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      Negotiating the End of Brexit

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      It is increasingly likely that, unless things change, on January 1, 2021, we will have a no-deal Brexit. That would mean the only deal between the European Union and the United Kingdom would be the already ratified EU withdrawal agreement of 2019.

      There are only around 50 working days left in which to make a broader agreement for a post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the EU. The consequences of failing to do so for Ireland will be as profound — and perhaps even as long-lasting — as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

      A failure to reach a UK-EU agreement would mean a deep rift between the UK and Ireland. It would also mean heightened tensions within Northern Ireland, disruptions to century-old business relations and a succession of high-profile court cases between the EU and the UK dragging on for years.

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      Issues on which a deal could have easily been reached in amicable give-and-take negotiations will be used as hostages or leverage on other matters. The economic and political damage would be incalculable. And we must do everything we can to avoid this.

      Changing the EU trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, under such circumstances would be dangerous. Trying to change horses in midstream is always difficult. But attempting to do so at the height of a flood — in high winds — would be even more so.

      The EU would lose an exceptionally competent trade commissioner when he was never more needed. An Irishman would no longer hold the trade portfolio. The independence of the European Commission, a vital ingredient in the EU’s success, would have been compromised — a huge loss for all smaller EU states.

      According to the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, talks between the European Union and the UK, which ended last week, seemed at times to be going “backwards rather than forwards.” The impasse has been reached for three reasons.

      The Meaning of Sovereignty

      First, the two sides have set themselves incompatible objectives. The European Union wants a wide-ranging “economic partnership” between the UK and the EU, with a “level playing field” for “open and fair” competition. The UK agreed to this objective in the joint political declaration made with the EU at the time of the withdrawal agreement, which was reached in October 2019.

      Since then, the UK has held a general election with the ruling Conservative Party winning an overall majority in Parliament, and it has changed its mind. It is now insisting, in the uncompromising words of it chief negotiator, David Frost, on “sovereign control of our own laws, borders, and waters.”

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      This formula fails to take account of the fact that any agreement the UK might make with the EU (or with anyone else) on standards for goods, services or food items necessarily involves a diminution of sovereign control. Even being in the World Trade Organization (WTO) involves accepting its rulings, which are a diminution of “sovereign control.” This is why US President Donald Trump does not like the WTO and is trying to undermine it.

      The 2019 withdrawal agreement from the EU also involves a diminution of sovereign control by Westminster over the laws that will apply in Northern Ireland and thus within the UK. That agreement obliges the UK to apply EU laws on tariffs and standards to goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain — i.e., going from one part of the UK to another.

      This obligation is one of the reasons given by a group of UK parliamentarians — including Iain Duncan Smith, David Trimble, Bill Cash, Owen Paterson and Sammy Wilson — for wanting the UK to pull out from the withdrawal agreement, even though most of them voted for it last year.

      Sovereignty is a metaphysical concept, not a practical policy. Attempting to apply it literally would make structured and predictable international cooperation between states impossible. That is not understood by many in the Conservative Party.

      The Method of Negotiation

      Second, the negotiating method has proved challenging. The legal and political timetables do not gel. The UK wants to discuss the legal texts of a possible free trade agreement first and leave the controversial issues — like competition and fisheries — until the endgame in October. But the EU wants serious engagement to start on these sticking points straight away.

      Any resolution of these matters will require complex legal drafting, which cannot be left to the last minute. After all, these texts will have to be approved by the European and British Parliaments before the end of 2020. There can be no ambiguities or late-night sloppy drafting.

      The problem is that the UK negotiator cannot yet get instructions on the compromises he can make from Boris Johnson, the British prime minister. Johnson is instead preoccupied with combating the spread of the COVID-19 disease, as well as keeping the likes of Duncan Smith and Co. onside. The prime minister is a last-minute type of guy.

      Trade Relations With Other Blocs

      Third, there is the matter of making provisions for the trade agreements the UK wants to make in the future with other countries, such as the US, Japan and New Zealand. Freedom to make such deals was presented to UK voters as one of the benefits of Brexit.

      The underlying problem here is that the UK government has yet to make up its mind on whether it will continue with the European Union’s strict precautionary policy on food safety or adopt the more permissive approach favored by the US. Similar policy choices will have to be made by the UK on chemicals, energy efficiency displays and geographical indicators.

      The more the UK diverges from existing EU standards on these issues, the more intrusive the controls on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Britain will have to be, and the more acute the distress will be for Unionist circles in Northern Ireland. Issues that are uncontroversial in themselves will assume vast symbolic significance and threaten peace on the island of Ireland

      The UK is likely to be forced to make side deals with the US on issues like hormone-treated beef, genetically modified organisms and chlorinated chicken. The US questions the scientific basis for the existing EU restrictions and has won a WTO case on beef over this. It would probably win on chlorinated chicken, too.

      If Britain conceded to the US on hormones and chlorination, this would create control problems at the border between the UK and the EU, wherever that border is in Ireland. Either UK officials would enforce EU rules on hormones and chlorination on the entry of beef or chicken to this island, or there would be a huge international court case.

      All this shows that, in the absence of some sort of partnership agreement between the EU and the UK, relations could spiral out of control. Ireland, as well as the European Union, needs its best team on the pitch to ensure that this does not happen.

      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 Global Britain Confronts the Asian Century

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      On February 3, Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid bare his long-awaited vision of a “global Britain” in a world after Brexit. Speaking amidst the imperial grandeur of Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Johnson’s message was that the United Kingdom, liberated from the straitjacket of EU membership, would be free to carve out a confident, dynamic and outward-looking role on the world stage in a post-Brexit era — even as the first handful of COVID-19 infections took root on British soil.

