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      On Ukraine, Turkey Is Moving Cautiously Toward the West

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      Just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the chief commentator of the Turkish daily Sabah, Mehmet Barlas, summed up his assessment of the situation with the sentence, “If we had to reckon with a war, President Erdogan would not have left today for a four-day trip to Africa.” He added that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, is in constant contact with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

      Is Bosnia-Herzegovina Next on Russia’s Radar?

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      “All experts,” the avowed Erdogan supporter continued, agreed that Washington was escalating the crisis to solidify its dominance in Western Europe. With that, Barlas also echoed the general mood in Turkey. It is fortunate, he said, that Russia’s president is much more reasonable and wiser than his American counterpart, Joe Biden.

      The Bond Between Erdogan and Putin

      This positive image of Putin and Erdogan’s familiarity with the Kremlin leader is no accident. Particularly since the failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, Erdogan has, with Putin’s help, been able to position himself independently of — and sometimes even against — the United States and Europe on key foreign policy issues.

      In Syria and Azerbaijan, Ankara and Moscow succeeded in marginalizing Western actors. In Libya and the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey acts as a competitor or even adversary to member states of the European Union.

      Turkey’s flirtation with Moscow led to concerns that Ankara might turn away from Europe altogether. That contributed to the EU’s kid-glove approach to Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean and Cyprus. It also resulted in Washington’s belated reaction to Turkey’s acquisition of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system with sanctions. It is true that Turkey has experience with Putin as a cool strategist and ruthless power politician in conflicts such as the one in Syria. But Erdogan has always seemed to succeed in avoiding escalation.

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      Despite all of Ankara’s tension with Moscow, Erdogan’s rapprochement with Russia has brought him much closer to his goal of strategic autonomy for his country from the West. Turkey skillfully maneuvered between the fronts of global rivalry and was able to considerably expand its scope and influence in just a few years.

      In this seesaw policy, however, Turkey is behaving much more confrontationally toward Western states than toward Russia. For years, the government press has painted a positive picture of Russia and a negative one of the United States and Europe. This is not without effect on Turkish public opinion. Around a month before Russia attacked Ukraine, in a poll carried out by a renowned opinion research institute, a narrow relative majority of 39% of respondents favored foreign policy cooperation with Russia and China instead of Europe and the United States.

      In the first days after Russia’s invasion, Ankara’s policy followed exactly the aforementioned pattern. Turkey condemned the attack, but it is not participating in sanctions against Russia. In the vote on suspending Russia’s representation rights in the Council of Europe, Turkey was the only NATO state to abstain and, as such, is keeping its airspace open to Russian aircraft.

      The West is paying particular attention to whether and how Turkey implements the Treaty of Montreux. The 1936 treaty regulates the passage of warships through Turkey’s Dardanelles and Bosporus Straits into the Black Sea. It limits the number, tonnage and duration of stay of ships from non-littoral states in the Black Sea. In the event of war, the convention stipulates that the waterways must be closed to ships of the parties to the conflict, and it entrusts Ankara with the application of the treaty’s regulations

      Ankara Swings Around

      It took Turkey four days to classify the Russian invasion as “war.” However, Ankara is still reluctant to officially close the waterways — as the treaty stipulates — to ships of parties to the conflict, Russia and Ukraine. Instead, Ankara is warning “all countries, Black Sea riparian or not,” against sending warships through the straits.

      In the literal sense, this step is not directed unilaterally against Moscow, but it also makes it more difficult for NATO ships to sail into the Black Sea. According to the treaty, however, the waterways may only be closed to warships of all countries if Ankara considers itself directly threatened by war. Consciously creating ambiguity, Turkey has triangulated between the West and Russia.

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      Almost imperceptibly at first, however, a reversal has now set in. There are four reasons for this. First, the West is showing unity and resolve unseen since the Cold War, and its sanctions are undermining Russia’s standing in the world. Second, Putin is losing his charisma as a successful statesman and reliable partner. Third, Ankara realizes that Putin’s vision of a great Russian empire could provoke more wars. Fourth, the ranks of the adversaries are closing and it is becoming more difficult for Turkey to continue its seesaw policy.

      Thus, strongly pro-Western tones have emerged from Ankara in recent weeks. Turkey will continue to support Ukraine in consultation with the West, according to the president’s spokesman. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu now claims to have contradicted Russia’s wishes for the passage of warships through the Bosporus “in all friendship.” President Erdogan is also in favor of admitting Ukraine to the European Union and Kosovo to NATO.

      Moreover, Ankara is not contradicting reports by Ukrainian diplomats that Turkey is supplying more armed drones and training pilots to fly drones. On March 2, Turkey joined the vast majority of states in the UN General Assembly’s condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that asked Russia to “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces.” Two days later, during the extraordinary meeting of NATO’s foreign ministers, Turkey supported the deployment of NATO’s Response Force to NATO countries neighboring Ukraine.

      It looks like Putin is not only bringing long-lost unity to the EU, but he is also reminding Turkey of the benefits of its Western ties. Western states should realize that only more unity among themselves and more determination will make Turkey reengage with the West.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      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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      How to Write New York Times Propaganda

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      The Russian invasion of Ukraine has ushered the Western world into an innovative moment of history managed by the media, who aim at nothing less than erasing the public’s perception of history and historical processes. Welcome to the age of nonstop propaganda. Any curious person seeking news about the war in Ukraine, let alone its background and causes, faces the permanent challenge of determining whether whatever story they happen to be reading is news or propaganda, or more likely some kind of witch’s brew containing some of the former and a preponderance of the latter.

      For the past month, the most respectable news outlets in the West have channeled their energy into perfecting a novel journalistic phenomenon that goes well beyond traditional propaganda. It has become so concentrated it now deserves an official name. I propose calling it “Obsessive Accusatory Reporting” (OAR). The message of any item in the news meriting the OAR label is to magnify an already present feeling of confirmed hatred in the reader. In principle, it can target nations, peoples, ideas or religions. But it works best when it focuses on a single personality.

      Finding a Way to Diss Information

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      The current version of OAR began with an idea already built into the cultural woodwork of American media: the perception that Russia — whether in its historical Soviet version or in its modern post-tsarist form — is the natural and eternal enemy of the United States and, by extension, to Western civilization as a whole. Inherited from the Cold War as a set of feelings that Americans find natural, establishment Democrats in the US gave it new impetus thanks to the artificial association they managed to establish with the man they believed could play the role of a true American evildoer: Donald Trump. Now, thanks to a specific event, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the practice of OAR can focus on a universal target by whom, unlike Trump, no American should be allowed to be seduced. It’s the new Hitler, Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

      Anyone who has ever witnessed a rowing event knows that to gain speed and ensure hydrodynamic efficiency, all rowers must have their oars strike the water at the same precise moment and achieve an equivalent depth below the surface of the water as their collective effort pushes the boat and all it contains forward. This repeated, disciplined, rhythmically coordinated energy creates the inertia strokes that produce increased momentum. 

      The media’s propaganda campaigns appear to work in much the same way thanks to the equally disciplined and repeated OAR phenomenon. Obsessive repetition, the alignment of an infinite series of examples of despicable behavior and the journalistic talent for turning each example into an emotion-stirring story are the three elements that sum up the art of OAR. The momentum the media has created around hatred for the person of Vladimir Putin has become a spectacle in itself. The danger the media has no time to worry about as its effort continues developing potentially uncontrollable speed is that it may reach the point where it triggers actions leading to a potentially thermonuclear conflagration. Call it the media’s brinkmanship that multiplies the effects of politicians who themselves, persuaded it is now the key to successful electoral marketing, have turned it into an art form. Voters want their leaders to be aggressive decision-makers.

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      There are undoubtedly plenty of reasons to distrust, despise and morally condemn Vladimir Putin that existed well before he decided to invade Ukraine on February 24. Putin has, as befits a country ruled for a century by autocratic tsars, developed a particularly thuggish form of governing his nation. Russians at least are used to it and fatalistically accept it, with no illusion about its pretention to any form of virtue other than the ability to keep things under control. 

      Putin is clearly guilty of every sin — from brutal repression to aggravated narcissism — that accrues to anyone who achieves his level of control that embraces military power, finance and technology. His ability to repress any serious opposition and manipulate electoral processes, his commitment to cronyism and self-enrichment, and his immunity from a basic moral sense concerning the value of human life and the dignity of the average citizen constitute attributes of his office. Unlike some autocratic leaders, he also has a high level of strategic intelligence. 

      Westerners have become habituated to leaders who seek to seduce broad segments of the population thanks to slogans rather than the demonstration of their clout or the display of their intelligence, which in fact is never required and, when it exists, may get in the way of their ambition. Western political leaders focus on developing the essential skill of deploying charm to win elections. To Westerners, Putin’s style of governing marked by the arrogance of power is worse than distasteful. It challenges their own belief in the illusion they need to feel of possessing political power in a democracy thanks to their ability to vote at regular intervals. They need to imagine their vote has an impact on policy, an illusion the media encourages them to believe in. All it really does is limit the degree of repression a democratic government may get away with. Putin has no qualms or regrets about manifestly unjust actions carried out against his own people. Western democratic leaders actually worry.

      Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was unambiguously illegal, morally shocking, paradoxical to the extent that he is attacking the population he claims to wish to protect and downright brutal. It may even be self-defeating, potentially tarnishing his image as a strong leader. It would, however, be premature to draw conclusions on that last point, as many in the Western media have already started doing. But for anyone susceptible to being seduced by today’s OAR culture, the temptation to believe in the inevitable failure of Putin’s enterprise is overwhelming. For the past two weeks, Western media have been joyously proclaiming that Putin’s armed assault is on the verge of defeat. 

      Journalism and Democracy

      The traditional belief about journalism in a democracy included the idea that the press plays a role closely attuned to the interest and the voice of the people. Ideally, the media exists to provide essential information about the real world and a modicum of independent insight about the topics treated. By showing restraint and focusing on discernible facts, media in a democracy could be trusted to help citizens understand complex events and make informed decisions after drawing their own conclusions about the possible relationship between causes and effects.

      That has long been the theory concerning the role of what people still call the fourth estate, a linguistic hand-me-down from 18th century European history that designates the free press. The fourth estate was deemed to be closest to the third estate (the people, or the commoners) and furthest from the first two estates (the clergy and the nobility). The advent of democracy made the theory of the estates obsolete, to the extent that the clergy lost its status of “estate.” In reality, the totalitarian drift of the 20th century revealed that the first and second estates merged as democratic governments assumed they could project the moral authority the clergy traditionally exercised.

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      The idea of a free and independent press embodied in the fourth estate continued to persist as a necessary but increasingly intangible ideal. Alas, history tells us that whenever an ideal makes contact with reality, it is likely to become distorted. With the rise of democracy in the West in the 19th century, the press permitted the expression of variable points of view. But over time, no ethical system could prevent those voices from being influenced by political parties, commercial interests, pressure groups and the government itself. The key to honoring the ideal was variety, not just tolerance but also the encouragement of a range of views. Financial concentration eventually limited and finally captured and confined that variety.

      The media has been trapped by forces it no longer tries to control or resist. It is virtually impossible even to imagine, let alone create anything resembling the ideal news outlet for which objective presentation of the news would be the inviolable norm. Perhaps the proponents of government by artificial intelligence believe they can one day put that in place by eliminating human agency. They too are victims of an illusion because manipulative human agency can work — and in fact works best — through artificial systems that include and mechanically promote the interests that created them. This is as true of political systems as it is of computer programs. The failure of humanity to even begin addressing the impending catastrophe of global warming can simply be attributed to systemic inertia, not to the idea that no leader is willing to make an appropriate decision.

      So long as diversity in the media was still possible, truth for the public at large could emerge not from a spontaneous or enforced consensus, but through the highly interactive process of recognizing and eliminating the distortions of the reality that became visible after comparing the various representations of it. By definition, the truth about human institutions and historical facts is dynamic, organic and interactive. It is not a statement and cannot be contained in statements. It exists as a perception. Perceptions can be shared, compared or contradicted. No single perception sums up the truth.

      In the traditional democratic idea of journalism, a good article avoided explicit judgment. In many instances, the standard practice became to avoid even mentioning specific interpretations or judgments. Good reporting limited itself to acknowledging dominant perspectives on a topic without choosing to endorse one or another. In stories about crime, for example, it has become a general rule — before a verdict rendered by a court of justice — to use the epithet “alleged.” This rule holds even when there is no doubt about the existence of the crime and the identity of the author of the crime (though the real reason for this precaution may be the media’s fear of being accused of libel). In contrast, when it comes to political issues, the opposite trend dominates. Journalists or their editors now routinely jump on the occasion to name the culprit and inculcate the belief of guilt in their audience. Knowing their niche audience, it enables them to offer their public what they want to hear or understand.

      Russian Agency and the Havana Syndrome

      One prominent case in recent years illustrates how easy it is for journalists to play fast and loose concerning real or imaginary political crimes. Over a period of five years dedicated to reporting on the “Havana syndrome,” The New York Times, The Washington Post and other respectable media consistently described reported health incidents as “attacks.” That word alone presumed criminal agency, even though the reality of cause and effect was closer to a “heart attack” or “panic attack” than to an assault.

      Articles on the syndrome typically insisted that, even when no evidence could be cited of any human agency, Russia was the prime suspect. Sentences such as this one from The Washington Post were clearly intended to distort the reader’s perception: “Current and former intelligence officials have increasingly pointed a finger at Russia, which has staged multiple brazen attacks on adversaries and diplomats overseas.” It is worth noting that the only act in this sentence that should qualify as news is what the intelligence officials have done: “pointed a finger.” All the rest, the “brazen attacks,” are either imprecisely anecdotal from a random past or simply imaginary.

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      Five years after initially pointing fingers, those same officials finally admitted officially that there was nothing to point their finger at. When the ultimate negative assessment by the CIA itself of Russian attacks was published in January of this year, did The Post or The Times (or any other media) apologize to their readers for their erroneous reporting over the years? Obviously, not. Perhaps they felt that might oblige them to do the unthinkable: apologize to the Russians.

      When there was finally no choice left but to reveal the CIA’s negative assessment, The New York Times tried to save face by insisting that everything it had pinned its hopes on might still have an element of truth in it. “A directed energy weapon,” Julian E. Barnes wrote on January 20, “remains the hypothesis that a number of victims who have studied the incidents believe is most likely.” If that fact is true, a serious reporter would have delved into the interesting question of why the victims continue to believe something that their superiors have determined to be untrue. Does this reveal that CIA operatives and their families have lost their trust in the truthfulness of the agency? The rest of us are left wondering why journalists like Barnes himself think it necessary to print such meaningless observations as significant facts.

      Now that the entire thesis of Russian-directed energy attacks has been discredited, a new article delving into the motivation of intelligence officials who made repeated unfounded claims might prove informative. But, miraculously, there are no new articles on the Havana syndrome, except maybe the article you are now reading. But none in The Times or The Post. With hindsight — something the legacy press studiously avoids — the articles of these papers appear to reveal the equivalent of “brazen attacks,” not by Russians but by US intelligence services. They were attacks on the public’s access to the truth. The journalists were simply willing conscious or unconscious accomplices in these brazen attacks. What this entire episode truly reveals is a lesson in how our culture of hyperreality works. It depends entirely on the media.

      Finally, a Serious Case of a Brazen Attack: Ukraine

      This inevitably brings us back to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This time, Russia is indeed guilty of a brazen attack that isn’t an imaginary hypothesis dreamed up by intelligence operatives. Nevertheless, the media have turned it into something far more brazen by systematically excluding or ignoring other less brazen but equally troubling attacks that have been going on for years. They include a decidedly brazen coup d’état in Ukraine supported, if not engineered, by the United States in 2014.

      The carefully managed act of regime change in which the US gratefully accepted the assistance of neo-Nazi extremists to produce the commensurate level of violence used the deposition of one democratically elected leader to enable the comforting fiction that the two Ukrainian presidents elected since those events — Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky — are somehow more legitimate than the president overthrown in the Maidan Revolution. That fiction depends on discarding the fact that Ukraine is not just another “sovereign nation” of Europe, but a historically, culturally and linguistically divided country that also has a conflicting but highly charged symbolic meaning for both Russia, its next-door neighbor, and the United States, a distant hegemon that has used NATO to spread its military dominance across Europe.

      Most reasonable and reasoning people admit the principle that complex political entities such as Ukraine require delicate diplomatic treatment. But, as the Bush wars revealed, US foreign policy rarely acknowledges the need for rationality. Even basic diplomacy appears to be inconsistent with the culture of enforced hegemony. At best, it might serve the purpose of catastrophe avoidance. But catastrophes are increasingly welcomed rather than avoided. Instead, we can observe a growing trend of catastrophe provocation that is difficult to explain, since the cost is heavy even for the perpetrators. For the US, it appears to have something to do with the idea that world hegemony is the only possible source of global stability and that catastrophes such as war are somehow good for business (which of course they are, but not for everyone’s or even most people’s business).

      In such a geopolitical environment, propaganda becomes a way of life and serves as the core activity in the construction of public culture. Selecting the facts the public will react to in a predictable way according to the interest of those who understand the secrets of geopolitical stability has become the basis of legacy journalism in the US. The ultimately comic example of the Havana syndrome perhaps served as a kind of temporary placeholder in times of relative peace. It upheld the mythological construct of a permanent Cold War, which seems to be essential in the definition of US foreign policy. Now that things have become seriously degraded in a nation that journalists have begun calling the “civilized” part of the world — meaning that it is worth being concerned about, in contrast with the Middle East, Asia and Africa — propaganda has to focus not on pure hallucinatory hyperreality but events that are taking place in the real world.

