dependence on the security
services and crowds out other means of dealing with the opposition.
Skillful repression has helped keep Putin in office and pushed the
political opposition to the margins, but it has done little to resolve the
underlying problems that threaten his power. It has not promoted eco-
nomic growth, strengthened property rights, or reduced corruption.
On the contrary, it has made the problems worse by empowering the
security services and the corrupt government officials who benefit most
from them, and it has encouraged the 2ight of human and economic
May/June 2021 125

Timothy Frye
capital, which are essential to economic growth and good governance.

Emblematic of this issue is the fact that in 2018, Russia spent more on
prisons and less on prisoners than any other country in Europe.
A future spike in energy prices that increased rent streams to the
elite and delivered prosperity to the broader public would offer Putin
some respite. If energy prices stay where they are, however, his fu-
ture looks rocky. Given the diminishing returns of media manipula-
tion, further repression and additional limits on political rights seem
like a good bet. Having already tilted the electoral playing field
against the opposition and drastically increased the punishment for
protesting, the Kremlin has begun to move against the social media
platforms that Putin’s opponents have used to gain traction. In March,
the Kremlin announced charges against Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,
TikTok, and the homegrown outlets VK and Odnoklassniki on the
pretext that they failed to remove material harmful to children. Such
actions will do little to endear Putin to young Russians, who are al-
ready the most likely to oppose his rule.
The parliamentary elections slated for September are likely to be
fraught. Approval ratings for the ruling United Russia party are lower
than ever, and so the Kremlin will need to clamp down on the opposi-
tion while also keeping the regime-friendly Communist Party and
Liberal Democratic Party in the fold. And relying on excessive voter
fraud would be risky. After a stolen election last year, neighboring
Belarus saw months of protests, a fate the Kremlin would like to avoid.
Looking further down the road, the expectation that Putin will
stay on as president past 2024 will only reinforce Russia’s economic
stagnation and heighten popular frustration over the Kremlin’s in-
ability to raise living standards or improve governance. The result
will most likely be a steady increase in pressure on the regime and
in repression against its opponents.
GREAT BUT DIMINISHED

Russia remains a great power, albeit a diminished one. Although Leo-
nid Brezhnev, who led the Soviet Union at the height of its global
power, would be appalled by the country’s current military capabilities
and geopolitical status, Boris Yeltsin, who inherited a country in col-
lapse, would view them with envy. Russia’s nuclear might, geography,
and seat on the Un Security Council ensure that it ranks among the
great powers—as do its educational, scientific, and energy prowess.
The country has more college graduates as a proportion of its popula-

tion than almost any member of the Organization for Economic Co-
operation and Development. It produced an effective CoVID-19 vaccine
in less than a year, and it will provide Europe with low-cost energy for
years to come and remain a major player in global energy markets.
Those who dismiss Russia as a regional power are mistaken.
Putin faces no immediate threat to his rule. He is a deft tactician
with considerable financial resources facing a disorganized opposi-
tion. Yet no amount of shrewdness can overcome the agonizing trade-
offs of running Russia the way he does. Cheat enough in elections so
that you don’t risk losing, but not so much that it signals weakness.
Rile up the base with anti-Western moves, but not to the extent that
it provokes an actual conflict with the West. Reward cronies through
corruption, but not so much that the economy collapses. Manipulate
the news, but not to the point where people distrust the media. Re-
press political opponents, but not enough to spark a popular back-
lash. Strengthen the security services, but not so much that they can
turn on you. How the Kremlin balances these tradeoffs will deter-
mine Russia’s immediate future. But the trend toward greater repres-
sion over the last four years, and its likely continuation, does not
bode well for Russia or its leader.∂
May/June 2021 127

The Vaccine Revolution

How mRNA Can Stop the Next
Pandemic Before It Starts
Nicole Lurie, Jakob P. Cramer,
and Richard J. Hatchett
he novel coronavirus—sARS-CoV-2—exploded onto the world
T stage about a year and a half ago, infecting hundreds of mil-

lions of people, killing millions, and causing immense social
and economic disruption. But just under a year after the deadly virus
emerged in China, governments were able to authorize the use of vac-
cines against covID-19, the disease caused by the virus. Vaccines that
rely on messenger RUA, or mRNA, were among the first across the
finish line, progressing from the genetic sequencing of the virus to
human trials in less than three months. Last December, the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration (rDA) granted emergency-use authorization
to an mRNA vaccine produced via a partnership between the U.S.
company Pfizer and the German firm BioNTech and to another devel-
oped by the U.S. company Moderna, after clinical trials demonstrated
that both were about 95 percent eRective in preventing covID-19. The
public marveled at the speed of the vaccines’ development, but in
truth, these vaccines—and the breakthroughs in their underlying tech-
nology—were more than a decade in the making. They represent an
astonishing scientific and public health achievement.
Technology based on mRNA is transforming how the world con-
fronts current and future pandemic threats. Messenger RUA is a
NICOLE LURIE is Strategic Adviser to the CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness
Innovations. She served as Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration.
JAKOB P. CRAMER is Head of Clinical Development at the Coalition for Epidemic
Preparedness Innovations.
RICHARD J. HATCHETT is CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
molecule that shuttles genetic information contained in a cell’s DNA

from its nucleus to its plasma, where it is then translated into pro-
teins. Scientists have long dreamed of harnessing this mRNA in
such a way that it could be injected into humans, triggering cells to
produce specific proteins for therapeutic or preventive purposes.
The mRNA vaccines developed for CoVID-19 work by instructing
the human body to produce the so-called spike protein located on
the virus’s surface (but not the virus itself), which then triggers an
immune response that creates antibodies capable of fending off the
coronavirus that causes CoVID-19.
These vaccines don’t just offer a way out of the current pandemic.
Messenger RNA technology could also give researchers ways to fight
off future CoVID-19-like outbreaks and prepare for a hypothetical
“Disease X”—a still unknown pathogen that will prove to be at least
as contagious as sARS-CoV-2 but could lead to an even more lethal
pandemic. What is more, mRNA could help create better routine
vaccines, such as more efficacious flu shots. But vaccine technology
is only as good as the infrastructure around it. None of the potential
of mRNA technology will be truly realized unless international insti-
tutions, national governments, and private companies work collec-
tively to ensure that the resources and capacity exist to take full
advantage of this medical miracle.
THE BREAKTHROUGH
A series of breakthroughs over the past 60 years made mRNA vac-
cines possible, beginning with the discovery of DNA in the 1950s and
the subsequent unraveling of how the genetic code works. Early at-
tempts to harness mRNA were unsuccessful, largely because mRNA
is relatively unstable. But scientists made a breakthrough in the last
decade. Using nanotechnology, they placed mRNA into a small lipid
particle—essentially, a tiny bubble of fatty acids—and crafted a ver-
sion of that nanoparticle that could safely be injected into humans.
And through innovations in synthetic biology, they found ways to
rapidly manufacture mRNA-based vaccines.
These scientific and technological advances coincided with greater
public interest in devising vaccines against future pandemic patho-
gens. Following the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, the U.S. gov-
ernment, among others, pledged to speed the development of vaccines
and make more versatile vaccine platforms that could swap out one
May/June 2021 129

pathogen for another using the same underlying technology. This re-
solve drew researchers to mRNA-based platforms. Unlike conven-
tional vaccines, mRNA vaccines do not require strains of a virus to be
grown in either eggs or cell culture; they rely instead on a dependable
and quicker process of chemical synthesis.
At the same time, mRNA technology won further financial and in-
stitutional backing from U.S. government agencies and other inves-
tors. In 2017, a group of governments and philanthropic organizations,
including the Wellcome Trust and the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
Vaccines using mRNA launched the Coalition for Epidemic
technology represent an Preparedness Innovations, where we
astonishing scientißc and work, to support the development of
vaccines against pathogens that could
public health achievement. cause epidemics or pandemics, includ-
ing Disease X. Guided by a list of
pathogens with epidemic potential
compiled by the World Health Organization (WHo), cuPI selected the
MURS VIRus, a coronavirus that first appeared in 2012, as one of its pri-
ority pathogens, allocating around $125 million to support the devel-
opment of vaccines against it. That investment paid oR following the
emergence of the covID-19 pandemic. Scientists and vaccine develop-
ers were able to rapidly respond to the new threat by drawing on prior
work on coronavirus vaccines, such as those for MURS, and on earlier
research on mRNA and other vaccine technologies.
Researchers released the genetic sequence of sARS−CoV-2 in Janu-
ary 2020, roughly two weeks after the outbreak was first reported to
the WHo. That sparked a furious scramble to develop vaccines. Unsur-
prisingly, mRNA vaccine candidates were among the first to enter
human trials, with the Moderna vaccine reaching that stage in March
and the Pfizer-BioNTech one in May. In late July, the two mRNA
candidates began Phase 3 trials involving tens of thousands of partici-
pants; by November, results showed that they were both extraordi-
narily eRective. The entire process took roughly 300 days—an
incredibly quick turnaround in the development of a vaccine.
Subsequently, multiple countries have licensed and authorized both
mRNA vaccines, and at the time of this writing, 44 million people have
completed a full immunization, with two doses, in the United States
(around 13 percent of the population). Approximately 60 percent of the
entire population of Israel has received at least one dose of the Pfizer-
BioNTech vaccine, and early data indicate an epidemiologically signifi-
cant reduction in both CoVID-19 illness and the transmission of the virus.
Despite this good news, challenges remain for the first generation of
mRNA vaccines. Both the CoVID-19 pathogen and the vaccines are new,
and researchers do not yet fully understand the nature of the immunity
produced by either natural infection or vaccination; it is unclear, for
example, how long the immunity that prevents CoVID-19 lasts. The vac-
cines also produce some side effects (sore arm, fever, chills, fatigue, and
muscle aches) that, although short-lived, make some people hesitant to
get the shots. The capacity to manufacture these mRNA vaccines is still
limited, and they require cold storage—at extremely low temperatures
in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine—both of which cause logis-
tical headaches in devising mass vaccination campaigns.
Most concerning, new sARS-CoV-2 variants emerged late last year
in Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. These
new virus variants are more transmissible and have quickly spread
around the world. Researchers are trying to determine whether they
are also more lethal and whether they render existing vaccines less ef-
fective in real-world settings, as laboratory studies suggest. Scientists
must prepare for the likelihood that new variants of the virus will re-
quire new or adapted vaccines. Like other vaccine producers, mRNA
vaccine developers have begun to ready their platforms to respond to
these new strains; Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech are already creat-
ing booster shots for their vaccines, in the event that they are needed.
This represents a further test of how quickly a new mRNA vaccine
can be developed and manufactured.
NEED FOR SPEED

The emergence of variants of the virus means that scientists and vaccine
manufacturers must work more quickly to devise new vaccines. When
CePI launched, it hoped to radically shorten the time it takes to develop
vaccines, moving from the genetic sequencing of a virus to clinical trials
within 16 weeks. But such a timeline is too slow for highly transmissible
and lethal diseases. The initial CoVID-19 outbreak in a Chinese province
became a full-fledged pandemic in less than 12 weeks. CePI’s view is that
to combat newly emerging variants of concern, governments and com-
panies should aspire to make a vaccine within 100 days, and the United
Kingdom urged other G-7 countries in February to adopt this goal.
May/June 2021 131

But even with sophisticated technology, governments will struggle

to develop vaccines quickly without first hurdling some logistical
challenges. They need to ensure that the goods necessary to make
vaccines at a large scale are readily available. Currently, many of the
raw materials and critical components required to make a vaccine
against a new strain—including filters, tubes, and the lipids to make
nanoparticles—are in very short supply. Ramping up raw material
and manufacturing capacity will demand further financing. There is
no global entity responsible for this task, and relying solely on market
forces would likely exacerbate the emerging inequalities in vaccine
access between wealthy and low- and middle-income countries.
As they address these challenges, vaccine manufacturers can fine-
tune the vaccine production process to make it faster and more effi-
cient. When it comes to tackling sARS-CoV-2 variants, vaccine
developers and the relevant regulatory bodies should agree to a
streamlined approach for clinical trials that uses evidence about the
performance of already authorized CoVID-19 vaccines (to avoid need-
less repetition) and ensures that vaccines are safe and effective but
avoids redoing lengthy Phase 3 trials. The goal of having a platform
in which one pathogen can be swapped out for another is becoming
closer to reality with the technological advances that have risen to the
challenge of the current crisis. Already, the fDA and the European
Medicines Agency have issued initial regulatory guidance on how to
quickly adapt CoVID-19 vaccines to new variant strains.
Experts at CePI now believe that a vaccine against an entirely new
pathogen—not just a new variant of the virus that causes CoVID-19—
also needs to be produced in 100 days to adequately respond to a future
epidemic with pandemic potential. Given the devastation brought about
by CoVID-19, a year is simply too long to wait for a vaccine. Vaccines us-
ing mRNA technology have proved to be effective and quick to develop;
they will inevitably play a major role in fighting future pandemics.
Developing new mRNA vaccines might not take that much time,
but they still need to be tested, and they can be delivered only as fast
as they can be manufactured and distributed. Once a vaccine is manu-
factured, it must be shipped, often across the world, to be put in its
final form and vialed. Since most mRNA vaccine manufacturing oc-
curs in wealthy countries, various built-in delays slow the vaccines’
arrival to poorer countries. Pandemic preparedness efforts must
therefore include the innovation needed to craft and deploy trans-
Shot in the arm: receiving a COVID-19 vaccine in Boston, December 2020

portable, modular manufacturing systems that can be used to fabri-
cate such vaccines and also carry out the final “fill and finish” steps of
the process. New technologies hold promise in that regard, as evi-
denced by a joint project between the German biotechnology firm
CureVac and Tesla Grohmann Automation, an automotive manufac-
turing company owned by Elon Musk, with the aim to build mobile
mRNA vaccine production units that could eventually be shipped to
the site of an outbreak and rapidly make targeted vaccines locally.
Messenger RUA VACCINEs have revolutionary global health potential
beyond combating pandemics. Take, for example, in2uenza, an infection
of the respiratory tract that kills between 12,000 and 61,000 Americans
annually and, like covID-19, disproportionately aRects certain sectors of
C RA IG F. WA L K E R / POO L / RE UT E RS
the population, especially older adults. Every year, experts and manu-
facturers attempt to predict the strains of the in2uenza virus that will
most likely be circulating in the subsequent 2u season. It then takes
roughly six months for them to formulate, manufacture, and release a
vaccine. But occasionally, the circulating in2uenza viruses evolve be-
tween the time that vaccine makers get started working with the season’s
vaccine strains and the time they begin to produce the vaccines, with the
process of manufacturing too far along to make another change. When
May/June 2021 133

such a vaccine mismatch occurs, populations receive a reduced benefit

from the flu shot, often resulting in a more severe and deadly flu season.
That risk of a mismatch can potentially be mitigated with mRNA
manufacturing. A new seasonal influenza vaccine could, at least in the-
ory, be produced in large quantities in weeks rather than months. That
speed would give researchers more time to decide the composition of the
seasonal vaccine, resulting in a better match between the flu shot and the
circulating influenza strains. The technology might also open up new
opportunities to develop vaccines against other constantly changing vi-
ruses, such as norovirus, which causes acute gastrointestinal illness.
Messenger RNA technology could also address the suboptimal perfor-
mance of certain existing vaccines. For example, mRNA vaccines might
offer a safer way to inoculate immunocompromised people and preg-
nant women, who are often advised to avoid traditional vaccines that
contain attenuated versions of the viruses they target. And judging from
the success of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines in protecting
older people from CoVID-19, other mRNA vaccines might prove to work
well for older people, who tend to have less robust immune systems.
A NEW DAWN IN DARK TIMES

Scientists are only just beginning to unlock the full potential of mRNA
vaccines. To ensure that more people can have access to them, research-
ers need to find ways to make mRNA vaccines less expensive by, for
example, making essential goods more readily available and making
production processes more efficient. And to overcome the understand-
able wariness with which many people view this new technology, ad-
ditional evidence from clinical research and from the vaccines’
performance in real life after they have been approved should be made
public to clearly demonstrate their levels of safety and effectiveness.
The vaccine rollout during this pandemic has been hampered by a
lack of financing and resources, limiting the early, necessary purchases
of raw materials and investments in manufacturing capacity. Being
prepared for the future will require not just honing the development
of vaccines but also ensuring the ready availability of financing. The
launch of a vaccine-financing commission recently formed under the
auspices of the G-20 is a promising start and a sign that governments
recognize the need for collective action.
One final fundamental challenge remains. Scientists can develop a
vaccine only when they have detected a new pathogen and determined
its gene sequence. This requires a better, faster system of surveillance

and international data sharing—and a good precedent already exists
for building one. Since 1952, the WHo’s Global Influenza Surveillance
and Response System has continuously monitored circulating influ-
enza viruses across the globe and released recommendations on the
composition of influenza vaccines twice a year. This coordinated
monitoring and decision-making effort has worked well and could
readily form the basis for monitoring newly emerging variants of
sARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens, as well. Such a system would work
only with close communication and collaboration among international
institutions such as the WHo, private vaccine developers, national reg-
ulatory authorities, and the global scientific community. The CoVAx
Facility, which seeks to distribute CoVID-19 vaccines more broadly to
people in low-income countries, is a good example of such a collective
enterprise, as it is chaired by CePI, the WHo, and the public-private
partnership Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
A new era in vaccinology has arrived. The year 2020 will be re-
membered not only for the pandemic but also for the fact that it wit-
nessed the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of technological
breakthroughs in a mere 12 months. The world will emerge from the
pandemic with a new arsenal of vaccine technologies at its disposal,
with mRNA at the forefront. These successes in dark times provide
much-needed grounds for optimism that in the future, societies will
be able to respond much more rapidly, effectively, and equitably to
emerging pandemic threats.∂
May/June 2021 135

Competition With China

Can Save the Planet
Pressure, Not Partnership, Will Spur
Progress on Climate Change
ate last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that his
L country would reach “carbon neutrality” by 2060, meaning

that by that time, it would remove every year from the atmos-
phere as much carbon dioxide as it emitted. China is currently the
world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, responsible for nearly 30 per-
cent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Targeting net-zero emissions
by 2060 is an ambitious goal, meant to signal Beijing’s commitment
both to turning its enormous economy away from fossil fuels and to
backing broader international eRorts to combat climate change.
But this rhetorical posturing masks a very diRerent reality: China
remains addicted to coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. It burns over four bil-
lion metric tons per year and accounts for half of the world’s total
consumption. Roughly 65 percent of China’s electricity supply comes
from coal, a proportion far greater than that of the United States (24
percent) or Europe (18 percent). Finnish and U.S. researchers re-
vealed in February that China dramatically expanded its use of coal-
fired power plants in 2020. China’s net coal-fired power generation
capacity grew by about 30 gigawatts over the course of the year, as
opposed to a net decline of 17 gigawatts elsewhere in the world. China
also has nearly 200 gigawatts’ worth of coal power projects under con-
ANDREW S. ERICKSON is Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College’s China
Maritime Studies Institute and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center
for Chinese Studies.
GABRIEL COLLINS is Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs
at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow
at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Competition With China Can Save the Planet
struction, approved for construction, or seeking permits, a sum that

on its own could power all of Germany—the world’s fourth-largest
industrial economy. Given that coal power plants often operate for 40
years or more, these ongoing investments suggest the strong possibil-
ity that China will remain reliant on coal for decades to come.
Here’s the inconvenient truth: the social contract that the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has forged with the Chinese people—growth
and stability in exchange for curtailed liberties and one-party rule—
has incentivized overinvestment across the board, including in the
coal that powers most of China’s economy. China may be shuttering
some coal plants and investing in renewable energy, but serious decar-
bonization remains a distant prospect.
Xi’s bullish talk of combating climate change is a smokescreen for a
more calculated agenda. Chinese policymakers know their country is
critical to any comprehensive international effort to curb greenhouse
gas emissions, and they are trying to use that leverage to advance Chi-
nese interests in other areas. Policymakers in the United States have
hoped to compartmentalize climate change as a challenge on which
Beijing and Washington can meaningfully cooperate, even as the two
countries compete elsewhere. John Kerry, the United States’ senior
climate diplomat, has insisted that climate change is a “standalone is-
sue” in U.S.-Chinese relations. Yet Beijing does not see it that way.
After U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared in late Janu-
ary that Washington intended to “pursue the climate agenda” with
China while simultaneously putting pressure on Beijing regarding
human rights and other contentious policy issues, Zhao Lijian, the
Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, warned the Biden admin-
istration that cooperation on climate change “is closely linked with
bilateral relations as a whole.” In other words, China will not com-
partmentalize climate cooperation; its participation in efforts to slow
global warming will be contingent on the positions and actions that its
foreign interlocutors take in other areas.
Zhao’s conspicuously sharp-tongued riposte is already inducing key
U.S. partners to pull their punches in climate interactions with China.
For instance, in a February video call with Han Zheng, China’s top
vice premier, Frans Timmermans, the executive vice president of the
European Commission and the eU’s “Green Deal chief,” reportedly
steered clear of discussing human rights and the eU’s plans for a car-
bon border tax, issues China finds contentious. Beijing will likely con-
May/June 2021 137

tinue using negotiations on climate issues to shield its domestic human

rights record and regional aggression. Worse still, it will probably de-
mand economic, technological, and security compromises from the
United States and its allies—such as their agreeing not to challenge
China’s coercive activities in the South China Sea—for which those
countries would receive little, if anything, in return.
As a result, U.S. officials seem to face a stark choice. If they make
concessions to win China’s cooperation in tackling climate change, Bei-
jing will offer only those climate promises that it would outright fail to
fulfill, find itself unable to fulfill amid opposition from powerful do-
mestic interests, or, less likely, fulfill merely by default if its economic
growth slows more rapidly than widely expected. But if they refuse to
deal with China, they may imperil efforts to slow global warming.
There is another option, however. When it comes to climate change,
the United States should compete, not cooperate, with its rival.
COAL TRUTHS
For a quarter century, the United States and other major powers have
sought to cooperate with China on climate change. Saving the world
from climate change, the argument runs, requires broad international
agreement, and no substantive settlement can exclude the two biggest
players—China and the United States. This multilateral effort has
taken shape under the Un Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UnfCCC), which reached its apogee in 2015 with the signing of the
Paris climate agreement. The deal hinged on China and the United
States—the two biggest emitters—coming to terms.
The two countries’ bilateral negotiations in advance of the Paris
meeting culminated in China committing to the following key
items: reducing its carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60
to 65 percent from its 2005 level by 2030; starting a national system
by 2017 to cap carbon emissions in key energy-intensive heavy in-
dustrial sectors and to incentivize emission reductions by forcing
companies to buy and sell permits to emit; prioritizing the develop-
ment of renewable energy sources; and aiming to reach peak carbon
dioxide emissions by “around 2030,” after which those emissions
would decline. These targets were not especially ambitious, and yet
Beijing has still generally fallen short of them—for instance, it
launched a national emission-trading scheme on only a limited basis
and about four years behind schedule. Tellingly, the government
Clouded vision: in Xinjiang, China, January 2018

work report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the 13th National
People’s Congress in March makes no bold commitments and says
only that China will meet targets for “intended nationally deter-
mined contributions” by 2030.
Current climate diplomacy, as embodied by the Conference of
the Parties process, under the auspices of the UURCCC, treats China
as indispensable due to the scale of its greenhouse gas emissions.
But in the roughly six years that have elapsed since Beijing signed
the Paris agreement, the country’s actions have only exposed the
agreement’s fundamental weakness: its inability to enforce true ac-
countability in the face of obdurate national interests. Data from the
nongovernmental organization Global Energy Monitor show that
between 2015 and 2020, Chinese firms added approximately 275
gigawatts of gross coal-fired power generation capacity—larger than
the entire coal-fired 2eet of the United States, the world’s third-
JA S O N L E E / RE UT E RS
largest coal consumer. More than 85 percent of this recently in-

stalled capacity uses modern supercritical and ultra-supercritical
boiler technology—an expensive investment meant to last a long
time—locking in demand for decades to come and underlining the
renewal of China’s long-term vows with coal.
May/June 2021 139