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      Six months and a global pandemic later, Britain faces the unique and unprecedented challenge of redefining its place in a world that is in the midst of a historic watershed moment. The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for deep-rooted trends that have long been evident to politicians, policymakers and analysts alike — none more so than the tectonic shift in the globe’s geopolitical center of gravity from West to East.

      Whether it be China’s much-publicized “wolf-warrior” diplomacy against states criticizing its initial response to the outbreak, or the initial success of East Asian states in confronting the pandemic using artificial intelligence and digital surveillance, COVID-19 has shown that the much-hyped “Asian century” is not merely a future prognosis but a present-day reality.

      Brexit Britain on the World Stage

      If the pandemic has served to boost Asia’s image on the world stage, the opposite is true for Brexit Britain. The UK’s bumbling response to the COVID-19 crisis has confirmed many of the suspicions of ill-placed grandeur held in foreign capitals since the referendum to leave the European Union in 2016.

      Despite Johnson’s boastful confidence in Britain’s “world-beating” response to the novel coronavirus (which causes the COVID-19 disease), fatal early errors by the government — notably the initial refusal to enforce a lockdown in a forlorn effort to preserve the economy — have resulted in Britain suffering the worst of both worlds. Not only is the UK facing one of the highest per-capita death rates and the worst economic fallout as a result of COVID-19 in the developed world, but the situation has been exacerbated by the looming threat of no post-Brexit trade deal being agreed with the EU by the end of 2020.

      In this context, a global Britain’s success in navigating the increasingly volatile “new normal” of the post-pandemic geopolitical order will hinge more than ever on the government’s ability to leverage ties with partners old and new across the Asian continent.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Johnson’s vision of a buccaneering global Britain on the world stage is fundamentally predicated upon two core pillars: trade and security. Whitehall is acutely aware that Britain’s ability to harness the ascendance of Asia’s emerging powerhouses hinges upon striking a fragile balance between these two, often inconsistent, objectives.

      On one hand, Britain’s strategic planners look hungrily toward contemporary geopolitical hotspots like the South China Sea as testing grounds for a new forceful security footprint in the Indo-Pacific region. Britain’s armed forces already possess a string of strategic outposts, from the Brunei-based Gurkha garrison to Royal Naval logistical hubs in Singapore and Diego Garcia. The recently formed UK Defence Staff (Asia Pacific) has outlined plans for a further base in Southeast Asia in a bid to affirm Britain’s commitment to upholding the regional security architecture.

      In a symbolic gesture, the scheduled deployment of the Royal Navy’s brand new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, to conduct “freedom of navigation” patrols in the disputed South China Sea during 2021 is indicative of a wholesale rejection of the strategic retrenchment from east of Suez that has typified British security policy in the Indo-Pacific since the 1960s.

      Beijing’s Sphere of Influence

      Nevertheless, such grandiose ambitions of a more assertive military and diplomatic footprint in Asia do not come without their costs. Given China’s increasingly assertive posture on the international stage since the outbreak of COVID-19, it is not unreasonable to expect the diplomatic blowback from Britain’s perceived meddling within Beijing’s sphere of influence to grow stronger in the post-COVID era.

      In July, after the UK offered citizenship to almost 3 million Hong Kong residents following Beijing’s implementation of a controversial new security law in Britain’s ex-colony, China issued a strongly-worded yet ambiguous threat of “retaliation.” China’s response is illustrative of the fact that Brexit Britain’s ability to fully harness the Asian century is dependent upon London playing second fiddle to the preferences of Tokyo, Beijing and New Delhi.  

      Despite Johnson’s lofty rhetoric hailing Britain’s post-Brexit transformation into a “great, global trading nation,” such a vision is not exactly conducive to geopolitical maneuvers that can all too readily be perceived as antagonistic by prospective partners. For instance, Whitehall’s backpedaling over the contracting of Huawei, a Chinese technology company, to construct large tracts of Britain’s 5G infrastructure over national security concerns does not bode well for a future UK–China free trade deal. Similarly, efforts to introduce restrictions on immigration via the adoption of an Australia-style points-based system have proved to be a sticking point in post-Brexit trade negotiations with India, the former “jewel of the empire” with whom Britain shares extensive historical, cultural and linguistic ties.

      As a global Britain seeks to navigate a post-pandemic order characterized by increased great power antagonism, retreating globalization and resurgent authoritarianism, Whitehall’s strategic planners must be prepared to make hard-headed compromises between geopolitical and economic objectives in Asia in a manner that has been sorely lacking from Brexit negotiations with Britain’s European partners. Cut adrift from Europe at a time when the global order is becoming increasingly fragmented into competing regional blocs, a rudderless Britain lacking a coherent, sustainable vision of how it seeks to engage with Asia’s emerging superpowers risks becoming caught in the middle of an escalating cold war between the US and China.

      Reason for Optimism

      Despite the gloomy prognosis for a global Britain standing at the dawn of the Asian century, there remains reason for optimism once the short-term shockwaves of the pandemic have receded. Britain’s elite universities retain a mystical allure for ambitious young Asians seeking a world-class education. China, India, Hong Kong and Malaysia account for four of the top five countries of origin for international students in the UK. In addition, with two leading vaccine candidates in development at Oxford and Imperial, a British breakthrough in the fight against COVID-19 would further bolster Britain’s reputation as a global hub of research and innovation.