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      We are only beginning to see the dominant strategies involved. It is too early to assess them with any historical distance. What we are witnessing is the need to whip up the blind hatred that leads to the OAR phenomenon described earlier. But there is also a more basic approach that applies especially to situations that are historically and culturally complex. It includes the decision to forget to mention or even categorically deny the obvious for as long as possible. When the obvious does become visible, thanks to the indiscipline of some rare investigators interested in the truth, the strategy consists of devising ways of downplaying it and treating it as marginal.

      The Neo-Nazi Syndrome

      When Putin launched his assault on Ukraine, he defined a mission of denazification of Ukraine. He may have presumed that all Westerners can relate to that theme. Nazis are, after all, the personification of historical evil. So, if we can agree on a common enemy, we should at the very least offer one another friendly support. Putin apparently underestimated the Westerners’ ability to remain ignorant of very real and already documented facts, thanks to the deliberate forgetfulness of their media. Not only did commentators laugh at the notion that a neo-Nazi threat existed in Ukraine, they mocked the idea that it could exist in a nation whose president is Jewish.

      Four weeks into the war, The New York Times has published an article acknowledging that the neo-Nazi question is worth mentioning. The article bears the title, “Why Vladimir Putin Invokes Nazis to Justify His Invasion of Ukraine.” The title alone is extremely clever. It focuses attention not on the Nazis, who are never seriously identified, but on Vladimir Putin, whom Times readers understand as being evil incarnate. The first sentence reads as pure mockery of phrases Putin has used. “Ukraine’s government,” Anton Troianovski writes, ”is ‘openly neo-Nazi’ and ‘pro-Nazi,’ controlled by ‘little Nazis,’ President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says.”

      The implication is that if Putin said it, it must be a lie. It is only in the 12th paragraph of the article that the question of the actual presence and actions of neo-Nazis in Ukraine is even grudgingly entertained. “Like many lies,” the paragraph begins, “Mr. Putin’s claim about a Nazi-controlled Ukraine has a hall-of-mirrors connection to reality.” Ah, Troianovski appears to admit, there is a connection to reality, but of course it is hopelessly distorted, like a fun park’s hall of mirrors.

      The following paragraph attempts to convince the reader that the phenomenon is so marginal there is definitely nothing to worry about. “Some fringe nationalist groups, who have no representation in Parliament, use racist rhetoric and symbolism associated with Nazi Germany.” In other words, talk of neo-Nazis is all fiction.

      Many paragraphs later, Troianovski reveals the real reason why this article of clarification became necessary for The Times rather than simply neglecting to mention neo-Nazis. It’s the fault of Facebook, which created something of a scandal when it “said it was making an exception to its anti-extremism policies to allow praise for Ukraine’s far-right Azov Battalion military unit, ‘strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard.’” The Russians seized on this as proof of complicity between the Ukrainian resistance and the neo-Nazis. To counter dangerous Russian propaganda, The Times is stepping up to clarify the issue, even though it would have preferred not having to mention it.

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      Unfortunately, the article spends paragraph after paragraph clarifying nothing. It somewhat precipitously ends with a quote about how Jews are now among those fleeing the war. Some of them may never return, implying that Putin’s intent of denazifying Ukraine is in itself a deviously anti-Semitic act. This reversal of perception of blame illustrates one of the key techniques of New York Times-style propaganda. The journalist finds a devious way of turning the supposedly moral motivation of the enemy into its opposite.

      Troianovski briefly hints at the uncomfortable paradox that Israel has refused to condemn Russia, a fact that might comfort the idea of Putin’s concern with neo-Nazis. But the journalist leaves that question aside, apparently convinced that the subtlety of that debate unnecessarily complicates his mission as an OAR specialist focused only on highlighting Putin’s evil nature. Surprisingly for those familiar with modern Ukrainian history, Troianovski has the honesty to mention the historical Nazi sympathizer and Ukrainian nationalist, Stepan Bandera, still celebrated by many Ukrainians.

      Troianovski even has the merit of providing a link to a fascinatingly instructive 2010 Times article, written at a time when the paper had no particular commitment to churning out propaganda in the interests of celebrating Ukraine’s democratic purity and constitutional integrity. The author of that article, Clifford J. Levy, highlights the problem that Viktor Yanukovych was facing as he bravely attempted “to address the ethnic, regional and historical passions that divide the country.” Yanukovych was, of course, the Ukrainian president that Victoria Nuland helped to depose in 2014.

      Understanding the Culture of Propaganda by Comparing The Times in 2010 and 2022

      All New York Times readers and indeed all American journalists owe it to themselves and the sanity of the world we live in to read Levy’s article from 2010, if only to compare it to the image of Ukraine that American media are putting forward today of a unified people, imbued with liberal European values and united in their hatred of tyranny in all its forms. Levy’s article that applies the now-forgotten practices of straightforward journalism presents facts, cites contrasting points of view — including admirers of Bandera — and takes no sides. In so doing, it gives a clear picture of a terrifyingly complex social and historical situation that Western media have decided to simplify to the extreme in their wish to follow the dictates of US President Joe Biden’s State Department.  

      Any objective observer today, however rare their voices are in the media, must realize, as Barack Obama did in 2016, according to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, that “Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one.” Obama’s State Department that sent Nuland to Ukraine to manage the Maidan Revolution appeared at the time unaware of what Goldberg called the “Obama Doctrine.” That same objective observer should also be aware of the fact that the Ukraine described by Levy in his 2010 article still exists, despite the State Department’s 2014 coup d’état. There is much more about the history of the last eight years and beyond that, despite the terrifying consequences playing out day after day, US and Western media have now chosen to studiously ignore, if not suppress.

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      One salient point that readers of Levy’s article will relate to today, however, is the remark of the director of the Stepan Bandera museum in Lviv: “For Ukrainian nationalists, there is no such word as capitulation.” That is even truer when those same nationalists dispose of a billion dollars worth of American weaponry to keep the war of resistance going as long as possible. The citizenry of Western Ukraine will follow the lead of the nationalists — not all of whom are neo-Nazis — and refuse to capitulate, while suffering what deserves to be called severe if not sadistic cultural, political and military abuse from two enemies fighting a proxy war on their land: Russia and the United States.

      But if the continuing destruction of Ukrainian cities and loss of thousands of lives is the price to pay for the pleasure of reading reams of Obsessive Accusatory Reporting, then, as Madeleine Albright might say, “the price is worth it.”

      ​​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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      COVID-19 Policies Carry Implications for South Korea’s Presidential Election

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      On top of a highly contested presidential race and the election of People Power Party (PPP) candidate Yoon Suk-yeol on March 9, South Korea’s COVID-19 numbers are rapidly rising, with the country experiencing over 300,000 infections a day and record rates of COVID-related deaths. Despite the increase in cases, the South Korean government has removed several COVID-19 policies, including extending business closing times and removing the vaccine or negative test requirement to enter many public spaces.

      Although South Korea has reduced its prior strict contact tracing policies, the percentage of critically ill patients is less than the country’s last peak in December 2021. The key question now is what the South Korean public thinks about the government’s COVID-19 response.

      Getting the Public Behind the Fight on Misinformation

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      South Korea’s 2020 national assembly election was internationally praised for balancing ease of voting amid pandemic restrictions and provided a blueprint for other countries, with President Moon Jae-in’s administration largely praised for its efficient response to the pandemic. South Korea even allowed citizens who have tested positive to cast a ballot at the polls once they recovered, even if voting had officially ended. 

      However, with cases rising in late 2021, evaluations of the Moon administration’s handling have soured, although still hovering around 40% — the highest in the country’s democratic history for an outgoing president and similar to his vote share in 2017. Yet Yoon and the Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung, both polling under 40% in the run-up to the election, declined to outline any pandemic response plan until November, when there was already a shortage of hospital beds — likely a result of the government’s “living with COVID” plan. 

      Similarly, minor candidates have not presented clear COVID-19 policies. Even beyond the “living with COVID” strategies, candidates have not shared concrete plans to build back infrastructure after the public health crisis. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      To understand South Korean evolving perceptions of COVID-19 policies, we conducted a pre-election web survey of 945 South Koreans on February 18-22 via Macromill Embrain using quota sampling on gender, region and age. We asked respondents to evaluate on a five-point Likert scale the following statement: “I am satisfied with the South Korean government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.”

      We found, at best, mixed support for the government’s response, with overall disagreement outpacing agreement — 43.6% versus 35.8%. As before, perceptions deviate on party identification, with supporters of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) largely satisfied with the response (64.8%), while supporters of the main conservative party, the PPP, are largely dissatisfied (71.4%). 

      Supporters of the two smaller parties, the progressive Justice Party and the center-right People’s Party, showed responses that were more mixed, perhaps because candidates had not emphasized COVID-19 policies in campaign rhetoric. Regression analysis finds that women and older respondents are more supportive of COVID-19 policies, while after controlling for age, gender, education, income and political ideology, supporters of the DP were still more likely to evaluate pandemic policies favorably while PPP supporters were less likely to do so. 

