In 2013, when I was 13, one of the oldest comedy TV programs in Russia released a sketch in which a group of musicians performed a version of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” satirizing the country.

The lyrics went: “The roads in this country are like cars in this country. Like the salaries, the football, the communal services, and, of course, the cinema …” When Freddie Mercury sang “God knows,” it was twisted to sound like the Russian equivalent of “shit.”

As the audience laughed, another actor approached the band to tell them to stop singing the song because “respected people are sitting in the hall.” He added, “Be grateful that at least Putin is not.” One of the musicians exclaimed, in shock, “What? Putin is not?”— a common Russian sentence construction that can either mean something isn’t present, or that it does not exist at all. “I told you!” he said. “He doesn’t exist.” The audience burst out with laughter.

My mom and I saw the sketch on TV when it came out. We loved it. When she took me to school by car and “I Want to Break Free” played on the radio, we loudly sang “our” version.

The following year, 2014, Russia invaded Donbass.

I do not remember much about my feelings about the invasion back then. I was a teenager concerned with two things: my weight and final exams. But even so, I could sense clearly that a younger version of myself who had laughed at silly jokes about Putin was gone.

The only political mood I could count on then was the anticipation of change. After there were large-scale protests against election fraud at the Kremlin’s Bolotnaya Square in 2012, the adults around me repeated again and again, “We just need to wait a little more.” They believed that a future of democracy and free elections was near.

But it wasn’t. Even before I became old enough to really recognize myself as part of the political process, the patience became sticky and suffocating. Now, it’s hard for me to believe that a 13-year-old me laughed at opposition jokes about Putin on the main state TV channel. I want to tell her, even though it would be upsetting, “Remember how people would point out that you had spent your whole life under Putin, as though it were hilarious? Well, I have news — I’m 23 now, and it’s not funny anymore.”

I started to see the reality of things in 2018, when activist and opposition politician Alexei Navalny was banned from participating in the presidential race. A famous photo of Navalny and his team walking through the center of Moscow to register for the elections will forever remain in my memories. Nikolskaya Street, where the photo was taken, is always bright and filled with tourists. I often walked there alone during my first year at university, when I didn’t know anybody in Moscow yet and needed to feel crowds around me.

It was meaningful to me that Navalny was trying to participate in the election as an opposition candidate the same year I finished high school and started my bachelor’s degree. At the time, it seemed like new futures were stretching out ahead for both me and my country.

Instead, it was a lesson that my childhood was over. That was the last year when Navalny’s participation in the presidential elections could at least be imagined or contemplated.

I finally realized that changes would not come through electoral politics during the September 2021 municipal elections, when Russian cities elected their local deputies. One of the most prominent politicians was Mikhail Lobanov, an opposition candidate with a leftist agenda and a young team. In his district, Lobanov was ahead of his pro-government competitor by 12,000 votes. But then, Russian authorities introduced “electronic voting,” which opened up the possibility of fraud on an even larger scale than the ballot stuffing protested back in 2012.

According to the results of the electronic vote—which were announced at the very end—Lobanov’s rival received 20,000 votes out of nowhere, to win by several percentage points. Independent media published lengthy articles about mass falsifications.

It was those municipal elections—small in the scope of the country—that secured absolute control for Putin. From then on, voting results could literally be drawn on a computer screen.

It’s 2024 now. Navalny is dead, and Russia is engaged in a large-scale war in Ukraine. Russian state media insist that the government was not behind his death because “it would be unprofitable for Putin to kill Navalny in prison before the presidential elections”— as though voters actually affect the elections’ outcome. None of the opposition candidates condemning the war in Ukraine were allowed to participate in this year’s presidential elections.

None of this was a surprise. But it makes me angry that I’m not surprised by anything.

Instead of the optimism of 10 years ago, I feel meaninglessness. And I’m not alone. When I interviewed 18-year-olds who will vote for the first time in 2024, they said things like, “I am sure that my vote will not change anything, we all know the result,” and “There can be only one outcome of the elections.” For them, hoping for change feels irrational and forbidden, but still desired — like wanting to eat delicious fruit that gives you an allergic reaction.

Still, when the anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin tried to become a presidential candidate this year, thousands of people in different cities stood in line in the cold to sign for his nomination. They didn’t necessarily support him as an individual but wanted to express their opposition to the war through legal means. A huge campaign collected more than 100,000 signatures, even though many people participating knew that the outcome would be the authorities rejecting Nadezhdin’s candidacy.

What was all their work for? Was it meaningless?

I think a lot about the conversations that people in those lines may have had. I remember how I used to go to the court hearings of political prisoners in Russia—not only to show solidarity but also because people who gathered near the courts became friends. The hearings were spaces of political communication, even if they had no real power or purpose.

Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said that “meaninglessness shouldn’t lead us to give away all subjectivity to others.” These words resonate with me. In the face of Russia’s anti-democratic acts and governance, I feel an urge to dissolve my voice because my vote means nothing. But that would be wrong.