      Such cutting-edge academic expertise — combined with London’s enduring status as a global financial center, post-2021 visa and immigration reforms targeting highly-skilled professionals, and the cultural imprint of large Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Chinese diasporas — ensures that even post-Brexit Britain possesses the latent potential not only to attract top-class Asian talent, but also to emerge as one of the Asian century’s biggest winners outside of the Indo-Pacific. Whilst Brexit has undercut the Blairite vision of Britain as a “pivotal power” bridging the gap between the US and Europe, the United Kingdom’s deep-rooted historical, cultural, linguistic and economic ties with Asia’s rising powers provide ample scope for recasting Britain as a pivot on a grander scale: as a global hub bridging East and West.

      However, such aspirations remain little more than wishful thinking unless British policymakers can formulate a coherent approach toward the Asian century, which has so far been absent. Nevertheless, tentative steps have been taken in such a direction over recent months. Whitehall’s merging of the Department for International Development with the Foreign Office is likely to deal a blow to British influence in less-developed corners of Asia, at least in the short term. Yet Johnson’s renewed commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid enables a more cohesive, long-term approach with developmental issues, allowing funding to be streamlined toward teams of world-class specialists, such as the UK Climate Change Unit in Indonesia or the Stabilisation Unit supporting post-conflict reconstruction in fragile states like Pakistan and Myanmar.

      Similarly, the Foreign Office’s recent adoption of an “All of Asia” strategy is indicative of a more comprehensive approach to forging partnerships across the continent, balancing conflicting security, diplomatic, trade, developmental priorities, as illustrated through the establishment of the UK’s first permanent mission to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in January 2020.

      Before It Sets Sail

      As the nature of post-pandemic global order emerges over the coming months and years, a global Britain will find itself navigating a turbulent geopolitical environment made infinitely more challenging by the aftershocks of the coronavirus. This includes a worldwide economic crisis, decreased globalization, declining faith in multilateral institutions and rising great power tension, all of which threaten to derail Johnson’s post-Brexit voyage into the unknown before it has even set sail.

      Whilst Britain and its Western allies have bungled their response to the public health crisis, Asia’s dynamic rising powers are already bouncing back from the pandemic and laying the building blocks to ensure that the 21st century truly is Asian. From Beijing’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to New Delhi’s “Make in India” to ambitious future vision projects such as Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, Vision of Indonesia 2045 or Kazakhstan 2050, Asia’s emerging powerhouses all champion integrated strategic frameworks to harness the unprecedented shift in global wealth and power eastward, which the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed.

      A global Britain’s greatest mistake would be to supplement such a long-term calculated strategy with the half-baked geopolitical gambits that have so far typified Brexit Britain’s approach to the world’s largest continent. Indeed, for the UK to truly unleash its full potential in the dawning Asian century, it must look to Asia itself for inspiration.

      *[Will Marshall is an intern at Gulf State Analytics, which is a media partner of Fair Observer.]

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

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      Will Millennials and Zoomers Save the Future?

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      “All of you young people who served in the war. You are all a lost generation.” This famous phrase is credited to Gertrude Stein by Ernest Hemingway, who popularized it in the epigraph to his 1926 novel “The Sun also Rises.” The phrase encapsulates the feelings of a generation, disillusioned by the civilizational breakdown witnessed during the Great War, the loss of faith in the ideals and values that had marked their pre-war youth, which left them empty and cynical. In Europe, many of them would ultimately find a new purpose in the ranks of Mussolini’s squadristi, Hitler’s Sturmabteilung and the various fascist movements that sprang up in their wake — with disastrous results.

      It might appear preposterous to compare today’s younger generations, millennials and zoomers (aka Generation Z), to Hemingway’s cohort of young women and men on both sides of the Atlantic. And yet there are good reasons to presume that today’s younger generations are going to be as deeply, if not more, scarred — socially, economically and psychologically — by COVID-19 as the Lost Generation was by World War I.  

      Foretaste of Things to Come

      The travails of COVID-19, as has been frequently noted, are just a foretaste of things to come. The combination of climate change and the destruction of natural habitats has made the outbreak of infectious diseases spreading from animals, such as bats and birds, to humans increasingly likely. As a landmark study published in Nature put it a decade ago, “mounting evidence indicates that biodiversity loss frequently increases disease transmission.” Or, to put it differently, “current evidence indicates that preserving intact ecosystems and their endemic biodiversity should generally reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases.”

      Unfortunately, the opposite has been the case. The current rate of extinction is “tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years — and it is accelerating.” By now, humanity, which accounts for not more than a small sliver of life on this planet, is responsible for the loss of more than 80% of all wild mammals and half of all plants. The consequences are potentially catastrophic.

      For the moment, concerns about global warming and the rapid loss of biodiversity has been overshadowed by the all-consuming issue of COVID-19. And for good reasons. The novel coronavirus has severely disrupted life as we have come to know and expect it. And there is no end in sight. Its social, economic and psychological consequences, in addition to its impact on public health, has been profound and far reaching, particularly for the younger generations. Millennials, already pummeled by the fallout from the Great Recession of 2008, have been hit hard once again. For zoomers, the generation born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s, COVID-19 is likely to be the formative experience shaping the rest of their lives.

      For both generations, the economic impact of the pandemic has been disastrous. Already last year, months before the pandemic hit the United States full force, Annie Lowrey wrote in The Atlantic that millennials were “likely to be the first generation in modern economic history to end up worse off than their parents. The next downturn might make sure of it, stalling their careers and sucking away their wages right as the Millennials enter their prime earning years.” The pandemic confirmed her worst fears. Early this year, Lowrey characterized the pandemic as a “financial tsunami for younger workers.”

