Philippa Kaur

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    The New York Times Predicts Our Future

    The banner headline on the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times contained what can be interpreted as either a promise, a prophecy, a wild hope or a meaningless truism. It read: “Withdrawal of U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Will End Longest American War.” The headline linked to an article with a slightly less assertive title: “Biden to Withdraw All Combat Troops From Afghanistan by Sept. 11.” Nevertheless, it quickly returned to the prophetic tone, while adding one significant dramatic detail: “President Biden will withdraw American combat troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, declaring an end to the nation’s longest war and overruling warnings from his military advisers.” Instead of the traditional tactic of divide and rule, Biden will be applying a new one: withdraw and overrule.

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    How can The New York Times promise that an event “will” happen months before the date? Does The Times, as the “paper of record,” have the authority to report future events? Expressions of intention, even by a sitting president, are not predictions. Is The Times now in the business of publishing prophetic journalism? More likely its certainty about what will happen in the future should be branded a wild partisan hope. The Times has been willing to go overboard to give the Biden administration credit long before credit is due. It has become a pattern since the election in its reporting and even the opinions of its Republican editorialists.

    The Times’ initial affirmation can nevertheless be justified as a truism. Though it fails to refer to a real event, its meaning is undeniably true. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan at any time in the future — whether it’s September 2021 or even 2051 — will effectively end the longest war in US history, simply because in April 2021 it is already the nation’s longest war.

    To underline the very real seriousness of President Joe Biden’s resolution and to support the idea that the future will happen as reported, The Times cites a significant fact: “A senior Biden administration official said the president had come to believe that a ‘conditions-based approach’ would mean that American troops would never leave the country.”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Conditions-based approach:

    A tactic that allows a government to promise to carry out an action and then, at the critical moment, announce that it is justified in refusing to carry out that action

    Contextual Note

    The resolution of any serious problem in the realm of geopolitics is subject to conditions on the ground. That is why negotiations are important. But the situation in Afghanistan has always been so complex and asymmetrical that even attempting to negotiate is doomed to failure. The current situation involves three parties: the US, which is seeking to withdraw after 20 years of failed military efforts; the Taliban, who control most of the territory of a country traditionally administered by local warlords; and the so-called legitimate Afghan government initially put in place and supported economically and militarily by the US.

    Barack Obama and Donald Trump both announced plans to withdraw from the conflict. But as soon as discussions began, the US insisted that certain conditions must be met. Those conditions were always framed as minimal criteria of political stability and a guaranteed role for the official government, even in a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban. There was never any serious chance of realizing those objectives. Withdrawal dates could only be formulated as a target, not as a predefined moment. It also meant that those who opposed withdrawal simply needed to make sure that things on the ground remained suitably unstable.

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    President Biden has clearly, even shockingly, innovated by unilaterally canceling the criterion of conditions. It appears to be a move designed to counter not the actors in Afghanistan, but his political opponents in Washington and the Pentagon. He has done so because in every case from the past, Congress and the Pentagon have managed to declare that the sacrosanct conditions were not met. The US economy thrives on military engagement. The Afghan government has had a permanent incentive to maintain the presence of the US, which guarantees the billions of dollars funding of the government’s operations. Once the US leaves, even while promising to provide aid to a new composite regime, the Taliban will undoubtedly have the upper hand in a negotiated power-sharing arrangement.

    In other words, there are two actors in the drama who have used the idea of conditions to oppose withdrawal: the NATO-supported Afghan government and the Pentagon. Obama and Trump failed in their plans to withdraw because they placed all their trust in the Pentagon. That is why the Biden administration’s decision to abandon a conditions-based approach may not only be constructive but absolutely necessary to achieve a goal ardently desired by the American public but opposed by the military-industrial complex that includes the Pentagon, the defense industry and members of Congress who depend on the defense industry for funding their campaigns and providing jobs in their jurisdictions.

    How inevitable is The New York Times’ bold prophecy that withdrawal will effectively happen in September? Already, powerful senators who can stop it from happening, both Republican and Democrat, are beginning to speak up to condemn what they call a shameful and humiliating retreat from an engagement that began 20 years ago. The lobbyists are mobilizing to make sure the interests of the defense industry and the Pentagon continue to exercise effective control of US foreign policy.

    But on April 14, Biden himself made it clear that there actually is a condition. The Times reports that he warned the Taliban “that if American forces are attacked on the way out of the country, ‘we’re going to defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal.’” That certainly sounds like a condition.

    Historical Note

    When running for president in 2000, George W. Bush asserted that he wanted the US to avoid any temptation of nation-building. Eight months into his presidency, using the pretext of the 9/11 attacks, Bush initiated a foreign policy that obliged the US to engage actively in nation-building, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq.

    The foreign policy of the past three presidents has transformed both Afghanistan and Iraq into examples of what may be called “government-creating and defending” rather than “nation-building.” After toppling an existing regime and putting in its place a puppet government committed to Western liberal values, the game has consisted of ensuring the minimum required to keep such governments from collapsing as they take on the impossible burden of defeating America’s designated enemy.

    It is a recipe for geopolitical failure that worries presidents, who prefer being thought of as winners. But it comforts everyone else in a system with its own internal logic. Spending money on weapons, selling those weapons to a captive client government and deploying them operationally whenever necessary in real, non-simulated wartime situations constitute a major factor of motivation for all parties concerned.

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    The beauty of it is that they can count on the US taxpayer to foot the bill. In the parlance of sports, the Middle East and now parts of Africa have become the equivalent of the expensive training facilities of a professional sports franchise motivated to push competition to its extreme and emerge as uncontested champions. Training can be carried on at all times and can endure decades, but when things get hot, these exotic locations also serve as the stadium itself, where the games are played and the scores tabulated.

    It took decades after World War II to build such a coherent system. For multiple reasons, however, this system is incompatible with the idea of democracy and the morality of a civilized society dedicated to the idea of human rights and responding to human needs. It is coherent to the extent that those who exercise power — in government, industry, the media and academe — share a common interest. The system provides them with the lifeline they need to maintain their activities. The problem is that the only parties left out and left holding the bag are… the people.