For many Russians, the tedious wait for change has proven too frustrating. When nothing changes we gradually lose our political drive, deciding that our actions are meaningless.

But politics is not just what appears in history textbooks—key events and major actors. Growing up in Russia under Putin, I learned that you can’t wait for politics. Now I think my main political actions happen when I interact with other people, and when I care about other people. That could be outside the courts, at rallies, and in the living room with my friends when we argue about colonialism in Russian regions. It’s also when I comfort my mom, because she feels lonely in Russia and hates to see the pro-war posters on the streets of our city.

Over the weekend, the opposition conducted a “Noon against Putin” campaign. It asked people to come to polling stations at a specific time — 12 p.m.— to either spoil their ballot or choose any candidate other than Putin. The main value of the campaign was to give people the opportunity to see others who hold similar beliefs and anger. To feel solidarity and their own agency.

I think this is especially important for 18-year-old voters who have no illusions about a democratic future and who, like me, have spent their childhood under Putin. I once wanted to warn my younger self that nothing would change. Now, I think it’s better to say that waiting for change isn’t the main point. It’s also about forging relationships that turn into like-minded community. Perhaps, in doing so, we will create bonds on which to build new political hopes and democratic futures.

The post Seeking a Politics of Solidarity in Putin’s Russia appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

In December 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It had long been clear that he had plans to aim for his fifth term in office. Most people in Russia believed he would secure a victory, and that the other candidates served merely to legitimize the electoral process. For Russian authorities, demonstrating majority support for Putin has long been the objective of elections—this time, they were aiming for him to win 80% of the votes. The question was, would anyone be allowed to put up a real challenge, and would voters dare to support them?

The men who initially declared that they would run for president in the March 2024 elections were all establishment candidates who either tacitly or openly backed Putin remaining in power. There was no one who opposed Putin’s war with Ukraine.

Then, Yekaterina Duntsova, a journalist and former Duma deputy in Rzhev, a town west of Moscow, unexpectedly decided to run as an independent candidate. She quickly gained support throughout Russia thanks to her strong antiwar stance and criticism of the country’s direction over the past decade. But the Central Election Commission (CEC), the federal body that organizes and oversees elections, rejected Duntsova’s registration as a candidate in December 2023, citing numerous errors in her submitted documents.

The following month, the CEC approved the documents of another anti-war candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, who was nominated by the Civic Initiative party. Nadezhdin is known for his liberal views and has participated in elections at various levels for almost 35 years. His presidential platform focused on peace, reconciliation, and justice, with a commitment to resolving conflicts through negotiations. He supported holding referendums on disputed territories between Russia and Ukraine. He also emphasized the need to strengthen international relations, release political prisoners, and repeal discriminatory laws against organizations and individuals, including the LGBT community.

The election commission approved his initial documents, but Nadezhdin needed to collect 100,000 signatures from Russian voters from different regions to get on the ballot. Inspired by Nadezdin’s platform, I decided to join his team as a volunteer at a signature collection site in St. Petersburg in January 2024. I am an environmental sociologist and had never before been involved in politics. But Nadezhdin’s emphasis on peace resonated with me, and I was eager to make a difference.

On January 13, Nadezhdin arrived in St. Petersburg to engage with citizens at a public event in one of the city’s business centers. The atmosphere was electrifying, resembling the kind of unauthorized rally strictly prohibited in Russia. Nadezhdin delivered a speech and Q&A session that gave people the opportunity to express their views on the Putin regime and the future of Russia through an open microphone session.

I spent 12 days collecting signatures. Initially, it was slow: only a few individuals were willing to sign in support of Nadezhdin. But as the submission deadline approached, there was a significant surge in participation, particularly among young people, ages 18 to 25. Many were spurred on by exiled political players like Maxim Kats and the TV channel Dozhd, also known as TV Rain, as well as social media. This wave of enthusiasm rapidly spread across Russia, and long queues formed at Nadezhdin signature collection sites throughout the country.

By January 21, the waiting time at the Nadezhdin signature collection site in St. Petersburg was 2 to 4.5 hours. The collection site operated around the clock, spending 9 to 10 hours each day collecting signatures. At night, volunteers did quality checks to ensure that people’s handwriting would satisfy the CEC’s intricate and complicated rules and regulations.

According to the CEC’s regulations, Nadezhdin had to collect signatures from at least 40 regions of Russia, with each region limited to a maximum of 2,500 signatures. After our signature collection site surpassed this requirement, quickly collecting 5,000 signatures from residents of St. Petersburg, we shifted to only collecting signatures from people who were officially registered in other regions, as indicated by the official stamp in their passports. Many people were disappointed to be turned away.

On January 31, Boris Nadezhdin submitted 105,000 signatures—the maximum permitted—to the CEC. He had managed to collect 211,000 signatures in Russia alone, and 11,000 more from abroad.