      Noting this partisan divergence, we next wanted to identify whether views on COVID policy may have indirectly influenced support for one candidate over another. Regression analysis finds that even after controlling for demographic factors and party identification, satisfaction with COVID-19 policies negatively corresponds with voting for Yoon and positively for Lee. 

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      However, we also found that views of COVID-19 policies largely correspond with evaluations of President Moon’s job performance, questioning whether these measures were driving evaluations of Moon or whether perceptions now may simply be picking up sentiments regarding Moon irrespective of the actual policies. Further analysis shows that including evaluations of Moon’s performance in our earlier statistical models results in the COVID-19 evaluation failing to reach statistical significance. 

      Whereas COVID-19 policies helped Moon Jae-in’s party in 2020 win a clear majority in the national assembly, our evidence suggests evaluations now may have contributed to an anti-incumbency vote even as both of the major candidates lack clear policy prescriptions related to the pandemic. Regardless, President-elect Yoon will need to address a changing COVID-19 environment amid a fatigued and divided Korean public.

      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 Great Fever Misconception

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      Yes or no? On or off? Zero or one? Binary is simple, and simple is good. It facilitates decision-making, especially in a crisis like a pandemic. After all, either you have COVID-19 or you don’t. If you have COVID, then you are infectious and should isolate to avoid spreading it. On the other hand, if you don’t have COVID, you can’t infect anyone else, no matter how closely you associate with them. Of course, the tricky part is determining whether or not someone has COVID.

      The PCR test is the gold standard for determining if a person has COVID-19. It’s a very good test that gives us the yes-or-no binary information that we value so much for making decisions. Unfortunately, the test is not always readily available and it’s also expensive. And timing is critical. If you take the test too soon after you are infected, the virus may not have yet traveled to your nose where the sample is taken, and thus the result may be a false negative — you have COVID but the test indicates you don’t. Also, it often takes time in a laboratory to process the results — will you isolate or carry on while you’re waiting?

      COVID Failure: A Matter of Principle

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      Finally, what would prompt you to get a COVID test? Perhaps some event prompts you or requires a test by policy, but otherwise, you might take a test because you feel sick. If so, you already know you may be infectious. In that case, a positive COVID test merely confirms what you already suspect, and you normally get that confirmation a couple of days too late to do any good. Despite our heavy reliance on testing, it’s not as simple or as timely as we would like for deciding when to isolate.

      We’ve had another way to separate the healthy from the sick during the COVID-19 pandemic: symptoms. For example, if you have a fever, then you may be infectious. But temperature-based screening has not been very effective at all, and a big reason why is that the US government has historically defined fever as 100.4°F (38°C) or above. If a person’s body temperature is 100.3°F, then according to the government, that person does not have a fever. Does that make sense?

      Unfortunately, one of the distinguishing characteristics of COVID is the tendency of many infected people to have mild or even unnoticeable symptoms, including only slightly elevated body temperature, below 100.4°F. So, the government’s definition of “fever,” although simple and binary, has only confused the situation. Some people who were asymptomatic with COVID-19 took their temperature, found it to be below 100.4°F and assumed they did not have a fever. So, they carried on with normal day-to-day activities, often infecting others. Temperature-based screening systems typically use the government’s 100.4°F fever threshold, and, as a result, failed to prevent entry by many infected persons. Relying on the government’s 100.4°F fever definition has contributed to the spread of COVID-19. Where did this government standard come from, how can it be improved, and why has the US resisted change?

      © Douglas Dyer

      Origins of 100.4°F

      In 1868, a German physician, psychiatrist and medical professor named Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich published a paper describing his assessment that normal body temperature is relatively constant, varies from 97.9°F to 99.3°F (36.6°C to 37.4°C), and averages 98.6°F (37°C). He found that patients with a disease often exhibited a symptom of fever that he found to average at or above 100.4°F. He based these findings on 1 million temperature measurements for 25,000 patients.

      For the time, this scientific result was quite remarkable, and it changed medicine forever because it gave physicians the newfound ability to objectively assess the presence and severity of many diseases. However, Wunderlich’s patients were mostly German rather than being from different cultures, his thermometer may have been less accurate than those we have today, and people are a little different now than they were then.

      These are reasons to suspect that Wunderlich’s ideas of normal body temperature and fever are somewhat different today than they were in the mid-1800s. But, to be fair, Wunderlich observed differences in temperature based on many variables when healthy, and he advised that temperature averages have many “shades of gray.” In particular, Wunderlich noted that even smaller rises in temperature are cause for concern, and that there is no definite temperature threshold over which a person transitions from health to sickness. He said that any “elevation of the axillary [under the arm] temperature above 99.5°F (37.5°C) or any depression below 97.2°F (36.5°C) is always very suspicious.” He added: “But even when every precaution has been taken in making the observations, it is impossible to draw a hard and fast line to indicate by temperature the exact limits of health and disease.”

      © Douglas Dyer

      Today, clinical research suggests that Wunderlich’s findings should be revisited, that the normal temperature range varies by the individual, and that there is no arbitrary fever threshold that works for everyone. Yet, the US government and some medical experts still regard 98.6°F as normal body temperature and 100.4°F or above as a fever. For COVID019, this is simple, easy and, for most people, wrong.

      Improving on 100.4°F as a Fever Threshold

      If you’re interested in seeing if 100.4°F is an appropriate fever threshold for you, try taking your temperature. Use a normal, digital, under-the-tongue thermometer for at least 60 seconds. Make sure you haven’t consumed anything for 15 minutes — a hot or cold drink or food will change your measurement. Keep your mouth closed during the reading. Assuming you are healthy, if your temperature is below 98.6°F, then it’s a good bet that your fever threshold is under 100.4°F.

      If you were to take your temperature every day, preferably in the morning when you first wake, you would see that your normal temperature varies in a range of one degree or so. For example, in the image below is the normal temperature data for a person we’ll call JRDA5.

      © Douglas Dyer

      From this graph, we can see that JRDA5’s normal body temperature varies from 96.6°F to 97.4°F when healthy, and you can expect your own normal temperature to vary also.

      In modern medicine, a fever is understood to be a temperature elevation above a person’s normal range. This definition of fever is more accurate than an arbitrary fever threshold like 100.4°F that is based on population averages and data from 150 years ago. A person’s normal temperature range depends on many factors such as age, sex, nutrition and level of activity, and so different people will have different fever thresholds.

      Almost always, a fever threshold defined as above your normal temperature range is below 100.4°F. Therefore, if we use this new definition, there is significant potential for identifying sick people using temperature-based screening. Relying on 100.4°F is insufficient for identifying mild, pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic cases of COVID-19.

      Why the Government Has Resisted Changing the Definition of “Fever”

      A pandemic is not the best time for complicated methods. Perhaps the US government chose to stick with 100.4°F for simplicity and consistency. But, in this pandemic, nothing has been simple. We’ve learned to take advantage of vaccines that need boosting, tests that need repeating and symptoms that keep changing. People can figure out their normal temperature range and their own personal fever threshold if that means effective screening. Having a fever or not is still binary, even if we define fever as above your normal range. It’s still pretty simple.

      Elevated temperature is not definitive proof you have COVID-19. We all like certainty, and the PCR test will remain the gold standard for COVID. But we don’t need certainty to make a decision to isolate. A fever should prompt isolation, even though it may not be caused by COVID. The next step is to get tested and then wait for the results. We can stop the pandemic if people isolate if they get a fever. Fever is the most timely indicator we may be infectious.

      Asymptomatic cases may not exhibit any elevated temperature, so we cannot depend on temperature screening anyway. It’s possible that there are some people infected with COVID-19 who do not have any fever, perhaps because their immune system doesn’t work at all. However, we know that many asymptomatic cases are accompanied by elevated body temperature lower than 100.4°F. We can catch those people using the more correct definition of fever. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

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      People hate change and the government is no different. It takes a lot to pass federal legislation and to modify federal regulations. But the government’s 100.4°F fever threshold isn’t working. The effort to change will help us control the pandemic.

      How Redefining “Fever” Helps

      Since the omicron variant of COVID-19 emerged, we’ve seen increased demand for testing, with many people standing in line for hours waiting to get a test. In the United States, the government has been ordering more tests to address the shortages. However, the demand for testing can evidently overrun our testing resources. By using a more accurate definition of “fever,” people will have a better idea of when they need to get tested. Today, about 75% of tests come back negative. We have clinical evidence that fever and other readily available health data can predict test results. By redefining “fever,” we can make testing more efficient.

      We can also monitor our health every day, conveniently, in our own homes. We can’t afford to give everyone a daily PCR test, and hardly anyone wants that anyway. In contrast, it’s easy, fast and affordable to take our temperature every day. It’s a smart, safe way to help keep our friends and family safe and do our part to fight the pandemic. A lot of people would self-monitor if they knew it would help.