As multiple UURCCC participants now contemplate stricter emission

targets, Chinese leaders will not do the same. Instead, they will cater to
domestic economic interests and immediate energy security concerns
and reject emission-reduction commitments that require significant de-
viation from China’s present course. Beijing insists that its enormous
population and relatively modest aver-
age income classify China as a less de-
When it comes to climate veloped country for the purpose of
change, the United States climate negotiations and thus that Chi-
nese leaders should not be expected to
should compete, not curb emissions at the same rate as de-
cooperate, with China. veloped countries. It is true that China
emits less per capita than many wealthy
countries. But its per capita emissions
are already higher than those of some industrialized countries, such as
Italy and the United Kingdom. Moreover, the absolute quantity of Chi-
na’s emissions—which, at the end of the day, is the number that actually
matters to the earth’s atmosphere—is staggering. Between 2009 and
2019, China emitted nearly twice as much total carbon dioxide as did
the United States. That gap will only widen as policy incentives in Bei-
jing preserve coal as a core energy source for decades to come, with dire
consequences for the global atmospheric and oceanic commons.
It will be incredibly hard to wean China oR its overdependence on
coal. Leaders at both the national and the local level are bound to the
cheap fuel, which spurs the economic growth that ensures their po-
litical survival. Local officials hungrily tap into coal to boost growth
figures just long enough to win promotion to higher assignments else-
where. They think in the short term and typically prefer to invest in
projects under their jurisdiction, rather than crafting more climate-
friendly systems that cross provincial lines and optimize the use of
energy but require political negotiations and the possible surrender of
control. Consequently, China is littered with irrational energy-intensive
investments, including unnecessary coal plants.
A core pillar of China’s economy remains its tremendous capacity to
build infrastructure, which is dependent on emission-intensive indus-
tries. To escape the economic downturn that has accompanied the
covID-19 pandemic, China has relied on coal-fired heavy industry to
boost GDP growth. In 2020, Chinese blast furnaces and mills produced
over one billion metric tons of crude steel—a historic high. Aluminum
smelters also produced record volumes during 2020, as did cement

plants, with China’s production of each commodity accounting for
nearly 60 percent of the global total.
All of this will likely get worse, since construction appears poised to
expand. Excavator sales, one of the best leading indicators of economic
activity in China, hit a record high in 2020. Heavy-equipment buying
sprees suggest that local contractors, the people outside government best
positioned to anticipate future construction projects, see major new work
on the horizon. This, in turn, portends the substantial continued produc-
tion of steel, cement, and other high-emission commodities in the com-
ing years. China may ultimately adhere to its pledged goal of ensuring
that its carbon emissions peak by 2030. But even if China’s emissions in
2031 turn out to be lower than those of 2030, the high-carbon mark it is
on pace to set will make Beijing’s supposed victory a loss for the global
climate overall, not to mention a Pyrrhic victory for China itself.
The costs of China’s stubborn coal habit will be severe. The coun-
try’s own coal users and the plants being built abroad as part of the
Belt and Road Initiative could burn 100 billion metric tons of coal
between now and 2060. This estimate is conservative, factoring in
existing coal-fired power plants, coal power stations under construc-
tion, coal-to-chemicals facilities, and industrial boilers, while also tak-
ing into consideration the meaningful expansion of renewable and
nuclear energy in the country. One hundred billion metric tons of
coal would bury all five boroughs of New York City under a 340-foot-
tall pile. Burning it would likely raise atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels by nearly ten percent from their current levels.
A GREEN FAÇADE
China’s climate diplomacy stands at a great remove from this carbona-
ceous industrial reality. Chinese leaders insist that their country is
committed to fighting climate change, pointing to its considerable
investments in renewable energy and its efforts to boost power gen-
eration through nuclear, natural gas, wind, and solar sources. China’s
power generation investments on their face suggest that coal might be
yielding to these renewables. Between 2014 and 2020, the country
added 235 gigawatts of solar power capacity and 205 gigawatts of wind
power capacity, according to China’s National Energy Administra-
tion, a combined sum nearly twice as large as the roughly 225 net
gigawatts of coal power station capacity added during that time.
May/June 2021 141

But intermittent electricity sources, including many forms of re-

newable energy, require backup power generation to maintain the sta-
bility of the grid. The CCP Cannot risk blackouts, which would cripple
economic activity and undermine the party’s standing. A significant
electricity supply crisis—or crises over
time—could morph into a fundamen-
China’s climate diplomacy tal crisis of political legitimacy. As a
stands at a great remove result, China remains committed to
coal. In 2020, coal-fired plants ran at
from the country’s coal- an average utilization rate—a measure
hungry industrial reality. of what percentage of time in a given
year a facility actually produces elec-
tricity—of about 50 percent, far higher
than sources of wind (24 percent) and solar (15 percent) energy. China
also surges physical supplies of coal to maintain the stability of the
electric grid during cold spells and heat waves. The Chinese rail sys-
tem handled a record volume of coal bound for power plants during a
cold snap in December 2020.
Challenges to the stability of the electric grid will proliferate if in-
variably intermittent renewable energy makes up a greater share of
China’s power supply. The United States uses natural gas to back up
renewable energy, but China’s attempts to replicate the U.S. shale boom
have failed, and the country already imports more than 40 percent of
the natural gas it consumes. Herein arises an underappreciated national
security concern. China’s gas imports used to come primarily through
pipelines from Myanmar, Russia, and Central Asia, but to satisfy future
demand, China will have to rely increasingly on seaborne imports of
liquefied natural gas. If gas-fired plants become a larger part of China’s
electricity portfolio, maritime supply lines will become all the more
sensitive for Beijing; a rival power could block seaborne gas shipments
and thereby destabilize China’s electric grid. That strategic consider-
ation is yet another factor favoring the persistence of coal in China.
Chinese officials proclaim that they are shuttering coal plants. In-
deed, by one count, China closed 46 gigawatts of coal power capacity
between 2015 and 2020. But a deeper look at the retirement of these
facilities reveals that China remains as committed to coal as before.
Authorities have mostly closed coal plants in wealthy coastal prov-
inces such as Guangdong to clear up local air and open real estate for
more revenue-boosting projects. But they have then simply shifted
such facilities to poorer, inland provinces, from where coal-powered

electricity is effectively exported by wire to coastal industrial hubs.
Moving smokestacks from Shanghai or Guangdong to Anhui,
Hunan, Inner Mongolia, or Xinjiang is a form of policy triage. It
removes pollutants from the air in wealthier cities and prevents
bouts of unrest, such as the 2016 protests in the municipality of
Chengdu prompted by wintry smog. Yet massive net emissions of
carbon dioxide continue mostly unabated. Furthermore, the coal
power stations built over the past decade and being built today in
China are expensive, cutting-edge facilities that replace older,
cheaper plants. These new plants have equipment that better con-
trols pollution from sulfur dioxide and particulates, although not
carbon dioxide emissions. They occupy real estate with few alterna-
tives for more profitable applications. As a result, these plants are
more likely to remain in operation through the common service life
of 40 years and are less likely to be retired prematurely.
The provinces most aggressively closing their coal plants tend to be
those such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, which do not boast
large coal-mining operations and where coal power stations employ a
tiny fraction of the workforce compared with other industries. For
poorer parts of China, such as Inner Mongolia, where coal forms a
bigger part of the local economy, the political calculus will likely prove
different: local officials will be more reluctant to withdraw from coal.
China’s coal sector and related industries collectively employ tens
of millions of people and control infrastructure worth trillions of dol-
lars. Outsiders often assume that the Chinese state can easily execute
an ambitious energy policy, such as a transition away from coal. But
the state is not a monolith. A tangle of more particular and parochial
interests can thwart all but the highest-priority directives from the
center, which will almost certainly not include meaningful climate
reform. Efforts to change China’s colossal energy system in an accept-
able timeframe will work only if the interests of power brokers at the
local, provincial, and national levels are broadly aligned.
These interests remain deeply divided when it comes to energy.
Shuttering—or even just partially idling—coal plants and the mines
supplying them could mean the loss of vast sums of invested capital and
many jobs. Green energy projects most likely could not proportionally
offset these losses. In the United States, each megawatt-hour of elec-
tricity generated from coal has been estimated to support five times as
May/June 2021 143

many jobs as a megawatt-hour of wind power does, and in China’s more

labor-intensive economy, the ratio could be even more unfavorable.
Xi had formative experiences in China’s countryside. He and other
senior leaders steeped in CCP history presumably take rural economic
interests seriously. The concerns of powerful coal barons and the lo-
cal officials who welcomed coal plants 15 years ago (and more re-
cently) will likely hinder China’s current green push as authorities
negotiate political and socioeconomic compromises. Compounded
over time, this dynamic will make coal more enduring than presently
expected, with a commensurate impact on the trajectory of China’s
carbon dioxide emissions.
China’s avowed commitment to the transition away from fossil fu-
els raises an ironic but serious concern: the country’s role as the work-
shop of the global green energy revolution, making everything from
solar panels to electric-vehicle batteries, relies heavily on a coal-fired
supply chain. Activities including rare-earth smelting (to produce the
materials necessary for much green technology) and electric-vehicle-
battery production liberally utilize carbon fuels.
For instance, the production of a 100-kilowatt-hour battery—the
same size as the one powering the Tesla Model S—requires the
amount of energy from approximately seven metric tons of coal. And
the emissions behind electric vehicles don’t end with the making of
batteries: without major shifts in how China makes its electricity,
electric vehicles driven in China will be effectively charged with coal.
One million plug-in electric cars using China’s power grid could, in
many parts of the country, emit roughly as much carbon dioxide as
one million gasoline-powered passenger sedans.
Some Chinese officials and influential advisers—such as Xie Zhen-
hua, the country’s special climate envoy—do recognize that reducing
emissions and remedying the CCP’s decades-long legacy of environ-
mental destruction are important goals in themselves. But the combi-
nation of a foreign backlash against China’s increasingly aggressive
behavior and pushback from domestic interest groups troubled by
China’s 2060 carbon-neutrality pledge will likely strengthen those of-
ficials who adhere to what the Peking University scholar Zha Dao-
jiong calls the “nationalist school” of energy security thought. Energy
policy decision-making in China is likely to become increasingly en-
tangled in questions of security, as exemplified by Li’s October 2019
remarks in which he described coal as a core national security re-
source. In the meantime, China’s climate diplomats will continue to

engage in greenwashing when it comes to their country’s coal use and
to subordinate the imperatives of climate cooperation to the CCP’s
domestic and geopolitical objectives.
The implications for U.S. policy in the coming years are stark. The
earth’s atmosphere transcends national borders, and China—primarily
through coal use—is by far the world’s single largest emitter of many key
greenhouse gases. A more sustainable emission path requires Beijing’s
participation in international negotiations. But proactively seeking this
cooperation makes the United States and other countries supplicants—
and China has already clearly signaled that its participation in climate
discussions is contingent on concessions in other domains. Accordingly,
any bilateral political or security accommodations made to coax China
into discussing climate issues would in fact make the United States, the
Indo-Pacific region, and the world lose twice. Washington would forfeit
its ability to effectively confront, for example, China’s coercive efforts in
the Indo-Pacific as Chinese interlocutors stalled at the negotiating table
by offering illusory climate commitments.
Beijing has won concessions while relentlessly pursuing its narrow
self-interest in other arenas. For instance, at the 2015 Association of
Southeast Asian Nations summit, Li called for the resolution of ongo-
ing territorial disputes in the South China Sea “through negotiation
and consultation.” But even as he made those comments, the People’s
Liberation Army was rapidly militarizing those very waters despite
assurances from Xi two months prior that China would not do so. In
the case of climate negotiations, Chinese officials will offer rosy rheto-
ric even as coal-fired plants in China and those being built by Chinese
firms abroad continue to emit millions of metric tons of greenhouse
gases per day. The interests of the CCP would win in a parochial sense,
but all parties would ultimately lose from the degradation of the shared
biosphere. Only competition, not supplication, will induce Beijing to
reframe its approach to emissions and climate change.
TIME TO COMPETE
China’s strong structural incentives to continue using coal on a mas-
sive scale imperil the prospects of climate negotiations. A more suc-
cessful path runs not to a negotiating table but through the arena of
competition. The need for this shift is now acute: a cooperation-first
approach in which Beijing sets the fundamental terms is doomed to
May/June 2021 145

fail. Countries seeking cooperation with China are supplicants and,

under a best-case scenario, will be forced to make concessions first,
after which Beijing might finally deign to engage. A strategy that
leads with competition will turn the diplomatic tables on China.
Washington should not abandon the Paris agreement and the UnfCCC
process. Rather, it should seize the initiative before the next session of
the Conference of the Parties, scheduled to take place in November
2021 in Glasgow, by taking several bold steps.
Washington should build a coalition of like-minded partners—
largely drawn from the industrialized member states of the Organi-
zation for Economic Cooperation and Development—to pressure
China into sourcing its energy supplies more sustainably. In 2019,
the oeCD countries commanded nearly 75 percent of global GDP and
accounted for about 35 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emis-
sions. Such a coalition, incorporating key players among this group,
including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South
Korea, and the United Kingdom, has a good chance of establishing
the critical mass needed to pressure Beijing to cut emissions. To-
gether with the United States, those countries boasted an aggregate
GDP of nearly $43 trillion in 2019—approximately half of total global
GDP, according to the World Bank.
An assembled coalition should seek to use carbon taxation—a levy
on goods or services corresponding to their carbon footprint, or the
emissions required to make them—to change Chinese behavior. Led
by the United States, the key industrial democracies that collectively
account for the world’s largest market bloc should institute domestic
carbon taxes, preferably benchmarked to a negotiated standard and
with provisions that would allow the rate to be increased on an an-
nual or biannual basis, if necessary. These countries should then in-
stitute carbon border adjustment mechanisms: a tax on imported
goods based on their assessed carbon footprints if they come from a
place with no or lower carbon pricing.
Much of the data required to assess the carbon footprints of im-
ported goods already exist commercially, particularly for large-volume
goods such as steel, aluminum, cement, ceramics, automobiles, and
other such highly energy-intensive products often made in China.
Objective, publicly available carbon footprint audits would help de-
fuse accusations from Beijing that Chinese firms were being unfairly
singled out and provide a basis for the resolution of any disputes at
the World Trade Organization in the event that Beijing retaliated

with punitive tariffs or other measures against goods from a country
participating in the carbon alliance.
Such a coordinated system would make carbon-intensive Chinese
goods less competitive and reduce the disadvantages that manufactur-
ers in the United States face from coal-fired Chinese competitors. But
more important, it would force China to take decarbonization seri-
ously. Even as China tries to reorient its economy to domestic con-
sumption, Chinese firms still crave access to global export markets.
With carbon border adjustment mechanisms in place, Chinese firms
would have to change the way they source energy to remain economi-
cally viable in key foreign markets.
Carbon taxation now attracts serious attention on both sides of the
Atlantic, and the world’s democracies are generally significantly
ahead of China when it comes to both meaningfully pricing carbon
and having the industrial and energy-sourcing preconditions in place
to make the transition to a future of net-zero carbon emissions viable.
Sixteen European countries already tax carbon to varying degrees,
and the European Commission is considering a carbon border tax as
part of the European Green Deal. Meanwhile, bills proposing carbon
taxation have been sponsored by both Democratic and Republican
lawmakers in the U.S. Congress.
Equally important, big companies—including those with an exis-
tential interest in fossil fuels—also appear to accept the inevitability
of carbon taxation. Court filings have revealed that in 2017, business
planners at ExxonMobil—the doyen of international oil and gas
firms—were already assuming a tax on carbon dioxide emissions in
the oeCD countries of $60 per metric ton by 2030. For perspective,
consider that a carbon tax of $60 per metric ton would increase gaso-
line pump prices by about 54 cents per gallon, adding an average of
roughly $245 to each American’s annual fuel bill. Most people would
not welcome the additional cost, but it is bearable. Carbon taxation
would be more palatable if part of the revenue raised went to a na-
tional innovation fund, with the remainder returned to households
through direct payments via so-called carbon dividends, as has been
advocated by former U.S. Secretaries of State James Baker and
George Shultz. Carbon dividends could be means-tested, with pro-
portionally larger payments going to lower-income individuals and
households to compensate for the inherently regressive nature of
May/June 2021 147

what is, in effect, a tax on energy inputs. Other countries in the car-
bon alliance could adopt a similar approach to convince their respec-
tive societies of the merits of carbon taxation.
The implications for Chinese firms would be more severe. To remain
competitive, Chinese industrial players would be incentivized to invest
in new energy sources and cleaner, greener manufacturing processes.
This would, in turn, push China toward a less carbon-intensive economic
model. At that point, the United States and its allies would already have
a mechanism in place to make sure that Beijing remained committed to
decarbonization—the ability to increase carbon tax rates to counter Chi-
nese backsliding. And for its part, China would be far less able to weap-
onize climate change negotiations at the expense of the global commons.
A climate competition strategy of this kind would also suit the
Biden administration’s domestic priorities. A carbon tax with border
adjustment provisions would bring manufacturing jobs back to the
United States and boost the various other industries that support pro-
duction activities. It would encourage the deployment of technologies
that seek to prevent emissions from reaching the atmosphere—direct
air capture; soil-based sequestration; and other carbon capture, utiliza-
tion, and storage practices and technologies—which would keep do-
mestic oil and gas production viable in an emission-constrained world.
Carbon taxation would also stimulate the greater development of wind
and solar energy and of small modular nuclear reactors, and potentially
even the development of geothermal energy. As such, it would help
strengthen and even expand the abundance of U.S. domestic energy
sources needed to fuel the manufacturing renaissance the Biden ad-
ministration clearly seeks. Together, these advantageous effects would
help ensure the domestic support necessary to sustain carbon taxation
over the long term and reassure other countries that the United States
can remain a committed partner for the decades that will likely be
needed to make a lasting transition to a lower-emission world.
COMPETITION FOR THE GREATER GOOD

In Chinese foreign policy, climate change does not hold the same en-
vironmental and moral importance that it does for many American
policymakers. Beijing’s fundamental goal remains promoting the
CCP’s rule, image, and influence. It can further this goal through par-
ticipating in the global green economy: selling electric vehicles and
batteries, rare-earth minerals, and wind turbine components. Or it
can use climate negotiations to demand that the United States and
others accommodate Chinese economic, political, and security im-
peratives in exchange for promises that will likely remain unfulfilled.
To force meaningful change, the United States must build a climate
coalition to put pressure on China and its exporters. Such action could
bolster reformers in China by allowing them to advocate deeper and
faster decarbonization on the grounds that it would increase China’s
national competitiveness. The pressure created by a carbon taxation
regime among industrialized democracies would help empower Chi-
na’s domestic energy-transition advocates against opponents who seek
to keep the country’s energy sources rooted in near-term local im-
peratives that foster continued dependence on coal.
Climate competition will allow the United States to win twice,
thwarting both Chinese coercion and potentially irreversible ecologi-
cal damage. Negotiating proactively with China cannot curtail cli-
mate change; Beijing would impose unacceptable costs while failing
to deliver on its end of any bargain. Only a united climate coalition
has the potential to bring China to the table for productive negotia-
tions, rather than the extractive ones it currently pursues. And only
the bottom line—not moral exhortations—will convince China to
mend its ways and seriously cut its emissions.∂
May/June 2021 149

Practice What You Preach

Global Human Rights Leadership
Begins at Home
he international standing of the United States has taken a seri-
T ous hit over the past four years. Former U.S. President Don-
ald Trump’s strident “America first” foreign policy is partly to
blame, but so are his attacks on democracy and human rights, both
internationally and domestically. Abroad, Trump set the cause of hu-
man rights back by embracing authoritarians and alienating democratic
allies. At home, he launched an assault on the electoral process, en-
couraged a failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and systematically
undermined civil rights protections, leaving his successor to grapple
with multiple, overlapping human rights crises. As if that were not
enough, a host of other problems await, from the pandemic to increas-
ing competition with China and the overall decline of American power.
Some pundits have argued that faced with this five-alarm fire, Pres-
ident Joe Biden cannot aRord to focus on human rights at the expense
of more pressing domestic and global matters. In fact, the reverse is
true. U.S. soft power and national security have always rested in part
on the country’s commitment to human rights and democracy. If
Washington wants to recover lost ground, it cannot aRord to ignore
this crucial dimension of American power.
Restoring that commitment, history has shown, will require im-
provements not just to U.S. foreign policy but also to the country’s
domestic record on human rights. During the Cold War, racial segre-
gation in the United States outraged leaders from newly decolonized
JOHN SHATTUCK is Professor of Practice in Diplomacy at the Fletcher School at Tufts

University, a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights
Policy, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.
KATHRYN SIKKINK is Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard
Kennedy School.
countries and stained the United States’ global image. But the civil
rights movement and the enactment of landmark legislation against
discrimination later enhanced U.S. credibility in the eyes of the world.
In the 1980s, a Russian dissident lawyer and an Argentine human
rights activist separately told us that each had been infuriated by the
Vietnam War and the Watergate crisis, only to have their admiration
for the United States rekindled as they watched the American politi-
cal and judicial systems respond to the Nixon administration’s abuses
of power and violations of civil liberties.
Today, as then, the world is watching the United States’ next steps
closely. And once again, the country has a moral obligation to build
and restore at home the human rights values it seeks to advance
abroad, as well as a national security interest in doing so, particularly
when geopolitical competition between China and the United States
is likely to focus increasingly on competing values, not just economic
and military issues. Tackling systemic racism at home, therefore, is
not only the right policy ethically; it would also give Washington
more authority to speak out against genocide and human rights abuses
faced by racial and religious minorities abroad, such as the Uyghurs in
China and the Rohingya in Myanmar.
To regain the soft power it has squandered, the United States must
first address its own human rights crisis. That means dealing with
racialized police violence, unequal opportunity, voter suppression,
and the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on minority and
disadvantaged communities. Doing so would allow the Biden admin-
istration to develop an international human rights agenda that paral-
lels and draws credibility from its program to advance human rights
at home. If the United States can practice what it preaches, it will
have a renewed opportunity to advance the cause of human rights
globally, to the benefit of its interests and in line with its values.
THE HOME FRONT

As citizens of a democratic nation of unprecedented racial, ethnic, re-
ligious, and cultural diversity, Americans are bound together not by a
common ancestry but by a shared belief in human rights and freedom.
Despite deep partisan differences, they tend to take an expansive view
of human rights and what it takes to protect them. A 2020 Harvard
University survey, led by one of us, John Shattuck, revealed that eight
out of ten Americans think that voting, racial equality, equal opportu-
May/June 2021 151

nity, freedom of speech, and privacy are all “essential American rights.”
The same goes for health care, education, employment, and clean air
and water. But only 20 percent of Americans believe these rights are
very secure today—and a majority agree that neither the government
nor citizens themselves are doing a good job upholding them. It would
be unrealistic to expect that the Biden administration can undo that
perception straight away, as a polarized political environment will
make structural change difficult to enact. But major improvements in
areas such as racial equality, equal opportunity, voting rights, criminal
justice, and immigration are both urgent and possible.
Moving forward on racial justice should be a top priority. The sur-
vey found that six out of ten Americans agree that “structural racism
makes it difficult to get ahead,” and a similar percentage believe that
“Black people and some other racial minorities are targets of racism in
policing.” To change this, the new administration must broaden fed-
eral civil rights laws and apply them aggressively. It should reinstate
the “disparate impact” standard, which requires government officials
and private companies to prove that their policies and practices do not
have racially discriminatory effects. Through an executive order,
Biden could also require public and private recipients of federal funds
to demonstrate how they will prevent discrimination and guarantee
equal access as a condition for receiving that money.
The criminal justice system is rife with racial discrimination at ev-
ery step, from policing and arrests to bail, sentencing, and incarcera-
tion. The United States currently imprisons over two million
people—who make up a shocking 22 percent of the global prison pop-
ulation—and 60 percent are people of color. The number one goal in
this area must therefore be to reduce mass incarceration. Federal sup-
port should go to state and local government programs that emphasize
crime prevention, mediation, racial fairness, and police accountability
instead of aggressive, military-style policing. Biden reportedly plans
to halt federal transfers of military-grade weaponry to local police
departments. But his administration should push for sentencing re-
form, too, and move to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for
marijuana and other drug-possession offenses. It should also expand
the First Step Act, a federal law enacted in 2018 with bipartisan sup-
port that takes modest steps toward sentencing and prison reform.
Other forms of discrimination should not be left out of the picture.
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the basis of
Democracy promotion: voting in Washington, D.C., November 2008

sexual orientation or gender identity is prohibited under the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The Biden administration, in an encouraging move, has
already issued an executive order prohibiting any such discrimination by
the executive branch and the military and has clarified that laws prohib-
iting gender discrimination also protect those who identify as uGBTQ.
Even in the absence of outright discrimination, many Americans
feel the sting of unequal opportunity and treatment. The disparate
impact of the pandemic on racial minorities and disadvantaged pop-
ulations, for instance, is well documented. As the Biden administra-
tion works to control the pandemic and stabilize the economy, it
should establish a new social contract to guarantee equal opportu-
nity. An immediately achievable reform agenda would include in-
creased federal support for afterschool and preschool programs,
teacher training, and scholarships for low-income students. It would
LA RRY DO WNIN G / RE UT E RS
also include health insurance guarantees for frontline health-care

workers and other groups disproportionately aRected by the pan-
demic, especially racial minorities and low-income individuals and
families. Other items on the agenda should be increased federal
spending for low-income housing and federal protection of vulnera-
ble communities from environmental hazards.
May/June 2021 153