The volunteers who collected signatures in St. Petersburg had doubts about his chances of being registered, but remained hopeful. One of them shared their thoughts in our volunteer group chat:

“Today, at noon, I stood on the street with frozen hands, scrolling through the news channels’ feeds, anxiously waiting for any updates from the Central Election Commission. It’s disheartening, but not surprising. However, I refuse to lose hope or give up, and I wish the same for everyone.”

Nevertheless, on February 8, 2024, the CEC refused to register Boris Nadezhdin’s candidacy. They justified their decision by declaring that more than 5% of the submitted signatures were invalid. Nadezhdin appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, but they rejected the appeal.

My fellow volunteers and I were deeply disappointed by the outcome. “Some people may have questioned the purpose of collecting signatures for Nadezhdin, believing that the CEC would find faults anyway. However, pay attention—the CEC officially recognized that 95,000 signatures are clean,” someone wrote in our chat. “Everyone saw the queues! There are a lot of people from different walks of life who are against the current system, and we showed that there are a lot of us.”

Just over a week later, another candidate for the presidency Vladislav Davankov from the New People party announced at his meetings with voters that he is for negotiations with Ukraine. Simultaneously, the government announced the death of another Putin opponent, Alexei Navalny. Nadezhdin attended his funeral, as did Duntsova.

The Russian government understands that millions of its citizens oppose Putin. Now, the whole world has seen that there are many people in Russia striving for peace, change, and a more inclusive future.

The post On the Campaign Trail With a Russian Antiwar Candidate appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

The Russian war in Ukraine is a calamity—for the people suffering through it, for Ukraine, for Russia, for Europe (which has lost its strategic compass), for China (which needs stability to develop faster than its competitors), and for most of the world (due to the energy and food crises it is triggering).

But it is by no means a calamity for the United States.

Please forgive the complexity of the argument that follows. But geopolitics, which I study, addresses complexity. And this war has taken geopolitics backwards.

When a war breaks out, we rediscover how, as human beings, “we have not yet crept on all fours from the barbaric period of our history,” as Leon Trotsky wrote at the outbreak of the Balkan wars 110 years ago. We also fall back, in a Pavlovian way, into a sort of blind herding together, developed in the age of caves. The will to understand, when it exists, is overwhelmed by the need to take sides, to uncritically merge behind the dominant opinion.

Recently, an erudite Italian newspaper cast blame on “demagogues of complexity”—those who, instead of cheering for one side or the other, take the trouble to delve into complexity to try to understand reality. The thesis would be that, in this war, the thing does not need to be excavated: There is an aggressor and there is the victim, and therefore we must take sides.

Simple, linear, incontrovertibly human. It is a pity that the same newspaper, in 2003, sided with American (and British, and Italian, and Spanish, etc.) aggressors against the attacked Iraqis. It is a pity that the world is full of assailed peoples that we forget to defend and support. It is a pity that, in Russia, the overwhelming majority of the population believes that the Ukrainians are the aggressors and the Russians the victim, and that this “special military operation” is an act of self-defense.

If one does not face complexity, one is a victim of propaganda: a willing victim—because one wants to shelter in the herd when danger approaches—but still a victim.

Russians have never wondered why they “lost” Ukraine and are now told they must have a “military operation” to reclaim it. They’ve never examined why Ukrainian ruling circles felt the need to slide towards Europe and NATO protection. If the Kremlin had tried to answer these questions, perhaps all the miscalculations that led to a war that is a strategic catastrophe for Russia would never have been made.

In recent decades, the Russians have tried to keep Ukraine in their sphere of influence by dangling carrots: reciprocal supply chains established in the Soviet era, common historical-cultural roots, and the project of the Eurasian Union, “an essential component of Great Europe … from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” as Putin wrote in October 2011. Had it joined, Ukraine “could have integrated into Europe more quickly and from a stronger position.” In other words: Alone, Ukraine would have been treated poorly, but together with Russia, it would be received with the honors due a great power.

Except—and this is the crux of the matter—Russia is not a great power. By 2014, its GDP had collapsed, dragged by a steep fall in gas and oil prices, only to return to the level of ten years earlier in 2020. For Ukrainians, choosing a modest Russian loan over an association agreement with the European Union no longer made sense (if it ever had); when pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych chose the Russian loan, it triggered the Maidan revolt.

Moscow responded by pulling out the stick: annexing the Crimea and creating two puppet republics carved into the old Soviet Rust Belt, the Donbass. It does not take great skills of psychological penetration to understand that Russia had lost whatever sympathy it still enjoyed in Ukraine, and why the new regime in Kyiv would seek economic, political, and military protection elsewhere. It does not take great psychological penetration skills to understand why Ukraine preferred to forge an agreement with an economic bloc (the U.S., the EU, and the U.K.)) with a combined GDP of almost $40 trillion (in 2020) over doing so with Russia, with its GDP of just $1.5 trillion (a little less than South Korea, a little more than Spain).