    Today’s economico-political situation reflects a “conditions-based approach.” The condition is that the interests that control the machine must never be forced to lose their control, because the result would be anarchy. And no civilized person — apart from the late anthropologist David Graeber — can seriously defend the idea of anarchy.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Why Joe Biden Must Act on Myanmar

    Burma, as Myanmar was known then, won its independence from the British in 1948. Since then, bilateral relations between the US and Myanmar can at best be described as lackluster. They have lacked what experts would call “strategic compulsions.” Western allies of the US lack strategic calculus in dealing with Myanmar. They have viewed it from the narrow prism of moralistic Western standards of democracy, human rights, rule of law, corruption and the trafficking of humans, drugs and weapons.

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    To be fair, the US has not always or entirely been sanctimonious. The historic Kissinger Doctrine integrated China into the liberal postwar order. It facilitated investments into, transferred technology to and trained manpower in China. Under Deng Xiaoping and his successors, China continued its peaceful rise. Xi Jinping, the current Chinese president, has ended that peaceful rise and destabilized the world order.

    Missing Out on Myanmar

    The US approach to Myanmar has been muddled and inconsistent. During the Cold War, Washington was happy to deal with allies in Asia that were military dictatorships. Under President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the US was happy to deal with a communist regime.

    In contrast, Burma was a parliamentary democracy from 1948 to 1962 when Ne Win led a military coup. For the next 26 years, the country was ruled by the Tatmadaw, the official name of the country’s armed forces. In 1988, nationwide protests broke out. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Oxford-educated daughter of Burmese independence leader Aung San, emerged as the leader of a pro-democracy movement. The National League of Democracy (NLD) went on to win the 1990, 2015 and 2020 parliamentary elections.

    In comparison with China, Myanmar’s regime has been far less oppressive. There is no counterpart to the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. The Tatmadaw has yielded to public pressure and held largely free and fair elections. In elections, even members of the Tatmadaw have voted for Suu Kyi’s NLD. Yet the US and its Western allies have ignored the strategic importance of Myanmar in the Indian Ocean region in general and the Bay of Bengal in particular.

    Chinese Influence Wanes and Waxes

    In the past, the US and its allies put pressure on the Tatmadaw by imposing sanctions on Myanmar. Instead of weakening the Tatmadaw, sanctions hurt the people and pushed the country into the arms of China. Between 2004 and 2007, a generational change in the Tatmadaw caused a rethink in Myanmar’s relationship with China.

    The younger officers of the Tatmadaw decided to decrease dependence on Beijing. They tried to reduce Chinese influence in political and military governance. They attempted to transition to some form of democracy and improve relations with the West and neighbors like India. In 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton swung by Myanmar. President Barack Obama visited twice in 2012 and 2014. By 2016-17, the persecution of Rohingya Muslims, an ethnic minority in the country’s Rakhine state, was in the news and relations between the US and Myanmar were already souring.

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    Yet this was a relatively good time for the country. Even financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank opened their purse strings. During this brief honeymoon period with the West, China found itself on the back foot for the first time since 1988.

    In 2011, Myanmar suspended the construction of the Myitsone dam, a controversial hydroelectric project financed and led by a state-owned Chinese company. In 2015, Myanmar’s general elections led to yet another victory for Suu Kyi’s NLD. This was an opportune moment for the West to build relations with Myanmar and counter China. The Tatmadaw had ceded ground to elected officials. Washington could have cultivated both of Myanmar’s centers of power: the NLD and the Tatmadaw.

    But the US missed this opportunity. From 2017, the Rohingya issue clouded Myanmar’s relationship with the West and allowed China to regain its clout in the country. The military coup in February this year strengthens China’s hand further.

    China has already been strengthening its hand by following its tried and tested policy of investing in infrastructure. The China–Myanmar Transport Corridor is connecting the Chinese province of Yunnan to the Bay of Bengal. Roads, railways, river navigation, oil and gas pipelines are deepening economic ties between Myanmar and China. It is part of the Middle Kingdom’s “Look South” policy that seeks to draw Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Pakistan into the Chinese arc of influence.

    The military coup in Myanmar presents a great opportunity to China and represents the first major foreign policy challenge to President Joe Biden’s administration as well as the Quadrilateral Security Alliance, the informal strategic dialogue between the US, Japan, Australia and India known as the Quad.

    The US Still Has Some Cards

    China may be in the ascendant right now, but the West still has clout in Myanmar. Suu Kyi studied at Oxford, lived in the UK for decades and married an Englishman. People from Myanmar have immigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US. So, the West commands what Joseph Nye has calls “soft power” in the country. Burmese people want to immigrate not to China but to the US.

    Yet American foreign policy to Myanmar has squandered this soft power prodigally. Obama is the only American president who gave Myanmar the attention it deserved. His foreign policy pivot to Asia was a strategic masterstroke, but Donald Trump abandoned Obama’s outreach not only to Myanmar but the rest of Asia.

    The military coup is a wake-up call for the US to act. China is now firmly in the saddle in Myanmar. The Tatmadaw is finding ferocious resistance on the streets. There is another overlooked problem. Like many postcolonial states, Myanmar is a bewildering patchwork of cultural, ethnic and linguistic groups. Many of them have been fighting for independence or autonomy for years.

    Few in the West realize that a savage conflict might be about to break out. About 20 rebel groups, including the United Wa State Army, Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Army and Arakan Army, control 33% of Myanmar’s territory. Many of them have condemned the coup. In response, the Tatmadaw has launched airstrikes in Karen state. With drugs and arms flush in rebel areas, Myanmar might be about to become the new Afghanistan.

    The Quad leaders’ joint statement on the White House website emphasizes “the urgent need to restore democracy and the priority of strengthening democratic resilience” in Myanmar. This mention is heartening, but the Quad and the US need to do more. Opening dialogue with the Tatmadaw would be a good start. Intelligence sources report that most young officers favor multi-party democracy and are wary of Myanmar turning into a Chinese tributary.

    A carrot-and-stick approach by Washington could still work. The World Bank has halted payments to projects after the military coup. International condemnation has rattled the Tatmadaw. Pressure to reach a political reconciliation might bear fruit. Carrots in the form of infrastructure funding and development assistance could prove attractive. Involving Asian nations such as India, Japan, South Korea and Bangladesh, as well as member states of ASEAN, could pave the path to Myanmar’s transition away from military rule.