      According to preliminary data, after the onset of the pandemic, “a staggering 52 percent of people under the age of 45 have lost a job, been put on leave, or had their hours reduced due to the pandemic, compared with 26 percent of people over the age of 45.” Federal aid was likely to do little to nothing to alleviate their financial woes.

      The outlook is equally bleak for zoomers. According to the consulting firm Delloite, in April and May 2020, 30% of Zoomers reported having lost their job or having been put on temporary, unpaid leave. This is particularly ironic. As Mathew Goodwin has recently noted, zoomers “find themselves in a strange position — on the one hand, they are on track to be the most well-educated generation in history but, on the other, they are entering the labour market amid one of the most challenging periods in history.” Given their educational background and levels of skills, their prospects in the labor market should be bright; instead, they are nothing short of bleak.

      At least for the moment, opportunities for internships have largely dried up, entry positions are rare and, for those who manage to get one, the pay is low. And things are unlikely to get better any time soon, given the depth of the coronavirus-induced recession. As an essay in The Economist recently put it, “Economic misery has a tendency to compound. Low wages now beget low wages later, and meagre pensions after that. The prospect of middle-aged drudgery beckons.”

      After Us, the Deluge?

      The Lost Generation’s soul-shattering experience of senseless death during the Great War turned many of them cynical while leading them into aimless and reckless pursuit of vacuous, decadent hedonism, reflected in the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the paintings of George Grosz. Given the circumstances, one might expect history to repeat itself, not as a “grand tragedy” but as a “rotten farce,” as per Karl Marx’s “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon,” reflected in the infamous “COVID parties” on the beaches of Florida, with their flair of Russian roulette, scripted according to the adage “after me, the deluge,” or, more prosaically, “who gives a shit about the future.”

      As it turns out, zoomers do — or so a growing number of recent studies suggest, whether produced by think tanks or by business consulting firms seeking to exploit Gen Z’s consumer potential. The results are nothing short of stunning, the implications potentially revolutionary. Take global warming. In 2019, an Amnesty International-sponsored survey found more than 40% of young people considering global warming the most important global issue. At the same time, however, almost half of zoomers and more than 40% of millennials thought that it was already too late to repair the damage caused by climate change.

      This, however, does not seem to have turned them cynical, self-centered, apathetic or escapist. On the contrary. An article in Forbes, written at the height of last year’s global mass demonstrations calling for action to confront climate change, put it best, claiming that Gen Z was “a force to be reckoned with. They’re not trying to change the world; they’re already doing it and, in many cases, they’re leading the way.”

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      Recent studies support this contention. They find that the younger generation holds deeply engrained values that more often than not are in complete opposition to the values that dominated advanced capitalist societies pre-coronavirus. In the face of a resurgence of ethnocentrism and tribalism, they cherish diversity while rejecting the knee-jerk nationalism that has been the hallmark of right-wing populism currently en vogue from Britain to Denmark, from Italy to the United States.

      Unlike their elders, who for decades allowed themselves to be subjected to incessant neoliberal indoctrination claiming that the state is part of the problem, that only markets get things right, that society does not exist, and that everybody fends for themselves, zoomers are pro-government and supportive of a strong state. COVID-19 has not only validated and reaffirmed their belief in government action and the extension of social welfare policies but also in the necessity of fundamental, radical change.

      With Gen Z, the old slogan from the student movement of the 1960s that “the personal is political” has come back with a vengeance — and a new meaning. We have seen it with the controversies over the wearing of masks that have shown how quickly and to what degree personal choice turns into political statement these days. Today, as a number of top-notch business consulting firms have affirmed, this is particularly true with respect to consumption patterns and consumer choices. Veganism, for instance, is not only a lifestyle choice — it is also, and in some instances even predominantly, a political statement. As Deborah Kalte has recently noted, the “vast majority of vegans is politically motivated and aims to induce change in society at large.”

      In the past, as Thorstein Veblen and Pierre Bourdieu have argued and shown, consumption served as a marker, a sign of distinction, and this in a very material sense. Today, or so a number of studies suggest, at least with the younger generation, consumption is tied in with ideals and values, which makes it highly political.

      The Personal Is Political

      Even before the onset of the pandemic, business reports noted the central importance of sustainability for the younger generation. In 2015, a Nielsen report found more than 70% of global millennials were willing to pay more for sustainable goods. Five years later, a First Insight report found that “the vast majority of Generation Z shoppers prefer to buy sustainable brands, and they are most willing to spend 10 percent or more on sustainable products.” At the same time, the report noted that Gen Zers and millennials “are the most likely to make purchase decisions based on values and principles (personal, social, and environmental).”

      And the revolution does not stop here. Business consultants have already set their eyes on Generation Alpha — the offspring of the millennial generation and younger siblings of Gen Z — who populate today’s cradles and kindergartens. As an article in Wired puts it, the “latest age group to emerge are barely out of diapers, and the internet is already serving them ads.”

      Raised and influenced by their millennial parents and Gen Z siblings, they are expected to be just as progressive and radical — even more so — as their immediate elders, or so a recent report from the e-commerce consulting firm Wunderman Thompson Commerce wants us to believe. Confronted with myriads of global crises — humanitarian, ecological, economic, social — they are characterized as “uniquely ethically inclined and value-led.” This is based on the finding that more than two-thirds “of 6 to 9 year olds say that saving the planet will be the central mission of their careers in the future, joining the fight that current Gen Zs are leading.” An equally large proportion indicated they would like to buy from companies that “are trying to do good in the world.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      If the findings of these studies are true, things are likely to heat up considerably in the near future, both socially and politically. What the younger generations represent is a reality that is fundamentally at odds with the one peddled by Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and Scott Morrison (Australia’s champion of coal), to name but a few. There is a huge gap between the perceptions and values of the younger generations and those of the older generations, as most recently seen once again with COVID-19, whether with regard to wearing masks or accepting track-and-trace apps. Today, the fate of the planet is to a large extent in the hands of generations that are unlikely to experience the full force of the disasters their actions and inactions have caused. The reality is that governments, corporations and the older generation have largely failed the younger generations and continue to do so — with catastrophic consequences.  Over the past several decades, governments have piled up huge amounts of national debt.  With COVID-19, they have added further layers, bound to impose yet another enormous burden on today’s youth.     