From a geopolitical point of view, Russia is stuck in a vicious circle: In order to develop economically, it must recover its imperial dimension; but, in order to succeed in that, it has to spend resources that it does not have.

To play in a bigger league, Russia generally bluffs, giving the rest of the world an impression of power. When it succeeds, it is not only thanks to disproportionate military strength and elusive diplomacy, but also because its rivals almost never ask to see what cards it’s holding.

In the days preceding the invasion of Ukraine, massive military mobilization and deliberately misleading communication seemed to portend success: Russia was again, overwhelmingly, at the center of the world—feared and flattered. The control of Crimea and of the two puppet republics seemed likely to be recognized (de facto, even if not de jure). Finally, NATO, strongly divided, would most likely have accepted (more likely without saying it) the outcome to lighten its presence at the borders of the former USSR.

All analysts then skeptical about the possibility of a Russian attack (including the present author) were led by this simple observation: If Russia invades, it risks not only losing what it has, in actuality, already obtained, but much more. But obviously, Moscow wanted more: to regain control of all of Ukraine. It goes without saying that the unconditional surrender of Ukraine could not be obtained at the negotiating table; not even the two NATO countries (France and Germany) most open to Moscow’s needs would have allowed it. Military action thus became the only possible recourse.

But this time, as happens at the poker table, when you have very little or nothing in your hand, you lose your entire stake.

With the invasion, Moscow achieved a long series of results opposite to what it had, at least in words, set for itself: It created a stronger national cohesion in Ukraine, losing most of its residual support among the Russian-speaking population. It reunified and reinvigorated NATO, labelled as “brain dead” by Emmanuel Macron a couple of years ago, increasing the alliance’s popularity throughout Europe, and prompting Finland and Sweden to want to join. The Russian war caused a surge in NATO’s military presence on the borders of the former USSR; allowed Germany to accelerate its rearmament; stimulated the opening of a debate on nuclear weapons in Japan; alienated many in China, Iran, and India (even if the Chinese, Iranians, and Indians cannot say it openly); alarmed Turkey; and was heavily condemned by the U.N. General Assembly (141 in favor, 4 against, and 35 abstentions).

Last but not least, Russia showed the world its embarrassing military paucity. It devalued all the bluff of armaments, the alleged backbone of the illusory Russian power.

All these consequences make the United States the real, and only, winner of this war, at least at the current stage of the conflict in early May.

Thanks to the war in Ukraine,  the United States suddenly regained international influence that had been fading for decades: forcing France to put its dreams of “European independence” back in the icebox; obtaining increased military commitment from allies that Americans have sought for years; acquiring valuable new allies on the Baltic front; improving relations with Turkey after two decades of coldness; increasing the importance of the U.S. on the Pacific front and East Asia in general; and being able to exploit new frictions between rivals, including the Chinese, Iranians, and Russians.

China’s leaders are unhappy not only because the Russians proved unreliable (they have always known this), but because of the soaring prices of raw materials and because, as good investors, they need stability and order. And if it is true that Putin, in his visit to Xi Jinping for the Winter Olympics, really failed to warn him of what was to come, then China’s resentment of Russia is multiplying.  Moreover, if the common tactical objective of Moscow and Beijing is the weakening of the United States, this war is instead strengthening it.

And, in Tehran, Iran’s leaders are unhappy because the war has blocked the signing of a new nuclear deal, which Iran desperately needs.

The United States has a vested interest in the continuation of this war, possibly at low intensity. But the Russian war on Ukraine will not solve America’s problems. The war cannot suddenly or definitively reverse the erosion of American influence, after decades of relative decline.

China will not give up its strategic goals, nor will Europe: The unity of the anti-Russian front on the Continent strictly depends what happens in Ukraine, and therefore is provisional. Electoral victories of Russia’s friends Victor Orbán in Hungary and Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia indicate that their populations were not upset by the invasion of Ukraine.

In France, lines of communication with Russia have never been interrupted, and if Paris found a pretext to reactivate its traditional strategy of attention toward Moscow, Italy and Greece would fall into line, and Germany would be forced to choose between the U.S. on one hand and Europe (and gas) on the other.

And in the wake of success, the U.S. runs the risk that it, too, may overplay its hand. By continuing  to bully China and India, it can only reconsolidate the now loosened ties between these two countries and Russia.

Worse still: Many in Washington, blinded by ideology, fail to understand how strategically precious Russia is for American foreign policy. A weak but intact Russia can divide Europe in useful ways, as during the Cold War, and serve as a counterweight to China. But many in Washington still think of Russia as the “evil empire,” deserving to be wiped once and for all from the geopolitical map of the world. If such ideological and emotional considerations prevail over geopolitical calculations, the consequences for international relations will be disastrous for everyone. But it would be much worse for the United States, which has more power to lose than any other country.