    Despite foreign policy blunders, economic woes and internal division, the US is still the undisputed top dog in the world. With the help of its Asian and European allies, Washington can counter China, prevent civil war and restore democracy in Myanmar. The time has come for Biden to act.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Athletes Shake Up Sports Governance

    Sports governance worldwide has had its legs knocked out from under it. Yet national and international sports administrators are slow in realizing the magnitude of what has hit them. Tectonic plates underlying the guiding principle that sports and politics are unrelated have shifted, driven by a struggle against racism and a quest for human rights and social justice.

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    The principle was repeatedly challenged over the last year by athletes and businesses forcing national and international sports federations to either support anti-racist protest or, at the very least, refrain from penalizing those who use their sport to oppose racism and promote human rights and social justice — acts that are political by definition. The assault on what is a convenient fiction that sports and politics do not mix started in the US. This was not only the result of Black Lives Matter protests on US streets, but also the fact that, in contrast to the fan-club relationship in most of the world, American sports clubs and associations see fans as clients — and the client is king.

    From Football to F1

    The assault moved to Europe in the last month with the national football teams of Norway, Germany and the Netherlands wearing T-shirts during qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup that supported human rights and change. The European sides added their voices to perennial criticism of migrant workers’ rights in Qatar, the host of next year’s World Cup. Gareth Southgate, the manager of the English national team, said the Football Association was discussing migrant rights in the Gulf state with Amnesty International.

    While Qatar is the focus in Europe, greater sensitivity to human rights appears to be moving beyond. Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton told a news conference in Bahrain ahead of this season’s opening Grand Prix that there “are issues all around the world, but I do not think we should be going to these countries and just ignoring what is happening in those places, arriving, having a great time and then leave.” Hamilton has been prominent in speaking out against racial injustice and social inequality since the National Football League in the US endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement and players taking the knee during the playing of the American national anthem in protest against racism.

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    In a dramatic break with its ban on “any political, religious or personal slogans, statements or images” on the pitch, FIFA, the governing body of world football, said it would not open disciplinary proceedings against the European players who wore the T-shirts. “FIFA believes in the freedom of speech and in the power of football as a force for good,” a spokesperson said.

    The statement constituted an implicit acknowledgment that standing up for human rights and social justice was inherently political. It raises the question of how FIFA will reconcile its stand on human rights with its statutory ban on political expression. It makes maintaining the fiction of a separation between politics and sports ever more difficult to defend. It also opens the door to a debate on how the inseparable relationship that joins sports and politics at the hip like Siamese twins should be regulated.

    Georgia’s Voting Law

    Signaling that a flood barrier may have collapsed, Major League Baseball this month said it would be moving its 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to a new law in the US state of Georgia that threatens to potentially restrict voting access for people of color. In a shot across the bow to FIFA and other international sports associations, major companies headquartered in Georgia, including Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines and Home Depot, adopted political positions in their condemnation of the Georgia voting law.

    The greater assertiveness of athletes and corporations in speaking out for fundamental rights and against racism and discrimination will make it increasingly difficult for sports associations to uphold the fiction of a separation between politics and sports. The willingness of FIFA, the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), and other national and international associations to look the other way when athletes take their support for rights and social justice to the sports arena has let the genie out of the bottle. It has sawed off the legs of the FIFA principle that players’ “equipment must not have any political, religious or personal slogans.”

    Already, the US committee has said it would not sanction American athletes who choose to raise their fists or kneel on the podium at this July’s Tokyo Olympic Games as well as future tournaments. The decision puts the USOPC at odds with the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) strict rule against political protest. The IOC suspended and banned US medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos after the sprinters raised their fists on the podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics to protest racial inequality in the United States.

    Regulation

    Acknowledging the incestuous relationship between sports and politics will ultimately require a charter or code of conduct that regulates it and introduces some form of independent oversight. This could be something akin to the supervision of banking systems or the regulation of the water sector in Britain, which, alongside the United States, holds privatized water as an asset.

    Human rights and social justice have emerged as monkey wrenches that could shatter the myth of a separation between sports and politics. If athletes take their protests to the Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 World Cup, the myth would sustain a significant body blow. In December 2020, a statement by US athletes seeking changes to the USOPC’s rule banning protest at sporting events said: “Prohibiting athletes to freely express their views during the Games, particularly those from historically underrepresented and minoritized groups, contributes to the dehumanization of athletes that is at odds with key Olympic and Paralympic values.”

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Japan’s Art of Forgetfulness

    What choices are available to a nation that, in its quest for modernization, foolishly built a nuclear reactor in a seismically active tsunami zone? The Royal Society reported in 2015 that the disastrous fate of Fukushima in 2011 resulted from a “cascade of engineering and regulatory failures.” This included not only multiple design errors and miscalculations of the geological risks, but also “methodological mistakes that nobody experienced in tsunami engineering should have made.” The report concluded that the “Fukushima accident was preventable, if international best practices and standards had been followed.”

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    A full 10 years later, after dealing with the aftermath in a reasonably efficient manner, Japan has one major task left. It must find a way of disposing of more than a million tons of contaminated water from the powerplant’s three decommissioned reactors. To the chagrin not only of neighboring countries including China and South Korea but also environmental groups and even Japan’s own fishing industry, the Japanese government has made the controversial decision to close the book on Fukushima by dumping the water into the ocean.

    According to Al Jazeera, the Japanese government claims to have taken this decision on the basis of its newfound concern with the “international best practices and standards” the Royal Society referred to in its report. The government released this statement on April 13: “On the premise of strict compliance with regulatory standards that have been established, we select oceanic release.”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Oceanic release:

    An act stirred by the temptation to believe that whatever you can discreetly dump into the ocean will be so diluted by the mass of moving water that within weeks or months, even if it is public knowledge, no one will actually remember that the deed was done or blame those who did it

    Contextual Note

    In his explanation of the government’s decision, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga appealed to the fabled capacity of the Japanese to accept the inevitable. “Releasing the … treated water,” he said, “is an unavoidable task to decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant and reconstruct the Fukushima area.” As a politician, not only does he feel it is his humble duty to put the errors of the past behind him, but he knows it is always effective to focus on potential positive outcomes — in this case, the reconstruction of the non-nuclear reconstruction of the affected area. Averted readers should know that when a politician from any nation calls something “unavoidable,” the most sensible reaction is to suppose that what they really mean by “unavoidable” is what we judge to be the most convenient and economic way for us to dismiss such an annoying issue.