Any human rights push in today’s United States would be incom-

plete without voting reform. Trump’s spurious attacks on the results of
the 2020 presidential election were unanimously rejected as unfounded
by more than 80 federal and state judges, many of them appointed or
elected by Republicans, and no evidence of voter fraud was found. In
the wake of these dangerous attacks, the Biden administration and Con-
gress should take steps to expand and
secure voting rights while fighting state-
U.S. power has always level eRorts to restrict voting access.
rested in part on the That eRort should start with univer-
sal registration. Voting is both a right
country’s commitment to and a responsibility of citizens in a de-
human rights and mocracy, but unlike most other democ-
democracy. racies, the United States does not
automatically register its citizens to
vote. Nineteen states now have auto-
matic registration; Congress should require the remaining 31 to adopt
the same approach. Forty states had implemented early voting and 34
allowed voting by mail before last year’s election, which saw record
turnout across party lines. This, too, should be the norm across all 50
states. A particularly large category of citizens currently denied the
right to vote are the 5.2 million Americans with felony convictions liv-
ing in states that disenfranchise people with such records. Legislation
to restore their voting rights should be modeled after the laws in the 19
states where people with felony convictions are allowed to vote after
they have completed their sentences.
Reforms should also target voter suppression. The Voting Rights
Act should be strengthened so that state and local jurisdictions with a
record of racial discrimination cannot change their voting rules with-
out prior federal approval. Voter roll purges to remove the deceased
or those who have moved must not be used to eliminate eligible vot-
ers. To that end, federal legislation should require states to prevent
the automatic purging of voters from the rolls and instead adopt
transparent procedures with an opportunity for voters to contest
purging decisions. Congress should also prohibit partisan gerryman-
dering, with nonpartisan or bipartisan commissions taking on the task
of drawing legislative district lines.
Finally, the Biden administration should return to an immigration
policy that is centered on human rights. International and domestic
law obligate the United States to protect the rights and safety of refu-
gees, and the Supreme Court has ruled that migrants seeking to re-
main in the country have a right to due process under the U.S.
Constitution. In sharp contrast to the Trump administration’s extreme
anti-immigrant policies and practices (which violated both interna-
tional and domestic refugee law), a majority of Americans in the Har-
vard survey agreed that “immigrants facing persecution or violence in
their home countries have a right to seek asylum in the US” and that
“new immigrants are good for the US.”
Many of Trump’s restrictive immigration policies were promulgated
by executive order and can be rescinded the same way—a process that
Biden has already begun. An early Biden executive order ended the
forced separation of migrant children from their families. Biden also
reversed Trump’s ban on immigration from primarily Muslim countries
and halted construction of the border wall, among other steps. Mean-
while, the Biden administration is proposing legislation to overhaul the
U.S. immigration system, develop a pathway to citizenship for millions
of qualifying immigrants, and address the root causes of immigration
from Central America—although doing all of this while managing the
current surge of migrants at the border will be challenging.
DAMAGE CONTROL
Attention to human rights reform at home will boost the United States’
international standing, allowing Washington to once again make human
rights a central element both in its bilateral relationships and within mul-
tilateral institutions and alliances. As on the home front, a rights-centered
foreign policy should start by reversing actions that turned the United
States from a guardian of human rights into a violator in the eyes of the
rest of the world. Trump’s embrace of authoritarian leaders, from Russian
President Vladimir Putin to Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Viktor
Orban of Hungary, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, was particu-
larly damaging. So was his continued, unquestioning support of Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after the murder, ordered by the
crown prince himself, of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, not to mention
his backing of Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in the brutal civil war
in Yemen. In undoing this disastrous legacy, Biden should place special
emphasis on the rights of women and LGBTQ people. He has already
rescinded the “global gag rule,” which blocked U.S. funding for nongov-
ernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or referrals.
May/June 2021 155

This is not to suggest that Biden should do the opposite of every-

thing his predecessor did. In a few areas, aspects of Trump’s policies
are worth preserving, minus his counterproductive unilateralism.
Venezuela is one such case. The Trump administration spoke out
against the destruction of democracy and violations of human rights
under the regime of Nicolás Maduro, but by throwing reckless threats
of military intervention into the mix, Trump polarized the discussion
and alienated would-be democratic al-
lies in Latin America. The Trump
This is not the ßrst time the administration was also right to
United States has had to characterize China’s severe repression
of its Uyghur population as genocide.
overcome domestic crises to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
boost its national security seems intent on continuing that policy
and international standing. but has made clear that, unlike his pre-
decessors, he will work to bring allies
onboard. Similarly, the State Depart-
ment should maintain the Trump-issued sanctions against military
leaders in Myanmar for their massive human rights violations, in-
cluding genocide, against the Rohingya Muslim minority—and it
should work with allies to add new sanctions in response to the killing
of more than a hundred civilian protesters since February, when the
country’s military overthrew its democratically elected government.
Beyond these individual policies, Biden has an opportunity to re-
cover and renew the broader framework on which U.S. human rights
advocacy rests. That framework—built through legislation and
through administrative eRorts in the State Department—sustained
heavy damage during Trump’s tenure, but it is still in place and ready
for use. Among its tools are legislative mandates to make U.S. aid
and training conditional on certain human rights practices, sanctions
against states and individuals, and annual human rights reports
meant to inform U.S. foreign policy. Yet the most important resource
the administration has at its disposal is its career diplomats. The
Trump administration hollowed out and politicized the State De-
partment. That approach, according to a 2020 report by the former
U.S. ambassadors Nicholas Burns, Marc Grossman, and Marcie Ries,
has left American diplomats “without the support, funding, training,
and leadership they need to represent the American people eRec-
tively overseas and in Washington, D.C.” The first step toward re-
storing U.S. diplomatic credibility is therefore to reestablish the

primacy of the U.S. Foreign Service and its career diplomats.
Some human rights policy will involve high-profile symbolic moves
rather than practical measures. Invitations to foreign leaders to meet
with Biden in the Oval Office will send signals about U.S. human
rights priorities. Likewise, Biden’s plan to host a “global summit for
democracy” during his first year in office will have much symbolic
weight, so the guest list needs to be planned carefully to exclude offi-
cials from what are sometimes called “semi-democracies” or “partly free”
countries. Elected leaders who have hollowed out their democracies
from within, such as Orban and Erdogan, should not be invited. Their
seats should go instead to leaders from the many lesser-known demo-
cratic success stories around the world, such as Chile, Costa Rica, and
Uruguay in Latin America; South Korea and Taiwan in Asia; Bot-
swana, Ghana, Namibia, and Senegal in Africa; Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania in Europe; and some small island states in the Pacific.
A new push for human rights may not produce immediate results.
The current crop of authoritarians, many of them now well en-
trenched, is unlikely to be threatened in the short term by a change
in U.S. policy. Promoting human rights is a long game, in which the
weight of words and facts accumulates over time. To play that game
effectively, the State Department needs to use its annual human
rights reports to compile comprehensive and objective data and anal-
ysis, not to politicize issues (as the Trump administration did, for
example, by omitting discussions of violence and discrimination
against LGBTQ people, organizations, and activists). More important
still, the Biden administration will need to speak with one voice on
human rights and democracy. All parts of the State Department need
to grasp that human rights commitments and practices are among
the main sources of U.S. soft power. When one part of the adminis-
tration speaks out for human rights while others give mixed signals
on repression, foreign leaders grow cynical and indifferent. From the
president on down, it must be clear that genuine concern for human
rights and democracy is a top priority.
PHYSICIAN, HEAL THYSELF

The Biden administration should be wary of using human rights as a
justification for military intervention. No human rights treaty recom-
mends, much less requires, that countries engage in military interven-
May/June 2021 157

tion to enforce human rights abroad. In fact, war is the factor that
correlates most closely with human rights violations, and the use of
force is risky as a tool to advance human rights. Besides, some past
interventions—above all in Iraq—have caused Americans to sour on
promoting democracy and human rights through the barrel of a gun.
Instead, the United States should work to gain back lost trust by
rededicating itself to the development of international human rights
law. Given the current composition of the U.S. Senate, it is unlikely
that the United States will soon ratify the international human rights
treaties that it has already signed, such as the Convention on the Elim-
ination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Conven-
tion on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Rights of
Persons With Disabilities. Nevertheless, the Biden administration
should endorse their ratification and try to build bipartisan support for
them by appealing to U.S. international credibility and national secu-
rity. Early Senate ratification of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court is even less likely, but the Biden administration must
rescind Trump’s executive order authorizing sanctions against officials
of the court, an order that is currently impeding their work.
At the Un, the United States should rejoin the Human Rights
Council, the Un’s main forum for political discussions on human
rights. Although the council’s current members include authoritarian
countries and notorious human rights abusers, rejoining and support-
ing democratic allies is a better option than ceding the floor to China,
Russia, Saudi Arabia, and other authoritarian powers that fill the void
when the United States is out of the room.
The United States should also reengage with the Inter-American Hu-
man Rights System, especially the Inter-American Commission on Hu-
man Rights, which works with the Organization of American States. The
commission could play an important role in addressing the repression
that is a root cause of emigration from Central America and Venezuela.
In recent years, however, it has come under attack from left- and right-
wing governments alike: Nicaragua and Venezuela have sought to weaken
the commission because they reject its criticisms of their human rights
records, and the U.S. government cut its funding after nine Republican
senators falsely claimed that the commission promoted the legalization of
abortion. As a group of former U.S. commissioners to the IACHR argued
afterward, cutting funding was “ill-advised as a matter of both law and
our bipartisan national commitment to democracy and human rights.”
Finally, restoring trust and credibility requires addressing the United

States’ own most glaring abuses of international human rights. Two
moves that would combine symbolic significance and practicality could
initiate this restoration. The first is closing the U.S. military prison at
Guantánamo Bay, where 40 prisoners accused of terrorism remain, ex-
acting a high reputational and continuing financial cost. Washington
cannot speak with a straight face about political prisoners anywhere in
the world as long as it continues to hold these men in indefinite deten-
tion—and in many cases without trial—after nearly two decades. Pris-
oners at Guantánamo who have been charged with crimes should be
transferred to federal courts, which have a solid record of handling such
cases. And those whose crimes cannot be proved should be released.
Second, the United States must establish some accountability for
the CIA’s use of torture during the “war on terror.” Washington has
long been concerned about the risk of U.S. officials being prosecuted
at the International Criminal Court for the use of torture in Afghani-
stan. The straightforward way to avoid this is to initiate domestic legal
proceedings for these crimes, since the ICC does not prosecute cases
for which there has been accountability at the national level. This ap-
proach would be far more consistent with American values and law
than imposing sanctions on ICC officials for doing their jobs. Before
the George W. Bush administration, the United States had long ac-
cepted the prohibition on torture and cruel and unusual punishment
in both domestic law and its international law commitments. Wash-
ington helped draft the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel,
Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ratified it, and im-
plemented it through a federal statute that makes torture a felony with
a penalty of up to 20 years in prison, or even the death penalty if the
torture results in the victim’s death. Evidence of such U.S. crimes
under the Convention Against Torture and U.S. law has been exhaus-
tively documented in reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee
and the Department of Defense, which have identified cases of tor-
tured detainees who died of unnatural causes while in U.S. custody.
The CIA’s rendition, detention, and interrogation program did seri-
ous harm not only to U.S. credibility on human rights but also to the
human rights records of countries that actively collaborated with the
United States. A research article co-authored by one of us, Kathryn
Sikkink, and Averell Schmidt found that many of the 40 countries
that hosted secret U.S. prisons and helped the CIA abduct and inter-
May/June 2021 159

rogate individuals later saw an increase in core human rights viola-

tions relative to countries not involved in the program. Despite this
disastrous impact, the United States to this day has not permitted a
full, independent investigation of its use of torture, and no high-level
officials have been held accountable. If Washington is to set an ex-
ample for the world, this accountability gap needs to be closed. As a
first step, the Biden administration should immediately declassify and
release the full report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which
contains much more detail than the unclassified summary.
BACK TO THE FUTURE

Early signals from Washington are positive. A cascade of executive or-
ders and legislative proposals on CoVID-19 relief, health-care reform,
racial equity, equal opportunity, women’s rights, criminal justice reform,
and immigration reform indicates that addressing the human rights
crisis at home will be one of the new administration’s top priorities as it
works to end the pandemic and rebuild the economy. The massive $1.9
trillion CoVID relief package enacted in March is a major step toward
promoting equal opportunity and fair treatment in the United States.
The breadth of the work that still lies ahead may seem overwhelm-
ing, and the challenges too numerous. But this is not the first time the
United States has had to overcome domestic crises to boost its na-
tional security and international standing. More often than not, it has
emerged victorious. In fact, the country’s human rights history re-
veals a pattern of deep crisis followed by ambitious reform—from the
abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of Black men after the
Civil War to the introduction of voting rights for women after World
War I, the expansion of economic rights on the heels of the Great
Depression, and the legislative push for racial equality sparked by the
civil rights movement. If Americans today can bridge their political
differences through a shared belief in their rights and responsibilities,
they can bring about yet another period of transformation, in which
the United States reimagines human rights as the values that define
and secure its place in the world.∂

The Merkel Model and Its Limits
ears ago, at the Munich Security Conference, I found myself
Y squeezed in on the steps of the grand staircase of a hotel

ballroom, trying, dutifully but vainly, to follow a more than
usually humdrum speech by Germany’s first female chancellor. Tun-
ing out, I recognized the one-star general hunkered down beside
me, a senior staRer in the chancellery. I tapped his sleeve and said,
“So what’s it like to work for her?” He turned to me and grinned
appreciatively. “It’s like working next to a nuclear power plant. It
just runs, and runs, and runs.”
And how it ran. Angela Merkel is now in the final months of her
fourth term in office, her last, which is set to end with national elections
on September 26. Only Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who oversaw the
joining of East and West Germany in 1990, held office for longer. A
Pew poll last year showed Merkel to be the world’s most trusted leader.
Forbes magazine has ranked her the world’s most powerful woman for
ten years in a row. In 2009, the toy company Mattel even created an
Angela Merkel Barbie doll. For a while, some U.S. and British com-
mentators, dismayed by their own leaders, even took to calling her “the
leader of the free world” (a title the chancellor is said to detest).
Yet at the same time, Merkel’s opacity and technocratic prudence
have frustrated and often infuriated those who wanted Germany to
articulate a clearer vision of its role in a liberal world order, to take
on greater responsibility for defending and shaping that order—or
just to acknowledge and mitigate the impact of the country’s deci-
sions on its neighbors and allies. And although the 66-year-old con-
servative remains her country’s best-liked politician, public approval
CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER is Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and Trans-Atlantic
Relations and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States
and Europe.
May/June 2021 161

of her government has dipped sharply as frustration with its hap-

hazard pandemic management has grown.
The looming end of the Merkel era thus raises questions that
should hold important lessons—not least for those who are currently
seeking to succeed her. Just what was her recipe for power, and is it
replicable? Has her tenure made Germany, its neighbors, and its al-
lies better off? And has she prepared her country for the future?
MERKEL’S METHOD
At the beginning of her career, nothing would have seemed less plau-
sible than that Merkel would become Germany’s eighth chancellor,
the successor to a line of hard-drinking, smoking, womanizing, and
generally scenery-chewing Big Men of West German politics. When
the Berlin Wall came down, in 1989, Merkel was a divorced 35-year-
old quantum chemist working at an academic research institute in
East Berlin. She had just joined the Christian Democratic Union
(CDU), when she was picked by Kohl for the most patronizing job in
the chancellor’s first post-reunification cabinet: minister for women
and youth. She was as unmemorable there as she was in her next job,
minister for the environment. Kohl, busy burnishing his legacy and
weeding out rivals, referred to her as “das Mädchen” (“that girl”).
But when Kohl found himself embroiled in a party financing scan-
dal in 1999, it was Merkel, and not one of the half-dozen young con-
servatives circling the old man, who felled him with a piece on the
front page of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany’s conservative
daily, that called for his resignation as honorary chair of the party.
This audacious patricide led to her election as head of the party. Six
years later, in 2005, she became the first East German, and the first
woman, to be elected chancellor.
Since then, Merkel has weathered a punishing series of domestic
and external upheavals, including the 2008 financial crisis and the
ensuing eurozone meltdown, Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea
and invasion of Ukraine, the 2015 refugee crisis, the subsequent me-
teoric rise of the far-right party Alternative for Germany, and now
the CoVID-19 pandemic. She has been in power longer than any of
her peers in the major industrialized countries, with the sole excep-
tion of Vladimir Putin. This has enabled her to broker countless
compromises at eU, G-7, and G-20 summits, as well as to hold to-
gether four coalition governments at home (three with the center-
Her way: Merkel in Berlin, March 2021

left Social Democrats and one with the pro-business Free Democrats).
She has outmaneuvered authoritarian leaders, allies, coalition part-
ners, and party frenemies. When necessary, she has plowed through
illness, exhaustion, and even a pelvic fracture, suRered while cross-
country skiing in Switzerland.
Yet outwardly, the most striking thing about the chancellor re-
mains her determined normalcy. Merkel’s clear, light voice carries
the unhurried intonation of the pine-forested, sandy-soiled Branden-
burg countryside northwest of Berlin, where her father was a Lu-
theran parson. Her working uniform consists of sensible 2ats, black
pants, and an endless supply of hip-length jackets in every color. The
chancellor and her husband, a retired chemistry professor, live in
CLEM ENS B ILAN / POO L / RE UT E RS
their old Berlin apartment rather than the official residence; the only
visible security is a police officer in front of the building. To the ap-
proval of Berliners, Merkel is sometimes seen walking in the city
center or shopping in a supermarket, trailed by her bodyguards.
Arguably, Merkel’s unpretentiousness is itself a calculated expres-
sion of power. One German described her to me as a walking force
field: “In conversation, you know you’re being subjected to a quiet,
all-encompassing scrutiny, all the time.” Another person remembers
May/June 2021 163

a meeting Merkel had with then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden in
Berlin in 2013. The chancellor waved away his attempts to charm her
and pursued her agenda points until she was satisfied that she had
nailed down what she needed to know. Then she canceled her next
appointment to continue the conversation. “He ended up telling her
about looking into the Russian president’s eyes and saying, ‘I can
look into your soul, and I don’t like it,’ which she countered with an
absolutely spot-on impression of Putin.”
Merkel’s work ethic is as legendary as her wicked sense of humor,
her command of her briefs, and her appetite for information and argu-
ments. An American who witnessed some of her phone conversations
with U.S. President Barack Obama told me that “they sounded like a
graduate seminar.” Her ministers fear her ferociously retentive mem-
ory for the details of their portfolios—including the particulars of
complex technical and scientific issues, such as trade, digital technol-
ogy, and, lately, the pandemic. But what really makes Merkel stand
out from her peers is her ability to hold on to power against all odds.
One of the most distinctive features of her method is her anti-
oratorical speaking style, which anesthetizes commentators and diplo-
mats alike. She can deliver devastating zingers in a parliamentary
debate or an interview when she wants to. When a talk-show host once
portentously asked her what qualities she associated with Germany,
Merkel dryly answered, “Well-sealed windows.” But her default delivery
mode is what Germans now call merkeln: so deadpan and convoluted
that it’s impossible to pin her down. Behind the style, however, is what
German strategists have called “asymmetric demobilization”: dull the
issues, depoliticize conflicts, and thus keep the opponent’s voters from
going to the polls. This approach has enabled Merkel to modernize her
conservative party, dragging it into the political center, pushing her
Social Democratic and Free Democratic coalition partners to the side-
lines, and co-opting elements of their platforms, such as tax benefits
for parents or a statutory minimum wage.
A second key aspect of the way Merkel manages power is that she
devolves responsibility but tightly limits trust. The chancellor’s in-
nermost circle consists of a very small team of loyalists with whom
she has worked for years (in some cases decades) and in whose discre-
tion and discipline she can place absolute confidence. Everyone else,
from cabinet members to party functionaries, is kept on a long leash.
Success is rewarded with approval and credit. But those who trip or
entangle themselves either come to heel with a newly sober under-

standing of their options or suddenly discover life outside politics.
The third element of the Merkel method is assiduously gauging and
responding to her base’s mood. She first nailed her national leadership
ambitions to the mast with a 2aming liberal economic reformist speech
at a party convention in 2003. When it
became clear that this was too much
change for the delegates and might cost What really makes Merkel
her the chancellorship, she backtracked stand out from her peers is
swiftly, dropping old party allies. A her ability to hold on to
few years ago, Der Spiegel disclosed that
her chancellery was commissioning, on
power against all odds.
average, three surveys a week. Her two
most daring choices—deciding to decommission Germany’s nuclear
power plants within a decade after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster
and refusing in 2015 to close Germany’s borders to one million mainly
Middle Eastern refugees—were fully supported by polling.
Merkel has twice sailed against the political winds. During the
2008 financial crisis, surveys showed that Germans were strictly
against bailouts for uU member states. But she steadfastly opposed
her party and public opinion by pushing through the rescue pack-
ages and insisting that Greece stay in the eurozone. The refugee
decision, for its part, became controversial, and led to the rise of the
far right. In 2015, Fiona Hill, a colleague of mine at the Brookings
Institution, asked about the decision in a conversation with former
Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, who had known the chancel-
lor through European Christian democratic circles since her earliest
days in politics. Lubbers predicted that Merkel would stand her
ground despite the backlash; for the steadfast Lutheran, he said, this
was “a matter of deep moral conviction.”
Merkel’s interpreters have labored heroically to reconcile these par-
adoxes. The simple truth is that Merkel the level-headed empiricist
has little patience for visions when there are problems to be solved.
She has whipsawed on her principles for the sake of power, but she has
also been willing to pay a price for standing up for her deepest convic-
tions. Few of her peers have been able to accumulate so much political
capital. Yet even her admirers concede that although she has been ex-
quisitely adroit at riding out the currents of politics, she has been far
too reluctant to shape them.
May/June 2021 165

AN AMBIVALENT LEGACY
With Germany’s election drawing closer, what has become of all that
political capital? What will Merkel’s legacy be—and will she deserve
to be called a great chancellor?
Three of Germany’s eight postwar chancellors deserve that title.
Konrad Adenauer’s claim to greatness was Westbindung—anchoring
the young West German republic in the transatlantic alliance by join-
ing nATo and reconciling with France and Israel. Willy Brandt’s en-
during legacy was Ostpolitik: asking forgiveness from Eastern Europe,
falling to his knees in the Warsaw ghetto, and seeking détente with
the Soviet Union. Helmut Kohl steered the two Germanies to reuni-
fication and gave up the deutsche mark for the sake of a common
currency, the euro, rooting the reunified country in an enlarging eU.
Merkel unquestionably transformed Germany’s post–Cold War
politics, liberalized her party, presided over an extraordinary expan-
sion of German economic and political power in Europe, and did
much to defend the European political project. And yet her claims to
greatness are inconclusive, perhaps because so many of the signifi-
cant achievements of her tenure have come with a darker underside.
Prior to the CoVID-19 pandemic, the Merkel era saw Germany’s
economy roar back from a deep malaise to become the world’s fourth
largest, with sharply rising living standards, near-full employment,
and historic government budget surpluses. Her economic policies
were notably business-friendly, but they failed to push for urgently
required technological adaptation in key industries or the modern-
ization of physical and digital infrastructure. A series of scandals—
from the car industry’s manipulation of emission data (“Dieselgate”)
to the fraudulent insolvency of the payment processor Wirecard—
have revealed a deeply flawed corporate culture and a resistance to
accountability and oversight. This makes the German economy
highly vulnerable to illicit financial flows, a favorite tool of organized
crime, extremists, and authoritarian adversaries.
Merkel made an early bid for the title of “climate chancellor” with
her strong advocacy of progressive global climate policies. But her
domestic climate policies have become embroiled in the many con-
tradictions of her energy policy: her swerve away from nuclear power
in 2011 only intensified Germany’s dependence on coal, and despite
spending a fortune on subsidies for renewables, the country has had
trouble meeting its international emission targets.
Merkel’s record on Europe is even more complicated. Southern