In an ideal world, geopolitics would be useless. In the real world, it is indispensable. In a theater of incessant and multiple conflicts between interests, it is geopolitics that delves into complexity and identifies the limits of action: what is possible and what is impossible to do—or, better still, what is impossible to do without hurting oneself unnecessarily.

For Russia or the United States or any other country, any attempt to make ideological and emotional aspirations prevail over the geopolitical calculation of constraints is a sure recipe for disaster.

The post Is the U.S. Winning Russia’s War in Ukraine? appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

In particular, the notable victory of Emmanuel Macron in France led many to conclude that the populist tide had turned. Exceeding all expectations, the young centrist not only claimed the French presidency, but also managed to secure a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections on June 18.

While his success is remarkable by any measure, there is little reason for anti-populists to celebrate, as it is possible that Macron’s triumph may end up fuelling more populism.

For starters, it’s important not to exaggerate popular enthusiasm for a Macron presidency. His support base during the presidential elections grew primarily out of opposition to Le Pen. According to an Ipsos poll, more than 40 percent of the people who voted for Macron in the second round did so in opposition to the far-right leader.

Second, Macron’s triumph during the parliamentary elections, which was widely described as a “landslide victory,” was tempered by low voter turnout. In the second round of the two-round legislative elections, fewer than 45 percent of registered voters showed up at the polls—a record low in the history of the Fifth Republic. While there are different ways of interpreting dwindling participation, the high rates of abstention (coupled with spoiled ballots and unregistered voters) suggest that popular support for Macron’s movement may be less strong than it seems.

Third, it is easy to forget that Marine Le Pen secured 10.6 million votes for her right-wing populist Front National (FN) party, thereby nearly doubling the number of votes her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, won in 2002. This means that even though she was defeated in the decisive round of the elections, about one in three French voters backed Le Pen.

As Harvard’s Yascha Mounk has pointed out, populist candidates fared particularly well among the young; in the first round of the Présidentielle, half of the voters between the ages of 18 to 24 supported either Marine Le Pen or the far-leftist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, while just one in five of the voters over age 70 did. These young voters are not going to go away anytime soon.

All of this is to say that Macron has not flushed away populism; his victory has merely served to keep it at bay. Populism is a very complex phenomenon, and the idea of a “populist wave” flooding Europe, is misleading at best. The political scientist Larry Bartels has written that the “wave” of populist sentiment is better understood “as a reservoir—and its political potential is still largely submerged.”

On the one hand, the fate of French populism depends on whether the Front National can re-mobilize lingering populist sentiment. To do so, the party will need to overcome internal turmoil and reinvent itself. On the other hand, it hinges on the success of Emmanuel Macron. Unless the French President manages to address the underlying causes that fueled populism, these tendencies are likely to resurface.

It’s also doubtful that Macron’s brand of centrism can present a lasting antidote to populism. Similar to Barack Obama in 2008, the newly-elected French President ran on a platform of optimism that promised hope and progress in the guise of political reform. In the United States, Obama’s hopeful vision was followed by popular disillusionment that helped pave the way for Donald Trump.

Macron’s strand of centrism is perhaps best described by what the American critical theorist Nancy Fraser has dubbed “progressive neoliberalism” in that it conflates “truncated forms of emancipation and lethal forms of financialization.” In other words, his agenda combines a socially progressive vision and economically neoliberal policies. Indeed, Macron has sought to appeal to voters from both sides of the political spectrum by proposing a combination of liberal and social reforms, and—perhaps more importantly—by insisting that he is both right and left (“et droite, et gauche”). This “middle of the road” strategy comes with the risk of pleasing neither and upsetting both camps.

It could even further stoke populism. In Western Europe, some of the strongest populist movements emerged in countries with centrist coalition governments. In the Netherlands for instance, the anti-Muslim populist Pim Fortuyn rose to fame in the early 2000s after eight years of “purple” coalition governments between social democrats and liberals. In general, when parties from different ideological traditions converge at the center to govern together, it frees up space at the political extremities. It also forces parties to agree on a lowest common denominator, which often disillusions voters who feel that they are not being offered a real choice.

Of course, the French political context is different in that it operates under a majoritarian voting system, which generally favors bigger parties, rather than a parliamentary one, which produces smaller parties and thus makes coalition governments more likely. But these systemic differences haven’t spared France from the consequences of centrism.

For evidence, look no further than Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, who was able to advance to the second round in the 2002 presidential elections after half a decade of cohabitation featuring a conservative president and a socialist prime minister. The mushy coalition policies that grew out of this time played their part in generating a political backlash. Macron’s centrism could have a similarly galvanizing effect in that he may end up stoking populism by alienating the hard left as well as the far right, who, after all, represent a sizeable portion of the electorate.

The hopes and expectations for Macron’s presidency are sky high. Macron’s success depends on whether he can implement his ambitious agenda. This will prove challenging—not in the least because he is backed by an inexperienced parliament composed of many political novices. And even if he pushes through legislation, it’s possible his reforms will simply end up reinforcing the status quo. Although he managed to present himself as an outsider, it’s worth remembering that he served as economy minister under his predecessor, François Hollande, for two years.