      The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 evidently mutates easily, giving rise to variants, and we don’t expect that to change. It’s possible there are already variants that are not caught by current tests. Redefining “fever” can help identify cases that PCR tests miss. So far, fever is a symptom of all variants. More broadly, fever is a symptom of many other infectious illnesses, such as the flu. Isolating when you have a fever is appropriate for new variants and other viruses to help prevent the spread and keep everyone safer.

      It’s high time for the government to redefine “fever” as body temperature above a person’s normal, healthy range. With a more accurate definition, temperature-based screening can be a powerful new tool for fighting the pandemic — and one well-suited to use by anyone, at home and in time to make a difference. Americans want to help fight the pandemic. It’s about time the government helps them do just that.

      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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      Rowing Together to Tackle Inequality

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      Beyond the health consequences of the pandemic, evidence shows that the COVID-19 crisis may result in increasing the levels of poverty and inequality for years, if not generations. This outcome is not inevitable. However, insufficient responses to the crisis have deepened inequalities both between and within countries and intensified public discontent, paving the way to “social turmoil and unrest,” says research Bruno Valerio.

      COVID Failure: A Matter of Principle

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      The costs of the pandemic are being borne disproportionately by poorer categories of society since low-income households are more exposed to health risks and more likely to experience job losses and sharp declines in wellbeing. At the same time, the pandemic has been a boon for the wealthy. In response to the economic collapse in March and April 2020, central banks injected enormous amounts of liquidity into financial markets, keeping asset prices high while economic activity slowed down. Some of the biggest winners were those with high stakes in the technology sector.

      Against this background, Kara Tan Bhala, the founder of the Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics, suggests using the Gini coefficient as a measure of how close a country or the world is to economic upheaval. “The Gini coefficient gauges the income inequality of a region, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality,” she says. “Perhaps nations begin seriously reforming economic policies when their Gini coefficients are above 0.4 (United States) and red lights start flashing trouble when a country scores above 0.5 (South Africa, Brazil).”

      But how do we tackle inequality? According to economist Etienne Perrot, “the adequate responses must … address both property [ownership] rights through anti-trust regulations to counter the abuse of a dominant position, policies through redistributive taxes and education so as not to confuse emulation and competition.” Other policy responses may include “reforms of the transparency and other features of firm governance, broader acceptance of countries’ right to control cross-border capital movements,” as Andrew Cornford points out.

      Embed from Getty Images

      To implement these policies, the first condition is that inequalities should be on the political agenda, which is not the case everywhere, as professor Yuriy Temirov illustrates with the case of Ukraine. But policy measures alone are not sufficient to reduce inequalities. They have to be complemented by a cultural, transformative process for learning to “row together” (Fratelli tutti), as Domingo Sugranyes of the Pablo VI Foundation says, to increase our socioeconomic resilience.

      By Virgile Perret and Paul Dembinski

      Note: From Virus to Vitamin invites experts to comment on issues relevant to finance and the economy in relation to society, ethics and the environment. Below, you will find views from a variety of perspectives, practical experiences and academic disciplines. The topic of this discussion is: Inequalities seem to accelerate in every part of the world due to COVID-19 and other issues. Unlike the climate debate, in social issues, we do not have a proper threshold for catastrophe. This leads to a possible overestimation of social resilience and leaves the issue as such largely untackled. Drawing on the particularities of your region or on your area of expertise, what should/can be done?

      “… perfectly predictable socioeconomic inequalities … ”

      “The pandemic only reveals perfectly predictable socioeconomic inequalities. Pope Francis had alerted the international community as soon as the first vaccines appeared. The causes of these glaring social inequalities mix the institutional side through the right of property, the politics increasingly tempted by nationalism, and the spiritual bathed in the materialistic individualism of modernity. The adequate responses must therefore address both property right through anti-trust regulations to counter the abuse of a dominant position, policies through redistributive taxes and education so as not to confuse emulation and competition, distinguishing between the elite and the financial success.”

      Etienne Perrot — Jesuit, economist and editorial board member of the Choisir magazine (Geneva) and adviser to the journal Etudes (Paris)

      “… the Gini coefficient as a measure of how close a country is to economic upheaval… ”

      “In the global climate crisis, anything over 2°C above the average pre-industrial temperature leads to unmitigated disaster. In a similar vein, I suggest we use the Gini coefficient as a measure of how close a country or the world is to economic upheaval. The Gini coefficient gauges the income inequality of a region, where 0 corresponds with perfect equality and 1 corresponds with perfect inequality. Perhaps nations begin seriously reforming economic policies when their Gini coefficients are above 0.4 (United States) and red lights start flashing trouble when a country scores above 0.5 (South Africa, Brazil). Of course, these watershed levels need further research, but it would be enlightening to have an idea of the income inequality thresholds of social disaster.”

      Kara Tan Bhala —president and founder of the Seven Pillars Institute for Global Finance and Ethics

      “… public support will be essential to act to avert a total catastrophe … ”

      “Despite its importance, GDP as an indicator should no longer be the only way we measure economic success. Fairer economy would mean tackling health inequalities and getting to grips with issues that prevent individuals from certain ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds meeting their full potential. We need to embrace means of improving wellbeing and advancing social mobility, build on promoting social inclusion as well as addressing poverty. New plans must be put in place to achieve a more sustainable economy in a more equal and socially just society, and this cannot just be an aspiration — it must be seen as critical to our survival. In recognizing the profound challenges, public support will be essential to act to avert a total catastrophe. The coronavirus is still alive, and risk lies in whether this will be possible.”

      Archana Sinha — head of the Department of Women’s Studies at the Indian Social Institute in New Delhi, India

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      “… rowing together (Fratelli tutti) …”

      “I don’t see a theoretical answer to this extremely vast question. My reaction can only be in terms of (modest) action-oriented commitment: ‘rowing together’ (Fratelli tutti), i.e., trying to identify social projects of high solidarity value, which help people to emerge from poverty on their own capabilities, and look for means — money, goods, time — in order to increase the scope and impact of such communities. We need business and people in business to get much more decidedly involved in these kinds of projects. This is, among many other organizations, what we try to do with The Voluntary Solidarity Fund (VSF International) and VSF Spain. Everybody is welcome to join.”

      Domingo Sugranyes — director of a seminar on ethics and technology at Pablo VI Foundation, former executive vice-chairman of MAPFRE international insurance group

      “… an effective wealth tax and a global minimum corporate tax … ”

      “With the COVID-19 pandemic, the gap between the rich and the poor, in particular the income gap, has increased as Pope Francis, among others, has stated on several occasions. It is undeniable that the trend had already started several decades ago. However, with COVID-19, inequalities have reached record levels that do necessitate strong internal reforms. If no actions will be taken, such as an effective wealth tax and a global minimum corporate tax, the possibility of social turmoil and unrest will be inevitable. In Italy, political parties are literally unable to agree and set the slightest kind of agenda for a proper patrimoniale (wealth tax or asset tax), preferring to keep the country in an extremely dangerous status quo.”

      Valerio Bruno —researcher in politics

      “… fiscal measures, transparency, control of cross-border capital movements … ”

      “Much attention has been given to the wealth as well as the income dimension of the inequalities — the associated rents of the minority at one end, and the much lower and often stagnating incomes of the remainder. The latter comprises not only the working class, but also parts of the middle class. Much commentary has also concerned the opportunities to hide wealth — and thus reduce tax exposure — provided by cross-border financial liberalization and offshore financial centers. Policy responses to the inequalities should include fiscal measures, including improved taxation of the wealth of individuals and firms, reforms of the transparency and other features of firm governance, broader acceptance of countries’ right to control cross-border capital movements, and changes in legal definitions designed to facilitate controls over firms’ domestic and cross-border access to different economic activities and industries and thus to restrict regulatory arbitrage and opaqueness in firms’ operations.”

      Andrew Cornford — counselor at Observatoire de la Finance, former staff member of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with special responsibility for financial regulation and international trade in financial services

      “… imaginative countermeasures of income … ”

      “The fundamental dynamic of any economy is summed up in the dictum, ‘To those who have shall be given and they shall have more than they can use, and from those who have not shall be taken even what they have.’ COVID also has set it in motion. Where the effects are beneficial — e.g., the reduction in travel by air — it should be encouraged. Further good news is that the deprivation inflicted by COVID on the deprived has been met — at least in places like Geneva — not by the usual blame, scorn and exclusion, but by imaginative countermeasures of income support and new forms of communication like Zoom.”

      Edouard Dommen — specialist in economic ethics, former university professor and researcher at the UNCTAD and president of Geneva’s Ecumenical Workshop in Theology.

      Embed from Getty Images

      “… first we have to think about youth … ”

      “The social deprivation problems are persistent, and this fact routinizes somehow their existence and hinders the definition of a social resilience threshold. Differentiated priorities emerged in South/Eastern Europe after the successive waves of crisis, but first we have to think about youth since no country can sustain without giving hope to its members through a micro/macro strategy that includes: i) an immediate recovery plan with emergency income support for the vulnerable groups; ii) long-lasting work-related policies and investments on youth employment (work-based training, tax reliefs for innovative enterprises); iii) strategies of sharing the risks with interregional cooperation and job retention schemes; and iv) protection and support of childhood integrity (tackling invisible work and poverty with financial benefits for low-income families and proper child/health-care, along with future-centered support, such as home learning environment and early schooling interventions).”