European countries resented the austerity policies imposed from Ber-
lin during the eurozone crisis and blamed them for the rise of popu-
lists in Athens and Rome; in contrast, some frugal northern European
and Baltic countries were demanding that Greece be thrown out of
the eurozone in the wake of its debt crisis. Eastern Europeans were
angry at her for welcoming refugees
and refused to participate in an uU-
wide resettlement system. Liberals Merkel’s decision not to
across the continent have accused her close Germany’s borders to
of turning a blind eye to democratic
backsliding in Poland and full-blown a huge wave of refugees
authoritarianism in Hungary. A suc- was an act of humanism.
cession of British prime ministers, But it was not that alone.
from David Cameron to Boris John-
son, have been dismayed by Merkel’s
polite refusal to pay any price to stop them from divorcing the uU.
French President Emmanuel Macron was keenly disappointed to find
her unimpressed by his grand ideas for deeper European integration.
Yet on many occasions, Merkel has quietly and patiently bridged
deep European divides. She fought against a no-deal Brexit. Her
move to support the UU’s $826 billion pandemic recovery fund in
May 2020 by allowing the bloc to raise common debt in capital mar-
kets for the first time—an option fiercely resisted by her party for
decades—very likely prevented a disintegration of the union.
Merkel’s decision not to close Germany’s borders to a huge wave
of refugees in 2015—“We can do it,” she famously explained—was an
act of humanism. But it was not that alone. At the time, it was the
only responsible thing to do, because it took huge pressure oR smaller
European neighbors and the Balkan countries, where the refugees
had first arrived. Most of those who stayed in Germany have by now
integrated successfully into society, replenishing a workforce that
has been clamoring for new labor.
Nevertheless, the domestic and external costs were immense. Ger-
man cities and states struggled to cope with the in2ux for months,
and citizens felt that the government was asking them to take on too
much responsibility for helping the newcomers. Germany’s neigh-
bors objected that Merkel’s decision had created an enormous incen-
tive for additional migration. It took a tawdry multibillion-euro deal
May/June 2021 167

with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to stop the flow by

keeping migrants in Turkey; and indeed, Germany ended up de facto
closing its borders to refugees.
Worst of all, the crisis fueled ethnonationalist movements across
Europe. In Germany, it turned the Alternative for Germany from a
small Euroskeptical party into a raging far-right, xenophobic force that
entered the national legislature and became leader of the opposition in
a mere four years. Rebellion was rife in the CDU, and Merkel was never
closer to losing her job. She won reelection in 2017 with her party’s
worst postwar result (33 percent of the popular vote), and she had to
negotiate for an unprecedented five months to form a government.
Charting Germany’s shifting relations with the great powers has
been Merkel’s most vexatious challenge of all. As a European middle
power that shares a continent with and imports energy from Russia,
depends for exports on China (Germany’s biggest trading partner
outside the eU), and relies on the United States for its security um-
brella, Germany has limited strategic options. Historically, this has
been reflected in a deeply ingrained instinct to balance allies and
adversaries alike, and Merkel has been no exception to this tradition.
Indeed, a decade ago, Berlin saw Moscow and Beijing as strategic
partners in what it hoped would become a two-way bargain: Germany
would help them transform not just their economies but also their
political systems. This made for roaring business. The Ost-Ausschuss,
Germany’s chief lobbying association for companies doing business in
Russia, was a powerful player in trade policy. So many German Ceos
wanted to join the chancellor’s annual trips to China that sometimes
three planes were required for the entire delegation. (Merkel would
also make sure to meet with Chinese and Russian dissidents at the
German embassy, and she received the Dalai Lama in Berlin in 2007.)
Today, however, a revisionist Russia and a rising China are playing of-
fense as strategic competitors to the West, not just in their own “near
abroads,” and in the Middle East and Africa, but also within Eu-
rope’s—and Germany’s—physical and digital borders.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, its
disinformation and propaganda operations in German social media,
the 2015 hack of the Bundestag servers, the 2019 murder of a Chechen
political refugee in Berlin, the 2020 attempted murder of the Russian
opposition politician Alexei Navalny, and Moscow’s support for the
brutal crackdowns on mass demonstrations in Belarus—all these
developments have led the German political class to make a bleak reas-
sessment of the relationship with Moscow. Merkel has sharply
condemned the Kremlin for the assassination attempt against Navalny
and had him brought to Berlin for treatment, and she has backed new
uU sanctions against senior Russians in response. Yet she has refused—
despite massive pressure from the Trump and Biden administrations—
to wield the biggest stick in her arsenal
and suspend the Gazprom pipeline proj- Nothing has been quite as
ect Nord Stream 2, which is intended to
bring Russian natural gas to Germany, excruciating for Merkel as
circumventing Ukrainian and Polish having to deal with a
transit routes. hostile United States under
Similarly, China’s ruthless authori-
tarianism under President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump.
persecution of the Uyghurs and of ac-
tivists, drive for regional hegemony, crackdown on Hong Kong,
threats toward Taiwan, and confrontational diplomacy in Europe
have also hardened attitudes in Berlin. Owing to cybersecurity con-
cerns, the German government is planning new restrictions on tele-
communications providers that would eRectively bar the Chinese
company Huawei from the country’s 5G network. In September
2020, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, got an unusual public scold-
ing in Berlin from his host and German counterpart, Heiko Maas,
who told him, “We oRer our international partners respect, and we
expect the exact same from them.” Growing numbers of representa-
tives in the Bundestag have demanded a tougher line on China. Yet
when Germany held the rotating UU presidency in the second half of
2020, Merkel pushed through a Chinese-UU investment agreement
despite loud concern on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nothing, however, has been quite as excruciating for Merkel as
having to deal with a hostile United States under President Donald
Trump. As a young woman in East Germany, she dreamed of travel-
ing to America; in 1993, she spent four weeks touring California
with the man who would become her second husband. As chancellor,
she became a dedicated transatlanticist, even defending President
George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Obama appeared to her to be a light-
weight at first, but she grew genuinely close to him; it was Obama
who urged her to run for a fourth term because of the risk to Europe
from Trump. Trump turned out to harbor a relentless animosity to-
May/June 2021 169

ward the eU, Germany, and the chancellor. In May 2017, after Trump’s
first appearance at a G-7 summit, Merkel told a campaign audience
in a Bavarian beer tent, “The era in which we could fully rely on oth-
ers is over to some extent.”
Merkel welcomed Biden’s election with warmth (and palpable re-
lief). Her defense minister, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who shares
her views on the importance of the alliance with the United States,
keeps pushing for greater defense spending and a more forward-leaning
German military posture. But it is also true that Germany’s security
capabilities have been woefully underfunded for far too long. Like
Merkel’s dithering over standing up to Moscow and Beijing, German
military weakness has undercut the security of Europe and nATo.
UNDERPREPARED
The darkening geopolitical landscape and the menace of the extreme
right appear to have unleashed something in Merkel. According to a
Der Spiegel story, she spoke to her party’s parliamentary group in
2018 about the bloody wars of religion that followed the Reforma-
tion. The ensuing more than six decades of peace, Merkel said, lulled
Europeans into a false sense of security, making them unprepared
for what came next: the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), which killed
up to a third of the population in some parts of German lands. To
reinforce the message, she added, “More than 70 years have also
passed since the end of World War II.”
When the pandemic began, Merkel was one of the first leaders to
grasp that it could become a modern-day version of these early catas-
trophes. On March 18, 2020, the chancellor told a stunned nation in
a televised address: “This is serious. You should take it seriously, too.
Since German unification—no, since World War II—there has been
no challenge like this one, where our common solidarity matters so
much.” At first, it seemed as though her country had heeded her; in
the spring and summer, German policymakers acted swiftly, deci-
sively, and in unison. While the virus raged elsewhere, caseloads in
Germany stayed low, and the country began to reopen. Germany—
and Merkel—was being hailed as a shining example of leadership.
But now it appears that Merkel the scientist, crisis manager, and
compromise broker is facing her greatest failure at home. Warnings
(including hers) of a second pandemic wave were ignored. The result
was a horrific winter spike; as of March 2021, the national death toll
exceeded 70,000. The wealthy, well-ordered Germany that took on

the task of integrating one million refugees in 2015 is now struggling
to deliver tests and vaccines.
There are many causes for this chaos. Health policy is the business
of Germany’s 16 states. In a parliamentary system, the chancellor does
not have a veto over policies that are state prerogatives; all she can do
is persuade. In a year with six regional votes besides the national vote
in September, politicians deprived of most of the options of normal
retail politics are busy competing with one another as the protectors of
their constituents’ special interests. The country’s health administra-
tion is overregulated and underorganized—a fact made all the more
ironic by the fact that one internationally successful vaccine, Pfizer-
BioNTech’s, was co-developed by German scientists of Turkish origin.
Even Germany’s friends would add that the country’s internal po-
litical debates can display a complacency that seems disconcertingly at
odds with its current challenges and vulnerability. They are not reas-
sured by the fact that only months ahead of the national vote, the ques-
tion of who could be Germany’s next chancellor remains wide open.
Opinion surveys still suggest that the likeliest next German gov-
ernment will be led by a conservative chancellor, with the Greens as
junior coalition partners. But a recent slump in the fortunes of Merkel’s
CDU does not bode well for its chances in September. Her chosen po-
litical heir, Kramp-Karrenbauer, resigned as party leader after only a
year. The new party leader, Armin Laschet, the premier of Germany’s
most populous state, North Rhine–Westphalia, has put in a lackluster
performance. In mid-March, the CDU suffered its worst-ever defeats
in two bellwether regional elections. The country’s febrile and angry
political mood has been exacerbated by revelations that several conser-
vative legislators profited from corrupt deals to procure face masks.
So far, none of this seems to have given the far right, paralyzed by
infighting and the threat of observation by the domestic intelligence
service, the boost it yearns for. But Laschet may yet find himself el-
bowed aside by Markus Söder, the Bavarian premier and leader of the
CDU’s local sister party, the Christian Social Union. Some are even spec-
ulating about the possibility in the fall of a center-left coalition of the
Social Democrats, the Free Democrats, and the Greens—a “traffic light
coalition,” so called for the parties’ colors—with the CDU in opposition.
Merkel, meanwhile, seems increasingly frustrated and depleted,
her endless patience eroded, her legendary negotiating energy
May/June 2021 171

spent. Germans may someday come to appreciate that Merkel was

singularly lacking in the character flaws of her three great predeces-
sors, Adenauer, Brandt, and Kohl, each of whom left office under a
shadow and against his will. Her integrity and dedication are be-
yond question—and she will be the first of Germany’s heads of gov-
ernment to relinquish power of her own accord. Nonetheless, and
despite her considerable achievements, the ultimate responsibility
for the state of the country, and its relations with its allies and ad-
versaries, lies with the chancellor.
As Germany ponders whom to elect as her successor, it might
heed a lesson from the 2011 Fukushima disaster. In the aftermath of
the earthquake and tsunami that led to the world’s worst nuclear
power accident since Chernobyl, it became clear that studies about
the vulnerability of the plant’s architecture had been ignored. In
other words, disaster might, with proper planning and action, have
been averted or mitigated. Modern democracies, too, face a future of
increasing crises and upheavals. Germany’s current state is an object
lesson in the dangers of failing to prepare for and protect oneself,
one’s neighbors, and one’s allies against the next disruption.∂
REVIEWS & RESPONSES
It isn’t just illiberal leaders who can be
blamed for democratic backsliding;
they are aided by supportive publics.
– Pippa Norris
D AV I D B U T OW / RE D UX
Voters Against Democracy The Two Rwandas

Pippa Norris 174 Phil Clark 185
A Prison Called Tibet Recent Books 194

Howard W. French 179
authoritarianism and democracy, the

Voters Against United States was, after a brief hiatus,
again on the right side of history. “Amer-
Democracy ica is back,” Biden claimed.
But it’s hard to be so optimistic
about liberal democracy. The world has
The Roots of Autocratic moved on from the heady days of the
Resurgence so-called third wave of democratization,
which started in Greece, Portugal, and
Pippa Norris Spain in the 1970s, spread through
Latin America in the 1980s, and acceler-
ated in eastern Europe in the 1990s
Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Contemporary World Nowadays, the news is much grimmer.
BY STEPHAN HAGGARD AND The Arab Spring ended in renewed
ROBERT KAUFMAN. Cambridge repression in Egypt and Syria. During
University Press, 2021, 102 pp. the last decade, Russian President
Vladimir Putin and Chinese President
t the heart of his inaugural Xi Jinping have tightened their grip on
A address, delivered just two power. Massive street protests in

weeks after a violent mob sacked Belarus, Hong Kong, Myanmar, and
the U.S. Capitol, President Joe Biden Russia have been met with violent
repression. Illiberalism is rising in
claimed that the transfer of power
re2ected American democracy’s victory Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro,
over the forces of insurrection, chaos, in Hungary under Prime Minister
and intolerance. “At this hour, my Viktor Orban, and in the Philippines
friends, democracy has prevailed,” he under President Rodrigo Duterte. Even
said in a speech that used the term in long-standing liberal democracies,
“democracy” more than any of his including the United States, authoritar-
predecessors’ inaugural addresses. A ian populist leaders have risen to power.
month later, he revisited the theme at In their new book, Backsliding,
the Munich Security Conference, where Stephan Haggard and Robert Kaufman
he repudiated the “America first” policies aim to explain today’s democratic
of former President Donald Trump and regress. Their study makes a stimulat-
committed to protecting human rights ing contribution to the growing work
around the world. “Democracy doesn’t on backsliding, seeking to identify
happen by accident,” he said. “We have leading cases around the world and
to defend it, fight for it, strengthen it, describe their causes. Haggard and
renew it.” And in the contest between Kaufman emphasize the role played by
governing elites, arguing that backslid-
PIPPA NORRIS is Paul F. McGuire Lecturer in ing commonly occurs when leaders
Comparative Politics at the Harvard Kennedy gradually dismantle checks and balances
School and the author, with Ronald Inglehart, of
Cultural Backlash: Trump, Brexit, and Authoritar- with the complicity of legislative elites.
ian Populism. In so doing, however, the authors
Voters Against Democracy
underestimate the role of broader shifts undermining free and fair elections and
in the electorate and the failure of independent legislatures. Partisans
political institutions. It isn’t just illib- holding elected office are complicit,
eral leaders who can be blamed for failing to curb the leaders’ attacks on
backsliding; they are aided by suppor- the rule of law or their manipulations of
tive publics and flawed institutions. electoral rules. This process, Haggard
and Kaufman claim, disorients the
DEMOCRACIES IN DISARRAY public, who cannot see the damage to
Haggard and Kaufman compare 16 democracy until it is too late.
diverse cases of democratic backsliding, In Hungary, for example, the authors
including Brazil, Greece, Nicaragua, date backsliding back to 2010, when
Russia, and the United States. They Orban’s party, Fidesz, won a landslide
selected states that had at least eight victory. Soon after taking office, Orban
consecutive years of electoral democ- revised the constitution and electoral
racy from 1974 to 2019 and a statisti- law, which allowed him to consolidate
cally significant decline in liberal his power in elections held in 2014 and
democracy, as measured by data col- 2018. Orban encroached on the news
lected by the Varieties of Democracy media’s independence, restricted the
project. The authors define backsliding judiciary, and limited political rights
precisely but narrowly. It most com- and civil liberties—all the while stoking
monly occurs, they say, when autocrats resentment against migrants. Orban
who have been voted into executive claimed that he and he alone reflected
office gradually undermine electoral “true” democracy, responding to the
integrity, curtail political rights and will of the public by defending Hun-
civil liberties, and erode horizontal gary against the eU and what he viewed
checks on their power. Thus, cases in as its lax policy on immigration.
which democracies collapsed for other In the United States, Trump won the
reasons, such as a military coup, a civil White House by exploiting party
war, or a foreign military intervention, polarization over cultural values. Once
are excluded from the study, since in office, he deepened partisan divisions
these are less common today. in Congress and among the electorate.
The authors sketch out a particular He worsened us-versus-them rifts on a
pathway for backsliding. First, autocrats range of issues, such as immigration,
exploit political polarization to win race, religion, and nationalism. Trump
executive office. They heighten tensions also eroded Republican trust in the
over cultural issues, making rhetorical legitimate authority of democratic
appeals that emphasize us-versus-them institutions that counterbalance the
divisions between the “real people” and executive. He regularly attacked the
foreigners, immigrants, and racial, media and complained about the
ethnic, or religious minorities, as well as judiciary. He largely bypassed Con-
powerful elites and political opponents. gress, governing instead through
Then, to expand their powers, these Twitter attacks, executive orders, and
leaders incrementally assault core the appointment of officials in “acting”
democratic institutions, especially by roles not confirmed by the Senate. He
May/June 2021 175

Pippa Norris
also sowed mistrust of elections, culmi- grew before autocrats came to power in
nating in the brazen attack by his Greece, Hungary, and Poland, but not in
supporters on the Capitol. Perhaps Nicaragua, Russia, and Turkey. In
more disturbing, far from retreating to Bolivia and Zambia, the old party
a quiet retirement in Mar-a-Lago, system broke down and new contenders
Trump signaled in a February speech at filled the vacuum, whereas in Turkey
the Conservative Political Action and the United States, an existing party
Conference that he intends to continue became more extreme. Immigration
to lead the GOP. He lambasted Biden’s sharply divided several countries in
record, attacked the congressional Europe, but in different ways. Some,
Republicans who supported his im- such as Greece and Turkey, were directly
peachment, and hinted that he may affected by the flood of migrants from
even run for president again in 2024. Afghanistan and Syria that began around
Yet this raises a question: Does the 2014, whereas others, such as Hungary
theory presented in Backsliding reflect a and Poland, absorbed fewer refugees.
rationalization of the Orban and Trump Certain backsliders, notably Russia, also
cases, or can it indeed explain democratic faced economic crises, whereas others,
decline elsewhere in the world? The such as Poland, experienced strong
Hungarian and American stories encap- economic growth before slipping. In
sulate Haggard and Kaufman’s theory. other words, it’s complicated.
Yet there’s reason to doubt whether that
narrative, focused as it is on supply-side SUPPLY AND DEMAND
factors, can provide a comprehensive One limitation of the book is that
explanation of democratic decline Haggard and Kaufman rely on just 16
elsewhere in the world. The role of cases. Had they included more, they
leaders may indeed be important, but if could have overcome tricky analytic
so, it is unclear why a series of leaders issues, giving their study more power
sharing similar illiberal values and and thus a greater ability to generalize
practices should emerge during the last across time and space. At the same
decade in so many diverse countries time, the short volume contains too
around the world. Is this just coinci- many dissimilar countries to allow for
dence? Some contagion effects may be detailed historical case studies of
expected; hence, Trump’s ascension backsliding. Another limitation is that
through illiberal tactics may have em- the authors stretch the concept of
boldened others—such as Bolsonaro, certain key terms to fit their cases. They
elected in 2018—to follow a similar apply the label “autocrat” to leaders in
playbook. But most of the illiberal their cases of backsliding, but this is a
leaders in Backsliding rose to power many circular explanation. Some of their
years before Trump, so the timing measurements are suspect, too. To
suggests that something else is at work. gauge polarization, they rely on online
The authors are careful to qualify surveys of experts who estimate the
their claims, acknowledging the high degree of societal polarization and the
diversity in their cases. For instance, extent of antigovernment social move-
they suggest that party polarization ments. But these are vague and impres-
Voters Against Democracy
sionistic measurements that are as likely corrupt and legitimate authority lies
to be colored by the outcome being with the virtuous people. Just as a fish
studied—backsliding—as they are to rots from the head, the argument
represent an objective prior condition. runs, so democracy collapses under
An even bigger problem is that the pressure from the top.
authors treat polarization as exogenous, Yet this theory does not allow that
rather than explaining the roots of large swaths of the public may hold
these divisions in economic or cultural authoritarian values. Sometimes, people
cleavages in the electorate. Their really do want leaders who prioritize order
explanation reflects a supply-side and security from outside threats, adhere
approach, which focuses on how illiberal to traditional norms, and promise to
leaders contribute to backsliding. defend the tribe. That is why hate groups
Haggard and Kaufman give primacy to and extremists have risen across Europe
the capacity of illiberal leaders to and why Trump’s supporters managed to
corrupt democratic norms and the take over the Republican Party.
acquiescence of legislative elites in this An alternative account emphasizes
process. In their words, “Backsliding . . . demand-side forces, as well as institu-
is ultimately the result of the actions of tional factors. Illiberal leaders usually
autocrats who gain executive office and arise where there are deep social divi-
control over the legislature.” The book sions combined with winner-take-all
essentially reflects a “great man” theory majoritarian institutions that fail to
of history—tempting, given the amount reflect minority views. From this view-
of attention paid to Orban, Putin, point, loosely derived from the classic
Trump, and their ilk. work of the political scientist Arend
By contrast, Haggard and Kaufman Lijphart, leaders are the product, as
treat demand-side factors, the forces much as the driver, of the mismatch
that allow illiberal leaders to rise, as sec- between social cleavages and political
ondary. They assume a limited role for institutions. As Lijphart has argued,
the public: voters provide a market for homogeneous societies with few major
illiberal political appeals, sending cleavages—such as the United Kingdom
illiberal leaders into office, but then are in the 1950s and 1960s—can sustain
seen as passively accepting the conse- flourishing liberal democracies despite
quences. At that point, the autocratic majoritarian rules. But in states riven by
leaders are thought to take over, duping deep cultural or social divisions, he
ordinary citizens into gradually giving warned, democratic instability and
up their democratic rights and free- conflict arise when leaders attempt to
doms, especially when the leaders govern through majoritarian institutions,
control the flow of information. Hag- including winner-take-all elections for
gard and Kaufman assume that ordinary legislative and executive office.
citizens are committed to liberal
democracy but disengaged, allowing DIVIDED WE FALL
power-hungry elites to corrupt the The United States exemplifies the prob-
process. The theory thereby echoes lem well. Since the 1980s, societal
populist notions that elites are deeply polarization has grown between liberals
May/June 2021 177

Pippa Norris
and conservatives over such issues as led the Parliament to pass a citizenship
racial justice, immigration, abortion, law that discriminates against Muslims.
and gay rights, with growing progres- In each case, the tensions cannot be
sive values among the left catalyzing a resolved through compromise; instead,
cultural backlash on the right. Mean- majoritarian electoral institutions
while, the country’s majoritarian empower authoritarian populist leaders
institutions have become more dysfunc- to threaten minority rights.
tional. The Senate vastly overrepresents Such divisions do not account for
rural states. Gerrymandered districts, every case of backsliding. The regres-
primaries, and winner-take-all elections sion in Venezuela is probably best
provide incentives for candidates to explained by the lasting influence of
appeal mainly to the party faithful. The Hugo Chávez, Ukraine’s slippage is
Electoral College allows candidates to partly a product of Russian interfer-
win the White House with less than 50 ence, and Egypt and Myanmar have
percent of the popular vote. Partisan their powerful militaries to blame. But
polarization plus outdated institutions generally speaking, the countries at the
is a fatal combination. It undermines highest risk of backsliding are those
social tolerance, bipartisan cooperation, where societies and parties are polar-
and democratic norms. Republican ized over liberal-conservative cultural
legislators—in thrall to a white, rural values and where the institutions do not
base that feels threatened by demo- accommodate these rifts.
graphic and ideological shifts—remain What can be done? Cultural polariza-
powerful enough to seek to bend the tion is extremely difficult to overcome,
rules in their favor. Since the 2020 particularly in the short term. The most
election, 33 state legislatures have effective strategy for reform is to
introduced more than 250 bills to make strengthen liberal democratic institu-
voting less convenient, restrict voter tions and thereby increase the incen-
registration, and purge electoral rolls, tives for politicians to follow democratic
all attempts to suppress voting rights norms. Of course, the dilemma is that
among communities of color. in many places, the authoritarian
The same pattern has repeated itself populists have already taken power and
elsewhere. In the United Kingdom, the can use it to veto democratic reforms.
battle over Brexit revealed bitter divi- In this regard, the prospects for reform
sions between the Leave and the Remain do not seem rosy.∂
camps. In Hungary, Orban’s government
used the issue of migration to stoke
xenophobic fears and challenge the eU,
even though the country has relatively
few immigrants. In France, debates over
the role of Islam and French identity
have fueled support for the far-right
party the National Rally. Hindu nation-
alism in India has exacerbated mob
violence against Muslim minorities and
gunpoint, after the senior CCP leader,

A Prison Deng Xiaoping, and other commanders
led thousands of People’s Liberation
Called Tibet Army troops into Tibet to establish
Chinese authority. Tibet’s traditional
leaders bridled at the encroachment and
How China Controls Its at the violation of Beijing’s earlier
Restive Regions promises of autonomy, and in 1959, the
most important of them, the Buddhist
Howard W. French monk known as the Dalai Lama, 2ed
overland into exile in India, where he
has remained ever since. Since then, in
its approach to Tibet, China has oscil-
Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a lated between periods of oppression
Tibetan Town and stretches of relative tolerance. But
BY BARBARA DEMICK. Random the forced marriage has never been a
House, 2020, 352 pp. happy or stable one.
By the early years of this century,
n the early twentieth century, during Beijing was working hard to roll out
I a period when Tibet was eRectively

self-governed, it was known as “the
hermit kingdom.” This moniker re2ected
impressive modern infrastructure in
Tibet, including rail lines that passed
over large stretches of delicate perma-
the general remoteness of the place, frost at three miles of elevation. The
reinforced by the altitude of its habitable trains they carried were meant to
plateaus, the forbidding mountain ranges facilitate a mass migration to Tibet of
(including the Himalayas) that hem members of the Han Chinese majority
Tibet in, and the supposedly insular from elsewhere in the country, re2ect-
character of its people, whose abiding ing the CCP’s belief that a Tibet whose
wish, it was said, was to be left alone. cities and towns were populated in
In more recent times, Tibet’s isola- large part by non-Tibetans would be
tion has been shaped by altogether easier to control.
diRerent forces, some of which have At the same time, the CCP had
reduced it and some of which have begun making it nearly impossible for
heightened it. After the Chinese international journalists and indepen-
Communist Party emerged victorious dent researchers to freely enter the
from the Chinese Civil War, in 1949, territory. Even ordinary foreign tour-
among its earliest priorities was placing ists required special permits. This, one
Tibet under Beijing’s control and could only surmise, was meant to
integrating the mountainous region conceal an accelerating project to bring
into the country. This was achieved at the area more firmly to heel and impose
on it political conformity and obedi-
HOWARD W. FRENCH is a Professor at the
Columbia Journalism School and the author of
ence—or “modernization” and “harmony,”
Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past in the official language of Beijing—
Helps Shape China’s Push for Global Power. whether the Tibetans liked it or not.
May/June 2021 179

