“One of the more amazing outcomes of the Trump administration is the number of neoconservatives that are now my friends and I am aligned with. I found myself agreeing on a panel with Bill Kristol. I agree more with Jennifer Rubin, David Frum and Max Boot than I do with some people on the far left.”— Joy Ann Reid

Joy Ann Reid is among the stars of MSNBC, the Comcast-owned cable news network which enjoys an undeserved reputation as being left leaning. Reid, Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes are little more than well paid mouth pieces for the Democrats and their neoliberal agenda. MSNBC is rightly known as MSDNCowing to this very obvious allegiance.

Reid has been in the news lately not because of any ground breaking coverage but because of posts she made long ago on a personal blog. She wrote homophobic comments, then claimed to have been hacked and sought validation from a so-called expert who was affiliated with white supremacists . She made an abject apology but can’t put the matter behind. She is now in trouble because long ago she stated truthfully that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer was an AIPAC spokesperson. She made fun of John McCain by comparing him to a serial killer and she questioned the official story of the 9/11 terror attacks. This columnist isn’t bothered by any of those things but it is interesting that she gets scrutiny for all the wrong reasons.

Like Maddow and Hayes, Reid isn’t really a journalist. She just plays one on television. She is best known for her very blatant loyalty to the ruling elite overlords. One of the most shameful displays of her nontalent and slavish partisanship was her ambush with then colleague Melissa Harris Perry against Wikileaks and Edward Snowden. She and Perry teamed up for a disgraceful hit piece against Wikileaksspokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson in an effort to defend the indefensible Barack Obama when he criminalized whistle blowing.

But twitter is where Reid’s forte of foolishness is most obvious. She tries to outdo everyone else in pushing the Russiagate story and her efforts are often more comical than anything. She claimed that Trump’s marriages to two eastern European women proved collusion with Russia. She actually referred to “Soviet Yugoslavia .” If Yugoslavia was anything it was independent of Moscow and everyone knows that, everyone except the high paid news reader.

When she isn’t getting into arguments with Bernie Sanders’ wife (yes, that happened), she is singing the praises of the right wing. She tells a lot about herself and about the Democrats she serves with such eagerness.

Now she is in trouble for insulting the wrong people, pointing out Israeli lobbying and making light of the revered John McCain. But her woes are a reason to look at her body of work and talk about why she should really be under the microscope.

Joy Reid represents the worst in American corporate media and exposes it as a tool used to diminish dissent, promote the neoliberal agenda, and beat up on leftists, the group most hated by the Democratic Party. She isn’t alone in spreading stupefying nonsense on air. The equally over rated Rachel Maddow talks about Russia more than all other topics combined. She does so while presenting only the most Russophobic points of view, which makes her little more than a war propagandist.

But Maddow is wise enough to think before hitting send on twitter. Reid is known for being shrill and consistently wrong. In other words, she is just a hack.

MSNBC plays a strange role among many Democrats and progressives. In a country bereft of true political activity, watching television has become a substitute. When Barack Obama was president angry Republicans turned to Fox news for solace and MSNBC ratings were down. Democrats had their guy in office and didn’t need to see their favorite talking heads. Now that Donald Trump is in office Fox fans no longer feel a need for validation but Democrats think of themselves as being in resistance if they tune into MSNBC.

Reid is the last of the black talent who became prominent on MSNBC during the Obama years. There was less need for Melissa Harris Perry or Toure absent a black president. As the sole survivor she may be safe despite creating a public relations headache for her bosses. If there were any doubt about her alliances a word of defense and praise from Eric Holder , who calls her a “unique and compelling voice for tolerance,” tells us all we need to know.

If Reid’s troubles take her off of MSNBC she will be replaced by someone who is perhaps more competent, but no less of a suck up to powerful interests. That is how these jobs are filled after all. They may not mention Soviet Yugoslavia but they will surely find themselves on common ground with neoliberals. That is the only place where the high paying celebrity news jobs can be found.

By Sanjay Badri-Maharaj

It is one year since the blockade of Qatar began when four Arab nations (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates) cut ties and imposed a land, air, and sea embargo aimed at bringing Doha to its knees. The GCC crisis began to unfold when Qatar News Agency was hacked.

On May 23 four statements attributing to the Emir of Qatar were posted on the news agency’s website and broadcast through Saudi and American media. The hacking came three days after US President Donald Trump met Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia and addressed the Riyadh Summit. On June 4, hacked e-mail accounts of the UAE’s Ambassador to the United States Yousef Al-Otaiba revealed his long running campaign to undermine Qatar. The next day, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt cut ties with Qatar and imposed an air, land, and sea blockade due to accusations of Qatar’s support of terrorism throughout the region, which Doha denies.

The blockading countries then placed fifty-nine individuals and twelve organizations from Qatar on what they call the terror list. The group then sent Qatar a list of thirteen demands which included shutting down Al Jazeera media network, and curbing relations with Iran. A year on, there is no end to the crisis.

As the GCC crisis continues, Qatar has managed to weather the blockade successfully in terms of its politics, economy, and media. Politically, Qatar has not only discussed its own security, but it also discussed the need for a new regional security in the Middle East. At this year’s Munich Conference, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani proposed the idea of a regional security agreement that would protect the independence and sovereignty of all countries in the region. The GCC crisis was a difficult moment for the region, and it still is.

Unfortunately, this senseless crisis should not have taken place to start with, but the GCC is heading into uncharted territory.

On a separate issue, reports from French news agencies like Le Figaro and Le Monde have indicated that Saudi Arabia could threaten Qatar with military action if it acquires the s400 system from Russia.

The likelihood is that more of this escalation will continue particularly if Qatar goes along with the sale. However, for the interests of the region, there needs to be a diplomatic process that leads to a settlement in trying to bring an end to the blockade. Doha has consistently stated that it has managed to contain the crisis, but the costs of the crisis, including the ongoing blockade have led to major financial damages that impacted not only Qatar, but the blockading countries as well. Despite the blockade, Qatar has still been a resource hub in the Middle East hosting some of the world’s largest gas and petroleum reserves and hosting the largest US military base in the region. These are American interests that cannot be ignored.

President Trump initially backed the blockading countries when the crisis began, but he has called on all sides to resolve the dispute. However, when the Emir of Qatar visited Trump in April, Trump praised Qatar’s role as a major US partner that defends US interests in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the domestic angle related to the Trump family played a major role that intertwined with US strategic interests which did not allow the United States to exert its leverage to resolve the Gulf crisis. As a result, there seems to be confusion within the administration on what the leadership role should be for the US to support mediation efforts. In addition, the Trump Administration has failed to exert its leverage because its major allies are continuing to bicker at each other and nobody is on the same page when it boils down to Gulf unity.

Even though the crisis continues to linger on, the United States is in the region to protect its own interests. By partnering with countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in particular, Trump has been able to extract wealth from the Gulf and invest it in the US as much as possible; for example, in jobs and lobbying organizations. Over the last year or so unemployment has dropped in the United States, exports have increased, and Gulf countries are racing to ratify contracts with the US that add up to billions of dollars in investments. Trump is pretty much playing to the interests of not only himself, but to his base at home, and the losers in all of this are the Gulf states.

In addition, President Trump is pursuing his objectives vis-à-vis Israel and the moving of the U.S Embassy to Jerusalem. The GCC crisis gave many analysts the impression that the best way to influence Trump is through Israel. As a result, a number of Arab countries including the blockading countries are cozying up relations with Israel in one way or the other, and of course, the ultimate price that was paid was the embassy move to Jerusalem.

The GCC crisis has been disastrous for all the parties involved. Yes, there has been a large, quite considerable financial cost for Qatar, but it is also true that this expenditure has helped Qatar consolidate itself on the internal front where the population has mobilized around the Emir. Qatar is also determined not to give up any aspects of their sovereignty, which is what the Saudis and the other blockading countries are requiring Qatar to do.

In addition, Qatar is in a much stronger position than before, and the erratic actions of Saudi Arabia have backfired on Gulf unity. However, looking into the future, Saudi Arabia probably faces more greater threats than Qatar in the coming few years. Inside Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman has a very ambitious reform program known as the Vision 2030, and this is something badly needed in the kingdom, but it has not been implemented in the most logical way possible.

One year on since the crisis began in June of last year, Qatar has been able to achieve a balance where you can have conservatism, but at the same time have liberal economics in terms of focusing on industry and diversifying the economy. The blockading countries will probably not come out of this crisis victorious, but there is the possibility of an upheaval in the region as a whole because of the tensions with Iran and the most logical reaction Saudi Arabia should take is to consolidate the Gulf front instead of dividing it.

Intensive debates wade in between Mr Narendra Modi and Dr Manmohan Singh with regard to their reforms and governance to reshape the Indian economy in the wake of the forthcoming general elections in early 2019s. Arguably, Mr Modi is not a radical reformer, as he seems. He is the great accelerator of the reforms erstwhile made, by putting them into action. Against this, Dr Singh is vouched for a great reformer, by letting the country into a turnaround from a close economy to open economy.

Mr Modi is a great administrator. The report card of his four years governance envisages that he is more laudable in administration and bureaucracy than in economic reforms. Nonetheless, he ushered the country into high growth trajectory and bolstered it into the highest global growth trend , surpassing China.

With absolute majority in Lok Sabha, high hopes loomed large for reform oriented planks, which would make a corruption free society and bring “Achhe Din” in the country. But soon the hopes belied. The land and labour reforms, which were big ticket reforms mandated, failed to fructify due to unbalanced number games in the houses of Parliament. Endeavor was made to bring the reforms through State legislations. Only a few were successful to attract the investment by these reforms. At World Economic Forum, investors bemoaned the absence of any big ticket reform.

Mr Modi has not come with many big ideas of his own. Half of his major reforms were culmination of reforms, whose seeds were sown during the UPA government. Adhar – the identification of billions’ of Indians – was created in January 2009, under the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. GST – the national uniform tax system and the first major taxation reform – was first seeded under Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985.

Mr Modi is known as quick fixer to address the chronic problems of administration. He pitched for Minimum Government Maximum Governance. He coaxed the Japanese investors by committing red carpet , instead of red tape. That’s were the plank of his reforms. He reduced multiple channels for taking decision. He dissolved large number of Cabinet Committees which were overlapping. He reduced Cabinet Committees from 12 in UPA to 6, letting the decision making process faster. Cabinet Committees are the highest body for decision making in the country.

His major attempts for economic reforms can been seen through the lenses of procedural simplifications and faster implementation of the policies. He introduced Jan Dhan Yojona , a scheme to cover a larger part of people in the banking system. Over 70 percent of the population were brought under banking system, which was hitherto limited to 32 percent in 2013 under UPA. He introduced Indian Banking Code , which will address the bad debts and faster debt recovery, by replacing multiple regulations with single law. He opened up various sensitive sectors expeditiously to allure foreign investors, scrapping the caps for investment. He cleaned off the messy regulations of factory law by scrapping the multiple systems for submitting returns into a single format, with an eye to expedite his Make in India initiative.

In nutshell, his challenges were to seize in hard bargain with bureaucrats to put the hitherto reforms into fast tracks . Resultantly, ease of doing business sparked and the business corruption subsided. It helped the nation to leapfrog in high growth trajectory. GDP growth surged from 6.4 percent in 2013 to 7.4 percent in 2016-17. The growth subverted the much hyped paranoia of demonetization and GST, which were the potential salvos of the oppositions. The average annual growth rate of GDP during the four years of NDA was 7.3 percent as against 5.3 percent under UPA.

Undoubtedly, in the race of reforms Mr Modi is left much behind of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Mr Singh indulged in radical economic reforms, driving the country into a turnaround from a close economy to an open economy paradise. He dashed the Indira Gandhi socialistic pattern of economy into dud. He dismantled the License Raj – the cudgel to desist the private sector to play key role in the economy and empower the public sector . He reworked the industrial and trade policies , abrogating the licensing requirements . He opened up the economy more to the private sectors and foreign enterprises and gave rebirth to Indian stock market .

Dr. Singh enliven the service sector by ceding several tax concessions. Software companies sprang up, placing the country a pivot for global software exports.

Notwithstanding Modi’s slow pace in economic reforms, India emerged globally a competitive destination for doing business. According to Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index (GMCI) 2016, by Deloitte survey, India was foretold to outbid China in low cost manufacturing competitiveness in the next five years. According to the survey, while China will lose the powerhouse of low cost manufacturing competitiveness, the Mighty Five – the five Asia Pacific nations , Malaysia, India, Thailand , Indonesia and Vietnam – will emerge the choice for low cost manufacturing in place of China. India will be the frontrunner with four countries chasing behind , the survey said.