      Christos Tsironis —associate professor of social theory at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

      “… in Ukraine, social inequality will not become a priority soon … ”

      “In Ukraine, social inequality has two primary sources: the legacy of the ‘socialist’ totalitarian past and deformed oligarchic capitalism. At the same time, the initial period of transformation with the exacerbation of the problems of social inequality has dragged on dangerously. From 1991 to 2014, the domination of the interests of oligarchic groups over national interests acted as a brake on reforms. After the Revolution of Dignity, there was a political will to implement unpopular reforms, but they had to be carried out in conditions of the population’s fatigue from reforms, in the realities of Russian aggression. The promotion of reforms by servants of the people is complicated by populism. In Ukraine, social inequality will not become a priority soon. At this stage of transformation, this issue cannot be a priority; the authorities do not have a correct understanding of the hierarchy of priorities, and society’s perceptions of equality/inequality are distorted by collectivism and paternalism.

      Yuriy Temirov —associate professor, dean of the Faculty of History and International Relations at Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University

      *[An earlier version of this article was published by From Virus to Vitamin before the Ukraine War began.]

      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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      India’s Reasons For Abstaining in the UN on Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

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      On February 26, the United Nations Security Council voted on a resolution proposed by the United States. Of the 15 members of the Security Council, 11 voted in favor and Russia unsurprisingly used its veto to kill the resolution. China, India and the United Arab Emirates abstained. Two days later, India abstained on a vote at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that set up an international commission of inquiry into Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The country also abstained at the UN General Assembly, which voted 141-5 to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

      India’s abstentions have led to much heartburn in the US and Europe. One high-flying national security lawyer in Washington argued that India was wrong to ignore Russia tearing down Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations. Like many others, he took the view that India has sided with an aggressive autocrat, weakened its democratic credentials and proved to be a potentially unreliable partner of the West. The Economist has called India “abstemious to a fault.”

      American Hypocrisy and Half-Measures Damn Ukraine and Help Russia

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      In particular, serving and retired American and British diplomats have been wringing their hands at India’s reticence to vote against Russia. For many Americans, this is a betrayal of the good faith that the US has reposed in India by giving the country a special nuclear deal in 2008 and designating India as a “major defense partner” in 2016. In 2018, the US elevated India to Strategic Trade Authorization tier 1 status, giving India license-free access to a wide range of military and dual-use technologies regulated by the Department of Commerce, a privilege the US accords to very few other countries. On Capitol Hill, India’s abstention is further viewed as an act of bad faith because many members of Congress and senators worked hard to waive sanctions against India. These were triggered by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act when India bought Russian S-400 missile systems. 

      Many Western business leaders are now wondering if India is a safe place to do business after the latest turn of events. For some in the West, this is yet another example of India slipping inexorably down the slippery slope of authoritarianism under the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

      Two Unfriendly Nuclear Neighbors

      Such fears are overblown. India remains a thriving democracy. Elections just took place in five states after colorful political campaigns. Infrastructure development in India is going on at a record pace and growth remains high amidst inflationary pressures. Despite some blunders such as the 2016 demonetization of high-denomination currency notes and the botched 2017 rollout of the goods and services tax, the Modi-led BJP has become more market-friendly.

      As per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report, India ranked 63 out of the surveyed 190 countries, a marked improvement from the 134 rank in 2014 when Modi came to power. Like the US, India is a fractious and, at times, exasperating democracy, but it is a fast-growing large economy. Even as US manufacturers Chevrolet and Ford exited the Indian market, Korean Kia and Chinese MG Motor India have achieved much success.

      Embed from Getty Images

      India is also proving to be a major force for stability in the region. After “America’s Afghanistan’s fiasco,” India has been picking up the pieces in an increasingly unstable region. The country is now providing humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people even as the US has abandoned them. Thousands of trucks roll out daily from India to Afghanistan via Pakistan as part of India’s effort to feed millions of starving Afghans. India is delivering 50,000 tons of wheat to a country led by the Taliban. Earlier, India sent 500,000 coronavirus vaccines as well as 13 tons of essential medicines and winter clothing to Afghanistan. Despite its reservations about the new regime in Kabul that offered refuge to hijackers of an Indian plane in 1999 and sent jihadists to Kashmir, a government branded as anti-Muslim by The New York Times is behaving magnanimously to help millions of Afghans facing starvation.

      Despite its thriving democracy and growing economy, India remains a highly vulnerable nation in an extremely rough neighborhood. To its west lies an increasingly more radical Pakistan that, in the words of the late Stephen Philip Cohen, uses “terror as an instrument of state policy in Kashmir.” To its east lies an increasingly aggressive China led by President Xi Jinping assiduously using salami-slicing tactics to claim more Indian territory. In sharp contrast to the US, India has two nuclear-armed neighbors and faces the specter of a two-front war given what Andrew Small has called the China–Pakistan axis.

      National security that occupies much headspace in Washington is a constant headache for New Delhi. Multiple insurgencies, street protests, mass movements, foreign interference and the specter of nuclear war are a daily worry. During the Cold War, Pakistan was an ally of the US and benefited greatly from American funding of the Afghan jihad against the Soviet Union. A 1998 report by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) tells us India was among the top three recipients of Soviet/Russian weapons from 1982 to 1996. 

      More recently, India has diversified its arms imports. A 2021 SIPRI fact sheet makes clear that India is now the biggest importer of French and Israeli arms. From 2011-15 to 2016-20 Russian arms exports to India dropped by 53%, but the country still remained the top importer. In 2016-20, Russia, France and Israel’s share of India’s arms imports comprised 49%, 18% and 13% respectively. A retired assistant chief of the integrated staff estimates that around 70% of India’s military arsenal is of Russian origin.

      Given Indian dependence on Russian military hardware, it is only natural that New Delhi cannot afford to annoy Moscow. Critical Russian spares keep the defense forces combat-ready. For high-tech weaponry, which has the added advantage of coming at affordable prices, India relies on Russia. Moscow has also shared software and proprietary interaction elements for weapons delivery systems with New Delhi. Furthermore, Russia allows India to integrate locally-made weapons into its fighter jets or naval vessels unlike the US or even France. 

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      From New Delhi’s point of view, the India–Russia military-technical cooperation is even more valuable than Russian military kit. Unlike the West, Russia has been willing to transfer technology, enabling India to indigenize some of its defense production. This began in the 1960s when India moved closer to the Soviet Union even as Pakistan became a full-fledged US ally. Since then, Moscow has shared critical technologies over many decades with New Delhi. India’s supersonic anti-ship missile BrahMos that the Philippines recently bought is indigenized Russian technology as is India’s main battle tank.

      As a vulnerable nation in a rough neighborhood, India relies on Russia for security. Therefore, New Delhi decided it could not upset Moscow and abstained at all forums.

      The China Factor

      There is another tiny little matter worrying India. It is certain that Xi is observing and analyzing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a revisionist power, China seeks to overturn the postwar order. Beijing has designs on Taiwan and territorial disputes with many of its neighbors. Its most recent armed confrontation occurred with India though. Since that June 2020 clash, Indian and Chinese troops are locked in a stalemate that repeated rounds of talks have failed to resolve.

      More than anyone else, India fears a Russia–China axis. If Moscow threw in its lot with Beijing, India — deprived of technology and critical spares — might face a military catastrophe. If Russia sided with China in case of a conflict between the two Asian giants, India would face certain defeat.

      Recent military cooperation between Russia and China has worried India. A few months ago, a flotilla of 10 Russian and Chinese warships circumnavigated Japan’s main island of Honshu for the very first time. This joint exercise demonstrated that Russia and China now have a new strategic partnership. Despite their rivalry in Central Asia and potential disputes over a long border, the two could team up like Germany and Austria-Hungary before World War I. Such a scenario would threaten both Asia and Europe but would spell disaster for India. Therefore, New Delhi has been working hard to bolster its ties with Moscow.

      In December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin flew to India to meet Modi. During Putin’s trip, both countries signed a flurry of arms and trade deals. Apart from declarations about boosting trade and investment as well as purchasing various military equipment, Russia transferred the technology and agreed to manufacture more than 700,000 AK-203 rifles in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh where the BJP has just been reelected. In the words of a seasoned Indian diplomat Ashok Sajjanhar, Putin’s visit “reinvigorated a time-tested strategic partnership between India and Russia.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Sajjanhar left unsaid what astute Indian diplomats say in private. India’s close relationship with Russia is insurance against China. New Delhi wants Moscow to act as a moderating influence on Beijing and act as an honest broker between the two Asian giants. India believes that there is no power other than Russia that could act as its bridge to China.