      Under the circumstances, it might be tempting to dismiss them as another Lost Generation. It bears remembering, however, that it was the original Lost Generation that was instrumental not only in the rebuilding of much of Europe after the Great War, but also in the establishment of the postwar liberal order — “embedded liberalism” — and the entrenchment of the social-democratic welfare state. 

      Today, we confront another crucial moment. Once again hope rests on the younger generations to provide the vision and energy not only to meet the numerous social, economic, cultural and particularly ecological challenges that threaten to overwhelm humanity. All available data suggest that they are quite prepared to meet the challenge, if only because they don’t have much of a choice. Chances are that the young people will make a difference — provided their parents and grandparents will take them and their concerns and worries seriously, rather than dismissing them as alarmism or folly.

      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 Russia Views the Election Aftermath in Belarus

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      In Moscow, all eyes are on Belarus. Russia and Belarus are intimately connected, so political actors in Russia feel an immediate connection with developments there.

      In formal terms, the two countries form a “union state” and an economic and defense community. Belarus is Moscow’s closest ally and a linchpin for Russian neighborhood policy. For two decades, Russia has funded and subsidized Belarus’ state and economy. This has become a high price for a complicated relationship, as Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko consistently — and successfully — spurns Russian attempts to deepen integration.

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      Heading a joint state in Moscow had been raised as an option for keeping Russian President Vladimir Putin in power after 2024. Lukashenko was less than enthusiastic and turned, as always in moments of tension with Moscow, to the European Union. That variant is off the table, now that the amended Russian Constitution permits Putin two more terms in the Kremlin.

      A Lack of Distance

      Despite growing political differences, Moscow continues to support Lukashenko through his latest domestic political travails. Official figures put his share of the presidential vote at 80%. The candidate of the united opposition, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, had just 10%, according to the Central Election Commission. Opposition exit polls paint a very different picture, with some showing the proportions exactly inverted.

      Since the announcement of the results on August 9, the country has seen ongoing mass demonstrations, to which the security forces have responded with brutality. Nevertheless, President Putin congratulated Lukashenko on his “victory” as expected.

      The Russian political discourse pays very close attention to developments in Belarus, reflecting a persistent post-imperial lack of distance to its sovereign neighbors. Looking at the Russian discussion, one might forget that there actually is a border between Russia and Belarus, much as was the case following the Ukrainian presidential election in 2019.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Another reason for this closeness lies in the similarity of the political systems. Both are aging autocracies that are out of touch with the societies they rule and suffer rapidly evaporating legitimacy. The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic is tangibly accelerating these processes in both states.

      The Russian state media tend to play down the significance of the events and push a geopolitical interpretation in which the protesters are a minority controlled by hostile Western actors. They would not exist without Western support, it is asserted. The objective of Western policy is said to be reducing Russian influence in the region and, ultimately, “regime change” in Moscow. In other words, the issue is not liberty but geopolitical rivalry.

      In this understanding, the trouble in Minsk is just the latest in a long series of Western plots against Russia — following the 2014 Euromaidan in Ukraine and the “color revolutions” of the early 2000s. The needs of Belarusian society are completely ignored.

      Russia’s independent media, on the other hand, seek to present a realistic picture, concentrating on developments within Belarus and Lukashenko’s loss of public legitimacy. Belarus is also treated as a template for Russia’s own political future. Comparisons are frequently drawn with the ongoing protests in Khabarovsk, with speculation whether Minsk 2020 might be Moscow 2024.

      Russian Intervention?

      Foreign policy analysts in Moscow do not believe that Tsikhanouskaya can expect Western support. The European Union is divided, they note, weakened by COVID-19 and preoccupied with internal matters, while the United States is generally incapable of coherent foreign policy action. The regime will weather the storm, they believe, but emerge from it weakened.

      This, in turn, will increase Lukashenko’s dependency on Moscow. Regime-loyal and more critical foreign policy experts alike concur that Russia will ultimately profit from the situation in Minsk without itself having to intervene politically or militarily.

      The coming days will tell whether that assumption is correct. The regime in Minsk may have lost touch with the realities of Belarusian society, but it has good prospects of survival as long as the state apparatus backs Lukashenko and Russia maintains its support.

      But if the unrest grows to paralyze the country, a Russian intervention cannot be excluded. The costs would be enormous, in view of the pandemic and the economic crisis. And an intervention could also harm the Kremlin domestically, where it has its own legitimacy problems. On the other hand, it would not be the first time Moscow chose geopolitics and great power bravado over economic and political reason. And Russia’s rulers are still happy to ride roughshod over society, both at home and in Belarus.

      The EU cannot overlook the massive election fraud and the brutality of the security forces against unarmed demonstrators. It should back the demand for new elections, offer mediation and impose additional sanctions if the regime refuses to alter its current stance. But in the process, it should do everything it can to preserve contacts within Belarusian society. Clear communication with Moscow is vital, both to float possible solutions and to lay out the costs of intervention. There is no need to fear a quarrel — the EU has been in a conflict with Russia for a long time already.