India was placed on the rising curve for global ease of doing business. It ranked up from 142 in 2013 in World Bank’ Ease of Doing Business annual survey to 100 in 2017.

FDI surged during Modi regime. It doubled from US $ 22 billion in 2013 to US $ 44 billion in 2017. India had never seen such boom in FDI during Manmohan era , despite he was ascribed as the main architect for economic reforms and opening the door to the foreign investors.

Mr Modi was pioneer in reforming subsidy less growth. He dismantled the subsidy base diesel price mechanism. Diesel oil is an important component for transporting daily essentials, particularly food items, to the market. With the dismantling of diesel oil subsidy, diesel prices increased in proportion to global oil price hike. Food items are generally the triggers for inflation. In contrary to parallel impact , inflation hovered at low ebb , around 4 percent by CPI, which is well within the comfortable zone.
The chemistry between reforms and growth suggests that barely reforms cannot be harbinger for growth. Reforms need to be rolled out in the implementation. Surely, Dr Manmohan Singh was the pioneer to open the economy. But, the messy road prevailed for the growth. Mr Modi’s strong handed tackling of red tape inflicted bureaucracy and implementation of the reforms, catalyzed for better outcome.

The first sign of the impact was reflected in the Indian stock market. The annual average of BSE Sensex of 30 companies surged to 27, 639 during 2014-15 to 2017-18, against the annual average of 16, 145 during 2006-07 to 2013-14. This represents that outcome of reforms were stymied by lack of implementation during the UPA period. Reforms remain a paper tiger without implementation.

Views are the author’s own

Saudi efforts to isolate Iran internationally are producing results in North Africa and Central Asia. Authorities and religious leaders in Tajikistan and Algeria have in recent weeks accused Iran of subversive activity and propagating Shiism while Morocco last month announced that it was breaking off diplomatic relations with the Islamic republic.

While similar accusations have been lobbed at Iran in the past as part of a four-decade-long covert war between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic republic, the more recent incidents suggest that the Saudis are increasingly focussing on isolating Iran diplomatically.

In doing so they are benefitting from ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Islam’s appeal in North Africa and Central Asia even if Saudi Arabia is believed to have substantially reduced its financial support for Salafi and other groups.

At times, like in the case of Algeria, a country in which Shiites account for at most two percent of the population and that has seen an increase in popularity of Saudi-inspired Salafi scholars, the allegations seem to involve above board Iranian activities that are unlikely to have the alleged effect of fomenting sectarianism.

The anti-Iranian campaign at times also appears to be designed to pressure countries like Algeria, whose relations with the kingdom are strained because of its refusal to adopt anti-Iranian Saudi policies. Algeria supports the embattled 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran as well as Iran’s presence in Syria and has refused to declare Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia, a terrorist organization.

In the most recent incident, Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat, a pan-Arab, Saudi-owned newspaper, quoted, former Algerian Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments official Idah Falahi as demanding the withdrawal of Iranian diplomat Amir Mousavi because of his “extensive contacts with civil society groups, through Facebook and social media” and alleged attempts to meddle in the dispute between Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara.

Morocco last month broke off diplomatic relations with Iran, alleging that Tehran had provided financial and logistical support as well as surface-to-air missiles to the Algerian-backed West Saharan liberation movement, Frente Polisario, using Hezbollah as an intermediary. Both Iran and Hezbollah have denied the allegation.

“It…became apparent that Mousavi was in fact an Iranian intelligence agent, whose remit was to interfere in the dispute between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara conflict,” said Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Tony Duheaume.

The newspaper reported that Iran was seeking to recruit Algerian Shiites who travel to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq and was using Iranian companies as vehicles to promote Shiism. “With the launching of a production line for Iranian vehicles, plus another for the production of medicines, and with the two countries boosting their cooperation enormously in the private sector, Iran has ensnared Algeria through an ongoing succession of trade deals,” Mr. Duheaume said.

The newspaper quoted Algerian member of parliament Abdurrahman Saidi as charging that Iran was attempting to create a Shiite movement in North Africa. “The Algerian state is aware today that it faces the risk of sectarianism,” the newspaper asserted.

Algerian minister of endowment and religious affairs Muhammad Issa last year compared Iran to the Islamic State in an interview with a Saudi newspaper amid a growing anti-Iranian sentiment in Algeria.

An international book fair in Algeria banned Iranian books because they “incite sectarianism and violence” after Bou Abdullah Ghulamallah, the head of Algeria’s High Islamic Council, , charged that “thousands of imported books carry dangerous thoughts that are aimed at convincing the Algerian people that their Islamic religion is wrong.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani cancelled a visit to Algeria after an Arabic-language hashtag, #No to Rouhani’s visit to Algeria, went viral.

“It is difficult to corroborate allegations made in the Asharq al-Awsat report. It is also unlikely that Tehran would be able to significantly expand its influence in Algeria through the Shiite community,” said Ahmad Majidyar, the director of the Washington-based Middle East Institute’s IranObserved Project.

Its equally difficult to verify a link between Saudi-inspired Salafism’s increased popularity and rising anti-Iranian sentiment, but the development of anti-Shiite sentiment is not dissimilar to growing intolerance, anti-Iranian sentiment and anti-Shiism in countries like Tajikistan, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia where the influence of Saudi-inspired religious ultra-conservatism is expanding.

Developments in Tajikistan, ironically a nation that has linguistic and cultural links to Iran, mirror the growing anti-Iranian sentiment in Algeria. Tajikistan’s Council of Ulema or Islamic scholars, this month accused Iran of trying to destabilize the country. The council charged that Iran was funding Muhiddin Kabiri, head of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), that has been designated a terrorist organization by the government.

The council’s statement came days after anti-Iranian demonstrators in front of the Iranian embassy in Dushanbe demanded the return of Tajik religious students from Iran and accused the Islamic republic of supporting extremists and planning assassinations.

Iran has in recent years suspended charitable operations in the capital Dushanbe, including a hospital managed with Tajik health authorities, and halted its economic and cultural activities in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second largest city, on orders of the government.

“Nowhere is this contrast between the hyped-up Iranian threat and reality more evident than in Tajikistan,” said Eldar Mamedov, who is in charge of the European Parliament’s delegations for inter-parliamentary relations with Iran, Iraq, the Gulf, and North Africa.

Iran helped negotiate an end to Tajikistan’s civil war and an agreement between President Emomali Rahmon, a former Soviet Communist Party official, and the IRP. Mr. Rahmon, determined to demolish any opposition, banned the IRP in 2015.

The stirring of the anti-Iranian pot coincided with a Saudi effort to woo Mr. Rahmon who was invited last year to an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh with Donald J. Trump during the US president’s visit to the kingdom despite the fact that he is a bit player on the global stage. Tajikistan was earlier invited to join a Saudi-led Muslim counter terrorism force.

Like in Algeria, it also coincided with rising popularity of Saudi-inspired ultra-conservatism in Tajikistan.

In a move that garners favour in Riyadh, Tajikistan has opposed Iran’s application for membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) that requires approval of membership by unanimous vote. Iran has observer status with the SCO, while Saudi Arabia has yet to establish a relationship.

By stirring the pot, Mr. Rahmon has a vehicle to maintain his iron grip at home and garner investment and financial support from the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia agreed last month to acquire a 51 percent stake, in troubled Tojiksodirotbank (TSB), Tajikistan’s largest bank. The Saudi investment was a life saver after other investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), turned the opportunity down.

The presidents of Iran and Russia in a meeting in China highlighted the need to maintain and promote economic relations between the two countries and to keep military cooperation for regional security.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in China’s Qingdao on Saturday.

Hailing the growing ties between Tehran and Moscow in the fields of energy swap, defense industry and transportation, Rouhani said Iran welcomes investment by Russian companies and private sector.

Voicing Iran’s support for stronger economic interaction with the Eurasian Economic Union under a free trade agreement, the Iranian president noted that Russia’s involvement in the North-South railroad corridor would open up perfect opportunities for economic cooperation with the East.

He further emphasized the impact of Iran-Russia defense coordination on regional security, adding, “The cooperation between Iran and Russia in the war against Daesh (ISIL) and other terrorist groups in the region has been effectual, and such cooperation will continue.”

The Iranian president also touched on the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), praising “Russia’s significant role” in the continued implementation of the nuclear deal after the US’s “unilateral and unlawful exit” from it.

For his part, Vladimir Putin underlined that Russia will keep working with Iran in the economic arena, energy swap and defense programs, hailing the “good prospect” for economic cooperation between the two sides.

Expressing Moscow’s support for Iran’s permanent membership of the Eurasian Economic Union and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Putin said Iran has been well involved in the SCO issues as an observer state for years.

Denouncing the US administration’s illegal move to walk away from the JCPOA, the Russian president reaffirmed his country’s commitment to negotiating with the other parties to support the nuclear accord.

He also highlighted Iran-Russia interaction on regional stability, stressing that such regional cooperation will go on, as for the settlement of the crisis in Syria.

Iran’s president arrived in Qingdao on Friday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to attend the annual SCO summit.

Accompanied by a high-profile delegation, Rouhani is planned to meet several top foreign officials on the sidelines of the event.

The SCO was established in Shanghai in 2001, with China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as founding members.

(RFE/RL) — U.S. President Donald Trump has said on Twitter that he now does not endorse a Group of Seven statement that he initially had accepted, as the dispute between the United States and its allies intensified.

Trump on June 9 tweeted that based on “false statements” by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who hosted a G7 summit in Quebec, he had instructed U.S. representatives not to endorse the final communique, which the Canadian leader had said was agreed to by all G7 nations.

The communique expressed the need for trade cooperation, took a hard line on Russia, and stressed the importance of containing Iran’s nuclear program.

“PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’

“Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!” Trump wrote.

“I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!” he added.

An EU official was quoted by Reuters as responding to Trump’s tweets by saying that “we stick to the communique as agreed by all participants.”

In a statement released by Trudeau’s office, the prime minister was quoted as saying that he said nothing at the G7 that he hasn’t told Trump in person.

The eight-page G7 communique issued earlier stated that “we stand ready to take further restrictive measures to increase costs on Russia” if its behavior makes it necessary.

It also demanded that Russia “cease its destabilizing behavior, to undermine democratic systems, and its support of the Syrian regime.”

The communique was issued after tumultuous summit that mainly had Washington squaring off against its longtime allies over Russia, trade, climate issues, and the Iran nuclear accord.

Because of the disputes, many observers were not certain a statement would be issued under all seven countries’ names. Still, the meeting did not appear to bring the sides much closer together.

The G7 consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain, and the United States.

Trump had shocked many of the allies with repeated calls for Russia to be readmitted into group, which was known as the G8 when Moscow was a member of the association of the world’s leading industrial nations.

Trump told journalists on June 9 that “it would be an asset to have Russia back in.”

“I think it would be good for the world,” he added. “I think it would be good for Russia. I think it would be good for the United States. I think it would be good for all of the countries of the current G7.”

European Union countries, which make up four of the group’s seven members, agreed ahead of the summit that “a return of Russia to the G7-format summits can’t happen until substantial progress has been made in connection with the problems with Ukraine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said as the summit began on June 8.

At the summit’s end, Trudeau said he told Trump that he was “not remotely interested” in seeing Russia return to the G7.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also welcomed that the G7 statement recognized the need to maintain sanctions on Russia.

The statement made no reference to Russia being invited back into the G7, but the leaders did say they would continue “to engage with Russia on addressing regional crises and global challenges, where it is in our interests.”

Russia was expelled from the group four years ago after annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and fueling a war in eastern Ukraine that has killed at least 10,300 people.

Trump was asked if he thought Russia’s control over Crimea should be recognized by the international community, but he avoided answering directly and instead blamed his predecessor, Barack Obama, for the situation.

“Crimea was let go during the Obama administration and, you know, Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea,” Trump said.

“But, with that being said,” he added, “it’s been done a long time.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on June 9 said Moscow was not seeking to rejoin the group. He added that Russia was “working fine in other formats,” such as the G20.

Although Merkel said the “common view” in Europe was to continue to exclude Russia, Italy’s new prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, echoed Trump’s call for returning Russia to the “negotiating table” in a post on Twitter.