Howard W. French
Many did not like it one bit. In blocks as I slumped in the back seat,
2008, a wave of major protests broke hiding my face by pretending to be
out in the buildup to the 50th anniver- asleep and bundled up against the cold.
sary of the young Dalai Lama’s flight. But it soon became clear that it would
The protests reflected not just anger only be a matter of time before we would
over Chinese efforts to dilute local get stopped or arrested, so we diverted to
culture and weaken the hold of Tibetan circuitous and mountainous secondary
Buddhism but also fears that the roads, only to discover that such routes
revered Dalai Lama would die in exile would take immeasurably longer to
and Beijing would seek outright traverse. We finally turned back after
control of the religion by naming his learning that authorities had detained a
successor. Despite the CCP’s efforts to few foreign reporters who had found their
tamp down dissent in Tibet, the unrest way through the lockdown, making it
caught Beijing by surprise and spread clear how unlikely it would be for us to
with remarkable speed. Soon, large gain access to any place where the protests
portions of neighboring Sichuan or self-immolations were occurring.
Province were also engulfed by demon- Elsewhere, I was able to collect plenty of
strations, led by saffron-robed monks accounts of Tibetan disaffection and
and nuns who filed out of their monas- disgruntlement toward the Chinese
teries to launch sit-down protests in government. But there was no denying
the center of the region’s cities and that Beijing had succeeded in keeping
towns. In perhaps the most radical people like me away from the frontlines.
form of nonviolent protest imaginable, Memories of this struggle for access
others performed spectacular acts of came flooding back to me as I read
self-immolation, lighting themselves Barbara Demick’s recent book, Eat the
on fire in public squares. Buddha. (The title refers to desperately
At the time, I was a China-based hungry Red Army troops in Tibet who,
foreign correspondent for The New during the civil war, sometimes looted
York Times. As I watched the uprising Buddhist monasteries and ate religious
spread, I did everything I could to get statues made of flour and butter.) More
to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, where than any other non-Chinese journalist
the unrest had started. I flew to of this generation, Demick has man-
Chengdu, the booming capital of aged to overcome Beijing’s restrictions
Sichuan, and hired a car with the idea and penetrate the Tibetan world, to
of driving northwest into heavily linger in it and to bring its people
Tibetan areas. From the reports of vividly to life on the page. Demick has
other colleagues, I knew this wouldn’t made a special vocation of such feats,
be simple. Chinese police had set up including as chronicled in her 2009
checkpoints on the major highways book, Nothing to Envy, one of the most
leading into Sichuan’s Tibetan heart- deeply reported studies of North Korea,
land and were turning foreign report- a place even more closely guarded and
ers back. For one long night, I rode closed off to foreigners than Tibet.
with a Chinese colleague and my As resourceful and inspired as her
driver. We passed through a few road- reporting is, her book’s overall message is
A Prison Called Tibet
Highly charged: a Tibetan Buddhist monk in China’s Sichuan Province, October 2015
a quietly dispiriting one: because of BURNING MAN

China’s size, wealth, and power, and the Long after the smoke had cleared from
state of interdependence that prevails the 2008 protests in Tibet and Sichuan,
between it and the United States, there Demick made three reporting forays
is little the outside world can do to halt into Ngaba, a county in Sichuan whose
Beijing’s deliberate and systematic population has traditionally been
erosion of its territory’s distinctive dominated by ethnic Tibetans and
cultures and religious traditions, despite where Beijing’s heavy hand is visible in
their ancient roots and long records of the ubiquitous police presence on the
autonomous rule that predates modern streets and the army garrisons guarding
China. In Demick’s view, Buddhist Tibet towns. To avoid scrutiny, she adopted
is destined to be marched toward an the style of a certain kind of plucky
imposed assimilation with the largely Western traveler, deliberately eschew-
atheistic ethnic Han majority—much as ing the look of a seasoned correspon-
DA M I R S A GO LJ / RE UT E RS
Xinjiang is experiencing: Xinjiang dent. “I didn’t want to wear a ridiculous

borders Tibet to the north and is cur- disguise like [the] nineteenth-century
rently in the news owing to evidence explorers [who traveled to Tibet], but I
that the CCP is using concentration camps did buy a 2oppy hat with polka dots
and forced labor to bring the Muslim and one of those pollution masks so
Uyghur population there to heel. common in Asia,” she writes. “I wore
May/June 2021 181

Howard W. French
long, dusty coats and flat lace-up ted suicide by jumping off a bridge
shoes. The fact that it was frequently after his wife disappeared under suspi-
raining allowed me to add an umbrella cious circumstances.
to hide behind.” This got her past Gonpo, then in high school, went into
roadblocks and other snares the authori- internal exile in Xinjiang. There, the
ties had set up to keep out foreign former Tibetan princess milked cows and
reporters. Many journalists consider worked the fields. She eventually met
proficiency in Chinese a prerequisite for and married a man from China’s ethnic
successful reporting from China, but Han majority and went on to work for
Demick turned her limited command of the government for several years in the
Mandarin to her advantage, often eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, winning
staying silent or playing uncomprehend- commendations for her performance.
ing when vehicles she rode in were In 1988, a desire to rediscover
stopped for police checks. Tibetan culture and history led Gonpo
Ngaba’s unhappy contemporary life to take a pilgrimage with her young
under Beijing’s thumb and its long daughter to Dharamsala, leaving her
history of run-ins with China’s Marxist- husband behind temporarily, or so she
Leninist authorities place it at the thought. While she was away, the CCP
center of Demick’s narrative: it is a carried out a bloody crackdown on
town with a single stoplight that pro-democracy demonstrators in
became “the world capital of self- Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, resulting
immolations,” she writes. Most of the in an abrupt shift in the political
people from Ngaba she interviewed, climate in China. Suddenly, a country
however, had already left. Some had that had spent the past decade opening
gone to less heavily policed parts of itself up to the world turned inward-
Sichuan; others had fled into exile, looking, and people with foreign ties
mostly to the northern Indian city of were treated with suspicion.
Dharamsala, a kind of unofficial capital Gonpo concluded that it was safer for
of ethnic Tibet, which hosts the Dalai her to stay in India, where she began
Lama and many thousands of other putting her language skills to use for the
Tibetan exiles, along with an elaborate Tibetan government in exile, translating
quasi-governmental bureaucracy. its constitution and election law into
In a book that abounds with striking Chinese at the request of the Dalai
characters, two are particularly vivid, Lama. She eventually served in the exile
and they both ended up in Dharamsala. movement’s legislature, as well. In
The first is a woman named Gonpo, the Demick’s nuanced portrait, a woman
daughter of a Tibetan king who gradu- who would seem to have many reasons
ally fell afoul of Beijing during the for bitterness—having been forced out
radical ideological warfare and political of her country and perhaps permanently
tumult of the Cultural Revolution in separated from her family—instead
the 1960s. Her father acquiesced in embodies the complexity of the Tibetan
China’s efforts to enforce its writ dilemma. Gonpo is remarkably free of
throughout western Sichuan, but he anti-Chinese passions and even admires
quietly bristled and eventually commit- much of what China has accomplished.
A Prison Called Tibet
Indeed, as Demick notes, in her willfully Later, Tsegyam received the Dalai
frugal ways, Gonpo is more of a socialist Lama’s 1962 memoir, My Land and My
in lifestyle than most Chinese. “I People, as a gift. The spiritual leader’s
usually try not to talk about the past,” message that “Tibet is a distinct and
Gonpo tells Demick. “It makes me sad.” ancient nation, which for many centu-
Vocal activists who resist Chinese ries enjoyed a relationship of mutual
encroachments on Tibetan life represent respect with China” reinforced many of
a small minority. Many Tibetans can be Tsegyam’s own ideas. Emboldened, he
assumed to quietly harbor deep resent- eventually began taking bigger risks,
ment toward Beijing, but they stay silent such as making calligraphy posters with
for fear of punishment. The feeling one messages saying, “Free Tibet. Chinese
gets from Gonpo, among other charac- out of Tibet. Bring back His Holiness
ters Demick profiles, is of something the Dalai Lama.” Under the cover of
quieter still: a stoic resignation. darkness, his students helped him hang
them in prominent places.
THE RESISTANCE As one might expect, this led to
Many Tibetans, however, have risked Tsegyam’s arrest in 1989, after authori-
everything by more forcefully confront- ties tortured one of his accomplices,
ing Chinese authorities. One such forcing the man to confess and name
character who resonates powerfully in others. In court, Tsegyam defiantly
Demick’s book is a man named Tseg- acknowledged his guilt and was sen-
yam, who also works for the Dalai tenced to a year in prison—a mark of
Lama. As a young man in Ngaba, far more lenient times. Not long after
Tsegyam was a precocious student his release, Tsegyam fled to India with
whose bookishness helped him land a a former student who became his wife.
relatively cushy job teaching students Settling in Dharamsala, his politics,
barely younger than him at the county’s fluency in Mandarin, and studiousness
first Tibetan-language middle school positioned him to become the personal
when it opened in 1983. Before long, he secretary of the Dalai Lama, with
found himself on a path toward ever- whom he travels. His private passion,
bolder subversion. The teaching of however, is writing essays that record
Tibetan history was strictly banned in and celebrate the culture and history of
the school, so Tsegyam began slyly Ngaba. His hope seems to be that, with
inserting readings about Buddhist Lhasa under Beijing’s suffocating
philosophy and the origins of the lockdown, just enough oxygen will
Tibetan calendar. His Han Chinese remain in areas such as Ngaba to allow
supervisors didn’t understand the the culture to survive until another
language and therefore were none the time, when perhaps an era of greater
wiser. Demick writes that “he wanted to tolerance might return to China.
counter what students had been taught
in Chinese schools—that Chinese was NO WAY OUT
the language of literacy and that Ti- Most of Demick’s characters are not
betan was merely a folk language used politically involved at all; they are far more
by old people and monks.” ordinary in their motivations. They were
May/June 2021 183

Howard W. French
moved to leave Ngaba, and its region, as he whose name cannot be mentioned
much for its economic backwardness as and (in many parts of Tibet) whose
for its political repression. And some of image cannot be seen. . . .
them are frankly generous in their estima- To purge the memory of the Dalai
Lama, however, is impossible.
tion of China’s overall progress.
Tibetans content themselves in places
Ultimately, however, this is a book where the photograph is banned by
about enclosure. The Tibetans who worshipping instead Avalokitesvara,
remain in Ngaba live in a garrison town the thousand-armed bodhisattva of
surveilled by huge numbers of Chinese compassion whose likeness graces
security forces. I saw other towns in Tibetan monasteries. The Dalai Lama
similar situations when I visited west- is considered the reincarnation of the
ern Sichuan as a tourist in 2012. De- Avalokitesvara, who stands in for the
scending through high mountain passes, missing spiritual leader.
I would round a bend only to discover
enormous, recently built military and A Tibetan in Lhasa tells her: “It doesn’t
police citadels in the distance below. matter if we don’t have the photo. We
Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities know where he is.”
have increasingly limited access to Tibet The situation in Tibet may come to a
proper, even for ethnic Tibetans in head again before long. At 85 years old,
Sichuan. And China has made it virtu- the Dalai Lama is likely approaching
ally impossible to travel legally from the end of his life—and Beijing has a
Tibet to India; the only way to escape is plan to prevent the rise of another
through a harrowing mountain trek, figure of his stature. Rather than
dodging police and bounty hunters. allowing his sect’s normal succession
Passports have become difficult to process to play out, the CCP has an-
obtain for Tibetans. And in other parts nounced that it will oversee the naming
of China, they are treated as colorful of the next Dalai Lama. It would not be
outsiders, when not regarded with unreasonable to suspect that in taking
outright suspicion or resentment. this extraordinary step, Beijing will be
In an attempt to lower tensions and lighting the long, slow fuse of the next
ease an atmosphere of repression, the Tibetan uprising.∂
Dalai Lama has repeatedly renounced the
idea of Tibet separating from China. This
has won him no concessions from Beijing,
however, which continues to hurl epithets
at him and constantly warn of “splittism.”
“No matter what the Dalai Lama says,
the Chinese government never tires of
denouncing him,” Demick writes.
Their hatred of him appears bound-
less. We journalists used to joke that
he was like Lord Voldemort—the
antagonist of the Harry Potter series,
Who did it? In 2019, South African

The Two Rwandas investigators declared that Karegeya’s
murder was “directly linked to the
involvement of the Rwandan govern-
Development and Dissent ment.” In Do Not Disturb, the British
Under Kagame journalist Michela Wrong describes in
chilling detail the buildup to Karegeya’s
Phil Clark killing and leaves the reader little reason
to doubt this conclusion. But her book
is about much more than one man’s
murder. Wrong situates Karegeya’s
Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political death in the longer history of the
Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi-
BY MICHELA WRONG. PublicARairs, dominated rebel movement that in-
2021, 512 pp. vaded Rwanda in 1990 and defeated the
genocidal regime of Juvénal Habyari-
n New Year’s Day 2014, Patrick mana in 1994. In power, the rebels
O Karegeya, once a top Rwandan

intelligence official, was found
dead in Room 905 of the up-market
turned politicians built Rwanda into one
of Africa’s most dynamic states, achiev-
ing impressive rates of economic growth
Michelangelo Towers hotel, in Johannes- and poverty reduction. Yet alongside
burg, South Africa. According to the those successes, the RPr has also forced
police report, Karegeya’s neck was swol- numerous senior members into exile
len, and a rope and a bloody towel were and been accused of killing dissidents at
found in the hotel room’s safe, indicating home and abroad, raising questions
that he had been strangled. As news of about the state of human rights in and
his murder spread, fingers pointed the long-term stability of Rwanda.
immediately to his childhood friend and Among Wrong’s principal audiences
former boss Rwandan President Paul are the Western policymakers who have
Kagame. Karegeya had fallen out with supported the RPr for the past three
Kagame and 2ed to South Africa, where decades because it halted the 1994 geno-
he had helped start an opposition party in cide against the Tutsis and, from the
exile. Kagame denied any involvement ashes, built a peaceful and prosperous
in Karegeya’s killing, but several days state. She draws parallels between Kare-
later, at a national prayer breakfast in geya’s murder and Russia’s poisoning of
Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, he hinted that he the double agent Sergei Skripal in the
wasn’t bothered by the assassination. United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia’s
“Whoever is against our country will not murder of the Washington Post columnist
escape our wrath,” he said. “The person Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey, arguing that
will face consequences. Even those who when states cozy up to authoritarian
are still alive—they will face them.” regimes, they shouldn’t be surprised
when those regimes commit crimes on
PHIL CLARK is Professor of International their territory. Wrong believes that
Politics at SOAS University of London. international donors have ignored
May/June 2021 185

Phil Clark
ample evidence of Rwanda’s growing Disturb, she makes good use of her long
authoritarianism. What she hopes will list of contacts, built up over decades in
now rouse global attention—and lead to the region, as she crisscrosses central
criminal sanctions and a reduction in Africa interviewing those who knew the
foreign aid—are Rwanda’s extraterrito- trio at every stage of their tumultuous
rial, extrajudicial activities in the back journey. Switching constantly from the
streets and hotel rooms of London, personal to the geopolitical, Wrong
Brussels, and Johannesburg. But in makes her intentions clear: to challenge
making this case, Wrong dismisses the perception of Kagame and the RPf
Rwanda’s substantial socioeconomic as the architects of a model postconflict
gains since the genocide. Those, too, are state worthy of substantial foreign aid.
part of the Rwandan story, and as “Kagame’s regime, whose deplorable
outsiders grapple with how to deal with record on human rights abuses at home
Kagame, they must consider the coun- is beyond debate, has also been caught
try’s tangible progress, as well as these red-handed attempting the most lurid
worrying cases of violence. of assassinations on the soil of foreign
allies, not once but many times,” she
PRESENT AT THE CREATION writes. “Western funding for his aid-
At the heart of Wrong’s story are the dependent country has not suffered, the
complex entanglements of Karegeya, admiring articles by foreign journalists
Kagame, and another former high-ranking have not ceased, sanctions have not
member of the RPf, Faustin Kayumba been applied, and the invitations to
Nyamwasa. After decades of Belgian Davos have not dried up.”
colonial favoritism toward Tutsis, in the The RPf, she argues, may have
early 1960s, Hutu parties rose to power started with a laudable vision of build-
in independent Rwanda, sparking mass ing a Rwandan society in which Hutus
violence and a Tutsi exodus. Karegeya, and Tutsis (and members of another
Kagame, and Kayumba grew up to- ethnic group, the Twas) would share
gether in exile in Uganda, where many equally in the country’s development.
Tutsi families such as theirs had fled. Wrong ascribes this aspiration to the
The three men all became senior figures RPf’s first leader, the handsome, charis-
in Yoweri Museveni’s National Resis- matic Fred Rwigyema, who was killed
tance Army as it fought its way to days into the invasion of Rwanda. She
power in Uganda and, later, leaders of counts him among a group of African
the RPf as it came to rule Rwanda (with nationalists who were killed in their
Kayumba becoming chief of staff of the 30s, including Patrice Lumumba of
Rwandan army). Whether fighting Congo, Steve Biko of South Africa, and
together or falling out, these comrades Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso—men
irrevocably shaped the politics of the who will be “forever bathed in a James
Great Lakes region. Dean glow of What Might Have Been.”
A former Africa correspondent for It was Kagame who succeeded Rwigy-
Reuters, the BBC, and the Financial ema as the head of the RPf and, Wrong
Times, Wrong first traveled to Rwanda contends, turned Rwanda into a dicta-
after the 1994 genocide. In Do Not torship. First, his regime eradicated any
The Two Rwandas
The once and future president: Kagame in Brussels, Belgium, April 2014
form of Hutu political opposition, and “Patrick adored Biharwe,” Wrong writes,
then it turned on its internal Tutsi “sneaking away whenever he could find
critics, such as Karegeya, pursuing them the time from his stressful job in Kigali,
at home and abroad. a four-hour drive across the border with
Close observers of central Africa will Rwanda.” Karegeya’s younger brother
find little new in Wrong’s historical Ernest Mugabo tells her, “You wouldn’t
sweep through the RPr’s lifespan. What even know he’d arrived. He’d put on his
she adds, however, is the intimate Wellington boots and go and milk the
biographical dimension of this volatile cows. He loved that.”
period, which helps explain Karegeya’s Wrong captures the refugees’ rest-
murder and its significance. Wrong lessness and burning sense of injustice,
knew Karegeya before and after his which drove the RPr’s invasion in 1990
exile and spoke to him regularly. He but also its subsequent alienation from
describes growing up in southwestern the Hutu majority in Rwanda, among
Uganda, caught between his strong whom the Tutsi leaders of the RPr had
F RAN CO IS LEN O I R / RE UT E RS
Ugandan identity and the lure of the never lived. She superbly dissects the
Rwandan homeland, where the Hutu lasting bonds that enabled the RPr to
government repeatedly blocked the build a formidable post-genocide state,
return of the Tutsi refugees. Even once with Kagame, Kayumba, and Karegeya
he had reached the top of the Rwandan at its heart. Through Karegeya’s eyes,
security apparatus, Karegeya continued she also documents the fraying of those
to visit his home village in Uganda. relations as RPr elites routinely fell out
May/June 2021 187

Phil Clark
with one another. Sometimes they of its rule, several of which have re-
clashed over the movement’s political sulted in unsolved murders on foreign
strategy, at other times over the atroci- soil. But this pair of defections was
ties it committed (such as the reprisal different: because they themselves had
killings, after the genocide, of Hutu once occupied senior military and
civilians in Rwanda and what is now the security posts, Karegeya and Kayumba
Democratic Republic of the Congo), knew how to protect their multinational
and often over personal grievances. opposition movement from Rwanda’s
As the head of Rwandan external efforts to destroy it. They had well-
military intelligence after the genocide, founded fears of infiltration and assas-
Karegeya helped orchestrate the govern- sination, having for decades practiced
ment’s military campaigns in Congo— these same dark arts against the RPf’s
including the Rwandan-led toppling of opponents, and the two turned their
the dictator Mobutu Sese Seko in knowledge of the RPf’s methods to their
1997—and the suppression of Rwandan advantage. Karegeya and Kayumba
dissidents across the Great Lakes learned quickly that the RPf was re-
region. He and Kayumba were central cruiting RNC members from the large
to the RPf’s projection of military power Rwandan diaspora in South Africa. The
within and beyond Rwanda. But they two exiles recorded phone calls from
increasingly criticized Kagame over his senior RPf officials offering recruits vast
tightening grip on power within the sums and coaching them in an array of
RPf. Karegeya was imprisoned, and assassination techniques, including
Kayumba was removed from his mili- strangulation, forced heroin overdose,
tary post and sent to India as Rwanda’s and poisoning a target’s soup.
ambassador. Both eventually went into The RNC’s release of these recordings
exile in South Africa. in 2011 caused a huge controversy,
Kayumba’s arrival in Johannesburg in especially in the Rwandan diaspora.
2010 proved pivotal. That year, he Although this was a propaganda coup
survived an assassination attempt in the for the RPf’s opponents, Karegeya tells
driveway of his home, an act that South Wrong that he won’t be able to out-
African investigators have also smart the group forever. Against the
attributed to the Rwandan government. advice of his RNC colleagues, he contin-
This galvanized him and Karegeya, and ued to meet old and new acquaintances
the two soon joined forces with two out in the open in Johannesburg and
high-ranking RPf exiles based in the would often give his security detail the
United States to start an opposition slip, providing an air of inevitability to
group, the Rwanda National Congress. the grisly events in the Michelangelo.
The RNC called for the RPf to jettison As Wrong shows, meanwhile, the
Kagame as president and to regain its RPf’s violent attacks on its opponents
lost ethos of democracy, reconciliation, weren’t limited to the RNC in South
and equal development. Africa. She links the Rwandan govern-
Wrong locates the exile of Karegeya ment to the assassinations of several
and Kayumba in the long line of defec- dissidents in Uganda, including the
tions from the RPf since the early days exiled journalist Charles Ingabire, who
was shot outside a Kampala bar in 2011.
Similar figures have received death
threats in Belgium, Sweden, and the
United Kingdom. Wrong details the
case of Jean Bosco Gasasira, the editor
of an antigovernment online newspaper,
who sought asylum in Sweden in 2010.
Three years later, a member of a Rwan-
dan hit squad sent to murder him was
convicted by a Swedish court of spying
on exiles—the first foreign prosecution
of such a plot by a Rwandan citizen.
THE GOOD GUYS?