      The Weight of History

      When Sajjanhar was speaking about a time-tested relationship, he meant decades of close India–Russia ties. During World War II and in the run-up to independence in 1947, the US earned much goodwill because Franklin D. Roosevelt championed the Atlantic Charter, promising independence to the colonies. However, relationships soured soon after independence because India chose socialism under its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru.

      When the US conducted a coup against the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, India came to view the US as a neocolonial power. It is easy to forget now that Washington backed the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company over those of the government of Iran, triggering trepidation among Indian leaders who remembered clearly that their country was colonized by the British East India Company. The coup gave both capitalism and the US a bad name and pushed New Delhi closer to Moscow.

      In the following years, India’s ties with the Soviet Union strengthened. As Pakistan became a firm Cold War ally of the US, India embraced socialism ever more firmly and became a de facto Soviet ally, claims of non-alignment notwithstanding. In 1956, the Soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian Revolution. Nehru censured Moscow in private but refused to condemn Soviet action even as he railed against the Anglo-French intervention in the Suez. As per Swapna Kona Nayudu’s well-researched paper for the Wilson Center, New Delhi now became “a crucial partner in international politics for Moscow.”

      In 1968, the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring, an uprising in then-Czechoslovakia that aimed to reform the communist regime. Nehru’s daughter, Indira Gandhi, was prime minister, and she publicly called for the Soviets to withdraw their troops. In the UN Security Council, though, India abstained in the vote on the Czechoslovakia matter, attracting widespread condemnation from the American press.

      Three years later, India went to war with Pakistan to liberate Bangladesh. This did not go down well in the US, despite the fact that the military dictatorship of Pakistan was inflicting murder, torture and rape in a genocide of horrific proportions. During the 1971 India–Pakistan War, Richard Nixon called Gandhi a “bitch” and Henry Kissinger termed Indians as “bastards.” Indian diplomats repeatedly point out that Nixon and Kissinger ignored their own diplomats like Archer Blood who valiantly spoke truth to power about Pakistani atrocities, a story chronicled superbly by Princeton professor Gary J. Bass in “The Blood Telegram.” Instead, they sent vessels from the Seventh Fleet to intervene on Pakistan’s behalf. It was the Soviets who came to India’s rescue by sending their naval vessels to counter the American ones.

      Embed from Getty Images

      India repaid Moscow’s 1971 favor when Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. In 1980, India refused to condemn this invasion at the UN. During the decade that followed, the US funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan through Pakistan. Relations between the US and Pakistan became closer than ever at a time when General Zia-ul-Haq launched Operation Tupac to “bleed India through a thousand cuts” by championing insurgencies within India. First Punjab and then Kashmir went up in flames. Terrorism became a feature of daily life for India, but the US turned a Nelson’s eye to the phenomenon until the grim attacks of September 11, 2001.

      Since those attacks, India and the United States have moved closer together. Thousands of Indian students study in the US every year, American investment has flowed into India and defense cooperation has steadily increased. The US views India as a valuable partner to contain the rise of an aggressive China, and New Delhi cares more about Washington than any other capital on the planet.

      Even as US–India ties have deepened, New Delhi has retained close ties with Moscow. Russia continues to build nuclear power plants in energy-hungry India. Plans to import more Russian oil and gas have also been in the works. Because of these ties, India did not condemn Russian action against Crimea in 2014. The left-leaning government in power at that time went on to say that Russia had “legitimate” interests in Ukraine.

      It is important to note that no opposition party has criticized the government’s position. Shashi Tharoor, a flamboyant MP of the Indian National Congress party who said that India was on “the wrong side of history,” got rapped on the knuckles by his bosses. The opposition and the government have almost identical views on the matter. Neither supports Russian aggression against Ukraine, but no party wants to criticize an old friend of the nation.

      Political Factors, Domestic and International

      War in Ukraine is obviously not in India’s interest. India imports energy, and rising oil prices are going to unleash inflation in an economy with high unemployment. This worries both political and business leaders. In its statement at the UN, India called for peace and diplomacy. In official statements, India has also expressed support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. India does not in any way support Russian aggression but cannot criticize Moscow for a host of reasons described above as well as often overlooked political factors.

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      Indian leaders have also been preoccupied with elections in five critical states. Political analysts consider these elections to be a dress rehearsal for the 2024 national elections. With stakes so high, the ruling BJP was under pressure to bring home thousands of Indian students studying in Ukraine safely. For this, India relied on Russia. While some might say this necessitated a Faustian silence, 18,000 Indian lives were at stake.

      India also had reservations about Ukraine. Reports of Indian students facing racism in Ukraine have been doing the rounds on social media. These may be info ops by Russians, but they have touched a chord among the masses. Press reports of fleeing Indian students facing racism and segregation at the Ukrainian border have not helped, nor have memories of Ukrainian arms deals with Pakistan, which have triggered Indian suspicions. Even though India is against the conflict, New Delhi does not want to forsake an old friend and support a potentially hostile power.

      India also suspects the motives of the West in taking on Putin. There is a strong feeling across nearly all political parties that the US would not show the same concern for a non-white nation in Asia or Africa. Left-leaning parties point out that the US and the UK based their 2003 invasion of Iraq on a pack of lies. A popular Indian television anchor has railed against the “racist reportage” of Western media that treats blue-eyed, blonde Ukrainian refugees differently to Syrian or Afghan ones.

      There is also another matter driving India’s hesitation to go along completely with the US in targeting Russia. An increasing trust deficit between the Democrats and the BJP is harming US–India relations. For years, The New York Times and The Washington Post have relentlessly criticized the BJP, accusing the party of being authoritarian, if not fascist. Even food aid to the impoverished citizens in Taliban-led Afghanistan did not get any recognition from the papers of record in New York and Washington.

      Billionaires like George Soros who support Democrats have been vocal against the BJP and Modi. Their foundations have also funded Indian organizations opposed to the BJP. Americans see this funding as an expression of idealism that seeks to promote civil society and democracy. On the other hand, many Indians see American funding as a sinister ploy to weaken the nationalist BJP and replace them with weak, pliant leaders. Indians are also irked by the fact that Democrats rarely give credit to the BJP for winning elections, the democratic proof of its platform’s popularity.

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      Democrats have also been pressuring India to legalize gay marriage, forgetting that the issue is pending before the Indian Supreme Court. Indians point out that it was the British who decreed “unnatural” sexual acts” as not just illegal but also imprisonable during Queen Victoria’s heyday. The BJP has already come out in favor of legalizing homosexuality but has no power to intervene in a matter pending before the court. The failure of Democrats to recognize this reeks of a white savior complex that destroys trust between Washington and New Delhi. 

      Many BJP leaders are convinced that the Democrats are plotting some sort of a regime change in the 2024 elections. They believe there is an elaborate game plan in place to discredit Modi and the BJP. In this worldview, the Democrat establishment is manipulating discourse and peddling narratives that could lead to some version of the Orange Revolution in India. They are convinced that once Putin goes, Modi might be next. Even though India is opposed to a war that is severely hurting its economy, this fear of Western interference in domestic political matters is one more reason for India to abstain from turning on its old friend Russia.

      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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      Industrialization and Innovation Could Make the Indian Economy Takeoff

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      Labor-intensive manufacturing has historically been the best-known recipe for driving economy-wide productivity enhancement. Over time, several countries, notably those in East Asia, managed to move unskilled workers from farms in rural areas to factories in urban settings. This transition increased both individual incomes and national GDPs, ultimately boosting productivity.

      Not all countries have taken to manufacturing, though. Some of them have experienced premature deindustrialization, which economist Dani Rodrik has analyzed extensively. India’s manufacturing sector never reached full potential because of this phenomenon.

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      Instead, India ended up with the “premature servicization” of its economy. This diminished its capacity to create enough well-paying jobs for its large population and did not allow for increased productivity.

      India’s Drive to Industrialization and Innovation

      Services now comprise more than half of India’s GDP. As alluded to above, services do not deliver productivity growth in the same way as industry. Those who argue for free trade believe this does not matter. India can import industrial goods like cars and cellphones while exporting software writing and call center services.

      Such arguments for a trade-based economy fail to recognize, or in many cases deliberately omit, increasing trade deficits when a country has poor manufacturing. In a volatile and uncertain world, these deficits can become a geopolitical liability for any nation because manufacturers can shut off access to the most basic of goods. Manufacturing does not only increase productivity and enhance security, but it also creates jobs and lowers inequality. For these reasons, India has recently embarked on a reindustrialization program. 

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      The new Production Linked Incentives (PLIs) seek to attract the more reputed global manufacturers, the best brains in industry and high-quality, long-term investments to India. Under PLIs, participants can manufacture for the domestic and/or export markets. The government applied these incentives to 14 sectors, of which telecoms, cellphones, electronic equipment and automobiles are benefiting already.

      Many manufacturers station their Global Capability Centers (GCCs) in India, which has become a global base for services operations. A June 2021 report by Deloitte and NASSCOM states that 1,300 GCCs employed more than 1.3 million professionals and generated $33.8 billion in annual revenues in the financial year starting April 1, 2020, and ending March 31, 2021. Another report estimates that GCCs are likely to grow by 6-7% per year and rise to over 1,900 by 2025. It also says that these GCCs are evolving from back-office destinations to global hubs of innovation.