But if he finds a way to succeed, it wouldn’t be the first time that Macron has surprised. Indeed, if there is anything we can conclude from these past years, it is that electoral politics in Western democracies have become more volatile and less predictable.

The post Emmanuel Macron’s Centrist Victory May Only Add Fuel to the Populist Fire appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

These reactions are predictable because we have heard them all before. Back in the 1980s, the trade villain de jour was Japan. (China was just emerging into world markets.) Proposals to address trade deficits with Japan provoked the same reactions from professional economists and foreign policy experts that we hear today.

But there was one exception in the 1980s. On May 3, 1987, famed financier Warren Buffett published an essay in The Washington Post entitled “How to Solve Our Trade Mess Without Ruining Our Economy.” His solution was thoughtful and new.

He proposed a market-based system similar to the “cap-and-trade” arrangements currently in use to limit greenhouse gas and other pollutants. Very simply, Buffett suggested that for each dollar of exports from the U.S., the exporter would receive a government voucher entitling the bearer to import a dollar’s worth of goods or services.

The vouchers could be used directly by the exporter or sold to some third party (an importer). That is, there would be an open market for vouchers. But, since no one could import without the requisite vouchers, the value of imports would be limited to the value of exports. U.S. trade with the entire world would be balanced.

The idea seemed to find a middle ground in the arguments over trade deficits. It was neither protectionist (it included no tariffs or quotas) nor did it involve Japan-bashing (the analog of today’s China-bashing). But Buffett’s piece, after causing a brief flurry of interest among the D.C. chattering class, was quickly forgotten.

Why? Perhaps it was because Buffett was not an academic economist, so his view could be dismissed as an amateur’s musings. Perhaps it was because there wasn’t enough of a consensus that a trade deficit is a problem. Perhaps it was because even among those inclined to be more worried about deficits, Buffett’s proposal was seen as a solution to a problem that would soon go away without further action. At the time, the dollar’s value in international currency markets happened to be falling. It was easy to argue that a declining dollar would correct the trade imbalance by making American goods more affordable in world markets.

But the problem didn’t go away. Moreover, within a few years, China joined Japan in running large trade surpluses with the U.S. Now, when Trump’s complaints are discussed, we again hear that the problem with China is yesterday’s issue, and that the problem will soon disappear, as wages in China go up, along with the value of its currency. But it didn’t in the 1980s and it won’t now. Which is why we should revive Buffett’s idea.

The problem of America’s trade imbalance isn’t specific to one or two countries—our nation runs a massive “$500 billion net export deficit” with the rest of the world.

There are two ways such a significant trade imbalance hurts us. The first—but lesser—element is the displacement of American manufacturing jobs. That issue is clearly the one with the most political salience. Manufacturing would definitely benefit from a correction of the U.S. trade imbalance, but trade isn’t entirely to blame for the fact that only about one in ten U.S. jobs are in that sector nowadays (down from three out of ten after World War II); technology has played a major role in that downsizing as well.

The second, more significant if less politically salient problem with all those deficits is that it forces the country to sell off its assets and/or run up its debt—which is just what the U.S. has been doing for decades. In one way or another, this generation’s imbalanced consumption will be paid for by future generations. There is a fundamental unfairness in that intergenerational transfer which correcting the trade balance would alleviate.

The Buffett proposal addresses both these economic ailments. The Buffett system also doesn’t require negotiating “great” trade deals. And there is no need to bash any country in pursuit of such deals; the impersonal voucher market brings about the zero-trade balance, not some hardline negotiation. And if any one country tries to grab a bigger share of the U.S. market for imports through tactics such as currency manipulation, it can only do so by reducing the market shares of other countries. So the pressure is on those other countries, not the U.S., to enforce rules of fair trading. If you’re an American diplomat worried about the international political effects of China-bashing, the Buffett plan is ideal for you.

But what if you’re a professional economist worried about “protectionism”? Your first reaction to the Buffett plan is likely to be that, given the current trade imbalance, the vouchers amount to a subsidy to exports and a tax on imports. You want to holler protectionism! But instead take a deep breath and think it through.

The Buffett voucher plan is equivalent to resetting the dollar exchange rate to a level that would bring about balanced trade. It is equivalent to a sufficient devaluation of the dollar to accomplish that end. Note that under current arrangements, the dollar regularly goes up and down in currency markets although it has never been low enough to create a zero trade balance (exports = imports). Is every drop in the dollar’s value a move into protection? Is every dollar appreciation a move toward free trade? Such up-and-down labeling makes no sense. Indeed, one nice feature of the Buffett plan is that you could in principle lower or eliminate remaining U.S. tariffs and other trade barriers and still end up—due to the voucher system—with balanced trade.