      *[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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      Boris Johnson Takes England, and COVID-19, Back to Square One

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      Not only has UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson failed to learn from other countries’ dealings with COVID-19, he has stubbornly refused to learn from his own experience. He is the true king of fools. It would be laughable were it not for the tens of thousands of deaths he and his government are responsible for.

      History Will Judge Britain’s COVID-19 Response

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      On March 23, Johnson led England into a lockdown. It was far too late. In May, he led the country out of lockdown in what was supposed to be an incremental fashion. It was far too early. It was also confusing, chaotic and only encouraged people to abandon all pretense long before the final restrictions were lifted in July and August. Johnson is now back where he started, declaring, as he did before March 23, that normality and the economy must be preserved at all costs. As before, infection rates are on the rise, especially in London and parts of the north. As before, these facts are being ignored. Under no circumstances will a second lockdown be contemplated, nor will schools close after September 1. Responses to any future outbreaks will be localized and short term.

      If Possible

      The guidance being handed to England’s hapless schools is remarkably similar to that issued back in January, February and March: wash your hands, clean surfaces and, if possible, keep your distance from each other. (The government adds “if possible” to its documents because it knows full well that such distancing is impossible in most schools and in most classrooms.) As before, teachers or children who are clinically vulnerable — or who are shielding a husband or wife, a mother or father, a daughter or son who is clinically vulnerable — can attend school and should do so when the new term starts in early September.

      If you are a parent who is determined to keep your child at home, you will be fined, as before, by the secretary of state for education. And, as before, there will be no testing unless someone displays symptoms. There is, however, one innovation being introduced this time around: children, parents and staff who do show any symptoms are asked to get themselves tested, to trace contacts and to report their findings to the school.

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      Johnson’s motivation for all this nonsense is the economy. He is seemingly and willfully unaware that it tanked by a whopping 20% of GDP in the first quarter, compared to just under 12% across the EU. This is not because Johnson locked down too early and for too long, but because he didn’t lock down early enough or for long enough and didn’t take that breathing space to organize an effective track-and-trace regime or institute a mask-wearing culture. He also failed to engage with local governments and instead treated them with contempt and withheld from them the information they needed to protect the vulnerable. He has, in other words, assiduously ignored the best strategies that are on public display in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and South Korea. These include the restriction of movement and physical distancing, rapid identification of positive and suspected cases through mass testing, and the immediate isolation of positive and suspected cases with appropriate treatment rendered.

      The pillars of Seoul’s response, for example, are promptness and transparency, and a willingness to learn from the 2015 MERS outbreak. Government, local and national, did not hesitate: It tested aggressively, launched epidemiological investigations and imposed quarantines, shared information and began disinfection efforts.

      South Korea saw its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on January 23. Within a week, hand sanitizers and disposable masks were being distributed for free on public transport, and seats and handles were being disinfected. Within 16 days of the first case, museums, galleries and other cultural venues, along with taxis, subways and buses, were being sterilized with ever more frequency, and people who had been exposed were quarantined and given specialist medical care. Within four weeks, screening stations were up and running around the clock. Risky venues such as bars and cafes were closed, and treatment was being extended to citizens with suspected COVID-19 symptoms. Within five weeks, public facilities were shut.

      Unsurprising Results

      In the UK, within five weeks of the first confirmed case on January 29, Johnson, on the best scientific advice the country could muster, had done almost nothing. The government’s modeling group had advised that isolation and tracking wouldn’t do much other than delay the peak of the epidemic. Life might as well go on as normal. Masks were not needed. More proactive measures were not advised until six weeks after the first case. On March 3, Johnson’s government, having listened to the great and the good of Britain’s scientific community, declared that it would be better if people did not shake hands. That same day, Johnson proudly boasted that he had been shaking hands with everyone, including coronavirus patients.

      The results are as stark as they are unsurprising. While the UK has had more than 60,000 deaths and has taken the worst hit to its GDP year on year in the second quarter in 64 years, just over 300 people have died from the virus in South Korea, its economy grew through the first quarter and is expected to manage around -0.8% over the year. Even in the Philippines, where the government has been equally as irresponsible as Johnson’s, there are those who see the choice between keeping the economy going and tackling COVID-19 as an entirely fictitious one.

      Yet perhaps the most exasperating thing about this whole sorry debacle — surely the worst exhibition of foolhardiness and incompetence since the 1853 Crimea campaign, the First World War, Chamberlin’s policy of appeasement or Britain’s chaotic and bloody withdrawal from India (take your pick) — is the fact that Boris Johnson is still in Number 10. Not so long ago, a few weeks before the outbreak, I heard a young lecturer, a social psychologist from China, say that the English, so used to being smothered by their government and their aristocracy, are most at ease as placid and compliant followers. I’m beginning to see what she meant.

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

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      in World Politics

      It’s Time the West Moved Past Its Misconceptions About Ukraine

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      My service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine between 2018 and 2020 allowed me to witness truly historic moments as they happened, whether it was the country’s biggest-ever Pride parade or the landslide election of a comedian to the office of president. Ukraine was host to the largest Peace Corps contingent in the world prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, a reality that attests to a mutual interest in maintaining close ties between both the peoples of the two countries and their respective governments. My days were filled with curious Ukrainians asking me about life in the US, and I had the honor to prepare students who had won prestigious scholarships to go live and study in US high schools for a year.

      Can Volodymyr Zelensky Bring Peace to Eastern Ukraine?