      Digitization is aiding this transformation of GCCs. Now, industrial design is no longer a monopoly of a headquarters in Michigan or Munich. Thanks to fast-speed internet and powerful computers, research, design and development of new machines, goods and consumption articles can take place anywhere in the world. Software is playing an increasingly bigger role in creating new hardware, driving additive manufacturing and automating factories. A process of disintermediation of manufacturing is under full swing, leading to what can be called a “servicization of manufacturing.”

      This trend gives India a unique opportunity. Global businesses need rapid, at-scale and cost-effective innovation. With its cost advantages and services ecosystem, India can provide that innovation to the world. Conventionally, innovation is associated with creating something new such as an iPhone or a Tesla. However, innovation occurs in less flamboyant ways as well. Any change in design or development that creates new value for the firm or provides an operational competitive advantage is an innovation too.

      A Unique Opportunity to Takeoff

      Global companies aiming to operate faster, cheaper and better are increasingly operating in India. The country has become more innovative over the years. India granted 28,391 patents in the financial year 2020-21, up from 9,847 in 2016-17 and 7,509 in 2010-11. Last year, the press reported that India registered as many trademarks in the past four years as in the previous 75. India’s rank on the global innovation index has moved up from 81 in 2015 to 46 in 2021. The World Intellectual Property Organization also recognized India as the second most innovative low and middle-income economy after Vietnam.

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      India missed out on the first and second industrial revolutions. The first one took place in Europe between the mid-18th and mid-19th centuries when India was fragmented and undergoing colonization by the British East India Company. The Second Industrial Revolution occurred in the 20th century, but India was ruled by the British government directly, which had no interest in industrialization. London’s incentive was to use India as a provider of raw materials and as a captive market for finished British industrial goods.

      After independence in 1947, India failed to industrialize unlike its East Asian counterparts. It chose a Soviet-style planned economy that was closed and protectionist. Only in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed did India embrace market reforms and liberalized its economy.

      Today, India is growing at 9% and its GDP is about to touch the $3-trillion mark. With strong global tailwinds, India can embrace industrialization and innovation, and finally enter what American economist Walt Rostow has termed the takeoff stage of economic growth.

      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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      Finding a Way to Diss Information

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      On March 11, at the United Nations, Russia accused the United States and Ukraine of collaborating on developing chemical and biological weapons. Russian officials claimed to have documents proving an attempt to destroy evidence of this illegal activity. None of the coverage reveals whether the documents published on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website make a credible case. In other words, the Russian accusations may or may not be true. Whether such activity is likely or not is another question, but even if it were considered likely, that does not make it true.

      The US and Ukraine have consistently and emphatically denied any even potentially offensive operations. The debate became complicated last week when at a Senate hearing, US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland admitted that the laboratories exist and were conducting research that might have dangerous consequences if it fell into Russian hands. She revealed nothing about the nature of the research. Various US officials explained that the research existed but aimed at preventing the use of such weapons rather than their development. That disclaimer may or may not be true.

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      At the United Nations meeting, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield categorically denied any activity with these words: “I will say this once: ‘Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program.’” As The Guardian reports, the ambassador then “went on to turn the accusation back on Moscow” when she accused Russia of maintaining a biological weapon program. That may or may not be true. In fact, both accusations have a strong likelihood of being true.

      ABC News summarized the issue in these terms: “Russia is doubling down on its false claims that the U.S. and Ukraine are developing chemical or biological weapons for use against invading Russian forces, bringing the accusation to the United Nations Security Council on Friday.”

      Today’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      False claims:

      Hypotheses that are likely enough to be true but difficult to prove conclusively

      Contextual Note

      The basic claim made by ABC News is true, at least if we reduce the message to the incontestable fact that the Russians brought the “accusation to the United Nations Security Council on Friday.” What may or may not be true is the reporter’s assertion that these are “false claims.” As noted above, the Russian claims may or may not be true, meaning they may or may not be false.

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      For news reporting in times of war, propaganda becomes the norm. It trumps any form of serious inquiry, that the legacy media in the US bases its reporting on two complementary suppositions: that everything US authorities tell them is true and that most everything Russians claim is false. Those same reporters who suppose their side is telling the truth and the other side is lying also suppose that their readers share the same suppositions. In times like these, propaganda is the most effective and especially the most marketable form of communication.

      The second sentence in the ABC News article adds a new dimension to the assertion. It complains that a “web of disinformation, not only from Russian state media but also Chinese propaganda outlets and even some American voices, have increasingly spread the conspiracy theory this week.” The metaphor of a spider’s web conveniently brings back the sinister logic of the McCarthy era, when certain Americans were accused of being witting or unwitting vectors of communist propaganda. And it inexorably links with the idea of spreading a “conspiracy theory.”

      It’s worth stopping for a moment to note that each sentence in the ABC News article is a paragraph. Single-sentence paragraphing is a journalistic technique designed to make reading easier and faster. Subtle writers and thinkers, such as Al Jazeera’s Marwan Bishara, can sometimes employ the technique to create a percussive effect. But in times of heightened propaganda, the popular media resorts to the practice to short-circuit any temptation on the reader’s part to think, reason, compare ideas or analyze the facts. In journalistic terms, it’s the equivalent of aerial bombing as opposed to house-to-house combat.

      The third sentence in the ABC News article delivers a new explosive payload, this time with appropriately added emotion (“heightened concern”) and a horrified hint at sophisticated strategy (“false flag”). It speaks of “heightened concern among U.S. and Ukrainian officials that Russia itself may be planning to deploy chemical or biological weapons against Ukrainian targets or as part of a so-called ‘false flag’ operation.”

      In just three sentences, the article has mobilized the standard web of associations journalists use for propaganda masquerading as news. The vocabulary may include any of the following terms: “disinformation,” “fake news,” “false flag,” “conspiracy theory,” “propaganda,” “misinformation,” and, on occasion, the more traditional pair, “deception and lies.”

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      The article’s fourth sentence is a quote from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “This makes me really worried because we’ve been repeatedly convinced if you want to know Russia‘s plans, look at what Russia accuses others of.” That is a trope the Biden administration has been using throughout this controversy. Zelensky has read the script and the journalist is there to transcribe it.

      Historical Note

      The still-developing history of COVID-19 that has been with us for nearly two and a half years should have taught us at least two things. Governments have a penchant for presenting a unique version of the truth that insists no other version is possible. They also excel at putting in place a system that suppresses any alternative account, especially if it appears to approach an inconvenient truth. Whether you prefer the wet market or the lab leak theory is still a matter of debate. Both narratives have life in them. In other words, either of them may or may not be true. For a year, thinking so was not permitted.

      The second thing we should have learned is that the kind of experimentation done in biological and chemical research labs will always have both a defensive and an offensive potential. From a scientific point of view, claiming that research is strictly limited to defensive applications makes no sense. Even if the instructions given to research teams explicitly focus on prevention, the work can at any moment be harnessed for offensive purposes. Victoria Nuland appeared to be saying just that when she expressed the fear that Russians (the bad guys) might seek to do something the Ukrainians and Americans (the good guys) would never allow themselves to do.

      Or would they? That is the point Glenn Greenwald made in citing the history of the weaponized anthrax that created a wave of panic in the days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. George W. Bush’s White House, followed by the media, clearly promoted the idea that the “evidence” (a note with the message “Allah is Great”) pointed to the Middle East and specifically at Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Even before 9/11, Bush’s White House had told the Pentagon to “accelerate planning for possible military action against Iraq.” In January 2002, the president officially launched the meme of “the axis of evil” that included Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

      In retrospect, even though no legacy news media will admit this, the most credible interpretation of the anthrax attacks that killed five Americans was as a failed false flag operation designed to “prove” that Iraq was already using biological weapons. As the White House was preparing for war in Afghanistan, it sought a motive to include Iraq in the operations. The plan failed when it became undeniable that the strain of anthrax had been created in a military lab in the US.

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      Years later, the FBI “successfully” pinned the crime on a scientist at Fort Detrick called Bruce Ivins, the Lee Harvey Oswald of the anthrax attacks. The FBI was successful not in trying Ivins but in pushing him to commit suicide, meaning there would be no review of the evidence or reflection on the motive for the attacks. This at least is the most likely explanation because it aligns a number of obvious and less obvious facts. Nevertheless, even this narrative accusing the Bush administration of engineering what was essentially a more lethal version of a Watergate-style crime may or may not be true. 

      The moral of all these stories is that in times of conflict, everything we hear or read should be reviewed with scrutiny and nothing taken at face value. And just as we have learned to live with unsolved — or rather artificially solved — assassinations of presidents, prominent politicians and civil rights leaders, we have to live with the fact that the authorities, with the complicity of an enterprising media skilled at guiding their audience’s perception, will never allow us to know the truth.

      *[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 Fair Observer Devil’s Dictionary.]

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