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    Polls in Japan show little support for the government. Le Monde reports that a poll conducted by NHK, the Japanese broadcaster, found that 51% of those polled opposed the plan, with only 18% supporting it. The Chinese called the plan “extremely irresponsible.” South Korea seconded the Chinese, deeming it “totally unacceptable.” Protesters in Seoul accused Japan of engaging in “nuclear terrorism,” echoing the Iranian government’s complaint this week following Israel’s brazen sabotage of the nuclear facility at Natanz in Iran. Even Taiwan — more fearful of China than of contaminated waters — expressed its concern, though much more timidly. 

    These reactions contrast with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s tweet in which he thanks “Japan for its transparent efforts in its decision to dispose of the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi site.” Transparent? China complained that the Japanese made their decision “without fully consulting with neighboring countries and the international community.” Is that what Blinken sees as a “transparent” effort? Or does he mean that because the operation will only be carried out in two years’ time, announcing it today is an example of transparency? After all, the US tends to act first and explain later and rarely worries about transparency.

    Then there is another consideration the Japanese government would be wise to ponder. Dumping the still polluted water into the Pacific means that sooner rather than later the West Coast of the US will be affected. At some point in the future, could this have dire consequences for Japanese Americans who risk being assaulted for spreading “Fukushima cancer” just as Chinese Americans have been attacked for releasing the “Wuhan flu”?

    Historical Note

    The Japanese language has a common expression: Shouganai. One specialist of Japanese offers this explanation of the expression: “The best way I can translate ‘Shouganai’ is ‘It can’t be helped,’” comparing it with the well-known French expression, “C’est la vie.” The author confesses to using the Japanese “phrase almost daily.” Italian Americans from New York might prefer to compare it with their favorite all-purpose phrase for dismissing any subject they don’t want to discuss: “Forget about it.” Every culture has its own way of accepting what is written off as a fatality that cannot be constructively addressed.

    Pushing the explanation of the Japanese phrase further, the author insists that despite always being used in reference to negative events, Shouganai is “actually a pretty positive way to look at the world.” It signifies a basic feeling at the core of Japanese culture, that it’s “better to not get hung up on things outside of your control.” In contrast, US culture encourages making every effort — including at times extreme violence — to demonstrate one is in control.

    Since the end of the Second World War, the Japanese government has developed the art of not getting hung up on disagreeable past events from the past, such as the fate of the Chinese and Korean sex slaves they euphemized with the name “comfort women” at a time in their history when they believed they could dominate all of Asia. After their six-week-long massacre known as the Rape of Nanking, sensing the risk of bad PR the knowledge of the brutal campaign of massacre and violent rape might produce, the emperor decided to step in. The answer was less murder and more rape, but better organized and subject to the kind of discipline and social rituals with which Japanese culture feels comfortable. The treatment of the comfort women was unspeakably cruel and inhuman, but the Japanese military had the good sense to manage it as a stable institution rather than allowing rape to play out according to the random whims of marauding soldiers.

    The website History explains the pattern of denial associated with this episode: “For decades, the history of the ‘comfort women’ went undocumented and unnoticed. When the issue was discussed in Japan, it was denied by officials who insisted that ‘comfort stations’ had never existed.” Whether those same officials were saying Shouganai in private while they systematically refused to admit anything in public will never be known. Even today, the Japanese government continues to deny some of the most obvious facts about the “comfort women.”

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    The Fukushima catastrophe lacks the deeply human moral dimension associated with the crimes perpetrated by Japanese imperialism in the early 20th century. The scandal relating to the fact that the nuclear catastrophe was preventable had more to do with professional negligence and government incompetence than moral failings, cruel personal behavior and abusive policies, though the frontier between conscious and neglectful abuses will always be difficult to define. The tendency to deny and then forget is common to both.

    On the purely moral plane, were either of these human disasters in any way comparable with US President Harry Truman’s decision to drop — without warning — not one but two atomic bombs on urban civilian targets at the end of World War II? The immediate difference between the attitudes of the two nations is that the Japanese showed some sense of shame, however hypocritical, following the Rape of Nanking. Their consistent denial of the true history of comfort women also indicates a degree of implicit shame. It’s as much a question of not losing face as it is of aggressive denial.

    In contrast, the American government never attempted to disguise its fulsome pride in an achievement that — following its cultural logic summed up in the expression, “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” — put an end to a world war. Could it have been done differently? Of course. But for most Americans, the positive result canceled all the useless scruples one might have concerning the gravity of the damage done.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    EU Concern Over Ukraine Is Not Enough

    Hostilities between Ukraine and Russia reached an alarming level last week when further Russian troops were deployed on the Ukrainian border. Despite a statement from the Kremlin describing the act as “not threatening,” Kyiv accused Moscow of moving thousands of soldiers to its northern and eastern borders and on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula to create an intimidating atmosphere in violation of the Minsk agreements and the ceasefire in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed it is Kyiv and NATO countries that are increasing their armed forces in Ukraine and the Black Sea close to Russia’s borders. 

    Nevertheless, the Russian Federation is following its usual scheme and is ready to seize any opportunity that arises. There may be three possible reasons behind these new developments: 1) Moscow wants to send a message to the US administration after recent statements regarding President Vladimir Putin; 2) the Russians are seeking a pretext to install their “peacekeepers” in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine; or 3) the Kremlin wants to use the water crisis in Crimea to intervene and build a corridor through the Donbass region.

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    There might be other drivers, such as the ongoing power struggle inside the Russian administration, despite the fact that Putin signed a law that would allow him to stay in office until 2036. A manufactured external threat to Russian citizens — Russian passports have been issued to many Ukrainians living in the two self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk — would help deflect attention from internal economic problems, which have only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shut down three television channels linked to Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, which may have contributed to the latest tension. Not only does Medvedchuk have personal ties to Putin, but the stations have also broadcast pro-Russian propaganda to the Ukrainian people.

    In the end, the cause can be left to Kremlinologists to decipher. Yet what is clear is that Putin has proved to be ready to act whenever there is a chance, and he has plenty of opportunities to create an event to trigger action. Ultimately, it does not matter why. What matters is that other regional actors are now using peaceful means to prevent a further escalation between Russia and Ukraine.

    Is Dialogue Enough?

    The US and the European Union have declared their support for Kyiv. Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief and vice-president of the European Commission, expressed concern over the latest developments. The European Parliament also released a statement in which it reiterates that Moscow must reduce tensions by ending its military buildup in and close to Ukrainian territory. This is certainly not enough, but what are the options?