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      Nonetheless, I have been struck by the lack of general interest or knowledge about Ukraine shown by my community in the US. Most of my friends and family knew about Chernobyl — the site of one of the world’s worst nuclear disasters that took place in 1986 — but they had few other points of reference for asking about my time in Ukraine. While this is most likely just another example of the average citizen’s obtuseness about world affairs, this ignorance can give rise to misperceptions that are then articulated at the highest level, such as the harshly negative picture painted of Ukraine during the 2019-2020 impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.

      As a returned Peace Corps volunteer and someone passionate about international engagement, here are four things that I wish everyone knew about Ukraine today. 

      US Involvement in Ukraine

      First and foremost, both countries have mattered to each other for a long time. It’s just that Ukraine is a country that Americans just can’t stop forgetting about. The United States inherited a deeply complicated relationship with Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union emerged from the ruins of imperial Russia, but it was Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration that provided the aid that saved tens of thousands of Soviet citizens from perishing in the manmade famine of 1921.

      Fast-forward 70 years, and Ukraine’s popular movement toward independence was marred by then-President George H. W. Bush’s “Chicken Kiev” speech in 1991, urging Ukrainians to not be hasty about trying to break away from the Soviet Union and form their own sovereign nation. The country then quickly faded from the Western public eye, with its only enduring legacy enshrined in the board game Risk as a huge yet indefensible territory holding the keys to Europe.

      This popular culture placeholder might have accidentally captured geopolitical thinking, with policymakers well aware of the historic role of Ukrainian territory as a buffer state and agricultural powerhouse. Nevertheless, in the 1990s, most Americans would only be able to identify Ukraine in a mocking way, laughing with Kramer and Newman at a heavily-accented stranger angrily protesting that “Ukraine is game to you!”

      The country’s 2014 Revolution of Dignity propelled the country back into US news coverage. Ukraine became a staple of Western media and public handwringing as neighboring Russia annexed Crimea and sent troops and armaments into Ukraine’s eastern territories. This furor subsided amidst the signing of a (constantly violated) ceasefire, and US and European audiences seemed to forget about the conflict, which has taken over 10,000 civilian lives and displaced 1.5 million people to date. Now, Ukraine has reappeared once again as part of President Trump’s recent impeachment trial and as a domestic hacky-sack for November’s presidential election. 

      Today, Ukraine is still a geostrategically vital country. Initial fraternal appreciation for the Russian people and state following independence have collapsed amidst Russian armed interventions in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. There is considerable scholarly debate about what Russia’s vision for its involvement was and to what extent the conflict is a knee-jerk reaction, a cynical bargaining tactic or possibly even a Ukrainian civil war. Crimea has long played host to first the Soviet and then the Russian fleet, while the natural resources and the heavy industry located in the eastern provinces also play a role in fueling the cycle of violence.

      Just as Complex

      Second, much like Americans, Ukrainians are divided in their attitude toward the costs of conflict. At the school where I worked as a Peace Corps volunteer, there is a plaque, and annual assemblies, dedicated to an alumnus who was killed after volunteering to fight. That being said, I also had discussions with young Ukrainians who insisted that some people who volunteered just ended up sitting in the barracks, and that the army’s efforts were being undermined by corrupt officers and apathy.

      Daily life continues in a way that seems to belie the fact that part of the country is under occupation, but beyond the conversations and public events there is a palpable sense of disquiet. Many Ukrainians regard the inhabitants of occupied Luhansk and Donetsk territories as deserving of destruction because of their separatist, Russia-leaning sympathies, while others stress that the conflict will only end by reengaging all Ukrainians with a federal government that can better share political and economic power with its many provinces and regions.

      While many Ukrainians still have family and friends living in Russia, the attitude toward the Russian government itself has never been so low. The capital has officially been transliterated into English as Kyiv, rather than the Russian-derived Kiev, while an intense discourse rages over what place Russian-language music should have on the radio and in movie theaters. Official events will often start or end with the stock phrase “Glory to Ukraine, glory to the heroes,” which the Russian media establishment has attempted to connect to ultra-nationalism and fascism.

      For many Ukrainians, however, the phrase is used to honor the fallen while indicating pride in their nation. Ukraine is a country that self-identifies as a historical victim of imperial oppression, and the national hero is the Cossack, representative of the democratic, horse-riding defenders of Ukrainian nationhood. The Ukrainian national anthem is somewhat reminiscent of Western anthems, with a ringing endorsement of a certain national spirit that has survived against all odds and will usher in a brighter future.

      A Bright Potential

      Third, Ukraine should not be dismissed as doomed to its past. Much of the initial excitement in the international media about the 2014 revolution, exemplified by the brave protests on Maidan Square in support of the country’s closer association with the European Union that captured the world’s attention, quickly turned to a narrative of how oligarchs and fascist elements were hijacking the popular movement. This is a favorite stalking horse of the Russian state media, but it is true that far-right elements did figure in the initial fighting both against government security forces and in the chaos following the operations in eastern Ukraine.

      Similarly, there is no avoiding the widespread corruption that has marked the history of Ukraine as an independent state. Oligarchs like Renat Akhmetov and Ihor Kolomoisky have controlled large swathes of the nation’s industries, and these robber barons inspired countless lower-level iterations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Ukraine’s economy has been hamstrung by the economic consequences of the conflict in its eastern provinces with Russian-back separatists, while attempts at reform are widely seen as opposed by corrupt officials and their oligarch sponsors. One friend of mine in Korostyshiv talked despairingly about Ukraine’s future and opined that the country should simply be divided between Poland and Russia. This rare perspective certainly attests to the dim view that many younger Ukrainians have for the future of their country.