In short, it’s time to dust off the Buffett plan of three decades ago before the U.S. embarks on a road to frictions with China and other trade partners. Sometimes, when it comes to people and ideas, there is wisdom in the old.

The post The Cap-and-Trade Solution to Our Trade Dispute With China appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

California is trapped—caught in the dangerous space between two menacingly authoritarian regimes that want to fight each other.

One regime is headquartered in Beijing, and the other is about to take power in Washington D.C. But when viewed from the Golden State, it’s striking how much they have in common.

Both are fervently nationalist, full of military men, and so bellicose they are spooking neighbors and allies. Both, while nodding to public opinion, express open contempt for human rights and undermine faith in elections and the free press. Both promote hatred of minorities (anti-Tibetan and anti-Uighur stances in China; anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim stances in the U.S.).

And both regimes are captained by swaggering men (President Xi Jinping in China; President-elect Donald Trump in U.S.) who tend to their own cults of personality and pose as corruption fighters while using their power to enrich their own families.

Most frighteningly for Californians, both regimes seem to see advantage in escalating conflict with the other. Both leaders have encouraged hatred of the other’s citizens (Xi has embraced ultranationalists who compare American treatment of the Chinese to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews, while Trump has called China a “deceitful culture”). The incoming American administration is threatening to raise tariffs and label China a currency manipulator, actions that would likely start a trade war. The Chinese administration is provoking confrontations in the South China Sea while the new American strongman embraces Taiwan—actions that could start a real war.

All this leaves California with the enormous challenge of navigating U.S.-China tensions in a way that protects our people, our economy, and our values. And that will require tricky diplomacy that doesn’t take sides, for we need to maintain relations with both regimes. After all, we live under the laws of the United States, but are irretrievably linked to China, a vital partner in the trade, culture, technology and education sectors that distinguish California in the world.

A sustained conflict between China and the U.S. could produce all kinds of new restrictions on the flow of money and people, with devastating results for California. Our public universities rely both on federal funds from D.C. and top-dollar, out-of-state tuition fees from Chinese students to subsidize the education of Californians. So any Trump restrictions on foreign visitors—or retaliatory Chinese limits on overseas study and travel—could blow up the University of California’s business model. It also would damage the University of Southern California, the city of L.A.’s largest private sector employer, which heavily recruits Chinese students.

Our state’s signature industries—Silicon Valley and Hollywood—depend on consumers who live under both regimes. And our most promising ventures—from virtual reality and artificial intelligence technologies to major developments (like the San Francisco Shipyards in Hunter’s Point, to just name one)—rely on our ability to bring together manufacturers, investors and technologists from China and the U.S. In a trade war, both regimes could decimate innovation and development with restrictions on foreign investments.

And with both regimes so quick to escalate nationalist rhetoric, it’s quite possible that both Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans in California could become targets of bigotry and hate crimes. Our housing market relies on Chinese buyers, who spend an estimated $9 billion a year on homes here. A backlash against Chinese investors buying homes (and using them only part of the year) could produce discrimination and hurt our housing market, which in turn would damage the already underfunded public schools our taxes support.

How then can California handle such a conflict?

First, by protecting our people (especially Californians of Chinese ancestry) and our institutional connections to China with the same fervor the California government is rallying to protect our undocumented immigrants against Trump’s threats of mass deportations. This California diplomacy will be especially hard given the hyper-sensitivity of the autocrats in Beijing and D.C. to the slightest of slights; just as Trump lashes out at Saturday Night Live parodies, Xi and his loyalists see the Kung Fu Panda films as American warfare against them.

And, second, by reminding both regimes—in friendly but firm ways—that we are opposed to conflict because the U.S. and China need each other more than they appear willing to acknowledge.

Californians who doubt this would do well to consult John Pomfret’s masterful new book, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present. Pomfret, an American journalist long posted in China, employs telling details (the tea thrown into Boston Harbor was from Xiamen; an 1860s California attorney general campaigned against Chinese prostitutes while importing his own) to show how profoundly the two countries have shaped one other’s development, and just how vital their relationship has become to the world.

“The two nations have feuded fiercely and frequently, yet, irresistibly and inevitably, they are drawn back to one another,” he writes. “The result is two powers locked in an entangling embrace that neither can quit.”

California’s role in this difficult period should be to tell the story of its own deep ties to China, while serving as a model for a productive relationship, argues Matt Sheehan, author of the forthcoming book Chinafornia: Working with Chinese Investors, Immigrants and Ideas on U.S. Soil.

Sheehan, who also publishes the weekly Chinafornia Newsletter and provides communications consulting for Chinese and U.S. companies, says now is an important time for California officials and businesses to seek out areas of productive cooperation with Chinese counterparts, especially in areas like manufacturing and fighting climate change.

“I think of California as a living laboratory for a more practical, productive version of U.S.-China relations,” he says.