U.S. allies said they were stunned by Trump’s friendly gesture toward Russia, especially considering his move last month to cite “national security” reasons for threatening to impose tariffs on the steel imports of major U.S. allies.

Many U.S. lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats, have also expressed concern about Trump’s departure from past U.S. views on trade, Russia, and the international order. Trump has been open on his desires for better relations with Moscow.

The wrangling over whether Russia should be welcomed back to the G7 came as the summit took place amid the sharpest divisions in recent history between the United States and its top allies.

In the comments that later angered Trump, Trudeau closed the summit with a strong rebuke to the U.S. president’s threats on trade, saying they were “kind of insulting” and warning that Canada would issue retaliatory measures beginning on July 1.

“Canadians are polite and reasonable, but we will not be pushed around,” Trudeau told reporters.

May reiterated the need to avoid tit-for-tat actions in a trade dispute between the EU and the United States. But she added that Britain had expressed its “deep disappointment at the unjustified decision by the U.S. to apply tariffs to EU steel and aluminum imports.”

The G7 leaders also said they were “committed to permanently ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program remains peaceful in line with its international obligations and commitments to never seek, develop or acquire a nuclear weapon.”

“We condemn all financial support of terrorism including terrorist groups sponsored by Iran. We also call upon Iran to play a constructive role by contributing to efforts to counter terrorism and achieve political solutions, reconciliation and peace in the region,” the statement added.

It did not specifically mention the 2015 nuclear accord, which provided Tehran with relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program. Trump withdraw from the pact in May against the wishes of the allies and Russia and China.

Moscow and Beijing have agreed to raise the share of ruble-yuan trade settlements, in a joint agreement signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday.

The document envisages “further strengthening of the Russian-Chinese cooperation in the financial sector, promoting increase of the share of national currencies in trade payments, investments and financing, expanding collaboration in such fields as payment systems and insurance.”

The two leaders agreed to raise trade turnover and further improvement of its structure, searching for new growth areas and collaboration in trade and economic cooperation. President Putin said Russia-China trade turnover could hit $100 billion by the end of this year.

According to the document, the sides also plan to “boost efforts aimed at harmonizing strategies, programs and measures to develop national economies and particular sectors.”

They also want to “create favorable environment for Russian and Chinese enterprises; jointly promote big projects in accordance with subjectivity principles of companies, the market-oriented approach, commercial-based work and observance of global practices; and sustainably expand the scope and raise the level of Russian-Chinese investment collaboration,” as well as to create favorable conditions for trans-border bond issuance.

The issues of “deepening cooperation in the oil and gas, coal, electricity areas, as well as in the fields of renewable energy resources, energy equipment and energy efficiency” are also on the agenda.

China is Russia’s largest trading partner, accounting for 15 percent of Russian international trade last year. Bilateral trade increased by 31.5 percent in 2017, reaching $87 billion.

As trade grows, the two countries are promoting settlements in ruble and yuan, bypassing the US dollar and other Western currencies.

According to the Russian Central Bank, both Russian and Chinese companies are willing to pay in ruble and renminbi, and this can be proven by real numbers. Last year, nine percent of payments for supplies from Russia to China were made in rubles, the regulator told RT. Russian companies paid for 15 percent of Chinese imports in the renminbi. Just three years ago, the numbers were two and nine percent, respectively.

Bruce Chatwin considered movement the indispensable feature of the human species. Sedentary natures killed through asphyxiation; a refusal to move suggested an acceptance of death. Walking he considered a virtue; tourism the ultimate sin. For the late Anthony Bourdain, a chef turned walker and explorer, no dish was odd enough or peculiar to be avoided or exiled by palate.

Bourdain was certainly of similar inclination to Chatwin – in some respects. “If I’m an advocate of anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”

Foods and rites may well be seen as communal acts for the new to be initiated into. But a modern world obsessed with nutritional counters, diet and concerns makes adventurism, quite literally in some cases, hard to stomach. But the wiry Bourdain seemed to have a cast iron stomach, a body impregnable to that various kitchens he sampled. The only thing he would not have eaten, he once quipped, was a cheese burger from Johnny Rockets.

The world of eating and dining can also be hierarchical and exclusive, pegged against an inverse relationship between diminishing returns on a plate and the amount that is splashed out at the till. Common dining remains in a titanic struggle with the elite nibblers who would surely die of starvation in the name of impressions and appearances. While Bourdain was not immune to the Michelin star disease, he was accommodating of a stunning variety of culinary forms. “Low plastic stool, cheap but delicious noodles, cold Hanoi beer.” Those were the words former US President Barack Obama in recalling a meeting with Bourdain as part of the Parts Unknown series airing on CNN.

His interest in writing about food was also pointedly against the food snobs and the babbler of high end consumption. A. J. Liebling’s Between Meals was a favourite of his, describe by Bourdain as an account by “an enthusiastic lover of food and wine, very knowledgeable but never a snob”.

The restaurant is an ideal spectacle for sociological study. “The man who founded the first restaurant,” observed Brillat-Savarin, “must have been a genius endowed with profound insight into human nature.” Those manning that haven were the chefs, those gargoyles and creators with the power of creativity – or not – to fashion appearances. Bourdain, however, never forgot that aesthetics was subordinate to the cravings of the belly.

Such a creature was Bourdain whose quarter century as a New York chef served a plate full of delicious, manic and delightfully crafted experiences in Kitchen Confidential. In that account published in 2000, Bourdain suggests the aptness of military metaphor in describing the kitchen, a point as sharp as the weapons wielded. Battles are fought, and lost – most of the restaurants he found himself working for went broke. Wounds are inflicted, blood shed.

Cooking habits are given colourful description, suggesting that diners should be imperilled by the chef’s all-too-innovative short cuts. “If you are one of those people who cringe at the thought of strangers fondling your food, you shouldn’t go out to eat.” Meals on the assembly line will have “dozens of sweaty fingers” poking, prodding, stroking and shaping. The meal that induces salivation is bound to have a dark, even hideous side.

He also offers the advice that should be part of any diner’s canon: avoid ordering fish on Mondays like the plague, having lingered from the previous Friday. Most definitely avoid any temptation to get the mussels which “are allowed to wallow in their foul-smelling piss in the bottom of a reach-in”.

Bourdain, according to initial reports, seems to have taken his own life in a hotel near Strasbourg while engaged in making another instalment of Parts Unknown. The recounting of responses to his death and discussions in tribute pieces inevitably go soppy, drenched by the concerns that the taking of his own life was, essentially, unpardonable. Or at the very least, he should have been discouraged, the darkness expelled by proper counsel and sagacious words.

“Suicide,” goes a piece in CNN, “is a growing problem in the United States.” The report cites a survey released on Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that suicide rates have spiked by 25 percent across the country over the two decades ending in 2016. That his death caused tremors of despair and loss is an entirely sensible reaction: such gourmands should, on some level, be revered for making food, and food chat, a joy. But Bourdain lived his life so utterly chocked with nutrients, experiences and movement, leaving the eater hopeful that the cravings of the belly are universal and, when satiated, give peace, and peace of mind.

By Zahid Hussain

Pakistan made some sort of history on May 31 after an elected government completed its five-year constitutional term for the second time in a row.

This is the first time in Pakistan’s 70-year history that two democratically elected governments have completed their time in the office, a remarkable feat in a country which had seen at least four military rules and where the army still reigns supreme.

As things stand, chances are that a new government will be formed after the next general elections scheduled for July 25.

While many in Pakistan celebrated the aforementioned rare feat, a new challenge emerged in the form of the installation of an interim government to temporarily oversee the day-to-day state affairs.

Unlike much of the world, Pakistanis don’t trust the election body to be powerful enough to hold transparent elections with the ruling party at the helm. As a result, an interim government comprising credible names mostly — retired judges — is set up until a new government is voted to power.

But as they say there is never a dull moment in Pakistani politics. This was especially true when negotiations began between the outgoing prime minister and provincial chief ministers, and opposition leaders to find angels for the interim set-up. It is a constitutional requirement to name a consensus candidate and in case politicians fail to do the job, the matter is referred to the electoral body to decide on its own.

At the center, after several rounds of failed talks, a former top judge, Justice (retd.) Nasir ul Mulk, was finally named as the caretaker prime minister. But the circus began when a former bureaucrat and a little-known businessman were named to rule Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces respectively. In both cases, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (Justice Party) led by cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan took a U-turn after first agreeing to the suggested names and then withdrawing its support at the pretext of facing a social media backlash.

Khan’s party, which is being tipped favorite to win the next election, has come under heavy criticism for its inability to stick to agreed decisions. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) named Nasir Khosa, a retired bureaucrat, as its candidate for the caretaker chief minister of Punjab, the country’s largest province. The ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) agreed to his nomination. And once Khosa’s name was publicly announced, PTI backed out, saying that the bureaucrat had once served as principal secretary to ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a little-known businessman, Manzoor Afridi, was picked as a consensus candidate by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and opposition leader. However, Afridi’s name was also withdrawn after his credibility was questioned by journalists and opposition parties on social media. The similar situation was seen in Balochistan province. As politicians failed to reach a consensus, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) stepped in to fill the vacuum.

The embarrassing flip-flops from the new political entrant has stirred up a national debate about the utility of an interim government and why the idea itself is flawed in the very first place. Bangladesh tested the model from 1996 to 2011 before dumping the practice calling it counterproductive.

Under the law, the caretaker government cannot make major policy decisions. It also doesn’t have the power to sign or enter into any major contracts or international treaties. The caretaker government cannot even transfer officials without the approval of the election body.

But more importantly, the model undermines the parliament which is a supreme body and it gives an impression that politicians cannot be trusted. This only lends credence to powers which are bent upon portraying democracy in a negative light.

There is also no guarantee that the losing side will not accuse the caretaker government of being party to election rigging as had happened post the 2013 general polls. Imran Khan’s party which emerged as the second largest party in term of votes accused the caretaker chief minister of Punjab of colluding with the PML-N to rig the elections. The party went on to hold a three-month long sit-in a year later.

Ideally, the sitting government should continue during the election period like the rest of the world. The Election Commission of Pakistan can be empowered to make sure the ruling party doesn’t enjoy any advantage over opposition parties. It is high time that politicians show some maturity and have the courage to accept defeat without creating a hue and cry about the authenticity of the elections.

Ahmed Bilal Sufi, head of Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), an independent, non-partisan and not-for-profit indigenous think tank focused on political and public policy research and legislative strengthening, said that Pakistan must abandon the caretaker set-up.

“There should be a debate at the national level after this elections. If ECP can have a policy of strict vigilance and the powers of sitting government can be reduced to the level of interim set-up for two to three months, it can happen,” Sufi told ucanews.com.

“We should seriously think about it as it is ideal to think that a person can be fully neutral or impartial. It doesn’t make sense. Laws should be strengthened to take care of it, not individuals.”

Sufi, however, said that democracy was gradually evolving in Pakistan. “In the past, we used to have partisan interim governments. This has changed now. And over a period of time it may evolve into something which is normal and in practice in rest of the world,” he added.

Zahid Hussain is a Pakistani journalist covering human rights and issues affecting minorities.

The latest report of the Social Security Administration trustees is out, and as usual they are issuing dire warnings that the Social Security system is heading for the rocks. The Trust Fund — extra money deliberately collected from workers and employers since 1983 to build up a surplus so as to fund the cost of benefit checks to the wave of Baby Boomers who began retiring in 2011 — will “run out” in 2034, they warn, explaining that unless something is done before then by Congress to bolster the program’s funding, everyone for years would have to take a 21% cut in benefits.

Note that the program is not “going bankrupt,” as hyperventilating talking heads on Fox and right-wing radio will claim. In fact, with no change in taxes or income sources Social Security would still continue to provide retiree and disability benefits at that reduced rate indefinitely from that point on just based on the funds paid into the fund by current workers at that point (which is how the program was intended to work from the time it was established in 1936).

The real point though, is that even today, in 1918, the threat of a benefit cut is still 16 years or almost a generation off.

It’s not a demographic crisis. It’s a crisis of Congressional corruption, deceit and spinelessness. For 20 years Congress has known this would happen, thanks to the increasing longevity of retirees and declining birthrates. If Congress had taken steps to increase funding for the system 20 or 10 or even five years ago, they’d have been minor. Now they’ll have to be more dramatic.

By Dr. S.Chandrasekharan

Ever since the Prime Minister of India inaugurated the Kishenganga Project in Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistan media has been coming out with a spate of articles accusing India of violating the Indus Water Treaty of 1960.