    Embed from Getty Images

    Engaging in dialogue is fine, but it seems the meaning of it has been forgotten — that is, to listen to each other and try to understand. When there is an argument between parties, there should be a general assumption that the other person could be right. It is not sufficient to only listen in order to respond and get one’s own points across. It should also not be disregarded that there is a civil society in Russia. When there is a dispute with the Kremlin, it does not entail the whole population.

    What is important is that language matters, words become actions, and actions have consequences — and this could lead to a dangerous downward spiral. Nevertheless, there must also be some clear lines established. This tit-for-tat blame game that has dominated the discourse for decades has to stop. This is not a reasonable discussion. The demands by Zelensky to accelerate Ukraine’s membership in NATO are not helpful, but nor is a meeting between Russia, Germany and France on the situation in Ukraine without including representatives from Kyiv.

    Diplomatic relations among regional actors have been strained for years but deteriorated further over recent months. In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in an interview about relations between Russia and the European Union that “if you want peace, be prepared for war.” In the current political climate, this sounds far more threatening than it might have a few months ago. At that time, the German Foreign Ministry rightly called the comments “disconcerting and incomprehensible,” though Lavrov is known for his controversial statements.

    Nevertheless, this has marked a new low in the EU–Russia relations, and it seems that things could get worse. Expelling diplomats of EU member states while Borrell, the top European diplomat, was in Moscow is just power play. Despite Lavrov being in office for 17 years, the European Union has never found a way to reach a consensus on how to respond to his actions. In 2004, Central and Eastern European countries had just joined the EU, which was and still is a big success, but the necessary reforms in the institutional setup to be able to handle Lavrov have still not been implemented.

    What is even worse, the lack of capabilities to anticipate consequences has forever been a weak point in Brussels. Negotiations for an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine effectively led to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Politics is much more complicated and one action does not necessarily lead to a specific outcome, but there is certainly a possibility of a butterfly effect.

    Better Preparation

    In order to be better prepared, member states need to pool resources together and ultimately transfer sovereignty to the EU when it comes to foreign policy. Otherwise, the divide-and-conquer approach by Russia will continue. After a rather humiliating meeting with Lavrov in February, Borrell said, “As ever, it will be for member states to decide the next steps, and yes, these could include sanctions.” This is not a language that the Kremlin understands.

    The German government, for instance, has been reluctant when it comes to imposing sanctions. On the one hand, this is due to Berlin’s history with the Russian Federation, but to a lesser extent, it is because of the Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. Nevertheless, this would be an opportunity to act as the pipeline also threatens Ukraine’s energy supply and might open another opportunity to act for the Kremlin. Yet there is a very good argument against sanctions: They would hurt the general population in Russia, which would further alienate the people who, in turn, would rally around the flag.

    Nevertheless, there are other ways to respond, ideally targeting the circles close to the Kremlin. Suspending Russia from the SWIFT global financial network could also be an option; calls to do so first emerged in 2014 after Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Yet this might lead to a fragmentation of the international financial system; Russian authorities have already backed international use of its alternative payment network.

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    The biggest danger for the Putin regime would be if the majority of Russians understood that it is possible to live in a liberal democracy. This is why a closer relationship between Ukraine and the EU is so dangerous for the Kremlin. The current escalation is not about the expansion of Russia’s borders or preserving traditional values, as often spun by Russian media and Moscow. This is a facade that masks the fact that if people were given the possibility of improving their lives without the strongman in the Kremlin, the Putin system would become irrelevant.

    Sanctions on Russia will most likely not lead to this outcome. There will not be a democratic revolution on the streets — this can only be through a gradual process. The question is: Will Western democracy survive long enough to see that change coming in order to still be a model?

    Therefore, the EU has to send a clear and unified message to prevent further escalation and not only react or be taken by surprise, as was the case in 2014. Ideally, this would also strengthen transatlantic relations by finding a common approach to the evolving situation. After the EU’s top representatives suffered political embarrassment in Moscow and Ankara, it would be even more necessary to send a strong signal to Russia.

    Being concerned is not enough — neither by institutions in Brussels, nor by EU member states. There is a need to be better prepared for certain scenarios. Repeating the same mistakes will be unforgivable for the region and the future of the European Union itself.

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    Peter Thiel’s Bitcoin Paranoia

    Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel finds himself in a confusing moral quandary as he struggles to weigh the merits of his nerdish belief in cryptocurrency against his patriotic paranoia focused on China’s economic rivalry with the United States. Participating in “a virtual event held for members of the Richard Nixon Foundation,” Thiel, while reaffirming his position as a “pro-Bitcoin maximalist,” felt compelled to call his faith into doubt due to his concern that China may use bitcoin to challenge US financial supremacy.

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    According to Yahoo’s Tim O’Donnell, Thiel “thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar’s might.” He directly quotes Thiel who wonders whether “Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.”

    Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

    Financial weapon:

    The role any significant amount of money in any one person’s, company’s or nation’s hand is expected to play to assert power and obtain undue advantages in today’s competitive capitalism

    Contextual Note

    Thiel may be stating the obvious. Money is power and concentrations of money amount to concentrated power. The point of power is to influence, intimidate or conquer, depending on how concentrated the power may be. It is ironically appropriate that the event at which Thiel spoke was organized by the Nixon Foundation. Richard Nixon was known for putting the quest for power above any other consideration. He was also known for opening the relationship with China, which many Republicans today believe led to a pattern of behavior that allowed China to eventually emerge as a threat far more menacing than the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Nixon was also the president who destroyed the Bretton Woods system that set the financial rules ensuring stable international relations in the wake of World War II.

    Thiel’s thoughts are both transparently imperialistic. They follow Donald Trump’s “America First” logic, while at the same time revealing Thiel’s uncertainty about how to frame it in the context of Bitcoin. His version of “America First” has less to do with the Trumpian idea that America should worry first about its own internal matters and later deal with the world than with the idea of the neocon conviction that the US must impose itself as the unique hegemon in the global economy. In Thiel’s mind, this sits uncomfortably alongside his made-in-Silicon Valley belief that cryptocurrencies represent the trend toward something that might be called “financial democracy.”