But not all collaborations with China would be helpful. Our technologies companies shouldn’t be aiding the U.S. surveillance state or assisting the Chinese government in suppressing human rights, as Facebook is reportedly doing by developing a newsfeed that would empower censors.

We also shouldn’t play to anti-Chinese prejudice, like some California unions have done in opposing trade agreements and advancing union organizing. One noxious—if ridiculous—example is a current push by the hotel workers’ union to block the sale of the Westin Hotel in Long Beach (where the union has an organizing campaign) to Chinese interests on grounds that it’s so close to that city’s port that Chinese ownership would threaten national security.

One possible model for California’s strategy going forward might be Anson Burlingame, whom President Lincoln dispatched to Beijing to represent the U.S. during the Civil War. Burlingame’s approach, as described by Pomfret, was to commiserate with the Chinese (we have our terrible rebellion with the South, you with the Taipings) as a basis for collaboration. His work ultimately produced the Burlingame Treaty, which banned discrimination against Chinese workers in America, welcomed Chinese students to U.S. educational institutions, and opened the way for Chinese immigrants to become American citizens.

Today, Burlingame’s accomplishments are mostly forgotten, but his name belongs to a highly desirable suburb in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region boasting one of America’s most prosperous populations of Chinese Americans.

The post How California Can Survive the U.S.-China War appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Two of the U.K.’s largest immigration detention centers are at Heathrow Airport. Catch the U3 bus from Terminal 1, get off at the Hongkong Chinese Restaurant, and keep walking. There they stand, side-by-side, just past the Sheraton.

Wherever you’re from, you’ll find fellow citizens here locked up in their cells much of the time. I’ve met fellow Americans on my visits. People who have no papers, the wrong papers, or were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nobody inside the center I visit knows how long they will have to stay. They could be released or deported tomorrow. They could be made to wait a bit longer. Hormoz has been here for more than two years, as various branches of government, different embassies, and others bat his case for asylum back and forth.

What to do to pass the time, to feel at home, to find a way out? People tell stories. As a historian and author, I can relate to that. Their stories are always more dramatic than mine; clinging to the side of a goods train passing through the Channel Tunnel, crossing the Mediterranean in a dangerously-overloaded boat, fleeing the Rwandan genocide.

Like other volunteer visitors (I volunteer through a charitable organization that seeks to assist detainees but does not wish to be named), I am assigned one detainee at a time, whom I visit regularly until such time as they get deported, are granted leave to remain in the U.K., or are temporarily released on bail. I’ve been visiting Hormoz for over a year now, including a period during which he went on hunger strike.

Hormoz comes from Iran, and has been living and working in the U.K. longer than I have, up in Manchester. He married a local girl (“a Cheshire cat”) and had three children, now all grown up and doing amazing things. He wants to be allowed to stay here in the U.K., in his home.

By now his stories are familiar to me, but always unbelievable. Yes, they (the people in charge, who represent different agencies and jurisdictions) did say a decision would be reached soon. Yes, they did say that 18 months ago. Yes, you haven’t seen your daughters that you love in over a year, because when they came to visit they were not let in because they had the wrong form of ID. Hormoz can’t believe it. Neither can I. But the repetition of the story helps, somehow. We can’t believe it happened that way. But it did.

I’ve learned from my visits that telling stories is how you keep your self together if you have lived through extraordinary events, if your circumstances have somehow taken leave of your familiar world and set off in a totally new direction. Violence, and escaping from violence, is always extraordinary. You ask yourself: How can this be happening to me? Other people have had these other sorts of things happen to them, sure. But me? Never. At least not before. I had to leave home so quickly. War and genocide have a one-bag luggage policy. Pieces of me got left behind, or I dropped them. I needed both hands to cling to the train, the boat, the corner of the garage where I slept, the job I had cleaning offices in the city.

But that’s not good enough. Here in detention you must have your story straight: no gaps, no loose ends. Otherwise you must remain here, or be deported. Finding an order for the astounding facts and unlikely events takes time. It never quite seems like your real life, what you’ve been through, what you’re going through now, locked away with a view of the Sheraton, planes roaring off into the sky every 20 seconds. Why would you want it to be your life? That isn’t you.

The sharp, jagged edges, the fragments Hormoz and I turn round in our hands in these conversations—to us, they are truth. But to those who will decide, they are evidence of falsehood. It is only people with good stories who get out. Our rehearsal over, Hormoz is led away, to come up with another story. I will see him again next Monday. Who knows, maybe if he and I can keep this up long enough, we may manage, eventually, to polish the edges away, to make truth into the right kind of falsehood.

The post Every Monday, I Visit Prisoners at Heathrow appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

Stanford University political scientist Francis Fukuyama joins host Anne-Marie Slaughter to discuss what his favorite movie, the dystopian Blade Runner, tells us about what it means to be a human being. Slaughter also talks with Fukuyama and economist Charles Kenny about why newly wealthy countries like Turkey and Brazil are also rich in unrest.

The post The Present and Future of Global Unrest appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.