Do Not Disturb is a disturbing book, show- Get Foreign AVairs
ing the reach of the Rwandan state into
its opponents’ lives around the globe. delivered straght
Wrong highlights the difficulties in to your inbox.
mobilizing eRective political opposition
to the RPr both inside Rwanda and in the
diaspora. Like most of the other former
rebel movements that became govern-
ments in the region, the RPr has shown a
marked, sometimes violent intolerance of
dissent in its own ranks and from opposi-
tion parties, seeking to retain the rigid
discipline that brought it to power.
One of the book’s main strengths,
however—its proximity to the RUC and
to Karegeya in particular—is also its
greatest weakness. In discussing the
lauding of the RPr as Rwanda’s libera-
tors after the genocide, Wrong warns
that “the storyteller’s need to identify
good guys and bad guys, culprit and
victims, makes fools of us all.” Yet she
falls into the same trap, mythologizing
Karegeya and the RUC as inherently
virtuous by dint of their opposition to
Kagame and the RPr. foreignaffairs.com/newsletter
Karegeya clearly made an impression
on his interviewer: “His face was alive
with a questing intelligence. His
heavy-lidded eyes were disconcertingly
May/June 2021 189

Phil Clark
light, the amber irises flecked with This lack of scrutiny continues as
brown, while his skin was a smooth Wrong readily accepts Karegeya’s and
honey.” Later, Wrong tells readers that Kayumba’s depictions of Kagame,
Karegeya would routinely ply journal- whom she says has exhibited a “natural
ists visiting Rwanda with drinks. “With dourness” since childhood (in contrast
the women, suggestive hints would to their innate sociability) and was a
occasionally be dropped over those hapless leader during the 1990–94 civil
beers,” she writes. “Patrick had the keys war (Kayumba claims to have twice
to a government flat located conven- saved Kagame’s life and to have led the
iently nearby. The encounter, already RPf to victory). Wrong’s desire to
so pleasant, could be taken up a notch.” humanize Karegeya and Kayumba and
Here, she extends an unfortunate to demonize Kagame is clear from the
Orientalist strand that runs through the way she uses their names. Karegeya
book: “Tutsi culture has always recog- throughout the book is “Patrick,” and
nized sex as one of the most effective of Kayumba is “the General.” Kagame is
political tools, cutting usefully across almost always “Kagame.”
the bureaucratic hierarchy and social Wrong wants readers to differenti-
barriers.” At another point, she refers to ate categorically among these former
“the Tutsi knack for secrecy,” and her comrades. She describes Karegeya and
introductory chapter describes “a Kayumba as central to the RPf’s mili-
culture that glories in its impenetrabil- tary successes, then suddenly absent
ity, that sees virtue in misleading.” when the RPf is accused of mass
Wrong’s denigration of the suppos- crimes, such as the killing of Hutu
edly secretive Tutsi ceases only when refugees in eastern Congo after the
she engages with Karegeya. When he genocide. It strains credulity to sug-
isn’t escaping to milk cows in Uganda, gest that Karegeya, first as the head of
he’s nebulously telling a photographer external military intelligence and later
Wrong talked to that he’s “full of as director of the RPf’s Congo desk,
regrets” about the RPf’s actions during and Kayumba, first as a lieutenant
his time in power. He never details general on the frontlines in Congo and
what he regrets, and Wrong, incredibly, later as army chief of staff, were not
never says that she asked. The closest implicated in the crimes that Wrong
she comes is when she discusses the attributes to Kagame and the rest of
assassination in Kenya in 1998 of Seth the RPf. It also contradicts the ac-
Sendashonga, the RPf’s first minister of counts of long-standing scholars of
the interior. “Suspicion of personal eastern Congo, such as René Lemar-
responsibility for Sendashonga’s murder chand, Gérard Prunier, Filip Reyntjens,
was to hover over Patrick for the rest of and Jason Stearns, all of whom depict
his life,” Wrong writes. But she admits Karegeya and Kayumba as central to
to never confronting him about it. “I all of the RPf’s military activities in
didn’t pursue the matter,” she writes. “I Congo. The only source for the claim
didn’t know how to. How does anyone that Karegeya had “opposed Rwanda’s
lightly broach the issue of someone’s meddling in its giant neighbor’s affairs
role in a murder over dinner?” since 1998” is Karegeya himself.
The Two Rwandas
ARMS AND INFLUENCE writes, “While his critics accused him of

Wrong’s account of Karegeya and not wanting to contest overdue internal
Kayumba as the good guys extends to elections, he presented the split as a
the RNC as an opposition movement. principled stand against a militaristic
She recalls the founding of the organi- drift he blamed on General Kayumba.”
zation: “Pledging to push for demo- She doesn’t state which of these versions
cratic change by peaceful means, the she believes, and she dedicates just two
signatories unveiled a ten-point pro- sentences to a 2018 United Nations
gram aimed at stopping human rights report accusing the RNC, under Kayum-
abuses, ending impunity, and nurturing ba’s leadership, of building a rebel
the rule of law.” Wrong seems sur- alliance in eastern Congo. Wrong’s
prised, then, that the RNC hasn’t had a casualness toward the RNC leaders’
greater impact, but she chalks this up to historical crimes and their threat of
the difficulty of trying to “mobilize an further violence weakens the moral case
organization scattered across three she tries to build against the RPf.
continents.” The international commu- Throughout its existence, the RPf
nity, she argues, has been curiously has confronted violent opposition
uninterested in what the RNC has to say, groups that have enjoyed international
worried about treading on the dreams support. In the early 1990s, when the
of a prosperous, ethnically inclusive RPf was fighting for control of Rwanda,
Rwanda under the RPf. Wrong ignores a an international push for multiparty
more obvious explanation for the RNC’s democracy in the country spawned an
lack of traction: few people outside the array of Hutu parties that used violence
organization share her virtuous view of against rival Hutu politicians and Tutsi
Karegeya and Kayumba. The RNC’s civilians. More recently, the RPf has
numerous attempts to build cross-ethnic faced off against the Rwandan Move-
alliances in Europe and North America ment for Democratic Change, an
have fallen flat because most Hutus in opposition group based in eastern
the diaspora see them, fundamentally, Congo and co-founded by Paul Rusesa-
as members of the RPf, with blood on bagina, the hotelier featured in the
their hands. movie Hotel Rwanda and celebrated for
Wrong’s romanticization of the RNC sheltering Tutsi civilians during the
also causes her to overlook its increas- genocide. Rusesabagina is currently on
ingly militaristic tendencies. She skims trial in Kigali on terrorism charges
over the fact that the other two founders stemming from alleged massacres
of the group—the former RPf general committed by his group’s armed wing,
secretary Theogene Rudasingwa and his the National Liberation Front. (Rusesa-
brother, the former Rwandan attorney bagina denies the charges and is chal-
general Gerald Gahima, both of whom lenging the legality of his arrest.) Like
are based in the United States—left the the RNC, Rusesabagina has enjoyed
organization in 2016 over Kayumba’s favorable foreign media coverage as a
agitation for an armed overthrow in vocal critic of Kagame’s government,
Kigali. Wrong never discusses Gahima’s with little scrutiny of the National
departure, and about Rudasingwa, she Liberation Front, which is accused of
May/June 2021 191

Phil Clark
crossing from Congo to kill civilians in the country today. In a region riven by
southern Rwanda. Although it is right cyclical conflicts, Rwanda is alone in not
to criticize the RPf’s treatment of its having experienced any large-scale
domestic and international opponents, violence within its borders since the time
it is naive to portray all these opponents of the genocide—which is all the more
as inherently peaceful and democratic. remarkable considering that hundreds of
When Wrong, near the end of her thousands of convicted génocidaires live
book, finally ventures beyond the RNC side by side with survivors on Rwanda’s
and the Rwandan diaspora and into densely populated hills.
Rwanda itself, the results are not Having conducted research in rural
illuminating. She concluded that she Rwanda every year since 2003, I have
“would not be able to conduct any seen the sustained improvement in
useful interviews inside Rwanda” people’s socioeconomic circumstances
(perhaps having decided beforehand and in communal relations. Many of the
that its culture of secrecy and duplicity Hutus I have interviewed remain
would limit her endeavors). Concerned suspicious of the RPf but continue to
for her safety, she didn’t visit Rwanda express surprise that unlike previous
for this book, but in one chapter, she Rwandan regimes, it has pursued
recounts her last visit to the country, welfare and development equally across
several years earlier. Even as she accuses the ethnic divide. When numerous
international donors of not getting out foreign donors temporarily froze their
to the “dirt-poor” countryside, Wrong aid programs in Rwanda in 2013—in
herself sticks to Kigali, citing only protest over Rwanda’s military and
conversations with a U.S. adviser to the logistical support for a rebellion in
Rwandan Foreign Minis- try and a eastern Congo—development projects
Western journalist. Had she visited rural suffered markedly, especially in rural
Rwanda, she would undoubtedly have Rwanda. Once they saw this impact up
seen widespread poverty, but she also close, those same donors reinstated all
would have seen tangible development their aid provision within a year.
since her first visits decades ago— The RPf’s flagship welfare program
including signs of the country’s halving of compulsory universal health insur-
of its child mortality rate between 2000, ance, heavily subsidized for the poorest
when Kagame became president, and citizens and buttressed by clinics and
2015. What keeps foreign donors highly trained staff across the country,
engaged with Rwanda is the recognition has vastly improved Rwandans’ quality
of these advances under the RPf, which of life. Thanks largely to this health-
include the region’s most extensive care system, which extends to every
welfare program. village in the country, Rwanda has
weathered the CoVID-19 pandemic well.
THE REAL RWANDA Within days of the first detection of the
The mistake many foreign commentators virus in Rwanda, the government began
make is to equate elite ruptures a scheme of household testing and
and fractious diaspora politics with the geographic mapping of coronavirus
situation for most Rwandans living in cases across the country. In March, I
The Two Rwandas
observed the vaccination of local themselves the principal actors in other

health-care workers, teachers, and people’s societies. The primary work of
market traders in a far-flung clinic in building a Rwanda that delivers for all
southern Rwanda, 24 hours after the its citizens is being done by Rwandans,
vaccine arrived at the Kigali airport. especially those living in the country.
Whereas neighboring countries, such as The neocolonial impulse to use aid as
Burundi and Tanzania, have struggled leverage over foreign countries is at
to control the spread of CoVID-19, once ethically dubious, routinely
Rwanda has recorded only 18,000 cases ignored by the governments being
and 260 deaths, leading the think tank sanctioned, and in danger of undercut-
the Lowy Institute to rank Rwanda first ting vital welfare and development
in Africa and sixth globally for its programs for everyday people.
management of the pandemic. Donors must consult the many
Only a fraction of the multifaceted energetic, critically minded Rwandans
situation in Rwanda today features in who are working for the betterment of
Wrong’s narrative. As an account of their society. Some of those Rwandans
Karegeya’s murder and the need for may want outside support, and others
accountability for the RPf’s extraterrito- may prefer to be left alone, worried
rial violence, Do Not Disturb is a vital about the actual or perceived loss of
intervention. The South African inves- independence that might result from
tigation into Karegeya’s death seems to becoming too wedded to external inter-
have stalled and should be reinvigo- ests. As Wrong shows, Karegeya’s
rated. Yet by refusing to denounce the assassination stemmed from complicated
RNC’s threats of an armed overthrow of historical and interpersonal factors, none
Kagame’s government, failing to engage of which will disappear simply because
deeply with present realities inside donors exert pressure through aid or
Rwanda, and making damaging calls for other means. Ultimately, it is up to
donor disengagement from the country, Rwandans themselves to hold their
the book loses much of its analytic and government to account and chart the
moral potency. To ensure that Rwanda’s country’s future—with or without help
substantial post-genocide gains remain, from abroad.∂
Rwanda needs agile leadership and an
effective political opposition. The exiled
leaders Wrong thinks can fill that role,
however, are not the answer.
Several years ago, a seasoned inter-
national development official based in
Kigali told me that Rwanda gave him
headaches as no other country had
before. “What do you do with a state
that brooks so little dissent but uses
foreign aid to benefit so many of its
citizens?” he asked. My response was
that donors should never consider
May/June 2021 193

ism. First and foremost is the nonnego-

Recent Books tiable claim that the government cannot
deny the standing of particular citizens
as free and equal members of the polity.
Political and Legal A newly elected leader cannot use the
military to punish his rivals or use the
G. John Ikenberry tax system to destroy the opposition
party. Losers accept their losses, with the
understanding that they are limited and
Democracy Rules temporary. In elegant and incisive terms,
BY JAN−WERNER MÜLLER. Farrar, the book makes clear that proponents of
Straus and Giroux, 2021, 256 pp. liberal democracy must reclaim funda-
mental democratic principles and values.
oday’s antidemocratic leaders,
T like many of the fascists and

authoritarians who caused
havoc in the twentieth century, are
Dreamworlds of Race: Empire and the
Utopian Destiny of Anglo-America
BY DUNCAN BELL. Princeton
using the tools and institutions of the University Press, 2020, 488 pp.
democratic state to consolidate their
power. A key to Hungarian Prime In the United Kingdom and the United
Minister Viktor Orban’s power grab, for States in the late nineteenth century, a
example, was a change in civil service multitude of thinkers advanced new and
rules that allowed his party to place often startling visions of the future of
loyalists in supposedly nonpartisan the global order. In this masterly book,
government positions. Authoritarians Bell explores the ideas of some of the
also seek to gain control of the courts most intriguing figures of this era,
and intimidate the independent media illuminating their dreams of a world-
(which they often deride as “the enemy dominating Anglo-American political
of the people”). But as Müller argues in community united by race and empire.
this important book, the forms of This is intellectual history at its best.
popular authoritarianism seen recently The book builds on Bell’s earlier studies,
in Brazil, Hungary, India, Poland, and which together oRer a definitive account
the United States constitute a threat to of the British imperial ideology and its
democracy but do not herald a return to deep entanglement with liberal political
the fascism of the 1930s. With today’s thought and cultural and racial hierar-
authoritarian regimes, there is not the chy. The book focuses on four individu-
mass mobilization and militarization of als: the American tycoon Andrew
societies, the glorification of violence, Carnegie, the British colonialist Cecil
or the remaking of populations along Rhodes, the British editor W. T. Stead,
racial lines that was seen in mid-twentieth- and the British novelist H. G. Wells,
century fascist states. Müller argues who were part of a loose network of
that the genius of democracy is its thinkers who believed that the United
constitutional principles, which oRer a Kingdom and the United States would
road back from populist authoritarian- together inaugurate an era of global
Recent Books
peace. Bell is most provocative in his In the Shadow of International Law:

account of the long tradition of Western Secrecy and Regime Change in the
thinking about democracy and “perpet- Postwar World
ual peace” (a notion made famous by the BY MICHAEL POZNANSKY. Oxford
Enlightenment-era German philosopher University Press, 2020, 264 pp.
Immanuel Kant), which these pre–
WorldWar I Anglo-American figures This fascinating book argues that the
transformed into a “racial peace thesis,” growth of international law changed
revealing the intimate connections how powerful states decided to inter-
between global utopianism and racism. vene in weaker ones. Examining cases
of U.S. interventions in Latin America
China, the UN, and Human Protection: during the Cold War, Poznansky studies
Beliefs, Power, Image overt interventions, such as the deploy-
BY ROSEMARY FOOT. Oxford ment of U.S. troops to the Dominican
University Press, 2020, 336 pp. Republic in 1965, and covert interven-
tions, such as the Bay of Pigs invasion
In the decades after the Cold War, the in 1961. He notes that great powers in
United States and other leading democ- the era before 1945 rarely felt obliged to
racies championed the idea of an operate in the shadows. This changed
empowered United Nations that would after 1945, according to Poznansky, with
actively intervene in countries to the UU Charter, which enshrined the
protect human rights and safeguard principle of nonintervention in treaty
civilians from armed violence. Foot law, a principle that was soon adopted
shows how in more recent years, China by far-2ung regional bodies. Interna-
has worked behind the scenes at the UU tional law altered the calculus of great
to promote a rival vision of security that powers. Resorting to covert forms of
emphasizes economic development, a intervention allowed the United States
strong state, and social stability. This to evade damage to its credibility and
groundbreaking study considers China’s charges of hypocrisy. In chapters on
eRorts to shape UU peace operations, U.S. interventions in Chile, Cuba, the
specifically the organization’s response Dominican Republic, and Grenada,
to the Syrian crisis, and its broader Poznansky presents archival evidence of
attempt to subvert human rights officials worrying—to various degrees—
principles and undercut the doctrine of about violating international law,
“the responsibility to protect.” In Foot’s pushing decision-makers to pursue
view, China is both reshaping and being covert rather than overt military action.
shaped by the norms of the global International law is less a formal con-
system. It is pushing back against the straint on the conduct of military policy
Western-led liberal order in part by than part of a complex normative
drawing on older notions of state environment in which states operate.
sovereignty and self-determination. In
an era of growing competition between
China and the West, Foot oRers a grand
illumination of the normative battlefield.
May/June 2021 195

Recent Books
The Future of Global A$airs: Managing right, the idea of global governance in
Discontinuity, Disruption, and Destruction this brave new world will be a quaint
EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER relic of an earlier era.
ANKERSEN AND WAHEGURU PAL
SINGH SIDHU. Palgrave Macmillan,
2021, 331 pp.
Economic, Social,
This thought-provoking collection of and Environmental
essays surveys today’s troubled system
of global governance. The contributors
paint a bleak picture: the scale and
Barry Eichengreen
scope of global problems—including
pandemics, global warming, cyberwar-
fare, international extremist networks, The Power of Creative Destruction:
and the proliferation of weapons of Economic Upheaval and the Wealth
mass destruction—have simply over- of Nations
whelmed the old postwar governance BY PHILIPPE AGHION, CÉLINE
institutions, starting with the United ANTONIN, AND SIMON BUNEL .
Nations. The editors argue that for Belknap Press, 2021, 400 pp.
scholars to grasp the extent and pro-
fundity of this crisis, the study of ore than 60 years ago, research
“international relations” needs to be
expanded into a multidisciplinary
study of “global aRairs,” which spans
M by the economist Robert
Solow highlighted the impor-
tance of innovation for growth but shed
the fields of economics, politics, law, little light on how to generate that
the environment, and development. innovation. Aghion, Antonin, and Bunel,
Only this approach will help scholars who are responsible for much subsequent
understand an increasingly “complex, research in this area, argue that fostering
dynamic, and fragile” world. The innovation is all about balance. Innova-
environmental scientist Michael tion thrives with competition, but too
Oppenheimer argues that the world is much competition will preemptively
entering an era of “illiberal globaliza- diminish the rewards of new technologies,
tion,” defined less by multilateral rules businesses, and ideas. International
and more by raw power. In his contri- competition can stimulate innovation and
bution, Ankersen argues that the notion efficiency, but too much risks provoking a
that globalization would overwhelm backlash against globalization. Success-
and undermine countries and lead to fully navigating the supply chain disrup-
the “decline of the state” has not come tions created by covID-19 requires strong
to pass. States are reasserting their political leaders to implement smart
sovereign prerogatives, privileging policies, but not leaders so strong that they
internal security over international can suppress organizational innovations
norms and human rights, and adapting that will disfavor them or their allies. The
technology and supply chains to authors explain these dynamics and more
geopolitical con2ict. If the authors are in an eminently accessible fashion.
Recent Books
Adapting to Climate Change: Markets and concerned with the impact of religion
the Management of an Uncertain Future not on the economy but on economic
BY MATTHEW E. KAHN. Yale thought. He shows that a variant of
University Press, 2021, 304 pp. Calvinism that emphasized human
choice and action rather than predesti-
Kahn reviews findings on how climate nation profoundly in2uenced Adam
change and extreme weather events aRect Smith, the Scottish political economist
key sectors of the economy. Although he whose writings shaped modern eco-
does not dismiss the need to curb rising nomic analysis. Smith emphasized
temperatures, he suggests that American individual decision-making and the
society is getting better at adapting to capacity of the market, as an aggregator
climate change. Weather shocks provide of those decisions, to improve the
incentives for businesses to develop new human condition. Over time, the
products, such as resilient building discipline of economics became more
materials and in-home battery backup rigorous and quantitative, and the
systems. Big data allows utility providers in2uence of religion tended to recede.
to adjust electricity and water prices in Even today, however, there remains a
response to weather events, encouraging connection between the religiosity that
consumers to modify their usage in distinguishes the United States from
environmentally friendly ways. To be other advanced economies and the
sure, it’s not just up to markets to re- almost pious belief of many Americans
spond to climate change. Kahn highlights in the importance of human agency and
the need for investments in public the virtues of the market economy.
infrastructure to help with climate
change adaptation and for reforms of The Secret History of Home Economics:
urban planning rules and 2ood insurance How Trailblazing Women Harnessed
laws. Still, his book shows that one need the Power of Home and Changed the Way
not be a climate change skeptic to be a We Live
climate change optimist. BY DANIELLE DREILINGER.
Norton, 2021, 368 pp.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
BY BENJAMIN M. FRIEDMAN. The term “home economics” conjures
Knopf, 2021, 561 pp. up images of instruction in cooking and
sewing for generations of female
Nearly a century ago, the historian R. H. secondary school students. In her
Tawney wrote an identically titled account of the subject’s nineteenth- and
book about the role of religion in the twentieth-century history, Dreilinger
rise of the market economy. Tawney was shows that home economics has always
responding to the German sociologist involved much more. It was a way for
Max Weber, who famously argued that female educators, in secondary schools
Calvinist religious thought had set the but also in universities and other
stage for the rise of capitalism. Al- advanced settings, to develop and apply
though Friedman writes in the same their skills in an era when many aca-
tradition, his focus is diRerent: he is demic disciplines were closed to
May/June 2021 197

Recent Books
women. It allowed those educators to supermarkets, restaurant chains, com-

redefine, sometimes in strikingly mercial farmers, and, above all, govern-
progressive ways, women’s roles in ments must make important changes to
society and the economy, modernizing successfully meet the public’s demand
contemporary perceptions of women as for safe, nutritious, and sustainable food.
producers and consumers. For more than
a century, research by home economists
has been a source of significant scientific Military, Scientific,
and commercial advances, improving and Technological
food storage methods, for example, and
the design of kitchens. Today, with other
fields available to women, the rebranded
Lawrence D. Freedman
discipline of “family and consumer
sciences” is dwindling, even if it has not
entirely disappeared. Nonstate Warfare: The Military Methods
of Guerrillas, Warlords, and Militias
Resetting the Table: Straight Talk About BY STEPHEN BIDDLE. Princeton
the Food We Grow and Eat University Press, 2021, 464 pp.
BY ROBERT PAARLBERG. Knopf,
2021, 368 pp. Airpower in the War Against ISIS
BY BENJAMIN S. LAMBETH. Naval
Paarlberg, an economist, takes issue Institute Press, 2021, 352 pp.
with the slow-food movement, which
emphasizes organic and locally sourced wo books raise awkward ques-
food. He shows that without modern,
science-based farming, it would be
impossible to provide adequate nutri-
T tions about whether the United
States truly understands the
military challenges it faces. In an
tion at aRordable prices either in the important and innovative analysis,
United States or globally. In his view, Biddle takes issue with what he sees as
popular critiques of industrial farming a lazy distinction between the regular
are often wide of the mark; in truth, military strategy of states and the
technological advances are making guerrilla techniques of nonstate actors.
farming less damaging to the environ- He sees instead a spectrum of methods,
ment. Precision agriculture utilizing with those intended for decisive battle
satellite positioning, drone-based at one end and those intended to help
sensors, and machine learning allows avoid battle at the other. Most actors
farmers to produce more food using less seek the strategy best suited to their
water, less energy, and fewer chemicals. capabilities that is somewhere between
Paarlberg highlights plant-based protein these two extremes. Biddle looks at five
as a substitute for meat and dairy as yet campaigns waged by nonstate actors in
another science-based innovation Croatia, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, and
working in the same direction. Not- Vietnam. His analysis leads to the
withstanding this positive slant, the argument that the best U.S. force
author insists that food processors, posture for the future may well resem-
Recent Books
ble those of the past, with more dis- used Asian Americans in the fight
mounted infantry than one would against Japan. William Donovan, the
assume would be needed for a high-tech head of the oss, insisted on recruiting
force and with more armor and artillery capable individuals for the war eRort,
than one would think for a low-tech force. including those of Chinese and Korean
Lambeth’s sharp, authoritative heritage—and even Japanese Americans,
account of the role of airpower in the who had the necessary linguistic and
recent war against the Islamic State, cultural knowledge to design propa-
also known as ISIS, points to the danger ganda materials to be broadcast to
of holding stereotypical views of an Japan. Some Asian Americans worked
enemy. Supported by numerous inter- behind enemy lines, gathering intelli-
views with commanders and pilots, gence and engaging in sabotage. The
Lambeth’s argument includes many book focuses on many individual stories,
criticisms of senior civilian and military and in doing so, it raises interesting
policymakers. The most substantial one questions of race, gender, loyalty, and
is that the U.S. campaign against ISIS treachery. After all, these spies largely
was a case of too little, too late. Presi- came from well-established families and
dent Barack Obama was reluctant to were not recent immigrants.
authorize military action; by the time
he changed course, in 2014, ISIS was The Road Less Traveled: The Secret Battle
already rampaging through Iraq and to End the Great War, 1916–1917
Syria. Lambeth also complains that BY PHILIP ZELIKOW. PublicARairs,
American policymakers and the U.S. 2021, 352 pp.
military saw ISIS as an insurgent group,
when they should have recognized that This fine and lucid scholarship has the
this new enemy was a quasi state, with additional benefit of the eye of an experi-
its own command-and-control network enced practitioner as Zelikow addresses
and the makings of a conventional army. the question of whether U.S. President
U.S. officials eventually realized that Woodrow Wilson could have mediated a
they were facing a very diRerent kind of peace deal in 1916 or 1917 to end World
enemy and belatedly relaxed the rules War I before the United States joined the
of engagement to accelerate the pace of fray. The reader is aware—although the
the air war that would help defeat ISIS. policymakers of the time could not have
been—of the diRerence that an early deal
Asian American Spies: How Asian might have made, perhaps sparing the
Americans Helped Win the Allied Victory world the later traumas associated with
BY BRIAN MASARU HAYASHI. the rise of Bolshevism in Russia and
Oxford University Press, 2021, 304 pp. Nazism in Germany. Wilson was cer-
tainly keen to mediate a wider peace, and
By making extensive use of the person- all the belligerents were aware of the
nel files of the World War II–era Office benefits of at least being seen to negoti-
of Strategic Services, the precursor to ate. After a promising start, however,
the cIA, Hayashi provides remarkable Wilson never quite managed to give the
insight into how the intelligence agency eRort the push it needed. The demands
May/June 2021 199

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of winning reelection inhibited him, as

did his dependence on a lackluster State The United States
Department. It didn’t help that in the
United Kingdom, David Lloyd George, Jessica T. Mathews
who was then secretary of state for war,
correctly surmised that an aggressive,
uncompromising posture would help
propel him to the position of prime The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This
minister. For its part, Germany adopted a Is Our Song
policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. BY HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.
This led Wilson to break diplomatic Penguin Press, 2021, 304 pp.
relations with the Germans, too hastily in
Zelikow’s view. The opportunity for a fter writing over two dozen books
brokered peace was lost.
The Art of War in an Age of Peace: U.S.