    Embed from Getty Images

    According to O’Donnell, Thiel “explained that China isn’t fond of the fact that the U.S. dollar is the world’s major reserve currency because it gives the U.S. global economic ‘leverage,’ and he thinks Beijing may view Bitcoin as a tool that could chip away at the dollar’s might.” O’Donnell is guilty of somewhat hypocritical understatement when he claims that it is all about China not being “fond of” the dollar’s status as the world’s major reserve currency. Who besides the US would be “fond of” such a thing? Those are O’Donnell’s words, not Thiel’s. As for the idea that Bitcoin might chip away at the dollar’s might, Thiel avoids making that specific point and prefers a more vaguely paranoid reading of events as he suggests a kind of plot in which China may be using Bitcoin to undermine US hegemony.

    Thiel’s phrasing places him clearly in the realm of what might be called diplomatic paranoia. He begins with a statement of speculative uncertainty as he expresses his concern with China’s turning Bitcoin into a financial weapon. Here are his exact words: “I do wonder whether at this point Bitcoin should also be thought in part of as a Chinese financial weapon against the US where it threatens fiat money but it especially threatens the US dollar and China wants to do things to weaken it.”

    “I do wonder whether at this point Bitcoin should also be thought … of” expresses a deviously framed insinuation of evil intentions by a Fu Manchu version of the Chinese government. This is a popular trope among Republicans and even Democrats today, who vie with each other to designate China as an enemy rather than a rival. But Thiel’s admission that it’s really about “wondering” tells us that we are closer to Alice’s Wonderland than to the CIA book of facts.

    Thiel then adds the temporal detail of “at this point,” which introduces a surreal notion of time that has more to do with a fictional dramatic structure than the reality of contemporary history. It is tantamount to saying: This is where the plot thickens. And his suggestion of how it “should be thought of,” besides being manipulative, indicates that we are invited into accepting the plot of a paranoid fantasy made up of thought rather than reality.

    He then explains what he means by “a Chinese financial weapon against the US.” Though he claims to be a believer in the unfettered freedom of cryptocurrency, he accuses it of violating what might be called “the rule of law” insofar as “it threatens fiat money,” which is the privilege of every nation on earth. But that worry has little merit compared to the fact it “especially threatens the US dollar,” which — it goes without saying — China wants to weaken.

    Thiel knows where the money is. It lies in the primacy of the US dollar. That is why the US has 800 military bases across the globe.

    Historical Note

    Since the dismantling in 1971 of the Bretton Woods system by US President Richard Nixon — in whose name the Richard Nixon Foundation was created — the dollar has functioned as the ultimate and most devastating financial weapon in history wielded by a single government. The Bretton Woods agreement, signed in 1944 by 44 countries, allowed the dollar to play a controlled role as the world’s reserve currency thanks to its convertibility with gold. When the growing instability of the dollar, due in part to the Vietnam War, threatened the order established by Bretton Woods, Nixon unilaterally broke the link with gold. Instantaneously, the US was free to weaponize the dollar for any purpose it judged to be in its interest.

    Nixon produced one of the greatest faits accomplis in history. As with many successful unnoticed revolutions, Nixon’s administration presented the uncoupling of the dollar and gold as a temporary measure, the response to a momentary crisis. It took two years for the world to notice that Bretton Woods had definitely collapsed. The era of floating currencies began. Money could finally be seen for what it is: a shared imaginary repository of value that could eventually become the focus of what Yuval Noah Harari has called the religion of capitalism in his book, “Money.”

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    For many people, Bitcoin has become a kind of alternative religion, or rather a vociferous radical sect on the fringes of the global religion of neoliberal capitalism. Bitcoin as a concept highlights the lesson brought home by the collapse of Bretton Woods: that the value of money people exchange, despite Milton Friedman’s objections, is literally based on nothing and therefore meaningless. That also means — though the faithful are not ready to admit it — that its value is infinitely manipulable. It appears to derive from economic reality but is anchored in little more than what a small group of people with excess cash may think of it on a given day. Elon Musk ostentatiously manipulated its value when he announced that Tesla had purchased $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin. 

    For anyone with billions to throw around, it’s an easy game to play. The manipulation by Musk, Peter Thiel’s former associate as co-founder of PayPal, doesn’t worry Thiel. Wondering about whether China might, in some imaginary scenario, use Bitcoin for nefarious purposes does trouble him.

    Thiel represents our civilization’s new ruling elite. It consists of individuals who sit between two hyperreal worlds, one dominated by the mystique that surrounds means of payment (cash) and the control of financial flows, complemented by another that seeks political control and the hegemony required to enforce the now imaginary “civilized” rules governing financial flow. Since the demise of Bretton Woods, those rules have lost all meaning. That means the rules themselves can be weaponized. It’s a monopoly that Thiel, his fellow members of the Nixon Foundation and most people in Washington insist on reserving for the US.

    *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    The US Needs to Uncancel the ICC

    When the loony right gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference back in February, the theme of the Trump-heavy gathering was “America Uncanceled.” Speaker after speaker railed against “political correctness” in American culture, from “woke mobs” to “censorship” in the mainstream news media. Incredibly, they tried to transform so-called cancel culture into the single greatest problem facing a United States still reeling from COVID-19 and its economic sucker punch. And yet, time and again, it has been the loony right that has been so eager to hit the delete button.

    These supposed defenders of everyone’s right to voice opinions attempted to cancel an entire presidential election because it failed to produce their preferred result. They’ve spent decades trying to cancel voting rights (not to mention a wide variety of other rights). They’ve directed huge amounts of time and money to canceling social benefits for the least fortunate Americans. Throughout history, they’ve mounted campaigns to cancel specific individuals from Colin Kaepernick and Representative Ilhan Omar to the black lists of the McCarthy era. They’re also not above canceling entire groups of people, from the transgender community all the way back to the original sin of this country, namely the mass cancelation of Native Americans.

    Then there’s foreign policy. The Trump administration never met an international agreement or institution — the Paris climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, the World Health Organization — that it didn’t want to cover with “cancel” stamps.

    One institution that has elicited particular ire from the far right has been the International Criminal Court (ICC). On April 2, the Biden administration took a step toward mending the rift between the United States and the ICC. It didn’t go far enough.

    Blocking the International Criminal Court

    In 2000, the Clinton administration signed the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, which has focused on bringing to international justice the perpetrators of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and (beginning in 2017) crimes of aggression. In 2002, the Bush administration effectively unsigned the agreement and Congress pushed to shield all US military personnel from ICC prosecution. Although the Obama administration cooperated with the court, it was still worried about possible investigations into the US “war on terrorism.”