On Pakistan’s insistence, the issue had gone for arbitration twice in 2010 and 2013. Pakistani officialdom and the media have once again begun the demand for arbitration though the issue was once before settled. Strangely, the country which has been the nursery of terrorists is accusing India of “Water Terrorism”

The Project:

The Kishenganga Hydro electric project is a run of the river scheme on Kishenganga River, known as Neelam downstream in Pakistan with an installed capacity of 330 MW of a power plant located 5 Kms north of Bandipore in J&K.

Construction began in 2007 and was temporarily halted by the Hague Permanent Court on a complaint from Pakistan. It was revived again in 2013 after a ruling by the Court of Arbitration in favour of India and completed in May 2018.

Pakistan had since then begun the construction of a 969-MW project downstream on the Neelam River and it is yet to be completed. Pakistan did not inform India of its intention to build a major Hydro electric project downstream on the same river when the Kishenganga project was started.

In the second order of the Court of Arbitration of 2013, the Court ruled that at the time the Kishenganga project was initiated, Pakistan did not have a domestic requirement downstream and also specifically pointed out that the Neelam Hydro electric Project was initiated after the Kishenganga hydro electric project.

History:

In 2010, the Court of Arbitration (COA) on a complaint from Pakistan mentioned that the dam component would eventually enable India to exercise a certain degree of control over the volume of water that will reach Pakistan and hence ordered a temporary halt to the construction. It could be argued that India being the upper riparian will have, subject to the treaties, control over the waters flowing downstream. Yet India obeyed the orders and suspended the Project.

In the second order of 2013, the COA in a review, allowed the construction of Kishenganga Project to be resumed. Significantly the Court ruled that India could divert the water that is necessary for power generation after leaving a minimum flow for downstream.

The Court had also ordered that India was under obligation to “construct and operate” the dam in such a way that it “maintains a minimum flow of water downstream.” The minimum was fixed as 9 cumecs.

In 2016, Pakistan raised the issue once again and objected to the design of the dam which in its view actually diverts the water from the Neelum (Kishenganga) river into the Madkati nullah and is therefore a breach of Article 111(2).

Pakistan insisted on arbitration while India maintained that the issue can be resolved by a neutral expert as the differences are only in the design of the dam meant for power generation. The issue of the diversion of waters alleged to be a violation of the Treaty had already been settled by the COA in the review order that India could divert the water after leaving a minimum flow downstream.

In the same year, strangely, the World Bank accepted the position of both India and Pakistan to have a court of arbitration and also a neutral expert to examine the issue. In fact the World Bank had already formed the three judge arbitration Court. India objected to the simultaneous setting up of both the arbitration court and a neutral expert. The Indian position was accepted and no further action was taken. Instead the World Bank wanted both countries to have bilateral talks to settle the issue. Four rounds of talks took place between Indian and Pakistan in 2017 but the issue could not be resolved.

Current Position:

The Kishenganga dam in India was inaugurated on 19th May 2018 by the Prime Minister of India. Soon after Pakistan sent a high-powered delegation to World Bank to explain its stand and insisted once again for a court of arbitration.

On 5th of June 2018, the World Bank asked Pakistan to stand down from referring the Kishenganga dam dispute to the ICA and instead accept India’s offer of appointing a neutral expert.

As of now this is the position of the issue of Kishenganga project as the World Bank has not accepted the demand of Pakistan to have a Court of Arbitration and instead go for the neutral expert to examine the technical issue of the design of the dam. Pakistan’s media reports indicate that the World Bank has offered other alternatives but has not withdrawn from the position it has taken that Pakistan should agree to a neutral expert. There are wild allegations in Pakistan that the “Indian Lobby” has bought over the World Bank.

The issue as it stands is very simple. The design of the Kishenganga dam is such that it is not providing sufficient water to the Neelam river downstream and nothing else. This can be best resolved by a neutral expert who may suggest some alterations in the design. The question of diversion of water for power generation has also been settled and is not violative of the Indus Treaty provisions.

Responses from Pakistan Side are very interesting.

• A three-member bench headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan is now involved with the issue. It has directed the federal Government of Pakistan to furnish a comprehensive report on the reduced flow on Neelam River because of the dam.
• Dr. Pervaiz Amir, an expert on Water resources, pointed out that taking the dispute to the ICA could “result in abolition of the Indus Water Treaty” that has survived conflicts and wars between the two nuclear armed States.
• One Analyst had suggested that for Pakistan,if the boundary had been along the Chenab river, these problems faced on the Neelam River project could not have occurred at all!

Most critical was the view of Abit Hasan, a former Adviser to World Bank published under ‘Opinion’ Column in the News of 8 June. The points amongst many mentioned here are very valid. These were

1. The present water crisis in Pakistan is due to decades of neglect and mismanagement of water resources.
2. The per capita availability is slowly dwindling and is already in a critical stage of 1200 cubic metres and may go to 500 cubic metres in another thirty years.
3. Uncontrolled population explosion, generous use of water that is free and unregulated has led to a critical situation in availability of water.
4. Leaders indecisions, incompetence of institutions, corrupt and outdated agricultural practices are responsible for the shortages.
5. Legal rights for more water to Neelam Project could have been claimed but for the failure to complete the dam in time.
6. Both countries Pakistan and India should resolve the issue bilaterally.

Conclusion:

I had already discussed many of the issues relating to the Indus Water Treaty in Paper nos 3676 and 5415. I had noticed that while India was going by the spirit of the Indus Water Treaty, Pakistan was more intent on following the letter of the treaty.

What is needed is for India to continue to stand firm on following the Indus Water Treaty both in letter and spirit as had been hinted after the attack on the Uri Army Post by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists. Surely, blood and water cannot mix.

By Alfian Z.M. Tahir

Faced with massive debt inherited from the previous government, Malaysia’s new administration focused during its first month in power on campaign promises to cut costs and lower that burden, analysts said.

Led by the world’s oldest prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government faces the task of delivering on electoral pledges that also include investigating alleged corruption committed by the old government, according to observers.

“They have honored their promises despite some financial restraint,” Hisommudin Bakar, executive director of the Ilham Center, an independent think-tank, told BenarNews. “Overall, they have delivered and will continue to deliver, I hope.”

The view was shared by Awang Azman Awang Pawi, a political analyst at the University Malaya, who said the new administration was doing its best to salvage the nation’s economy.

Lim Guan Eng, the new finance minister, disclosed recently that Malaysia’s debt and liabilities had exceeded 1 trillion ringgit (U.S. $251 billion).

During their campaign that led to last month’s upset victory in a general election, in which the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition was ousted for the first time ever in Malaysia’s 61-year history, Pakatan candidates promised to fulfill 10 goals in their 100 days in office.

The platform promises included: reducing fuel prices; abolishing student loans and a 6 percent good and sales tax (GST); alleviating the “non-working” status of housewives by putting them under a contribution scheme like other working adults; setting a nationwide minimum wage; and providing better health care.

In addition, PH promised to investigate financial scandals including the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund that lost Malaysia billions of dollars and to review Chinese-backed mega infrastructure projects to determine if money was being spent properly.

Democracy, transparency as main objectives

At the end of the new government’s first month in office, half of the promises have yet to be fulfilled, but voters were able to evaluate government performance not just by manifestos but also by how the country was run, according to Hisomuddin.

Since taking office, the government of Mahathir – who will turn 93 next month – has announced that Malaysians will have a three-month tax break before it introduces a more modest sales-and-services levy, effective Sept. 1.

Additionally, instead of abolishing the student loan program, it decided to lift a travel ban on thousands of defaulters, while studying the best mechanism to get students to repay without facing financial hardships.

Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, the first woman to hold that post in Malaysia, announced that a contribution scheme for women previously classified as non-working was under study. The government was able to set a fixed price for lower grades of fuel.

These efforts have drawn far less attention than the new administration’s promise to quickly investigate former Prime Minister Najib Razak for alleged corruption along with financial scandals tied to 1MDB and its former subsidiary, SRC International. The government also moved to cut a high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, citing its cost against a return on investment.

Mahathir, who previously served as prime minister from 1981 to 2003, succeeded in convincing rural Malay voters to vote against BN this time, a move the opposition had never been able to pull off in Malaysia. Before he led the opposition to victory in the May 9 election, Mahathir was a longtime pillar of Barisan Nasional who developed a reputation as an autocratic leader during his first 22-year stint as PM.

“Surely with the progressive ideas thrown in by many of the newly [appointed] ministers and by many of the parliamentarians from PH, democracy and transparency will be the main objective. We can hope for a better future in terms of integrity and accountability,” Hisomuddin said.

Since Barisan lost the election, Najib and wife, Rosmah Mansor, have been barred from leaving the country. They also have been questioned separately by the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over how 42 million ringgit ($10.5 million) in money from SRC International ended up in Najib’s private bank accounts, when he was prime minister.

Their appearances before MACC followed searches of their home, his former office and other residences where, police said, they seized suitcases containing nearly $29 million in cash and expensive items, along with 284 boxes containing luxury handbags. U.S. justice officials have pointed out that more than $4.5 billion (17.9 billion ringgit) was stolen from 1MDB since its inception in 2009 until its advisory board was dissolved in 2016.

Najib has maintained his innocence.

“The investigation and the probe are done according to the rule of law. The confiscation of handbags, cash, and jewelry are part of the process,” analyst Awang Azman told BenarNews. “But that does not mean that Najib and Rosmah are guilty.

“But the way they are treated on social media has somehow given us the idea that they are stealing our money, and that is not right.”

A ‘press conference’ government

Meanwhile, an executive council member of the youth wing of the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), the anchor party of Barisan, disagreed with the new government’s efforts to fix the economy.

Armand Azha Abu Hanifah said it had been flip-flopping for almost a month as major promises on student loans and fuel prices had yet to be fulfilled.

“The government of the day is nothing more than a ‘press conference’ government – announcing everything but not delivering on major promises,” Armad told BenarNews.

Lambasting the new government, Armand said Najib’s administration was able to deliver on its promises despite being hit with endless controversies and scandals.

“Now after realizing that the debt is high, they decide to cut down on mega projects and make hundreds of poor Malaysians jobless,” he added.

Removing tonsils and adenoids in childhood increases the long-term risk of respiratory, allergic and infectious diseases, according to researchers who have examined – for the first time – the long-term effects of the operations.

The researchers suggest renewed evaluation of alternatives to these common paediatric surgeries that include removal of tonsils (tonsillectomy) to treat chronic tonsillitis or adenoids (adenoidectomy) to treat recurrent middle ear infections.

The adenoids and tonsils are strategically positioned in the nose and throat respectively to act as a first line of defense, helping to recognise airborne pathogens like bacteria and viruses, and begin the immune response to clear them from the body.

The collaborative study initiated by the Copenhagen Evolutionary Medicine program looked at the long-term effects of removing the tonsils and adenoids in childhood, compared with children who had not undergone the surgeries.

University of Melbourne researcher Dr Sean Byars and Professor Jacobus Boomsma from the University of Copenhagen led the research, with Professor Stephen Stearns from Yale University. The research is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery.

The team analysed a dataset from Denmark of 1,189,061 children born between 1979 and 1999, covering at least the first 10 years and up to 30 years of their life. Of the almost 1.2 million children, 17,460 had adenoidectomies, 11,830 tonsillectomy and 31, 377 had adenotonsillectomies, where both tonsils and adenoids removed. The children were otherwise healthy.

“We calculated disease risks depending on whether adenoids, tonsils or both were removed in the first 9 years of life because this is when these tissues are most active in the developing immune system,” Dr Byars said.

The analysis showed that tonsillectomy was associated with an almost tripled relative risk – the risk for those who had the operation compared with those who didn’t – for diseases of the upper respiratory tract. These included asthma, influenza, pneumonia and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder or COPD, the umbrella term for diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

The absolute risk (which takes into account how common these diseases are in the community) was also substantially increased at 18.61 percent.

Adenoidectomy was found to be linked with a more than doubled relative risk of COPD and a nearly doubled relative risk of upper respiratory tract diseases and conjunctivitis. The absolute risk was also almost doubled for upper respiratory diseases but corresponded to a small increase for COPD, as this is a rarer condition in the community generally.

“The association of tonsillectomy with respiratory disease later in life may therefore be considerable for those who have had the operation,” Prof Boomsma said.

The team delved deeper into the statistics to reveal how many operations needed to be performed for a disease to occur at a greater rate than normal, known as the number needed to treat or NNT.