Grand Strategy and Resolute Restraint
A exploring aspects of the Black
experience in the United States,
Gates now takes on the subject that is
arguably at the center of all of them: the
BY MICHAEL O’HANLON. Yale role of the Black church. It is an immense
University Press, 2021, 304 pp. subject reaching back five centuries to the
arrival of African slaves in the Americas.
This thoughtful and re2ective book could The book covers both the church’s per-
serve as a guide for U.S. President Joe sonal, spiritual role, as a source of com-
Biden’s national security fort, consolation, and dignity during
team as they prepare for the challenges of slavery and its painful, lingering after-
the next few years. O’Hanlon draws on math, and its institutional role, as the
his experience of engaging in the big central pillar of organization and support
policy debates of the last three decades, in the struggle for social justice and
including examining the preparation political power from the time of the
behind and the legacy of the United Underground Railroad to the present.
States’ recent wars. Taking into account The reader gains a deep understanding of
the polarized nature of U.S. politics, he why Black churches have so often been
concludes that the United States must the target of bombings, arson, and other
learn to limit its ambitions even while violence. The Black church has also
continuing to defend core interests. He nurtured the vital feeling of “somebody-
advocates a strategy of “resolute re- ness.” Gates quotes the late businessman
straint,” which means, for example, that if and civil rights activist Vernon Jordan,
China attacks Taiwan, the United States who described the experience of attend-
should move quickly to help defend the ing church on Sunday, wearing your best
island without believing that it has to clothes, after a workweek of being called
then defeat China in a wider war. This is “boy”: “You not only were somebody, you
a valuable addition to current policy felt like you were somebody.” Gates has
debates, on issues from climate change to written a book that fills a gaping hole and
nuclear arms control to the challenges is equally eye-opening for novices and
posed by China and Russia. experts in the field.
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Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes that, especially when supercharged by
and E$ects of Partisan Electoral cybertechnology, could threaten the
Interventions future of electoral democracy.
BY DOV H. LEVIN. Oxford University
Press, 2020, 316 pp. National Security, Leaks, and Freedom
of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty
Levin presents an important paradox: Years On
foreign electoral interference has been EDITED BY GEOFFREY R. STONE
extraordinarily frequent in recent AND LEE C. BOLLINGER. Oxford
history, and yet political scientists University Press, 2021, 380 pp.
largely ignore the phenomenon. His
study, the first major work focused In the Pentagon Papers case of 1971, the
solely on outside meddling in elections Supreme Court ruled that news outlets
in the modern era, rests on extensive had the right to publish classified
case studies and statistical analysis of information they received even while
an original database of 117 such inter- individuals who leaked the information
ventions carried out by the Soviet could be prosecuted. The editors of this
Union (and, later, Russia) and the volume, two noted First Amendment
United States since World War II—81 scholars, use the occasion of that
of them by the United States. This data ruling’s 50th anniversary to review the
set alone is an important contribution manifold consequences of how this
and a sobering eye opener for Ameri- historic decision balanced the govern-
cans, since 70 percent of these inter- ment’s need for secrecy in protecting
ventions were undertaken by the national security with the public’s right
United States. All told, those 117 to know what its government is doing.
instances account for one in every nine The collection includes chapters from a
competitive national elections held in star-studded roster of national security
independent countries in that period. practitioners, legal scholars, practicing
Levin finds that such interventions journalists, and media experts. To-
tend to occur in highly competitive gether, the editors and five of the
elections in which the foreign interve- contributors also consider the eRects of
nor sees its interests severely endan- the revolution in information and
gered by the candidate it opposes. communications technology that has
Crucially, they are “inside jobs,” in the transformed the world since 1971 and
sense that success requires an actor in that has led to the huge increase in the
the target country who is willing to number of government contractors with
receive outside help. Russia’s interven- access to classified information. They
tion in the 2016 U.S. presidential recommend policy changes that could
election was only “unprecedented,” as reduce the overclassification of informa-
Americans generally describe it, in its tion, encourage declassification, deter
use of digital technology. Otherwise, it harmful leaks, encourage helpful ones,
appears to fit the model in all respects. and create alternatives to leaking. But
The book is a valuable foundation for they also conclude that, notwithstand-
the further study of a phenomenon ing the massive changes that have taken
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place in the digital realm, it would be has produced an engaging page-turner

premature to abandon the regime the that also outlines many broadly appli-
Pentagon Papers case created or to do cable lessons and sensible policy reforms.
more than undertake cautious reforms
to improve its functioning. Crackup: The Republican Implosion and
the Future of Presidential Politics
Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the BY SAMUEL L. POPKIN. Oxford
American City University Press, 2021, 368 pp.
BY ROSA BROOKS. Penguin Press,
2021, 384 pp. The first wave of books about now
former President Donald Trump
Brooks, a tenured law professor with concerned the man. A second wave
“two children, a spouse, a dog, a mort- strove to understand his supporters.
gage, and a full-time job,” decided in Now, a timely third wave takes on the
her 40s to become a police officer. broader political environment that led
Taking advantage of a program in to his rise and supported his adminis-
Washington, D.C., that puts volunteers tration. Popkin looks at two crucial
through the paces of the Metropolitan elements of a healthy democracy:
Police Academy—from pushups to strong political parties and a function-
firearms and field training—she eventu- ing legislature. Only political parties
ally got fully certified. Her remarkable with “a past to honor and a future to
book recounts her experiences as a protect” can create collective responsi-
part-time patrol officer working for bility among elected officials. Without
several years largely in the poorest parts that, there can be no coherent legisla-
of the city. In a way that a traditional tive agenda and no way for voters to
scholarly book cannot, she brings to life hold anyone responsible for policy
the impossible combination of roles success or failure. With a dysfunctional
police officers are expected to play: legislature, power shifts to the presi-
“warriors, disciplinarians, protectors, dent, to rule via executive orders that
mediators, social workers, educators, can be instantly erased by his or her
medics, and mentors.” She does not successor. In order to hold together a
skimp on detailing the police abuses she coalition of diverse interests, political
encountered. Officers are sometimes parties must marshal more resources
trigger happy because they are taught to than do outside forces. Without that
believe that their jobs are more danger- discipline, parties devolve into ad hoc
ous than they truly are. The training collections of actors pursuing individ-
officers receive, prevailing laws, and the ual ambitions. Popkin convincingly
social circumstances in which the police places much of the blame for the
work are often directly at odds. And an deepening dysfunction of recent
“explosion of over-criminalization” at decades on campaign finance reform
the state and federal level in recent eRorts that failed to reduce the sky-
decades has turned misdemeanors into rocketing totals of campaign spending
felonies and small violations of regula- or to bring unaccountable “dark”
tions into more serious crimes. Brooks money into the sunlight. And both
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parties have failed to exercise the dom’s unique electoral system, the
powers they still retain—for example, inability of the Labour Party to adjust
the power to shape the choice of to the new circumstances, the crosscut-
presidential candidates. Democrats ting imperatives of regional politics,
should take no comfort, Popkin warns, and the traditional British imperial
that the Republican Party has fractured mindset all played important roles as
first: they are equally vulnerable. well, and they help explain why no
other countries have followed the
United Kingdom out of the UU.
Western Europe
Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe
Andrew Moravcsik in the Post–Cold War Era
BY JUSSI M. HANHIMAKI. Oxford
University Press, 2021, 208 pp.
Brexitland: Identity, Diversity, and the Throughout the seven decades since the
Reshaping of British Politics founding of UATo, commentators have
BY MARIA SOBOLEWSKA AND proclaimed that the alliance is in deep
ROBERT FORD. Cambridge University crisis. Most also combine this warning
Press, 2020, 408 pp. with a call for deeper “cooperation,”
often a euphemism for the orthodox
n the past half decade, the United position that the Europeans should bear
I Kingdom’s decision to leave the

European Union has produced an
enormous outpouring of scholarship not
more of the burden. A critical minority,
mostly on the extremes of the European
political spectrum, has long complained
just on the Brexit vote itself but also on that the United States bullies, exploits,
British far-right politics and Euroskep- and sometimes even subverts its Euro-
ticism. This book fills in a critical part pean allies. This slim volume by a
of the story. Brexit has deep roots in diplomatic historian advances a more
two 50-year-long demographic transfor- balanced claim, based on the premise
mations in the United Kingdom: one that it is natural for even the closest of
that changed a society in which foreign- allies to have serious disputes. Contrary
born (and nonwhite) people were rare to the conventional wisdom, the over-
to one in which they are common, and arching trajectory of transatlantic
another that changed a society in which relations has been positive: during the
university-educated people composed a Cold War, UATo countries were far
single-digit minority to one in which more bitterly divided politically than
they total roughly half of all young they have been since it ended. The same
people. These shifts changed British is true of transatlantic economic rela-
attitudes toward race and ethnicity, tions. This book becomes less nuanced
creating a political system divided over and less empirically grounded as it
identity politics. Yet demographics approaches the present: in discussing
alone do not explain Brexit: the odd the current challenges that populism
incentives created by the United King- and the pandemic pose, some of the old
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rhetoric of UATo’s eternal crisis returns. How Iceland Changed the World: The Big
Yet in the end, the long historical record History of a Small Island
leads the author to view with optimism BY EGILL BJARNASON. Penguin
the future of the Western alliance. Books, 2021, 288 pp.
Mussolini and the Eclipse of Italian Norse America: The Story of a

Fascism: From Dictatorship to Populism Founding Myth
BY R. J. B. BOSWORTH. Yale BY GORDON CAMPBELL. Oxford
University Press, 2021, 352 pp. University Press, 2021, 272 pp.
Bosworth is among the leading English- Two recent books chart the global reach
language biographers of the Italian of Scandinavian societies. Every nation
dictator Benito Mussolini, and those harbors its own myths of world-historical
seeking a magisterial treatment of his greatness—even Iceland. No one is a
life and regime should consult the more enthusiastic advocate for this tiny
author’s previous work. Here, instead, is island than Bjarnason, a journalist who
a provocative reexamination of Italian left to make a successful career in the
fascism. Bosworth is not an apologist for Anglophone world. Reading his ac-
Mussolini’s excesses, but he maintains count, one would think Iceland is the
that labeling both Mussolini and Adolf Forrest Gump of countries: the inad-
Hitler as fascists obscures the relative vertent pivot of every major event in
mildness of the Italian variant. Italian modern history. Its volcanic eruptions
fascism resembled Hitler’s Nazism or triggered the French Revolution. Its
Joseph Stalin’s communism less than it harbors secured the Allied victory in
did other authoritarian regimes that World War II. Its discreet diplomats
spread throughout Europe in the 1930s— helped found Israel, powered the Ameri-
and even some democratic systems. In can Bobby Fischer to the world chess
Italy, domestic repression, although title, and aided Ronald Reagan and
deplorable, was far less thorough than in Mikhail Gorbachev in ending the Cold
Germany or the Soviet Union. Italian War.The tales of an Icelandic nanny
imperialist impulses were less brutal and inspired J. R. R. Tolkien’s sagas. Icelandic
far less successful than British and French scientists prepared U.S. astronauts to
eRorts. Mussolini neither desired nor walk on the moon, pioneered renewable
provoked World War II, but Italy could energy, and provided the data behind
not avoid it as an ally of Germany gene splicing. And not least, Icelanders
shunned by the West. Even so, Italian living in Greenland came to North
casualties remained a third lower than the America in the eleventh century.
number incurred in World War I, when Campbell’s book seems, at first
Italy was led by liberal governments. One glance, to be designed to debunk this
might not accept all these judgments, but last claim. He details the remarkable
this book does pose the question of range of fraud and fakery that has
whether Mussolini should be understood characterized eRorts to explain the
less as a totalitarian and more as a United States’ racial and ethnic origins.
harbinger of modern populism. Since the Pilgrims landed, religious
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leaders have been forging archaeological workout. Far more interesting is his
and textual evidence to show that Native description of the unimaginable courage,
Americans were descended from Ca- suRering, and idealism of Garibaldi’s
naanite and Jewish tribes. Secular band of 5,000 ragged soldiers. As they
scholars have advanced similarly ques- crossed a countryside with little infra-
tionable claims about the feats of Afri- structure, hounded constantly by crack
can, Chinese, Scottish, Turkish, and Austrian and French forces, 95 percent
Welsh explorers. In this vein, racist of them deserted or died. Parks is also
white Anglo-Saxons in the nineteenth attentive to the melancholy ironies of
century propounded manufactured contemporary life in the Italian country-
claims about a Nordic discovery of the side, with its ever-smaller and ever-older
Americas to marginalize Italian Ameri- population. To rural Italians today,
cans, who claimed that honor for Chris- Garibaldi seems an irrelevant figure.
topher Columbus, as well as Native There are some resonances, however: he
Americans, who got there first. Yet fought to rid Italy of foreigners, and
Campbell ultimately acknowledges the many in these regions disparage the
existence of overwhelming archaeological un-Italian character of African immi-
evidence that Greenlanders did, in fact, grants and northern European tourists—
create the first European settlements in even as they seek to exploit both.
North America, although they appear to
have stayed only long enough to harvest
lumber and resupply their fishermen. Western Hemisphere
The Hero’s Way: Walking With Garibaldi Richard Feinberg
From Rome to Ravenna
BY TIM PARKS. Norton, 2021, 352 pp.
Parks has published dozens of books, The Inclusionary Turn in Latin American
among them award-winning novels, Democracies
translations of Italian fiction, and, what EDITED BY DIANA KAPISZEWSKI,
is most distinctive, nonfiction about STEVEN LEVITSKY, AND DEBORAH J.
Italy—a place where he has lived since YASHAR. Cambridge University Press,
the 1980s. In this unique travelogue, he 2021, 420 pp.
recounts retracing the exact 500-kilometer
n this first-rate collection of schol-
route from Rome to Ravenna taken by
the patriotic Italian guerrilla fighter
Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1849, after the
French crushed the 2edgling Roman
I arly essays, leading political scien-
tists celebrate the progress that
many Latin American countries have
Republic he was defending. Parks and achieved since the 1990s in crafting
a friend did it in one month on foot; more inclusive societies. Traditionally
with a smartphone in hand and small underrepresented people—including
cafés, hotels, and pharmacies in every the nonunionized poor, indigenous
village, such a trip seems less like a peoples, and women—have made
pilgrimage than a pleasant daily measurable gains in multiple areas.
May/June 2021 205

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They now actively participate in politi- that Chiquita’s lavish donations to U.S.
cal decision-making and enjoy access to politicians shaped U.S. policymaking:
more resources, including fiscal trans- Why else would the U.S. government
fers, educational opportunities, and take up Chiquita’s cause, since the
legal services. In their admirably lucid United States itself grew few bananas?
introduction, the editors attribute this Bernal recognizes but downplays other
“unprecedented expansion of citizen- drivers of U.S. policy, such as the
ship” to how the region’s inequalities distaste for colonial-era trade prefer-
and poverty have manifested at the ences and the competing interests of
ballot box; given the repeated opportu- Latin American banana exporters. U.S.
nity to vote, the poor majority not policymakers also worried that the
surprisingly demanded more rights, Caribbean countries would avoid
more voice, and better livelihoods. developing new export-oriented indus-
Although clearly sympathetic to leftist tries so long as they could rely on
politics, the editors recognize that some bananas. But the Clinton administra-
right-wing governments have also tion’s eRorts on behalf of Chiquita had
advanced inclusionary reforms. At the real consequences. The banana indus-
same time, the editors regret that tries of the eastern Caribbean collapsed,
“changes were slower, less transforma- and as Bernal warned, drug trafficking
tive, and less celebrated than promised increased. In the years since, some of
and hoped.” Nor are these undeniable the islands, less confident of U.S.
gains irreversible; progressive move- support, have embraced Chinese trade
ments remain dangerously fragmented and development oRerings. Bernal
and decentralized. Looking ahead, the faults the United States for not giving
editors find grounds for both pessimism more weight to its national security
and optimism. interests in these small, vulnerable
island economies.
Corporate Versus National Interest in U.S.
Trade Policy: Chiquita and Caribbean “Mafalda”: A Social and Political History
Bananas of Latin America’s Global Comic
BY RICHARD BERNAL. Palgrave BY ISABELLA COSSE. TRANSLATED
Macmillan, 2020, 283 pp. BY LAURA PÉREZ CARRARA. Duke
In the late 1990s, Chiquita Brands
induced the Clinton administration to The social historian Cosse interprets
pressure the European Union to aban- the famous Argentine comic-strip
don trade preferences that favored character Mafalda as a vehicle for its
banana imports from small eastern author, Joaquín Salvador Lavado (who
Caribbean economies. Chiquita sought passed away last year and whose pen
to open European markets to its ba- name was Quino), to explore the
nanas, grown elsewhere in Latin Amer- tribulations of the middle class in
ica. In this well-documented polemic, Buenos Aires in the turbulent 1960s and
Bernal, who was Jamaica’s ambassador early 1970s. Channeling the Peanuts
to the United States at the time, argues comic strip, Mafalda is an intellectually
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precious, rebellious tomboy who regu- on a better path forward. Three recent
larly confronts her rather bewildered publications sketch the dimensions of
parents, questioning traditional social the crisis. A congressionally mandated
hierarchies and gender roles. Mafalda bipartisan commission endorses many
has friends who variously embody of the basic thrusts of existing U.S.
conservative family values and the counternarcotics policies. Crandall
values of materialistic, upwardly condemns the devastation that the
mobile immigrants. Smartly sarcastic, U.S.-led drug wars have caused in
Mafalda comments on the chaos of beleaguered countries in Latin America.
world aRairs and, more specifically, the Andreas sees drug consumption as
authoritarianism and violence in inherent to the human condition.
Argentina that by the mid-1970s drove The U.S. Congress created a biparti-
her creator into exile. Mafalda was san independent commission to address
widely disseminated throughout the a disturbing conundrum: illicit drugs
Spanish-speaking world and beyond; remain plentiful and drug-trafficking
Cosse attributes the comic strip’s organizations have grown stronger
enduring popularity to its universal, despite aggressive U.S. counternarcotics
humanistic humor and to the utopian policies. In their report, the commis-
nostalgia evoked by allusions to the sion’s regional experts oRer tightly
hopeful, youthful 1960s. In explaining reasoned reviews of existing programs,
Malfalda’s relative obscurity in the pointing to progress in some areas:
United States, Cosse suggests that the stronger police and criminal justice
cartoon’s social commentaries are too systems in some countries, for instance,
subtle for many American readers. and the increasing treatment of sub-
stance abuse as a health-care problem
Report of the Western Hemisphere Drug rather than a crime or a moral failing.
Policy Commission But these experts balk at truly confront-
BY THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE ing the massive failures that the report
DRUG POLICY COMMISSION. itself handsomely documents. Instead,
Available online, 2020, 117 pp. they largely recommend staying the
course, albeit with better coordination
Drugs and Thugs: The History and Future across programs and with smarter
of America’s War on Drugs execution of policies. The commission
BY RUSSELL CRANDALL. Yale notes the abject shortcomings of anti-
University Press, 2020, 520 pp. money-laundering measures but badly
underplay the enduring capacities of
Killer High: A History of War in Six Drugs wealthy trafficking organizations to defy
BY PETER ANDREAS. Oxford counternarcotics eRorts. It recognizes
University Press, 2020, 352 pp. that bureaucratic inertia and self-interest
lead to the continuation of many
The United States’ five-decade-long underperforming programs, advocating
“war on drugs” has failed miserably and research-based data collection and
has caused tremendous collateral rigorous cost-benefit analysis of these
damage. But no consensus has emerged initiatives. The chapter on Colombia
May/June 2021 207

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urges the tighter coordination of Andreas chronicles the long histo-

interdiction, security, and alternative ries of human interaction with six
development strategies. As for drug- psychoactive substances: alcohol,
ravaged Mexico, the impact of U.S. nicotine, caffeine, opium, amphet-
training and technical assistance “re- amines, and cocaine. He uncovers
mains unclear,” and the commission myriad linkages between these drugs
nebulously suggests the adoption of a and the expansion of the military
“new strategic framework.” capacities of states. Governments have
Crandall’s comprehensive, judi- financed their wars by taxing these
ciously balanced review of over 100 drugs, especially alcohol: taxes on wine,
years of U.S. counternarcotics policies vodka, and whiskey have respectively
results in a powerful, persuasive con- funded French, Russian, and U.S.
demnation of the U.S.-led drug wars. military operations in the past. Armies
He combines scholarly knowledge with have kept their soldiers nourished,
his policy experience as an official in brave, and alert with daily doses of
the White House and the Defense rum, caffeine, and even amphetamines.
Department to show how the sprawling But Andreas’s strongest contention is
counternarcotics federal bureaucracy that the U.S. war on drugs, primarily
has failed to squash commerce in against cocaine, has given the American
banned substances. The resulting harm military a new mission and has contrib-
at home and abroad has been enor- uted to the militarization of domestic
mous. U.S. policies have failed for police forces. In Latin America, U.S.
many reasons: “the balloon effect,” counternarcotics policies have grossly
whereby the suppression of one source distorted law enforcement priorities
of narcotics simply shifts supply to a while drenching cities in blood. An-
new location; “the rule of replacement,” dreas blames the obduracy of U.S.
which means that newcomers quickly politicians and bureaucrats for the
replace eliminated kingpins; the persistence of the drug wars, despite
shrewd use of technological innova- their evident failure and their huge
tions by drug producers and traffickers; financial and human costs.
the debilitating corruption of law
enforcement everywhere; and, of
course, the irrepressible consumer
demand in the United States for
mood-altering drugs. Crandall recog-
nizes the good intentions of policymak-
ers in the U.S. government but decries
“the inertia of the Beltway policymak-
ing machine” and its systemic failure to
objectively assess past actions. When it
comes to tackling drug trafficking
overseas, he concludes that the United
States should “basically [call] it quits in
the global supply-side war.”
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that encouraged the Talysh to reassert

Eastern Europe and Former their identity: their number in the
Soviet Republics republic jumped up to 21,169. But in
today’s Azerbaijan, this entire subject is
Maria Lipman considered highly sensitive, and mere
academic interest in it can attract the ire
of the government.
Nested Nationalism: Making and A Short History of Russia: From the

Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus Pagans to Putin
BY KRISTA A. GOFF. Cornell BY MARK GALEOTTI. Ebury Press,
University Press, 2021, 336 pp. 2021, 208 pp.
n its early years, the Soviet Union Galeotti skips through Russia’s centuries-
I promoted the cultures, languages,

and cadres of its countless ethnic
communities. But by the late 1930s, this
long history in around two hundred
pages by focusing on its successive
rulers. He covers many early princes,
policy gave way to boosting the so-called along with every tsar and every Com-
titular nations in the Soviet Union’s munist Party general secretary. The
constituent republics (titular groups were book traces feuds, wars, territorial
those that shared their republic’s name, expansions, and Russian leaders’ re-
such as Uzbeks in Uzbekistan)—at the peated attempts to modernize their
expense of nontitular minorities. GoR ’s country while keeping their subjects
deep and innovative analysis traces the under tight control, but it does not have
way Soviet policies on nationality af- much to say about those subjects.
fected the population of Soviet Azerbai- Readers will also not find much about
jan, home to both titular Azeris and many Russia’s social structure, ethnic compo-
nontitular minorities. Azeris may have sition, high and popular cultures,
felt underprivileged within the context of systems of education, or faiths. Galeotti
the hegemony of Russian language and intends his book for a broad audience,
culture in the Soviet Union, but as the and his narrative is, indeed, lively and
titular nation in Azerbaijan, they were easy to follow. The chapter on Vladimir
privileged over their republic’s nontitular Putin is brilliant. But a number of
groups. Nontitular minorities found unfortunate inaccuracies risk misleading
access to education and career advance- a curious reader. For instance, the
ment severely limited unless they identi- invention of the Cyrillic script used for
fied as part of titular groups, a dynamic the Russian language is wrongly as-
that led to forced assimilation. For cribed to the Byzantine missionaries
example, the number of people claiming Cyril and Methodius—they invented
to belong to the Talysh minority group in Glagolitic, an earlier script quite
Azerbaijan plummeted from 87,510 to diRerent from Cyrillic. It is not true
just 85 between the censuses of 1939 and that “Byzantine Christianity did not
1959. The last Soviet census, in 1989, require submission to a distant spiritual
re2ected a softer political environment leader”: during its first 600 years, the
May/June 2021 209

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Russian Orthodox Church had its head Weak Strongman: The Limits of Power in
appointed by the patriarch of Constan- Putin’s Russia
tinople. And not “most” surveyed BY TIMOTHY FRYE. Princeton
Russians, but only one-third, agreed to University Press, 2021, 288 pp.
identify themselves as “Europeans,” a
number that dropped even lower in a The prevailing narrative about Russia,
poll this year. Frye writes, is overpoliticized and over-
simplified. All too often, outside observ-
The Happy Traitor: Spies, Lies, and Exile ers reduce Russian politics either to
in Russia; The Extraordinary Story of “Putinism,” defined by the character and
George Blake background of Russian President Vladi-
BY SIMON KUPER. Profile Books, mir Putin, or to Russia’s unique history
2021, 278 pp. and culture. They neglect the numerous
comparative studies that portray Russia as
George Blake was a British MI6 agent a personalist autocracy with much in
and a Soviet spy. In the 1950s, he fa- common with other contemporary
mously informed the Soviet Union of a regimes in Hungary, Turkey, or Vene-
secret tunnel the Americans and the zuela. Standard political commentary on
British had dug under the Soviet sector Russia also gives little importance to
of Berlin to tap the communications of dynamics within Russian society. But
the Soviet military. By his own account, survey-based academic research—includ-
he revealed the identities of hundreds of ing Frye’s own—illustrates the impact of
British agents operating in communist Russian public opinion on the Kremlin’s
countries, leading, in some cases, to their decision-making process. Frye seeks to
executions. Blake was exposed and tried show how the Kremlin’s actions are the
in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, but result of countless tradeoRs and difficult
he 2ed from jail using a rope ladder and choices, rather than the expression of an
then made a remarkable escape: a former omnipotent ruler’s whims or an insuper-
fellow inmate drove Blake huddled under able historical legacy. The book makes
the back seat of a car all the way to East sophisticated social science accessible to a
Germany. Blake reached Moscow in 1967 broad audience. It seems especially timely,
and lived there until his death in 2020 at too, as Russia’s rising public discontent,
the age of 98. Kuper, who interviewed economic decline, and confrontation with
the double agent in 2012, claims that the West are heightening the dilemmas
Blake felt no remorse for his actions. facing the Kremlin.
Besides his own long interview, Kuper
draws on numerous published sources,
including Blake’s autobiography and his
lectures to security service members in
East Germany (where Blake always
enjoyed a warm welcome). The MI6 has
never made public its files on Blake—
perhaps because, as Kuper writes, “his
case was so embarrassing to the service.”
Recent Books
Assignment Moscow: Reporting on Russia