    Ambivalence turned to outright hostility during the Trump years. National Security Adviser John Bolton made it his special mission to attack the ICC as “ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous.” Among Bolton’s many spurious arguments about the court, he claimed that the body constitutes an assault on US sovereignty and the Constitution in particular, a favorite hobbyhorse of the loony right. But the “supremacy clause” of the US Constitution (Article VI, clause 2) already establishes the primacy of federal law over treaty obligations. So, can someone please get those supposed legal scholars to actually read the pocket constitutions they carry around so reverently?

    Bolton’s off-base analysis came with a threat. “We will respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by U.S. law,” he warned. “We will ban its judges and prosecutors from entering the United States. We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and, we will prosecute them in the U.S. criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans.”

    In 2020, the Trump administration began to implement Bolton’s attack plan by imposing sanctions against ICC officials. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and senior prosecution official Phakiso Mochochoko were placed under travel restrictions and an asset freeze because they were investigating possible US war crimes in Afghanistan. This blacklisting of ICC investigators sent a chilling signal that the United States would attempt, much like a rogue authoritarian country, to obstruct justice at an international level.

    An equally vexing issue involves a war crimes investigation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although the ICC investigators looked at atrocities committed by Israelis and Palestinians, both Israel and the US condemned the investigation, arguing that Israel isn’t an ICC member and so the international body lacks jurisdiction. The United States has made the same argument about the investigation into the conduct of American soldiers in Afghanistan, since the US is not a party to the ICC.

    But the ICC’s jurisdiction is quite clear: it extends to crimes “committed by a State Party national, or in the territory of a State Party, or in a State that has accepted the jurisdiction of the Court.” Palestine, an ICC member since 2015, requested the investigation. And Afghanistan is also an ICC member.

    Biden’s Response

    Earlier this month, US President Joe Biden lifted the Trump administration’s sanctions. European allies, in particular, were enthusiastic about this additional sign that the United States is rejoining the international community. “This important step underlines the US’s commitment to the international rules-based system,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

    But the Biden administration’s move comes with an important caveat. In his statement on the lifting of the sanctions, Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that “we continue to disagree strongly with the ICC’s actions relating to the Afghan and Palestinian situations. We maintain our longstanding objection to the Court’s efforts to assert jurisdiction over personnel of non-States Parties such as the United States and Israel.”

    When it comes to the ICC, then, a disturbing bipartisan consensus has emerged on its supposed encroachment upon US sovereignty. It’s OK for the ICC to prosecute the actions of countries in the Global South, but hand’s off the big boys, a status the United States generously extends to Israel. In the Senate, Ben Cardin and Rob Portman put out a letter last month criticizing the ICC’s investigation in Palestine, which attracted the support of 55 of their colleagues (down from 67 for a similar letter last year).

    Together with Israel, the US continues to abide by an exceptionalism when it comes to international law that it shares with several dozen states, including quite a few that the United States generally doesn’t like to be associated with, such as North Korea, Myanmar, Russia, China, Egypt, Belarus and Nicaragua.

    Of course, it hasn’t just been Bolton and a few outlaw states that have criticized the ICC. African countries in particular have accused the institution of bias. The Court has indeed opened investigations in a disproportionate number of African states: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Sudan, Kenya, Libya and Uganda. Preliminary investigations also took place in Gabon, Guinea and Nigeria and were slated to start in Burundi. All of the 46 individuals facing charges before the court are African.

    In response to this perceived bias, the African Union, in 2017, called for a mass withdrawal of its members from the ICC. Burundi left the court that year, the first country in the world to do so (other countries, like the US and Russia, “withdrew” but hadn’t actually ratified the treaty in the first place). Two other countries that seemed on the verge of withdrawal, South Africa and Gambia, ultimately changed their minds.

    Bias or Backbone?

    The ICC was supposed to put an end to the era of imperial justice by which the winners determine who is guilty of war crimes, a bias that pervaded the Nuremberg trials. It has appointed judges and investigators from the Global South: Fatou Bensouda is Gambian, for instance, while Phakiso Mochochoko is from Lesotho. Still, the preponderance of investigations in Africa should give pause. The ICC has obviously had some difficulty making a transition to this new era. But let’s point out some obvious counter-arguments.

    First, the ICC doesn’t have an anti-African bias. It discriminates against African dictators and warlords. If anything, the court has a pro-African bias by standing up for the victims of violence in Africa. Other continents should be so lucky to have the ICC looking out for them. Second, the ICC has more recently begun to challenge major powers, including Russia for its actions in Georgia and Ukraine. It has also investigated the actions of Israel and the United States. These moves come with considerable risks, as the Trump sanctions painfully revealed. Third, the ICC has considerable jurisdictional restrictions. It can’t investigate crimes against humanity in North Korea since the latter isn’t a member. The same applies to China and its actions in Xinjiang.

    Instead of complaining about the ICC’s blind spots and shortcomings, the United States should get on board and put pressure on other countries to do likewise. Americans can’t pretend to support the rule of law, to loudly promote it around the world, and then turn around and say: Oh, well, it doesn’t apply to us. If the American justice system can prosecute perpetrators in blue like Derek Chauvin, the US can permit an international justice system to prosecute perpetrators in khaki who have killed civilians on a larger scale.

    So, Biden deserves praise for reversing the Trump administration’s brazen and embarrassing attack on the ICC. But that doesn’t constitute actual support for international law. It’s time for the United States to uncancel the International Criminal Court.

    *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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    in US Politics

    Has a backlash against political correctness made sexual misbehaviour more acceptable?

    Last week’s Essential poll, conducted March 24-28 from a sample of 1,100, showed a striking difference by gender over approval of Scott Morrison. With men, Morrison’s approval since February was steady at 65%, and his disapproval up just two points to 30%, for a net approval of +35.

    With women, Morrison’s approval had slumped 16 points from February, to 49%, with ten points of that drop coming between the mid-March and late March polls. Morrison’s disapproval with women had increased 12 points since February to 40%, and his net approval was +9, down 28 points since February.

    Read more:
    Morrison’s ratings take a hit in Newspoll as Coalition notionally loses a seat in redistribution

    Katharine Murphy wrote in The Guardian on April 3 that Morrison’s approval was actually up 11 points with both young men (18-34) and rural/regional men. These findings would be based on small subsamples, so are not reliable.