“For tonsillectomy, we found that only five people needed to have the operation to cause an extra upper respiratory disease to appear in one of those people,” added Prof Boomsma.

The team also analysed conditions that these surgeries directly aimed to treat, and found mixed results.

Adenoidectomy was associated with a significantly reduced risk for sleep disorders and all surgeries were associated with significantly reduced risk for tonsillitis and chronic tonsillitis, as these organs were now removed. However, there was no change in abnormal breathing up to the age of 30 for any surgery and no change in sinusitis after tonsillectomy or adenoidectomy.

Following adenotonsillectomy the relative risk for those who had the operation was found to increase four or five-fold for otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear) and sinusitis also showed a significant increase.

The study suggests that shorter-term benefits of these surgeries may not continue up to the age of 30 apart from the reduced risk for tonsillitis (for all surgeries) and sleep disorders (for adenoidectomy).

Instead, the longer-term risks for abnormal breathing, sinusitis and otitis media were either significantly higher after surgery or not significantly different.

The researchers note that there will always be a need to remove tonsils and adenoids when those conditions are severe.

“But our observed results that show increased risks for long-term diseases after surgery support delaying tonsil and adenoid removal if possible, which could aid normal immune system development in childhood and reduce these possible later-life disease risks, Dr Byars said.

“As we uncover more about the function of immune tissues and the lifelong consequences of their removal, especially during sensitive ages when the body is developing, this will hopefully help guide treatment decisions for parents and doctors.”

Last October, a University of California, Berkeley, team headed down to the Arizona desert, plopped their newest prototype water harvester into the backyard of a tract home and started sucking water out of the air without any power other than sunlight.

The successful field test of their larger, next-generation harvester proved what the team had predicted earlier in 2017: that the water harvester can extract drinkable water every day/night cycle at very low humidity and at low cost, making it ideal for people living in arid, water-starved areas of the world.

“There is nothing like this,” said Omar Yaghi, who invented the technology underlying the harvester. “It operates at ambient temperature with ambient sunlight, and with no additional energy input you can collect water in the desert. This laboratory-to-desert journey allowed us to really turn water harvesting from an interesting phenomenon into a science.”

Yaghi, the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and his team will report the results of the first field test of a water -collecting harvester in the June 8 issue of the journal Science Advances.

The trial in Scottsdale, where the relative humidity drops from a high of 40 percent at night to as low as 8 percent during the day, demonstrated that the harvester should be easy to scale up by simply adding more of the water absorber, a highly porous material called a metal-organic framework, or MOF. The researchers anticipate that with the current MOF (MOF-801), made from the expensive metal zirconium, they will ultimately be able to harvest about 200 milliliters (about 7 ounces) of water per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF, or 3 ounces of water per pound.

But Yaghi also reports that he has created a new MOF based on aluminum, called MOF-303, that is at least 150 times cheaper and captures twice as much water in lab tests. This will enable a new generation of harvesters producing more than 400 ml (3 cups) of water per day from a kilogram of MOF, the equivalent of half a 12-ounce soda can per pound per day.

“There has been tremendous interest in commercializing this, and there are several startups already engaged in developing a commercial water-harvesting device,” Yaghi said. “The aluminum MOF is making this practical for water production, because it is cheap.”

Yaghi is also working with King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and its president, Prince Dr. Turki Saud Mohammad Al Saud, on the technology as part of their joint research Center of Excellence for Nanomaterials and Clean Energy.

Super-absorbent MOFs

Yaghi is a pioneer in metal-organic frameworks, which are solids with so many internal channels and holes that a sugar-cube-size MOF might have an internal surface area the size of six football fields. This surface area easily absorbs gases or liquids but, just as important, quickly releases them when heated. Various types of MOFs are already being tested as a way to pack more gas into the tanks of hydrogen-fueled vehicles, absorb carbon dioxide from smokestacks and store methane.

Several years ago, Yaghi created MOF-801, which absorbs and releases water easily, and last year he tested small quantities in a simple harvester to see if he could capture water from ambient air overnight and use the heat of the sun to drive it out again for use. That harvester, built by a collaborator at MIT using less than 2 grams of MOF, proved that the concept worked: the windows fogged up in the sun, though the researchers were not able to collect or accurately measure the water.

That same harvester was transported to the desert earlier this year and worked similarly, though again only droplets of water were generated as a proof of concept.

For the new paper, the UC Berkeley team – graduate student Eugene Kapustin and postdoctoral fellows Markus Kalmutzki and Farhad Fathieh – collected and measured the water and tested the latest generation harvester under varying conditions of humidity, temperature and solar intensity.

The harvester is essentially a box within a box. The inner box holds a 2-square-foot bed of MOF grains open to the air to absorb moisture. This is encased in a two-foot plastic cube with transparent top and sides. The top was left open at night to let air flow in and contact the MOF, but was replaced during the day so the box could heat up like a greenhouse to drive water back out of the MOF. The released water condensed on the inside of the outer box and fell to the bottom, where the researchers collected it with a pipette.

The extensive field tests lay out a blueprint allowing engineers to configure the harvester for the differing conditions in Arizona, the Mediterranean or anywhere else, given a specific MOF.

“The key development here is that it operates at low humidity, because that is what it is in arid regions of the world,” Yaghi said. In these conditions, the harvester collects water even at sub-zero dew points.

Yaghi is eagerly awaiting the next field test, which will test the aluminum-based MOF and is planned for Death Valley in late summer, where temperatures reach 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the daytime and remain in the 70s at night, with nighttime humidity as low as 25 percent.

A study out of Florida International University evaluates the use of scent-discriminating canines for the detection of laurel wilt-affected wood from avocado trees. Julian Mendel, Kenneth G. Furton, and DeEtta Mills have ferreted out a possible solution to a serious issue in one corner of the horticultural industry, and then ascertained the extent to which this solution is effective.

The results of this study are presented in their article “An Evaluation of Scent-discriminating Canines for Rapid Response to Agricultural Diseases” published in the latest issue of HortTechnology.

Laurel wilt disease has resulted in the death of more than 300 million laurel trees in the United States alone. One affected plant is the commercially important avocado tree, the second-largest tree crop in Florida behind citrus. This disease has had a devastating effect on the industry in South Florida in past harvest seasons, and two larger avocado industries in Mexico and California are naturally worried that this disease, if it hits their crops, could spread fast enough to destroy their seasons.

Once affected by laurel wilt disease, trees succumb soon after infection. Once external symptoms are evident, this disease is very difficult to control and contain as the pathogen can spread to adjacent trees via root grafting. Until now, there has been no viable, cost-effective method of early diagnosis and treatment.

Laurel wilt is the consequence of an invasive species–the redbay ambrosia beetle–originally from Asia, which was inadvertently introduced into the United States in untreated wooden packing material.

But as with so many ailments, early detection can be instrumental in deterring a widespread infection. The use of scent-discriminating dogs has shown to offer the avocado industry legitimate signs of hope in their fight against the spread of such a profit-crusher throughout their groves.

Three dogs were trained and studied for their ability to detect the early presence of laurel wilt by scent. At present, canines are extensively used in law enforcement and forensics in the location of missing persons, explosives, drugs, weapons, and ammunition. More directly applicable, dogs have demonstrated the ability to detect invasive species of spotted knapweed, brown tree snakes, desert tortoises, and various cancers.

The highly sensitive canine olfactory system is capable of detecting odor concentrations at exceedingly minute 1 to 2 parts per trillion. The authors believe it likely, with properly directed training, that these dogs could use their natural talents to service the protective needs of the potentially ailing avocado industry.

During the course of the study, 229 trials were performed, and only 12 of those yielded false alerts. It was observed that dogs are indeed capable of high levels of relevant performance, even in harsh weather conditions such as high heat and humidity. The study provided proof that dogs can detect agricultural diseases such as laurel wilt and can be a powerful management tool if the disease is caught in its earliest stages.

About the valuable service provided by these dogs, Mills added, “It is the best ‘technology’ so far that can detect a diseased tree before external symptoms are visible. The old saying that ‘dogs are man’s best friend’ reaches far beyond a personal bond with their handler and trainer. It is depicted in their excitement every day as they deploy to the groves. Man’s best friend may even help save an industry.”

By Samir Saran

The “Indo-Pacific” is in the news. The US has renamed its Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command, the shared regional vision outlined by India and Indonesia has emphasised its centrality, and the region’s political importance to India were at the core of the expansive foreign policy speech delivered by Prime Minister Modi in Singapore. All of these are a response to the spectacular rise of China. If this points to a future concert of powers in the region to balance Beijing’s power play, it will be an important yet insufficient measure to the Chinese project that spans Asia and Europe.

Covering 35 per cent of the earth’s surface, Eurasia is home to five billion people living in over 90 different countries and producing 65 per cent of global GDP. For millennia, conquest, trade and migration have organically bound Asia and Europe – the ebb and flow of great civilisations across this vast landmass spawned myriad political and economic dynamics.

Only in the recent past, in historical terms, have these been interrupted. The Industrial Revolution in Europe and the subsequent colonisation of Asia and Africa created an artificial divide where geographically there was none, concentrating economic and military power in ‘the West.’ That this community emerged as the victors of the second World War only institutionalized these power structures and geographies.

As history repeats and Eurasia coheres, the outlines of a new world order will be defined by who manages it and how it is managed. It is in this super-continent that the future of democracy, of free markets and of global security arrangements will be decided. And there are three key factors that are shaping this landscape.

The first, to borrow a phrase from Robert Kaplan, is the revenge of geography. As much as Eurasian integration is organic, its current ‘avatar’ is decidedly Chinese. Having assessed that the divide between Europe and Asia was an artificial, modern and “Western” construct, China is doing what no other power had the appetite for: conceive of, define and then manage Eurasia.

The idea of a Eurasian supercontinent itself is not new: In 1904, Halford Makinder predicted that the age of Western naval supremacy would give way to land power, in which Eurasia– “the pivot area” — would be key to world domination.

British, American, German and Russian strategists have long been influenced by this idea. Zbigniew Brzezinski would write that the key to containing the Soviet Union was to expand America’s influence over the ”Eurasian chessboard;” while Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin conceived of a Russian led Eurasia that would effectively thwart NATO’s conspiracy of “Atlanticism” In each case, the theme was evident: to balance competing powers by securing land based military supply chains.

China’s design is different—in an interdependent global economy, defined more by coalitions of convenience than geopolitical blocs, Beijing’s expansion is defined by a multi-billion dollar geo-economic thrust in search of energy supplies, raw materials and markets.

China is driven, not by ideology, but by the desire to revive and extend its historical position as the cultural, economic and military center of the world. This drive, combined with China’s economic heft, makes its Eurasian vision significantly more potent, farsighted and durable than simple balancing strategies.

Unsurprisingly then, the BRI dilutes the importance of the landmass’ sub-regions, thereby upsetting settled balance-of-power arrangements. India and the European Union (EU), for example, are struggling to curb China’s creeping influence on Eurasia’s political, economic and security conversations.

China is admirably relentlessness in pursuing this project: building infrastructure, facilitating trade, and creating alternative global institutions. Surreptitiously, China also exports its political model: “capitalism with Chinese characteristics” –a unique blend of state capitalism and authoritarianism. Unless liberal democracies propose an alternative in Eurasia that effectively addresses the infrastructure and governance needs of countries in Asia and Africa, China’s proposition will succeed.

Here lies the second factor: the revenge of democracy. Whether it is the US, the EU or even India, democracies are more polarized than ever before. The Pew Global Attitude Survey consistently records that trust in democratic governments is at an all-time low. More than ever, it appears that liberal democracies are bogged down by domestic crises, leaving them little energy for strategic planning. At a time when China’s timelines are decadal, democracies are struggling to look past their next election.

And the final factor, demography, is a double-edged sword for the entire region—especially for China. In many Eurasian countries, the economic benefits of the BRI are obvious. However, in an era when nationalism is the defining mood of politics, China’s presence can be unwelcome. China’s labour exports create tensions with younger host-country populations who must now compete for employment opportunities. There is the risk that the BRI will merely create infrastructure networks for extreme and radicalized organizations in unstable countries.

At home, demographic pressures might force Beijing to reconsider its ability to deliver. As younger Chinese move up the income ladder, their expectations from their government will increase. Simultaneously, the preponderance of single young men in urban regions and ageing rural populations makes Chinese society susceptible to violence and unrest. What will these demographic pressures portend for the project of Eurasian integration? Will the Chinese state have the political capital to recklessly buy influence across the world? Will demographic complexities allow others to cobble together a viable counter to the Beijing consensus?