      The nation has undoubtedly suffered from a population drain as Ukrainians leave for other countries in pursuit of higher wages, and the cultural implications of this exodus are far reaching. A 2015 hit song called “I’m Going to Mom” by the acclaimed Ukrainian pop-parody group Dzidzio followed a fictional protagonist as he traveled to visit his mother, whom he had not seen in 15 years, in distant Portugal. Everyone knows someone who has left the country, and this lends itself to an atmosphere that encourages pessimism about the future.

      Additionally, Ukrainians continue to harbor deep-seated suspicion about the ability of the government to protect property and civil rights. Popular resentment of oppressive Soviet governments was compounded by flagrantly corrupt Ukrainian governments following independence, and protests such as the 2004 Orange Revolution have been seen as failing to deliver meaningful change.

      The progress of the national conversation under current President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks to a genuine attempt to combat these forces. It is perhaps telling that his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, a fabulously wealthy chocolate magnate, running on an “Army, Language, Faith” platform, was beaten in a landslide in last year’s election by Zelensky, a comedic actor with no political experience who campaigned on a vague anti-corruption platform. While Poroshenko’s positioning had become important for establishing a new Ukraine as viable and separate from Russia, the Ukrainian people explicitly called for further progress.

      If Poroshenko was the ardent nationalist defender of Ukrainian values, then Zelensky has attempted to shift the national tone toward a more inclusive, forward-looking vision of what it means to be Ukrainian.

      This has met with opposition, particularly as the conflict in the east kills Ukrainian soldiers every day and impatience grows with the progress of the Zelensky administration is making against systemic corruption. Many families I knew regarded him as a Kremlin-backed stooge, while others thought that his good intentions could not be accomplished given the seriousness of the economic situation.

      The excitement and hype surrounding anti-corruption and ending the conflict with Russia have certainly diminished, despite a raft of important legislative decisions and massive changes in the prosecutorial and police services. The firing earlier this year of a reformist prosecutor general and decreasing public support seem to paint a picture of an agenda that is falling short as it comes up against entrenched regional and criminal interests. While viewed more or less as a decent person, President Zelensky finds himself between the hottest of frying pans and the fire.

      That being said, there is a clear narrative of attempting to move forward toward a new, hybrid Ukraine that can draw closer to Europe. Public discourse can be witheringly negative about future prospects, but the fact that observers can opine about the virtues of one reformist candidate over another speaks to an underlying paradigm shift that has slowly been occurring. The war in the east has in many ways forced Ukraine to grapple with its own cultural and national identity. There is a sense of needing to seize the moment and an understanding that a country with such rich resources and human capital has the potential to become great again.  

      History Matters

      Finally, Ukraine has a wide spectrum of ideas about its identity and historical legacy. The country is multilingual in a way that is difficult for many outside observers grasp, with the Ukrainian and Russian languages not necessarily linked to ethnicity or political viewpoint. Usage can differ wildly by community, and large swathes of Ukraine speak a patois mixed between Ukrainian and Polish or Ukrainian and Russian. With vanishingly small state pensions (sometimes as little as $50 a month) and few support services, many older Ukrainians genuinely believe that life under the Soviet Union was better than it is now.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The younger generation is the reverse, with the national conversation now oriented toward coming to terms with the atrocities and oppression that occurred under the Soviet regime while embracing international engagement.

      The territory of Ukraine has historically been divided between the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian empires, and later the Soviet Union, and those divisions continue to manifest themselves in contemporary culture and politics. However, it is too common that observers see an East-West divide as the defining feature of Ukraine. I suggest looking at it as something akin to regions in the United States: New England and the South had vastly different historical experiences, which can be tied to contemporary politics. However, this would ignore a host of other historical and contemporary factors. The people of Ukraine have collectively undergone a long series of hardships and crises.

      Much as Western nations are being called upon to reexamine their national identity and the sins of the past, so Ukrainians now grapple with what kind of society they want to leave for their children. As Ukraine is talked about in the upcoming months, we must remember that it is a complex society that is multifaceted in its viewpoints, and it is slowly overcoming the many obstacles history has placed in its way. One cannot define a country solely on the basis of its corruption scandals or bizarre-sounding domestic news stories. If there is one final takeaway, however: please don’t call it “the Ukraine.” This would be faintly analogous to walking into a modern forum and trying to call the US “the colonies.”

      While the Ukrainian schoolchildren that I worked with will undoubtedly face many problems moving forward, they are not living in the blighted, defunct Ukraine that President Trump’s impeachment defense wanted to sell to the American public. In hindsight, it seems laughable that a US administration with its own raft of suspected corrupt enterprises would try to play up the struggles of another country. If anything, the tenor of public discussion in Ukraine should serve as an example that moments of national crisis can help a country to heal old divisions and move toward a brighter future.

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

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      in US Politics

      Why Germany would be especially happy to see the back of Trump | John Kampfner

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      The competence embodied in Merkel provokes loathing from the US presidentDonald Trump has declared war on Germany. In a manner of speaking. Europe’s most important country, potentially America’s most valuable partner, has in the mind of the president become an adversary. Of all Trump’s many foreign policy disasters, this is perhaps his most significant.In late July, it was announced that retired army colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, would become the next ambassador to Berlin. Macgregor is a regular contributor to Trump’s favourite channel of information, Fox News. He has variously suggested that the US border guard should shoot people if they tried to enter illegally from Mexico; described eastern Ukrainians as “Russians”; defended Serbia’s actions against a “Muslim drug mafia” in Kosovo; and criticised Germany for giving “millions of unwanted Muslim invaders” welfare benefits rather than providing more funding for its armed services. Continue reading… More