From Lenin to Putin Middle East
BY JAMES RODGERS. I.B. Tauris,
2020, 256 pp. Lisa Anderson
Rodgers, a British journalist who has
worked in Russia at various times since Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and
the 1990s, writes about the plight of the Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula
English-speaking correspondents who BY LALEH KHALILI. Verso, 2020,
have covered Russia, going all the way 368 pp.
back to the Russian Revolution in 1917.
That their task was not easy is hardly inety percent of the world’s
surprising, yet Rodgers repeatedly
emphasizes the difficulties they faced
(the word “difficult” is used to describe
N goods and 60 percent of its oil
are transported by sea. The
numbers are staggering, but the plumb-
their job at least two dozen times): ing of globalization—maritime trade,
strict censorship (foreign journalists logistics, and the shipping of hydrocar-
were forced to clear their dispatches bons—is often hidden, as Khalili puts it,
with Soviet authorities until 1961), “behind veils of security and bureauc-
travel restrictions, limited access to racy.” She has burrowed into archives,
senior officials and ordinary people traveled on container ships, pored over
alike, and the government’s suspicion statistical data and engineering reports,
that Anglo-American correspondents and talked to oil executives and port
were spies in disguise. Even Rodgers’s managers, stevedores and labor activists
discussion of the American journalist in several Persian Gulf ports. The result
Hedrick Smith—who, despite the is a fascinating if, as she acknowledges,
restrictions, famously managed to “untidy” book. It is a richly revealing
produce exceptionally rich and insight- portrait of a complex industry that
ful coverage of the Soviet Union and its mingles both astonishingly archaic
people in the 1970s—is reduced to practices—routes plotted on paper charts,
Smith’s re2ections on how difficult his for instance, and port laborers locked in
work was. Rodgers’s narrative rests on work camps—and dazzling technological
an enormous number of articles in triumphs. The uncertain boundaries
Anglo-American media, books by and between civilian and military transport,
about journalists, and his own inter- the complex way ships’ registries work,
views with many Moscow correspon- and the shifting ties between govern-
dents. He quotes some of them as ments and industry are, like sea-lanes
saying that journalists knew and under- themselves, difficult to pin down but
stood Russia better than diplomats or important to chart, and Khalili provides a
policymakers did. This may or may not valuable window into this world.
be true. Unfortunately, Rodgers doesn’t
give the diplomats and policymakers a
chance to respond.
May/June 2021 211

Recent Books
The Power of Deserts: Climate Change, account of the evolution of political

the Middle East, and the Promise of a jihad since it came to global prominence
Post-Oil Era in the 1980s. He sketches four waves of
BY DAN RABINOWITZ. Stanford jihadi activity: the international call to
University Press, 2020, 184 pp. expel the Soviets from Afghanistan
during the 1980s, the anti-American
Rabinowitz examines the exceptional focus of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda,
vulnerability of most of the Middle the rejection by the so-called Islamic
East to climate change. Temperatures State (or ISIS) of the international
have risen and rainfall declined percep- system, and the proliferation of “lone
tibly in recent decades in what is wolf” actions fueled by radicalization on
already one of the most arid regions of the Internet. Robinson provides both an
the world. Well before the last decade’s accessible history and a provocative
political uprisings, long droughts analysis of one of the most important
contributed to significant population political movements in the world over
displacements and growing political the last half century. Wading into
discontent in Sudan and Syria. Virtu- controversial debates, he makes the case
ally all the countries of the region are that jihadi activity is best understood as
confronting dwindling rains, shrinking a “movement of rage,” an apocalyptic
arable land, and rising sea levels. An rejection of the secular, scientific knowl-
Israeli sociologist and environmental edge of the Enlightenment, echoing the
activist, Rabinowitz persuasively argues actions of the Khmer Rouge in Cambo-
that understanding the Middle East dia and many other violent, book-burning
without factoring in climate change is “no mobs. What jihadi leaders have added to
longer tenable.” Although his political this mix, he argues, is the ability to
analysis is not always subtle or nuanced, project their rage and unleash their
his conclusions are powerful, and surpris- movement on a global scale.
ingly hopeful: precisely those countries
that have the most to lose in a post-oil Syrian Requiem: The Civil War and Its
future—the oil producers of the Arabian Aftermath
Peninsula (and, it might be added, North BY ITAMAR RABINOVICH AND
Africa)—are also well placed to embrace CARMIT VALENSI. Princeton
renewable energy, as beneficiaries of University Press, 2021, 288 pp.
strong and reliable sunshine.
Despite their book’s ominous title,
Global Jihad: A Brief History Rabinovich and Valensi don’t actually
BY GLENN E. ROBINSON. Stanford think Syria—or even its current regime—
University Press, 2020, 264 pp. is dead. In fact, they seem impressed by
the staying power of both the country and
How has jihad, a Muslim religious its government, given the many attempts
imperative to struggle in the path of to bring the regime of Bashar al-Assad
God, come to preoccupy governments down and pull Syria apart over the last
around the world? Robinson provides a decade. In tracing this unexpected
synthetic and remarkably comprehensive resilience, the authors have produced a
Recent Books
very useful primer on an astonishingly terparts, often serving particular

complex history. An efficient summary of literary coteries and political cliques, as
the rule of Assad’s Baath Party sets the this lively and provocative volume
stage for an examination of the 2011 illustrates. Today, as testimonies from a
uprising and the subsequent civil war variety of contemporary coReehouse
through 2018. The authors examine the patrons show, Egyptians of many ages
roles of domestic, regional, and interna- and classes find solace, refuge, convivi-
tional actors, before attempting to con- ality, and job leads at the local café.
clude what is in truth an unfinished story Everyday political and social change
by chronicling the events of 2019 and also takes place in the café: since the
2020. They are damning in describing uprising of 2011, many more coRee-
what they charitably call the “2uctuations” houses welcome women. Starbucks and
of an inconsistent U.S. policy on Syria in local chains such as Beano’s may prevail
the past decade. And they supply dizzying in Cairo’s suburban malls, but they will
accounts of the raucous geopolitical never beat the wooden chairs, uneven
square dance—with regional actors 2oor, and tiny glasses at Fishawi’s for
changing partners in Syria with aban- debating last night’s soccer match—or
don—that has left millions of Syrians government decree—with friends.
dead, displaced, or exiled. Their treatment
of Israel’s interests and activities in Syria
is predictably astute. In a surprisingly Asia and Pacific
moving section, they discuss the devasta-
tion of what was once a robust and lively Andrew J. Nathan
arts scene in pre-uprising Damascus.
The Egyptian Co$eehouse: Culture,

Politics, and Urban Space To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage
BY DALIA SAID MOSTAFA AND to Despotism
AMINA ELBENDARY. I.B. Tauris, BY DEBASISH ROY CHOWDHURY
2020, 192 pp. AND JOHN KEANE. Oxford
The appearance of the coReehouse in
the Middle East in the late Middle combination of investigative
Ages appears to have coincided with,
and probably fostered, the development
of Arab folk epics, such as The Thousand
A reporting and political theory,
this probing book argues that
“social death” is the reason for the decline
and One Nights. Regular patrons eagerly of democracy, with India oRered as a case
anticipated the storyteller’s next install- study. The authors detail India’s broken
ment, much as readers of popular health-care system, chronic hunger, land
magazines in Victorian England con- grabs, air and water pollution, dysfunc-
sumed famous serialized novels. Since tional public transport networks, reli-
then, Cairo’s cafés have continued to be gious bigotry, pervasive illiteracy, debt
gathering places for the cultural elite of bondage, child slavery, and mistreatment
the day, much like their Parisian coun- of women. As people come to accept
May/June 2021 213

Recent Books
deep social and economic inequality, the to office workers through Mumbai’s
system erodes the dignity of its citizens— impossible transit system, a group of
the principle on which democracy transgender women who collect overdue
depends. That social breakdown produces loans by dancing in front of deadbeats
hordes of cynical young people ready to until they pay, a “prison master” who
join authoritarian militias and political serves other people’s terms. The charac-
movements, dynastic parties run by ters in the book maneuver in the am-
corrupt politicians, captive media, biguous spaces between the modern
dysfunctional legislatures, subservient political economy and the tangled reality
security agencies, and partisan courts. of irrational regulations, strained re-
Elections, marred by violence and money sources, and too many people. The book
politics, become exercises in “voluntary is an unconventional introduction to
servitude.” Chowdhury and Keane say India’s biggest city and an invitation to
these problems started long before the joys and challenges of ethnography.
Narendra Modi became prime minister
in 2014 and have grown worse under his China’s Quest for Foreign Technology:
leadership. One wonders, however, Beyond Espionage
whether to blame social ills for demo- EDITED BY WILLIAM C. HANNAS
cratic decline or the reverse. AND DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW.
Routledge, 2020, 372 pp.
Bombay Brokers
EDITED BY LISA BJORKMAN. Duke A 2013 book by Hannas and two other
University Press, 2021, 472 pp. contributors to the present volume
focused on the many ways that China
This collection of 36 short profiles by as gets hold of advanced U.S. technology.
many authors aRectionately portrays the Since then, as reported by contributors to
middlemen and facilitators who grease this new, deeply researched and sophisti-
the wheels of life in Mumbai (formerly cated volume, the Chinese government
known as Bombay) in imaginative ways. has vastly increased its technology-
There is the construction engineer who acquisition programs, not only in the
specializes in persuading municipal United States but also in Australia, Japan,
officers to approve water hookups for South Korea, and Europe. As before,
buildings that are not certified for some Chinese methods are illegal, such as
occupancy; the retired municipal official hacking and theft, but many are carried
who uses his connections to help neigh- out in the open, including investing in
bors with identity cards, rubbish re- foreign companies, conducting joint
moval, and death certificates; and a research projects with foreign universities
variety of entrepreneurs who specialize and companies, using “talent programs”
in assembling political crowds with to bring Chinese and non-Chinese
money or entertainment. Some of the scientists to China, and oRering returned
subjects are like those who run small scholars venture capital to start busi-
businesses anywhere, but with an Indian nesses. Thousands of university centers,
twist: a messenger who specializes in technology-transfer parks, and startup
delivering daily lunchboxes from homes incubators convert the imported technol-
Recent Books
ogy into products that increase China’s uniformity versus diversity continues
competitiveness, upgrade its military, or with the current regime’s eRorts to
strengthen the government’s ability to snuR out Tibetan, Uyghur, and other
control society. Officials and observers in languages of the non-Han minorities.
the West lack awareness of the extent of
these activities. Governments face the Taiwan in Dynamic Transition: Nation
dilemma of trying to stop the out2ow of Building and Democratization
advanced technology without interrupt- EDITED BY RYAN DUNCH AND
ing the valuable in2ow of Chinese ASHLEY ESAREY. University of
students and scholars. Washington Press, 2020, 256 pp.
Dialect and Nationalism in China, Di$cult Choices: Taiwan’s Quest for

1860–1960 Security and the Good Life
BY GINA ANNE TAM. Cambridge BY RICHARD C. BUSH. Brookings
University Press, 2020, 262 pp. Institution Press, 2021, 429 pp.
Chinese nationalists who wanted to Understanding Taiwan is more impor-

create a modern nation in the twentieth tant today than ever before, given rising
century had to contend with the dozens U.S.-Chinese tensions and great-power
of regional forms of spoken Chinese, rivalry. But Taiwan is more than an
which they believed hindered the international hot spot. It is also relevant
creation of a unified culture. Tam because although it has emerged from
argues that these speech forms are not the pandemic as one of the most resil-
just dialects but distinct languages, as ient democracies, with an eRective
diRerent from one another as many of public health system and a stellar
the languages spoken in Europe. To economy, it is grappling with difficult
solve the problem, modernizers de- long-term problems that are also
signed a common language based on the plaguing other high-income societies.
vocabulary and pronunciation found in Dunch and Esarey’s volume features
Beijing and claimed that the regional several scholars and activists and places
languages were mere oRshoots of this Taiwan in a comparative, global perspec-
main idiom. Mao Zedong’s regime tive. The contributors address debates
forced all Han people to learn the on important issues including the
common language. But folklorists, revision of the constitution, the death
anthropologists, dramatists and, in the penalty, defense expenditures, conscrip-
post-Mao period, rap artists believed tion, and military reform. They explore
the local forms of speech expressed the the active engagement of ordinary
authentic culture of the common Taiwanese in public aRairs through
people. In this learned and thoughtful analyses of neighborhood governance in
study, Tam shows that local languages Taipei and the 2014 Sun2ower Move-
have survived in the face of state ment, which protested forming closer
hostility, mostly because people con- economic ties with mainland China. The
tinue to speak them with their children volume provides diverse and often
and neighbors. The struggle over impassioned perspectives, which are not
May/June 2021 215

Recent Books
often found in English-language aca- Future Forward: The Rise and Fall of
demic or policy analyses of Taiwan. a Thai Political Party
Bush, an authority on all things BY DUNCAN M C CARGO AND
Taiwan, presents a detailed and compre- ANYARAT CHATTHARAKUL.
hensive account of Taiwan’s transforma- University of Hawaii Press, 2020,
tion from a dictatorship to a wealthy 252 pp.
democracy that needs to balance secu-
rity and prosperity amidst a growing This pithy and accessible book charts
external threat. His review of Taiwan’s the short life of Future Forward, a
budget, economy, energy security, progressive political party founded in
transitional justice, and defense is the 2018 that, until its dissolution in 2020,
most in-depth and up-to-date study challenged Thailand’s authoritarian
available, and it sheds light on the political order. The authors sketch the
tradeoRs involved in all of these areas. party’s leadership, including its charis-
Bush assesses how Beijing and Washing- matic co-founder the tycoon Thana-
ton see Taipei and analyzes how the thorn Juangroongruangkit; its progres-
Taiwanese, particularly the elites, have sive ideological platform; and its
navigated between the superpowers. He supporters. Quietly simmering under
oRers sharp advice for Taiwan on how to the narrative are concerns about
balance domestic and external pressures whether the movement can be revived
as the stakes become ever higher. and whether it represented a new kind
Both books will help readers under- of party or merely put a new spin on a
stand one of the most important elements conventional model centered on high
of Taiwan’s transformation: how its profile, charismatic leaders. The authors
emerging democracy, changing national highlight a generational divide underly-
identity, and civic values inform its ing recent protests in Thailand: digi-
management of domestic and interna- tally savvy youth with global world-
tional challenges. Both books also illus- views do not share the values of older
trate the difficulties in building policy generations, which remain loyal to the
consensus in a democracy with a high level monarchy and the social hierarchy
of public participation. As Bush argues, underpinning it. Future Forward’s
Taiwan must overcome its divisions on political platform—advanced in large
domestic issues and foreign relations if it part on social media—appealed to
is to continue to survive and succeed. younger generations because it advo-
Taken together, the two books suggest that cated values such as inclusivity, diver-
both China and the United States need to sity, and opposition to hierarchy.
reexamine their policies toward the island, Although the book argues that Internet
some of which seem rooted in a past that platforms are crucial to progressive
Taiwan is increasingly leaving behind. politics in Thailand, it is less successful
sYARU SHIRUUY UIU in explaining what this means in a
country where virtually everyone,
including conservative royalists, is
active on social media.
TAMARA uoos
Recent Books
Africa Amakomiti: Grassroots Democracy in

South African Shack Settlements
BY TREVOR NGWANE. Pluto Press,
Nicolas van de Walle 2021, 240 pp.
Based on ethnographic fieldwork in

In the Forest of No Joy: The Congo-Océan some 46 of South Africa’s informal
Railroad and the Tragedy of French urban settlements, Ngwane’s probing
Colonialism study focuses on local governance
BY J. P. DAUGHTON. Norton, 2021, structures called amakomiti, the Zulu
400 pp. word for “committee.” All but one of
these settlements maintained at least
he Congo-Océan Railroad one community-run committee, which
T today links the Atlantic Ocean

to Brazzaville, the capital of
the Republic of the Congo, a distance
was more or less responsive to popular
needs and served as an intermediary
between the local population and
of 312 miles through thick rainforest formal state structures, helping ensure
and steep terrain. Built at great human the delivery of key services such as
cost by the French colonial administra- clean water and electricity. At their
tion between 1921 and 1934, it has long best, these local committees clearly
been viewed as emblematic of the improved people’s lives. Ngwane
murderous cruelty of colonialism in describes them as inclusive and demo-
Africa. Daughton’s accessible history of cratic but actually says little about how
its construction discusses how French they chose leaders or about the level of
authorities used forced conscription— political participation in the neighbor-
with ridiculously low wages—to find hoods. Some of his most trenchant
the necessary labor for the railroad. analysis concerns the interaction of
The awful working conditions led to the committees and the African Na-
between 15,000 and 60,000 deaths. tional Congress, the only political party
But the railroad never came close to that appears to have a significant
realizing the economic and financial political presence in the settlements.
objectives bandied about by its sup- But Ngwane found that the AUC played
porters. Relying on journalistic ac- a meaningful role in only roughly one
counts from the period and the excel- in six communities. Although the AUC
lent use of archival materials, his book still garners a good deal of legitimacy
paints a vivid picture of colonialism in from its historic part in the struggle
central Africa: the vast and sparsely against apartheid, Ngwane’s respon-
populated terrain with virtually no dents mostly viewed the AUC as indif-
communications infrastructure, the ferent to their welfare, even as the
petty racism of the handful of colonial party seeks their votes.
officials on the ground, and the bu-
reaucratic delusions and high2ying
patriotic rhetoric of a poorly informed
government back in Paris.
May/June 2021 217

Recent Books
The Asian Aspiration: Why and How East Africa After Liberation: Conßict,
Africa Should Emulate Asia—and What It Security, and the State Since the 1980s
Should Avoid BY JONATHAN FISHER. Cambridge
BY GREG MILLS, OLUSEGUN University Press, 2020, 328 pp.
OBASANJO, HAILEMARIAM
DESALEGN, AND EMILY VAN DER Fisher’s excellent political history
MERWE. Hurst, 2020, 256 pp. focuses on the countries in East Africa
where the current regimes came to
Unlike most of the recent books vaunting power through successful insurgencies
the economic success of East Asia decades ago. His book links the fates of
relative to Africa, this one does not limit Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, and Uganda
its Asian examples to China, South and describes the impact of the many
Korea, and Taiwan; the authors also links that leaders in the four countries
discuss poorer countries, such as Indone- forged before their rises to power.
sia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, whose Ethiopian insurgents had fought side by
history and past economic policy failures side with their Eritrean counterparts to
make their recent successes more instruc- oust the regime of Ethiopian President
tive for African countries. The authors Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. The
review the record of private-sector, Rwandan rebels who attained power in
export-led growth in ten Asian countries 1994 had helped Ugandan fighters come
and distill lessons for African states. to power a decade earlier. Fisher shows
Governments, they argue, should seek to convincingly that all four regimes came
create inclusive leadership, improve their to share similar concerns about regional
countries’ educational systems, invest in security, and they all opposed conserva-
infrastructure, and open up their econo- tive regimes in the region, most notably
mies to foreign direct investment. These the government of Mobutu Sese Seko
reasonable prescriptions are not new, but in Zaire. Still, the personal bonds that
they might nonetheless be considered linked the leaderships in the four
controversial among too many African countries frayed considerably over time,
elites. The authors recognize that there as their respective countries’ national
isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; the interests diverged and their ambitions
particular strategy and sequence of led them to view one another with
reforms will vary in each country. They suspicion. Fisher concludes gloomily
also argue explicitly that Africa should that these former insurgents have
diverge from the Asian example by avoid- retained their propensity to use vio-
ing the authoritarian proclivities of many lence as a political instrument to deal
Asian countries and by ensuring that with their foreign policy problems, with
economic growth doesn’t lead to tremen- potentially destabilizing outcomes in
dous environmental destruction. the future for East Africa.
Recent Books
Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and FOR THE RECORD

the Ravages of History In a review of After Democracy (March/
BY PAUL FARMER. Farrar, Straus and April 2021), the book’s author, Zizi
Giroux, 2020, 688 pp. Papacharissi, was identified as a man;
in fact, she is a woman.
Farmer embeds a memoir of his own The article “Gone But Not Forgotten”
experiences in Guinea, Liberia, and (March/April 2021) misstated the United
Sierra Leone during the height of the States’ relationship to the Trans-Pacific
West African Ebola epidemic of 2014 Partnership. In fact, the United States
in a much broader critique of colonial- signed but did not ratify the proposed
ism and its lingering eRects, which he agreement, and President Donald Trump
views as primarily responsible for the withdrew from it on his first full week-
lamentable state of public health in the day in office, not his first day.∂
region today. He reviews 500 years of
history to make this case. Farmer
always writes with great passion, but as
a medical doctor by training with much
experience in African countries, he is
particularly authoritative about the
issues Ebola posed for medical staR.
His book argues that a “control-over-
care” ideology permeates the region to
the present day, as a legacy of the
colonial emphasis on the containment
of diseases rather than the treatment of
the affiicted. During the Ebola out-
break in West Africa in 2014, this logic
of control meant that the main strategy
to address the epidemic was to isolate
infected individuals and the communi-
ties where the virus had spread, rather
than to try to care for the infected.
Farmer argues that as a result, many
Africans died needlessly, despite widely
available treatments.
Foreign A$airs (ISSN 00157120), May/June 2021, Volume 100, Number 3. Published six times annually (January, March, May, July,
September, November) at 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10065. Print subscriptions: U.S., $54.95; Canada, $66.95; other
countries via air, $89.95 per year. Canadian Publication Mail–Mail # 1572121. Periodicals postage paid in New York, NY, and at
additional mailing offices. POSTMAST€R: Send address changes to Foreign A$airs, P.O. Box 324, Congers, NY 10920. From time to
time, we permit certain carefully screened companies to send our subscribers information about products or services that we believe
will be of interest. If you prefer not to receive such information, please contact us at the Congers, NY, address indicated above.
May/June 2021 219

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VLADIMIR PUTIN: RUSSIA'S WEAK STRONGMAN

Can Trade Work for Workers? 20

The Price of Nostalgia 28

How Not to Win Allies and Influence Geopolitics 44

America’s Military Risks Losing Its Edge 76

The Home Front 92

Russia’s Weak Strongman 116

The Vaccine Revolution 128

REVIEWS & RESPONSES

A Prison Called Tibet 179

The Two Rwandas 185

Recent Books 194

STEPHANIE SOLOMON Chief Revenue Officer

LISA SHIELDS, IYA ZORIC, DALIA DAGHER Media Relations

MICHÈLE FLOURNOY is one of Washington’s most accom-

CONSTANZE STELZENMÜLLER got her first taste of foreign

After getting his start as an English-French translator

globalized economy was sup- centric” policy, as the Biden administra-

A posed to bring people to-

Globalization’s Coming Golden Age How Not to Win Allies and

Can Trade Work for Workers?

ILLUST RAT IONS BY TK

to extrapolate and see a future of

10 R O R U Ig u A r rA I R S PACKAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAN BEfAR

and, eventually, emperor—Napoleon III. with the Great Exhibition—an interna-

A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM In the United Kingdom, where the

domestically, labor unions—to mobi- PAST AS PROLOGUE

growth, and free trade remains a net

whole. But the overall gains have been

F globalization has rested on a

could adjust to a major change in its spend less on restaurants, entertain-

current form, however, the U.S. unem- regions, it is important to acknowledge

crats, who are determined to recapture

many Republicans, who use it as

live. Internationally, Washington other countries—growing from 20

“[A sweeping history. “This is must-read, for everyone

man has echoes in the stabbed-in-the- any industry, manufacturing responds

dent of their current location. The income accruing to those owning

earlier this year, compared with other CHANGE IS GOOD

should agree to international standards still time. In not having a national

country can do in the meantime: more about adaptability in work

foreign governments and firms to obey its

the visit of a trade delegation to Sweden

C tered the art of economic

European countries used to be united.

tracts. A planned commuter rail line

ernment suspended and reviewed a minister, Najib Razak, was mired in

Chinese state-owned enterprise bought a cultivating stakeholders is getting harder.

independence factions, Taiwanese grand strategy and great-power compe-

often fail to convince the target, no announced new financing criteria

come laden with digital components.

around internal combustion engines;

D global trade. For decades, inter-

international trade—that of the World ernments be able to tax the arrival of

dominate the digital platforms that scientists could, in principle, come

Too often unelected military leaders

The Home Front Practice What You Preach

Russia’s Weak Strongman

W 20, many of those concerned about the state of civil-