New Delhi will, however, be one among a constellation of actors—and its ability to adapt to and perhaps even shape their visions will influence Eurasian conversations for decades to come.

Russia, which plays second fiddle to China due to economic necessity and a common disdain for American power, shares a perverse relationship with the middle kingdom. The original Eurasian superpower is currently nothing more than a glorified policeman — or more charitably, a crafty risk management consultant for Chinese expansionism.

The two economic visions they seek to integrate—the BRI and the Eurasian Economic Union– operate under different logics. The first seeks to reorient multiple markets in order to position China as the engine of trade, while the latter seeks to create a single market to expand Moscow’s limited economic influence. Simultaneously, China has so far avoided hard security commitment’s in the region in deference to Moscow’s concern—a position that is hardly tenable in the long term.

The contrast between Moscow’s modest regional capability and China’s multi-continental ambition begs the question: What happens if both autonomously and organically come to two different visions of Eurasia?  Will Moscow defer to China’s objectives? Or will competition between the two create complex security dynamics in an already volatile region?

The rupturing of West Asia, however, sent a wave of refugees into their debt-ridden economies, forcefully reminding Europeans of their proximity to the continent.

Now Europe fractures, both from within and without. Even as ageing European societies struggle with reactionary populism and the splintering of a well-established political and economic consensus, their borders are being chipped away by the Belt and Road Initiative. The EU must now make difficult choices: either act to preserve and expand its agency or be acted upon, one slice at a time.

The US, for its part, has expended blood and treasure over the past nine decades to maintain its privileged place in these two regions. However, in a quest to balance Russia and China, and to prosecute a “war on terror,” its power and influence are diffused between NATO, Central Command and the recently renamed ‘Indo-Pacific’ Command, each with their own strategies and legacies. Can America, now unexpectedly flirting with economic nationalism, claim leadership in a world that is cohering and integrating faster, perhaps, than its institutional capacity to respond?

It is critical that all of them, and more particularly India and the US, imagine an arrangement beyond the Indo-Pacific, into the heart of Eurasia. This imagination must look past the normative considerations of democracy; Eurasian geopolitics will be defined by the provision of finance and technology, of connectivity and trade and a willingness to accommodate diverse political arrangements.

China’s continental-sized question requires a super-continental answer. It is for the liberal world to stand up and be counted, or step aside and let Pax-Sinica unfold.

A shorter version had appeared in The Times of India

Ambiguity contributes to global uncertainty and risks, but can be a force for good when practiced consensually.

By Mikhail Troitskiy*

Ambiguous behavior, doctrines and statements have gained popularity as foreign policy instruments among great and smaller powers alike over the last decade. Ambiguity – intentional lack of clarity about one’s goals and plans – has contributed to the rise of unpredictability and associated risks in global affairs. And yet, ambiguity can be “constructive,” bringing clear benefits in the field of negotiation and conflict resolution. Foreign relations of Russia, a major power aspiring to increase its regional and global imprint, and some of its international counterparts since the end of the Cold War offer insights into the costs and benefits of ambiguity.

Ambiguous action entails significant risks, but is attractive, too, by quickly helping actors to expand freedom of maneuver in the world stage – witness Iran or North Korea being offered concessions by the international community in exchange for reduced ambiguity about the goals and scope of their nuclear programs. Ambiguity can be a force for common good if practiced consensually, that is, if all sides in a negotiation agree to a moderately ambiguous deal in order to end the talks on a positive note and avoid escalation of their conflict. A takeaway for practitioners could be to practice ambiguity together with counterparts and avoid doing so alone. Examples include the agreement on German reunification, the New START Treaty and the Minsk agreement on eastern Ukraine.

Russia has struggled for say on a variety of issues considered of key importance for its security – preventing NATO enlargement, US missile defense deployments or “color” revolutions. But nobody listened, at least according to the official Russian narrative. So the Kremlin decided that forcing its counterparts to recognize Russia’s higher status by means of ambiguous actions, doctrines and statements may work better than conducting decade-long protracted negotiations on each area of concern.

Over the last few years, Russia has been increasingly resorting to ambiguity in its quest for a higher status vis-à-vis its Western counterparts and primarily the United States. Moscow has been seeking to elevate its status in the form of recognition by its peers and the right to act freely under certain circumstances. For example, peers may recognize that status allows a nation to veto enlargement of a rival alliance.

Interestingly, authority and, by implication, status are fungible and non-expendable. Status gives a nation a say on a variety of issues, not just alliance enlargements, while lessening resistance or even discontent from its counterparts. And a nation can reinforce or even raise status and authority by employing that authority. Status is “anti-fragile” – with more use, the stronger it becomes. As a result, over the recent years, Moscow has tried to leverage ambiguity in pursuit of a higher status. Examples include the graphic demonstration of new weapons by President Vladimir Putin in his March 1 address to the Russian parliament, plausible deniability of Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict and the “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine – supposedly envisaging a low threshold for the use of a nuclear weapon – attributed to Russian military officials despite their ardent denials.

All of those actions, doctrines and statements include elements of ambiguity employed in pursuit of status – recognition of Russia’s right to do what it wants when its interests are affected. However, such “unilateral ambiguity” tactic does entail a number of problems. Claiming status through ambiguity requires a constant upping of the ante in interactions with stronger opponents – status recognition typically sought from stronger, not weaker parties. Also, opponents of the status-thirsty actor may push back stronger than expected, for example, by attempts to isolate or sanction that actor. Another option is disengagement – witness, for example, the Trump administration’s stated disinterest in further arms control agreements with Russia and refusal to be impressed with Russia’s newly announced weapons.

Ambiguous doctrinal statements are often perceived as self-incrimination, difficult to back out from, even if the nation wants to do so. The notorious “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine has proved particularly difficult for the Russian government to shrug off despite the conspicuous lack of official endorsement.

Overall, it is easier to achieve a higher status and receive broader authority by convincing one’s peers that the aspired status is deserved rather than by taking ambiguous and potentially adversarial postures. This conclusion applies not only to Russian foreign policy, but to similar situations in which aspiring great powers seek higher status.

Unlike attempts to attract attention and win concessions with ambiguous behavior, consensual and collective practice of ambiguity can sometimes help resolve antagonistic disputes. Such disputes usually do not allow for definitive and lasting solutions because that would pre-determine loss for some parties and gain for others. In order to conclude negotiations in antagonistic contexts, the sides may find it useful to resort to “constructive ambiguity” – agreeing that some future course of events that the participating parties cannot or may not want to predict at the moment of negotiation closure will shape the ultimate outcome. In a way, that means leaving the final outcome to chance. That seems risky, but if the sides can live with ambiguity in their agreement, then the flexibility of their positions and the chances of resolving the dispute increase. In a way, they are leveraging uncertainty about the future that, in turn, is a result of the stochastic, largely random nature of the social and physical world.

Constructive ambiguity has more than once allowed finding off-ramps from controversy in US-Russia relations. If one looks at a number of prominent cases, one can find a significant element of ambiguity in each:

• When Germany, the USSR, and the Western powers negotiated German unification in 1990, all parties appeared amenable to ambiguity in the discussion of future alliance politics. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev assumed that he had guarantees against NATO rushing to exploit Soviet vulnerability after the reunification. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was simply happy with any future configuration of military alliances if Germany was allowed to unify, while US President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker assumed they were issuing no promises to the Soviet Union regarding NATO’s future.

• Twenty years later, ratification of the New START Treaty only became possible because both Moscow and Washington assumed their distinct interpretation of the role of missile defenses prevailed in the treaty: Russia insisted reductions in strategic nuclear arms were conditional on limits for US missile defense capabilities, while the US Senate made a statement to the contrary when ratifying the treaty.

• Finally, the Minsk agreement on eastern Ukraine, signed in February 2015, notoriously did not contain a clear roadmap leading to a definitive resolution. The parties essentially decided to leave the final outcome to chance, depending on highly unpredictable international and domestic political trends. They needed an agreement in Minsk, and they signed it, at least ensuring a break in armed hostilities and, of course, administering only a palliative medicine.

Agreements based on constructive ambiguity can be successful when each side has reason to believe that circumstances will eventually play out in its favor. The ultimate outcome is likely to differ, falling short of original expectations because of the fundamental complexity of international politics and the world in general. In the end, neither party may find its negotiating position vindicated. But the historical record – including the cases above – shows that the sides are usually less disappointed with the ultimate outcome and less likely to break from the agreement, resume hostilities or demand unrealistic compensation because of the price of reopening the controversy.

*Mikhail Troitskiy is a political analyst in Moscow.  This article is based on a longer paper, “Leveraging Ambiguity in Russian Foreign Policy: Implications for Theories of Status and Negotiation,” he presented at a conference on Regime Evolution, Institutional Change, and Social Transformation in Russia: Lessons for Political Science, April 28, 2018, at the MacMillan Center, Yale University.

By Ronald J. Granieri*

(FPRI) — Donald Trump entered the Oval Office promising to “drain the swamp” in Washington, riding a wave of anti-elite and anti-expert sentiment that helped him build a coalition including both traditional Republican voters and a number of disaffected (mostly white) working class voters in key battleground states. Whether he has actually succeeded in fulfilling all of the promises made in the campaign (or could possibly do so) is less important than the fact that he has so far managed to hold onto the key segments of that coalition. His critics may hope that ongoing investigations will bring his administration to an early end, elections this fall may shift the balance of power in Congress, but he is President now and for at least the next three years, able to shape policy according to his preferences.

Predicting what that might mean for practical policymaking is an uneasy business. Translating the Trump coalition’s rejection of history, tradition, expert opinion, and swamp dwellers into foreign policy is especially hard considering that foreign policy is one of the swampiest of all policy regions. That the State Department is located in Foggy Bottom is almost too on the nose. Metaphors notwithstanding, foreign policy remains the region where expert opinion weighs most heavily and where establishment critics of the President have been especially vocal.

And yet, the conflict between expert opinion and politics in the making of American foreign policy is not completely new. It’s important to place President Trump in a broader American context. Whether one happens to agree with him or not, it does no good to pretend that he dropped from outer space. Trump (or at least those intellectuals who have chosen to interpret him seriously, if not literally, and have been developing justifications for his policies) can draw on a long tradition of American criticism of foreign policy professionals and a preference for a foreign policy based on assumptions about American separation from and superiority to the rest of the world. Walter Russell Mead, among others, has christened this combination of truculence and unilateralism Jacksonian, in honor of our proto-Populist seventh president. Trumpian foreign policy draws on Jacksonian principles but is more than just that. One can see in Trump’s rejection of global leadership and skepticism about alliance commitments bits of Washington’s Farewell Address and a dashes of reverence for 19^th century traditions, reinforced intellectually and politically by a Paleoconservative reaction against both the global meliorism and progressive rhetoric of the Obama administration and also the sins of George W. Bush and the Neocons, who are accused of squandering American post-Cold War advantages in the deserts of the Middle East.

Any president elected in 2016 would have had to manage the reality of relative American decline balanced against the equally stark reality of deep American global commitments. Even if that president is Donald Trump. For all of his surface contrasts with previous occupants of the Oval Office, it is still possible to trace lines of continuity not only within Republican foreign policy debates, but also within a broader American approach to the rest of the globe.

The idea that Donald Trump’s foreign policy is completely unique is a misconception shared by both his most ardent fans and his most aggressive detractors. America First is a loaded slogan, even if Trump does not himself always appear to be aware of its historical resonances, but that historical resonance includes many voices, ranging from Charles Lindbergh to George McGovern. Trump may be an innovator in style, but not in substance. His foreign policy centers around the idea that the USA is (or should be) essentially self-sufficient, secure behind its oceanic ramparts, and can choose when and where to engage with the world. From this perspective, foreign “entanglement” is a choice, and it may be time to reject the preferences of the foreign policy establishment to focus instead on domestic concerns. Trump may have stated his case with a unique combination of vehemence and historical ignorance, but his is essentially the same message proclaimed by every successful presidential aspirant since 1992.

President Trump—who has launched cruise missiles in response to Syrian chemical attacks, accelerated the process of moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and is assiduously pursuing a summit meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un—recently has turned to foreign affairs in search of policy “wins.” This is not a new phenomenon in American politics, either. Most Presidents, even those who initially display little interest or skill in foreign affairs, realize the advantages of executive power in that area, to distract either from a stalled legislative agenda or from domestic scandal. What is unusual is how the President (so far at least), even as he has enjoyed the pageantry of major state visits to Saudi Arabia, China, and France has traveled less and for shorter periods than his predecessors. That, however, may change, especially as both a trip to the G-7 summit in Canada and his meeting in Singapore with Kim lie ahead.