    A striking pattern is emerging: women are turning off Morrison while men are staying loyal. With so many terrible stories about the treatment of women coming out of Parliament House in recent weeks, why should this be so?

    Newspoll has released aggregate data for its four federal polls taken between February and March. As noted by The Poll Bludger, these data fail to follow the script, with Labor ahead by 51-49 with both men and women, a four-point gain for Labor with men since the October to December Newspoll aggregate, and no change with women. There is little difference in Morrison’s ratings with men or women.

    The Newspoll aggregate data used four polls from early February to late March, while Essential’s findings are based on just the late March poll. In my previous article, I implied Newspoll’s mid-March poll may have been affected by the WA election; it’s possible that election had a bigger swing to Labor among men than women.

    Scott Morrison’s approval ratings have held steady among men, but slipped with women in recent weeks.
    AAP/Mick Tsikas

    International polling on political correctness and sex

    In a mid-March article, CNN analyst Harry Enten cited an American National Election Studies’ survey before the 2020 US elections. This was an academic survey of over 8,000 respondents that asked a large number of questions.

    In one question, respondents were asked to choose between whether they thought people needed to change the way they talk to fit with the times, or whether that movement — often disparagingly referred to as “political correctness” — had gone too far and people were too easily offended.

    By 53-46, respondents said people were too easily offended. In this same poll, Joe Biden led Donald Trump by a 53-42 margin, so the seven-point margin in favour of too much political correctness (PC) shows it is a strong issue for Republicans. As Biden actually won the national popular vote by 4.5%, not 11%, it is likely opposition to PC is stronger than this poll implies.

    Furthermore, respondents under 30 were split at 50-50 on this PC question, even though they supported Biden by 30 points over Trump. So the fight over PC is something that could push more young people into supporting conservatives.

    I analysed the ANES data on the degree of agreement on the statement “many women interpret innocent remarks or acts as being sexist”. The response options were strongly agree, somewhat agree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat disagree and strongly disagree.

    For the overall sample, 32% agreed and 31% disagreed that innocent remarks were interpreted as sexist. For men, it was 33% agree and 26% disagree, though for men under 35 it was 35% disagree and 28% agree. An issue is whether the neutral option is hiding some respondents who agree with the statement, but ironically choose a more PC response.

    Polling for The Economist taken in 2018 shows young men (18-29) in four countries (Britain, France, Germany and the US) were less likely to say sexually inappropriate behaviour was sexual harassment than they were in 2017. This polling was taken a year into the #MeToo movement.

    A 2018 poll taken in four countries showed young men were less likely to say sexually inappropriate behaviour was sexual harassment than they were the previous year.
    Shutterstock

    US elections involving sex-compromised candidates

    In Australia, candidates who do something that embarrasses their party will usually be disendorsed by their party before the election. It is unlikely a major party candidate accused of very sexist remarks would be allowed to face the voters as an endorsed candidate. However, sometimes scandals occur too late to remove candidates from the ballot paper.

    In the US, major party candidates are selected by primaries, with the primary election held months before the general election. Once a candidate wins a primary, they cannot be forced to step aside by their party. So there are far more cases of sexually compromised major party candidates in the US contesting general elections.

    In presidential election years, Congressional elections are held concurrently with the presidential election, in early November. With one extreme exception, Missouri’s 2012 Senate election is the last time a sexually compromised candidate performed far worse than the presidential ticket.

    Republican Todd Akin made remarks in August 2012 implying women would not become pregnant from a “legitimate rape”. Incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill crushed him by nearly 16 points, even though Republican Mitt Romney won Missouri by over nine points in the presidential election.

    Since that election, the only sexually compromised candidate who has underperformed is Republican Roy Moore at the December 2017 Alabama Senate byelection. Moore was accused of sexual assaults of girls who were below the legal age (the youngest alleged victim was 14).

    Moore lost to Democrat Doug Jones by two points in a state Trump won by 28 points in 2016 and 25 in 2020. In 2020, Alabama reverted to type when Republican Tommy Tuberville crushed Jones by 20 points. As well as the accusations of child sex assault, Moore was hurt by Trump being near the worst popularity nationally of his term.

    Owing to the alleged child sex assaults, Moore is an extreme case. As I have previously written, the Access Hollywood tape featured Trump himself making crude sexual comments, and that tape was released a month before the 2016 election. But it had little impact in the polls, and Trump won the 2016 election in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by 2.1%.

    Despite the outrage of the Access Hollywood tapes during the 2016 US presidential campaign, Trump’s ratings suffered relatively little.
    AAP/AP/zz/Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx

    In October 2018, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice by a 50-48 Senate vote, despite allegations of sexual misconduct and assault. All except one Republican voted for him, and all bar one Democrat voted against.

    Although Democrats won the House easily at the November 2018 midterms, Republicans extended their margin in the Senate from 51-49 to 53-47, mostly because the last time those senators had been up was in 2012, a very good election for Democrats. Only one Republican who voted to confirm was defeated in 2018 — Nevada’s Dean Heller — while four Democrats who voted against were defeated, including McCaskill.

    The 2020 Senate elections were largely dictated by the presidential candidate’s support in a given state. The one significant difference from presidential results was Republican Susan Collins in Maine, who won by about nine points even as Trump lost Maine by the same margin. Collins had supported Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

    In early October 2020, North Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham was revealed to have engaged in sexting with a woman who was not his wife. This has been blamed for Cunningham’s narrow defeat, but he lost by 1.8% while Biden lost North Carolina by 1.3% — hardly a big difference.

    To sum up, since the Missouri Senate election in 2012, the only candidate accused of sexual misbehaviour who has performed very badly considering the presidential results in his state is Moore in Alabama, and he was accused of child sex offences. Trump won despite the Access Hollywood tape and Senate Republicans who voted for Kavanaugh did not suffer electorally.

    Read more:
    Morrison still enjoys strong ratings in separate polls, indicating Labor’s gains may be short-lived

    In this article, I have explored three categories: recent Australian polling showing a large difference in Morrison’s ratings among men and women; international polling showing that conservatives can benefit from an anti-PC sentiment and young men becoming less likely to view sexual misbehaviour as harassment; and US elections that suggest there is little penalty for sexual misbehaviour anymore.

    Having looked at all the data, I believe there is a backlash against political correctness that is making sexual misbehaviour more acceptable. More