Trump also fits squarely in the tradition of tension between a State Department that is considered too soft and a more political, more aggressive, and more loyal White House and National Security Council. Rex Tillerson’s hollowing out of the State Department, which may have been inspired by his own misguided management principles, certainly raised no objections from the White House. Mike Pompeo should be able to draw on his good relations with the President to revitalize the department, but that will take time. We have seen this dynamic before, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, though the Trump administration adds the extra complication of a President who feels empowered to express his opinions spontaneously and broadcast them widely through Twitter, even against the wishes of his own staff.

Thus, even if he claims to break with all traditions, Trump actually has straddled a line between rejecting all previous policy and claiming to manage it more effectively. That tension is reflected in both style and substance, which veers between extreme rhetoric and practical continuity, and also between claiming to base foreign policy purely on material interests and transactions and asserting some sort of shared values.

Trump’s transactional orientation has led him to take a jaundiced view of many traditional alliances, be they with Europe, Japan, or our closest neighbors Canada and Mexico. Trade plays a huge role in this conception, as Trump is still shaped by economic debates from the 1980s, especially his belief that our trading partners have been playing us for suckers. Since one usually trades more with one’s friends than one’s adversaries, an aggressive approach to trade will create friction with allies. Thus, President Trump essentially has rejected not only the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but also the more than two-decade old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Criticizing those arrangements is not, however, in itself particularly unique. His Democratic rival in 2016 also launched rhetorical salvos against TPP and TTIP, and Democratic Party leaders have been more critical of NAFTA over the years than most Republicans. In each case, President Trump claimed to be able to negotiate a better deal, though he has not yet delivered on those promises. To this point, he has taken extreme positions that effectively have scuttled renegotiations. Agreement here appears less important to him than demonstrations of strength and resolve, all guided by a confidence that America’s partners will have no place else to go. Time will tell.

America’s allies certainly can do more, both in responding to American concerns about trade practices and also in contributing to the common defense. Their efforts will be for naught, however, if President Trump is unwilling to credit them. Until recently, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Japan’s Shinzo Abe have been considered the most successful in establishing a personal rapport with the President. Nevertheless, they have found that even a positive personal relationship is no guarantee of policy harmony. Neither has been able to convince the President to accept their objections to his positions when it matters. On trade, Macron tried to express European concerns about tariffs both in person and in a recent “terrible” phone call, only to be rebuffed. There is also no evidence that Trump or his team have embraced Macron’s enthusiasm for a stronger European Union—if anything, his disdain for Europe is more pronounced than ever. Abe has run into frustrations both on trade and on geopolitics, with Trump appearing unwilling to modify his tariff proposals or to include Japanese regional concerns in his policies related to North Korea. Meanwhile, Germany’s Angela Merkel, whose relationship with Trump has been frosty from the beginning, has not only failed to influence the President’s thinking on any particular issue, but she also recently has had to listen to the new American Ambassador in Germany express his desire to “empower” her conservative critics at home and in Europe.

Of course, President Trump is not completely insensitive to arguments about enduring friendships and values. His approach to Israel, for example, has been in line with previous Republican administrations, though it is a reversal from the more distant relationship between Washington and Jerusalem during the Obama administration. The Trump administration’s efforts to encourage the silent rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia is also of note, as the administration links that relationship to efforts to build an anti-Iran bloc. The rejection of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran Nuclear Deal, JCPOA) is a repudiation of Obama’s foreign policy and also a blow to cooperation with Europe, but is very much in line with Republican foreign policy on Iran.

A policy that focuses on attacking the status quo has the perverse tendency to be harder on longstanding allies than on new potential partners—even if those new potential partners, like Kim Jong-un, have been long-time adversaries. That same search for dramatic photo opportunities has led past Presidents to Beijing, Hanoi, and Havana. The fact that foreign policy experts tend to cluck their tongues at the abandonment of traditional positions is, if anything, further incentive to do it—it merely proves that the radical mold-breaker is correct. Remember that the same attitude marked people like Ben Rhodes in the Obama administration, who praised their boss for wanting to reach out the hand of cooperation to Cuba and especially to Iran, dismissing the community of foreign policy experts as a “Blob” that did not appreciate the chance to strike out in new directions and whose criticisms could be casually ignored.

Where Trump has most visibly departed most from mainstream Republican foreign policy orthodoxy is in relations with Russia, where the President’s infatuation with strongmen has also led him to adopt a position of uncritical acceptance, even admiration, of Vladimir Putin. In one of the few examples of resistance from his own party, the Republican-led Congress has insisted in maintaining sanctions on Russia. Leaving aside any speculation about baser motives, it certainly does appear that the President prefers to imagine diplomacy as a personal contest between individual leaders, and thus displays an affinity for authoritarians such as Putin or Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, or China’s Xi Jinping. So far, however, that has not led to any dramatic breakthroughs with either Russia or China.

Trump’s focus on individual talks has, however, led him to pursue his negotiations with Kim Jong-un of North Korea. President Trump wants a deal, and there is one to be had, though not necessarily the complete and immediate denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula initially promised. Kim already has wrung a major concession from Trump through his willingness to meet in the first place. Pyongyang has sought parity with Washington for decades with a one-on-one meeting. Previous presidents refused to give the Kim dynasty such a gift without major concessions; Trump has, for better or worse, given that particular trump card away. To paraphrase the late William Safire, I don’t doubt that Trump’s impulses are Nobel.

Nevertheless, this rush to the summit is full of risks. What possible deal could come at this stage? If the only result of this meeting is a promise to meet again, or a deal that offers a watered-down definition of denuclearization, how can the same administration that rejected the JCPOA claim a victory when North Korea is allowed to keep its nuclear weapons? Washington’s allies in Seoul and Tokyo also worry that a deal that works for U.S. but not for them (such as one that limited North Korea’s ICBMs, but allowed other missiles, or one which reduced American commitments to the region in return for promises of denuclearization) would leave them worse off. To this point, the President has not allowed allied concerns to deter him from this meeting, whatever its practical result.

Trump’s preference for drama over detailed policy preparation has dominated the discussion of this summit, which has generated excitement even as expectations for policy breakthroughs have declined. Accepting the idea of meeting on relatively short notice, without the multiple preparatory meetings that usually precede a summit was a break with diplomatic tradition and a clear invitation that his focus was on the event rather than any consequences. His equally abrupt decision to cancel the meeting in response to North Korean rhetoric was at least as surprising, though his personal letter to Kim left the door open to yet another dramatic reversal. As of this writing, the meeting is on again—though viewers are encouraged to stay tuned.

Whatever happens after the Kim-Trump meeting, the true result will not be known until long after the concluding photo op. So much will depend on the longer-term visions that guide each participant, and the strategies they are prepared to follow in pursuit of those visions.

That basic fact must be kept in mind in all discussions of President Trump’s foreign policy. Ultimately, any President’s foreign policy will be judged not on how well it aligns with previous administrations, but on how well it points the way toward a more stable and secure future. With that in mind, it is of limited utility to complain that President Trump has shown insufficient respect for what has come before. Even if that is true, there is enough to criticize in the world as it is to inspire many efforts to change it.

Where one can and should criticize a President is on the question of what vision is being served by his or her allegedly radical acts of liberation. It is easy to praise a President for being an iconoclast if one already rejects the icons being smashed; much less so if you actually think the icons have value. But smashing is not policy; for that, one has to be willing and able to build. As this President should already know, building requires patient work, and overzealous destruction can undermine that work.

Consider an example that intellectual fans of the President should take to heart: Andrew Jackson relished crushing the Bank of the United States and the struggle with banking elites it represented. By shattering the banking system, he bequeathed an unstable financial order to his successor, Martin van Buren, whose presidency came to grief thanks to the Panic of 1837 and the decade-long recession that followed. In more recent times, supporters of President Obama have learned how a President who bases his foreign policy on bold statements and executive decisions, but is unable to secure deeper institutional support for those policies, can see those policies reversed by a successor with different priorities. True policy realignments require boldness at the start, but also an awareness that any change depends on the construction of firm foundations, in which existing institutions and establishments have to be partners.

One of President Trump’s most energetic intellectual acolytes, columnist and classicist Victor Davis Hanson, often praises the President for his rejection of conventional wisdom as if that is a virtue in itself. As befits a scholar of ancient Greece, Hanson has compared the President to Alexander the Great, who famously disdained pointless and laborious efforts to untie the Gordian Knot and simply sliced through it with his sword, fulfilling his destiny to be king of Asia. Hanson’s contempt for Trump’s establishment critics is as clear as his admiration for “brash Alexanders who won’t play by traditional rules and instead dare to pull out their swords.”

Slicing the Gordian Knot remains the favored metaphor of those who believe that major problems have simple solutions if only one is brave enough to take the chance. Yet, even here, the question remains of what happens after that moment of brave decision. Alexander himself died young, having barely any time to relish his conquests before nature struck him down; his empire outlived him by little more than a decade before dissension among the Diadochi led to the outbreak of a generation of civil war. Slicing knots is easier than building a lasting legacy.

Americans are especially fond of boldness and quickly embrace leaders who promise swift and decisive strokes that will change the game completely, whether those strokes come from the right or the left. This understandable impulse, however, depends on an equally common American faith that engagement with the wider world is optional and can be turned on and off at American convenience. That is the essence of the Jacksonian persuasion in foreign affairs, which has experienced such a resurgence in the aftermath of American global over-commitment. After nearly seven decades of managing a world system tailored to American policy preferences, American voters have elected presidents who promised to reduce those commitments and reorganize relationships.

Reorganization, however, cannot happen overnight and will require more than just a single bold stroke or single meeting. The global community of the 21^st century will impinge on the United States, even if Washington no longer has the desire or ability to sit at the center. Some form of engagement will be necessary. Governing is not about simply chalking up success for the next quarter but planning for the next quarter century and beyond. Since I am not a classicist like Professor Hanson, I will make my point with a cultural reference more attuned to my own intellectual background. Drawing on the wisdom of the Eagles, we need to recognize that Geopolitics is like the “Hotel California”—you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. The world will continue to turn; someone or some group of someones will play a leading role in the evolving global order. As a major power, one can choose to play an active role in shaping that order in consultation with friends and allies, or one can choose to isolate oneself and risk being made to submit to the decisions of others. Choosing not to engage is a form of engagement.

Every administration has a finish line, an end, as does every individual life. There is, however, no finish line in the lives of nations (or at least we hope there isn’t). Any administration, no matter how radical it may style itself to be in breaking with the past, is but a chapter in a longer story, and should remember that it has a responsibility not only to its base in the present, but to the future. Donald Trump needs to remember that. More importantly, so do we.

This essay is based on remarks given to the Right-Angle Club, Philadelphia, on May 4, 2018.

About the author:
*Ron Granieri is an FPRI Templeton Fellow, the Executive Director of FPRI’s Center for the Study of America and the West, Editor of the Center’s E-publication The American Review of Books, Blogs, and Bull, and Host of Geopolitics with Granieri, a monthly series of events for FPRI Members.

Source:
This article was published by FPRI.

By Krassen Stanchev*

In April, the World Bank published a working paper titled “Communism as the Unhappy Coming.” It is co-authored by two my fellow Bulgarians, Simeon Djankov (whom I have known well for years; we worked together) and Elena Nikolova. They have concluded that members of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the second-largest church in Christendom, are likely to support left-wing economic policies. The report states that “relative to Catholics, Protestants, and non-believers, those of Eastern Orthodox religion have less social capital and prefer old ideas and safe jobs.” Further, “Orthodoxy is associated with left-leaning political preferences and stronger support for government involvement in the economy.” The report was soon picked up by Bloomberg News and The Economist.

It is probably true that historically Orthodox countries (the study lumps in believers and non-believers alike) would fall into the group of those supporting greater government intervention in the economy. This has been the case in the last decade in Russia and, before 2008, it would have held true for Serbia and Montenegro. But the implied causality between Orthodoxy and economic policy is premised upon the authors’ tacit assumption that many of Orthodox and/or Catholic nations remained Christian throughout their Communist occupation.

Communism as a state ‘religion’

In reality, no Communist government from Pyongyang to Tirana respected religious freedom, or failed to persecute the faithful and expropriate church property. The destruction of the Russian Orthodox Church began at the end of 1917. In January 1918, the Red Army tortured and killed Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev in the first shocking case of Communist terror against the Orthodox Church.

In 1921, Lenin and Trotsky vowed to put the monasteries “under peasants’ and workers’ control.” In reality, Lenin hoped that the looting of churches would bring the government “several hundred million gold rubles” to settle Russia’s foreign debts. Trotsky coined the slogan “turn gold into bread,” as if the funds would fight the famine that the Bolsheviks themselves caused. This policy was “legalized” by a secret decree (“On Liquidation of Church Property”) on January 2, 1922. It failed to bring cash into the treasury, but by the end of 1922 no fewer than 1,200 priests had been executed. Many more were forced to leave Russia or were sent to the Gulags. (For more, see Sean McMeekin, The Russian Revolution: A New Story. New York: Basic Books, 2017, pp. 231-334.) Until the fall of the Soviet Union, most of the surviving churches were turned into warehouses or museums; one of them, the magnificent Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, inspired by St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and known as the Romanovs’ family church, became the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism. Ultimately, as Nikolai Berdyaev noted in The Russian Revolution, Karl Marx was viewed as virtually a god and the State worshiped as instrument of class struggle (and the inflictor of terror). Some countries still have mummified past Communist leaders on display in the main squares of their capitals, and people still stand in line to meet the Communist idols-in-the-flesh.

On pages 11 and 12, the authors describe Lenin’s policy of persecution:

The Soviets deprived the Orthodox church of its legal status and the right to own property. Teaching religion was banned in private and public schools … In response, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow excommunicated the government. The Soviet leadership retaliated by killing many bishops, lower clergy and monks: in the next five years, 28 bishops and 1,215 priests were killed, and 8,000 monks perished in 1922 alone … The number of Russian Orthodox churches dropped from 54,000 in 1914 to 7,500 in 1966.

Yurii Kuznetzov (a Russian economist, mathematician, and thoughtful Orthodox Christian), cited publications reasonably estimating that, from 1917 to 1953, more than half-a-million Soviet Orthodox subjects (members of clergy and their families) became “New Martyrs.” Of these, 80,000 vanished only in 1937. (The persecution of clergy and believers softened in the post-Stalin years but continued unabated until the 1980s.)

The incumbent patriarch of Russia and a number of high-ranking Russian clergy were KGB agents. Their role in facilitating Marxism was recently summarized for the English speaking audience by Spyridon Mitsotakis: They celebrated Stalin as almost equal to Jesus (although they had no icons of him in their churches); 700 Synod members that elected the patriarch of Moscow in 2009 were members of the secret KGB cohort; his predecessor, Patriarch Alexy II, had a KGB codename “Drozdov,” and was awarded the highest honors for his service to the state.

The Bolshevik destruction of Orthodoxy was copied by their postwar marionettes in other countries, the difference being one of degree. Until 2015, 11 out of the 15 members of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, including the patriarch, were collaborators with the Bulgarian analogue of the KGB. (This fact is mentioned in passing by none other than Djankov and Nikolova.) In fact, the planned destruction of religion (and its servants and institutions) was replicated by the Bolsheviks in all Soviet republics (e.g. two Georgian patriarchs were killed by them), and by all Communist countries, irrespective of whether their population belonged to the Orthodox, Roman Catholic (the two Christian churches well covered by Djankov-Nikolova’s paper), Armenian, Muslim, or Buddhist tradition.

The Russian Orthodox Church’s alliance with the government has hardly slackened since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Ten years ago, as part of a Liberty Fund colloquium on “Liberty, Markets, and Orthodox Christianity,” I investigated and found the following: In 48 out of 49 websites affiliated with bishops and archbishops I found links to “partner-organizations” that were extreme nationalists or even quasi-fascist political parties and movements. The only site without such partners was that of the patriarch. This is not to say that there no profound and true Christian theologians and believers in Russia – to the contrary. After a year, I revisited the same list of websites, those links had been removed.

To quote Berdyaev again, “The Orthodox Church had its moments of historical sin, for the most part in connection with its external dependence on the State, but the Church’s teaching, her inner spiritual path was not subject to distortion” (Truth of Orthodoxy, 1952). Djankov and Nikolova refer to many authors who recognize that sin. The problem, however, is the bridge which they construct between the Byzantine imperial era of church dependence on government and contemporary political sentiments.

Comparing bicycles with elephants

Methodologically the authors approach is off-base in this respect: One must be cautious combining opinion polls results (the World Value Surveys, WVS) with the expert assessment of Transition Progress by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), an analogue of the World Bank for the post-Communist countries. These data and indicators cover recent periods and cannot be used, from a methodological standpoint, to claim a causal relationship or even path-dependence (a direct impact of past cultural, political, and policy choices on contemporary affairs) between religious backgrounds and contemporary economic policies.

This runs the risk of comparing bicycles with elephants. Judging from its data archive, the WVS only began polling Orthodox countries after 1995. (Only the Russian Federation was polled earlier, in 1992.) The years of central planning are totally missing from WVS, which developed to the level of global coverage only in the late 1980s. But the Marxists adore using state power as an instrument of class struggle. Gia Jandieri – a Georgian economist, pro-market reformer, and a believer – told this author that, had the Soviet citizens been surveyed in 1970s, they would have been shown to be great supporters of the market economy, as proven by the flourishing black market.

What matters most in evaluating post-Communist countries is when free-market reforms were launched; the intellectual penetration of the Marxism; how quickly and robustly the nation evolved from central planning to the market; and, to a degree, the countries’ geographical distance from Russia and the former Soviet Union (FSU).

In 2015, a special IMF report on the 25-year transition from Communism found the more rapid and sweeping the nation’s first years of post-Communist reforms, the likelier its success and prosperity. In the ex-Yugoslavian countries, Albania, and in the FSU, the ancient regime collapsed two-to-three years later than in countries that later joined the EU, the so-called “New Europe.” By mid-1995, the ex-Yugoslavian states except for Macedonia were marred by wars, which then were repeated in 1999 and 2001. Military conflicts broke out on the periphery of the Russian Federation – such as the so-called Transnistria, the Northern Caucasus, in Nagorno-Karabakh, in 2008 in Georgia (an Orthodox nation), and recently in Eastern Ukraine – and could break out again at any moment.  No wonder that Djankov and Nikolova find out that, on average, Orthodox WVS respondents are less happy than Roman Catholics or Protestants.

The chart below is borrowed from a presentation by Strategic Planning and Analysis Division of USAID to a regional conference in Sarajevo (September 2016). It applies a method similar to that of Djankov-Nikolova, highlighting average scores of all post-Communist countries of Europe and FSU in democratic (Freedom House) and economic (EBRD transition indicators) reforms between 1998 and 2015.

It shows that some “late reformers” like Orthodox Romania and Bulgaria (where rapid liberalization was reversed in the period from 1995 to 1997), or Catholic Croatia (which was effectively at war until 1995) – have tended to move over the years closer to the rapid reformers of Central Europe and the Baltic countries. This happens irrespective of wars, dictators like Milosevic in Serbia or Tudjman in Croatia, NATO’s bombing of Serbia, and of the imperfect political traditions of these countries. On the other hand, Russia and the countries of the former USSR, many of them predominantly Muslim, tend to remain where they were 20 years ago.

Perhaps the reason for this performance has little to do with the nation’s dominant religious tradition and more to do with its economic and political integration with the free and prosperous West. For instance, the ex-Yugoslavian countries and Albania signed free trade agreements with the EU in 2001, thus initiating the longest period of GDP-per-capita growth of their history as sovereign states. But Russia and the members of the Eurasian Customs Union (since 2001) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU, since 2014) demonstrate the opposite trend: Member countries, whether Orthodox or Muslim, lost comparative advantages and income due to Russia’s dependence on natural resources (and, perhaps, political shortsightedness).

History bites

The actual experience of the Orthodox Church, especially during the Ottoman period, is very different from the impression Djankov and Nikolova give their readers.

Orthodox monasteries were economic centers that owned or managed large estates – in that respect, not much different from the Benedictine monasteries of Western Europe. Some evidence of this (treasury rules, accounting books, etc.) may be found in the monasteries of Mount Athos, Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, or Orthodox monasteries in modern-day Kosovo. The monastic institutions in the eastern Mediterranean under Mamluk rule in the eleventh-to-fourteenth century preserved peace, performed rudimentary banking, and served as important educational centers.

The classic work of Traian Stoianovich, an American historian of Serbian decent, The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant (1960) proves that from the fourteenth or fifteenth through the eighteenth century, Orthodox merchants created regional prosperity. They also operated under business-friendly regulations (or “constitutional economic arrangements,” in the parlance of modern institutional economists) of the kings appointed by the sultans. In the nineteenth century, Orthodox merchants invested in the Suez Canal, some of them making a fortune and becoming the founders of the most prosperous families in their respective countries in the second half of the nineteenth century. In the late eighteenth and early to mid-nineteenth century, Balkan Orthodox merchants inspired or even organized successful tax rebellions throughout the empire. In modern Greece, there were at least three low-tax jurisdictions preserved by the Ottoman authority. Ironically, the post-Ottoman Orthodox states’ taxes were much higher than under the sultan.

The government was more active in Eastern European Orthodox countries (leaving aside the Russian Empire, which is a special case) after gaining independence from the Ottomans – but this had nothing to do with religious values. Greece accumulated its government debt and even defaulted during its war of independence in the 1820s – and then three more times in the nineteenth century – mostly due to its enormous public sector. As newly formed countries, they had to build and keep relatively large armies, accumulated government debts, and most of them needed had to pay the High Port for the refugees (Turks and Moslems who left for the Ottoman Empire, or modern-day Turkey) and the infrastructure. For instance, Baron Hirsch Railways of the Ottoman Balkans was commissioned by the sultan’s government to build a railway from Istanbul to Vienna; in order to finish and keep it, the newly independent governments borrowed money and imposed relatively high taxes. On the top of that, Bulgaria had to pay the Russian Empire the costs of the 1877-1878 war that eventually made possible the creation of the Bulgarian state. Paying that sum took about 20 years and, at times, the debt payments consumed as much as 10 percent of its GDP. Due to a deficient border arrangement and inter-Balkan animosities, wars – often financed and inspired by the Russian imperial diplomacy – frequently marked the region’s early history. By the end of World War I, Bulgaria had one of the largest armies in the world, both in terms of regular and conscripted military personnel as share of the population. All of this necessitated high taxes and a larger public sector.

Djankov and Nikolova refer several times to Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Yet Weber was cautious in linking causes with effects. He rather maintained that Protestantism created the climate for modern capitalism and never associated it with a particular country. Twenty-five years ago in his The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Michal Novak proved that this climate also exists in the modern Catholic world.

Few people note that the first counterpart to Weber was written by Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov. His 1909 essay on “The National Economy and the Religious Personality,” first published in English by the Acton Institute, explains how and why Orthodox values fueled the Russian industrial revolution and aided entrepreneurship even under the autocratic rule of the tsars. Bulgakov noted, “Surveys of Russian industrial history, in relation to spiritual biographies and the everyday life and circumstances of pioneer entrepreneurs, would have discovered the religious-ethical foundations of the psychology of Russian industry.”

As recently as 2005 the Rev. Irinej Dobrijevic who is now a Bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitanate of Australia and New Zealand, wrote his own ground-breaking vision of “The Orthodox Spirit and the Ethic of Capitalism.” Contrary to our authors, Father Irinej collects convincing set of arguments that “Orthodox Christianity does not uphold an economic system, which rewards laziness and encourages the poor to depend upon handouts from the state.”

The World Bank paper by Simeon Djankov and Elena Nikolova misses the important contributions made by the Orthodox values, faith, and institutions to the development of free markets and the liberal democratic order. In that sense, Orthodox believers are not significantly different from the rest of Christian believers.

About the author:
*Krassen Stanchev is a professor in Public Choice and Macroeconomic Analysis of Politics at Sofia University in Bulgaria, where he also teaches the history of economics at the post-graduate level. He is also CEO of KC 2 Ltd. and board chairman, founder, and former executive director of IME, Bulgaria’s first independent, free-market think thank. He is a former member and committee chairman of Bulgaria’s Constitutional Assembly (1990-1991), and a principle drafter of reforms leading Bulgaria from central planning to a market economy.

Source:
This article was published by the Acton Institute.