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      in World Politics

      The Role of Animals in National Socialist Propaganda

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      Circulating on Telegram channels lately has been a 12-second video of a Chihuahua puppy snuggling up to a tiny, chirping chick, eventually resting its head upon the chick and falling asleep. The caption reads, “Love Animals, Hate Antifa.” If such a politicized caption to an innocuous video proves a surprise to readers, the purveyor of the content will come as a shock: WAP1488, an unabashed neo-Nazi community with more than 1,000 subscribers.

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      This is just one of a score of videos with the “Love Animals, Hate Antifa” label circulating in recent months, and one small part of an even larger phenomenon of national socialists using animals to promote their message. Defying the more commonly-identified brutal aesthetic, certain national socialist circles have jumped on a bandwagon elsewhere used on dating profiles and in advertising: gain appeal by featuring animals.

      From Telegram to Reddit

      WAP1488 serves as one of the most unadulterated manifestations of this attempt to wed animal rights and national socialism. The name of the organization alone signals its ideological disposition — the numbers being a reference to the “14 Words,” a slogan of the white power movement, and to the Nazi salute “Heil Hitler” (“H” being the eighth letter in the Roman alphabet).

      “There was widespread support for animal welfare in Nazi Germany among the country’s leadership,” the group’s pinned post reads. “Adolf Hitler and his top officials took a variety of measures to ensure animals were protected.” What follows is a list of the various conservationist and anti-hunting efforts by the likes of Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goring, men more widely known for their role in orchestrating World War II and the Holocaust.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The post goes so far as to observe that “Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels described Hitler as a vegetarian whose hatred of the Jewish and Christian religions in large part stemmed from the ethical distinction these faiths drew between the value of humans and the value of other animals,” a statement followed by an observation that “Hitler planned to ban slaughterhouses in the German Reich following the conclusion of World War II.” This last comment is perhaps most jarring to mainstream audiences, given the morbid irony of Hitler’s use of slaughterhouses in the form of concentration and extermination camps that killed millions of Jewish people, individuals with disabilities, sexual minorities, Romani, intellectuals and political opponents.

      Beyond these written arguments articulating Nazi care for animals are scores of photographs and videos of Nazis with animals. Not only is there an array of images of Nazi soldiers playing or relaxing with German Shepherds and cats, but also dozens of images of Hitler posing with dogs, rabbits and fawns. At times, the images do not feature humans at all, and yet they still publicize this line of reason, typically through tea-cup-sized animals perched among Nazi uniform.

      This is not just a strategy of WAP1488, though. It is a tactic used by many supporters of national socialism. Telegram channels such as the NSDAP International (almost 10,000 subscribers), the NSDAP (more than 5,000 subscribers) and the nSDAP International (almost 2,500 subscribers) now all fairly prominently feature animal-centric images and rhetoric.

      Meanwhile, on Reddit, several subreddits discussing national socialism post both official Nazi propaganda of animals and unofficial Nazi-animal content. Perhaps exemplary of this is one private subredding called r/awwschwitz, which describes itself as a subreddit “for pictures of adorable or cute things that one would not normally associated with positive emotions,” and which an observer characterized as a dispenser of “all your cutesy Hitler needs.”

      More than just cute photos and references to Hitler’s alleged vegetarianism, a common refrain among neo-Nazis across various platforms is one claiming that the current German animal welfare legislation is the descendant of Nazi policy. In fact, contemporary national socialists depict Nazis as being trailblazers of animal rights and preservation of the natural world. The obscuring of these “facts” are then denounced as attempts by biased media to unjustly vilify Nazism and all its devotees.

      The Nazi Regime

      Universal cuteness of fuzzy baby animals aside, it appears that there exists a propagandistic through-line between the arguments of Nazis then and certain national socialists now. Current national socialists rely heavily upon the plethora of staged animal-Nazi propaganda produced and initially disseminated in and by the Third Reich itself. Scholars such as Norbert Bromberg and Verna Small, Arnold Arluke and Boria Sax and Jan Mohnhaupt have described high-ranking Nazis as demonstrating a public interest in animal welfare due to some mixture of personal affection for animals and political messaging.

      To the latter point, it is clear that many of these images were staged rather than natural displays of affection, as signaled by the unnatural poses and contexts of the photographs — soldiers patrolling war-zones bending over to play with cats, Hitler staring off into the distance flanked by a dog standing on hind-legs in the same pose, and kittens curled up in Nazi helmets that dangle from fences. All of these images may simply exist because the regime felt that an articulated interest in animal welfare for the purposes of presenting a compassionate and trustworthy side to the public, but also to normalize their social Darwinist ideas and vilify racial, ethnic and religious others that they strove to paint as cruel toward animals.

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      In the Third Reich, the “other,” and Jewish people in particular, were characterized as brutal toward animals. This was most frequently discussed in relation to alleged cruelty in the kosher butchering process, which Nazi propagandists noted as being evidence of Jews’ “other” status and depicted as ritualistic and sadistic. Meanwhile, Nazi attacks on intellectuals — particularly Jewish ones — also made use of animal welfare issues, claiming that Jewish scientists engaged in the practice of vivisection (operating on live animals for experimental purposes), tormenting their test subjects and fulfilling Jewish bloodlust.

      Curiously, the Nazis also produced a plethora of propaganda that painted these “others,” their enemies, as animals in their own right, the only animals for which the Nazis did not show any care. The Nazis waged a relentless propaganda campaign dehumanizing their opponents, particularly Jewish people. Nazi propaganda depicted Jews as rats, snakes, spiders and other unpopular animals.

      It is significant to note the animals most often chosen: those with multiple appendages, such as spiders and octopuses, to reflect the narrative of Jewish control over society; or dangerous, poisonous or diseased animals. The snake, for instance, harkens back to parallels of the creation story and Satan in the form of a snake, whilst rats carry diseases and spiders fatal venom.

      Today’s National Socialists

      National socialists today rely upon the exact same framing of these issues, though with an expanded pool of racial, ethnic and religious communities to vilify and with one additional purpose. Juxtaposed with other national socialist content, be it animal-Nazi propaganda or otherwise, are images of the “other” as subhuman or as animals, as well as animal cruelty perpetrated by non-white peoples.

      In the latter case, the most commonly used scenarios are Jewish kosher slaughter practices and Kapparot (used by some communities in the lead up to Yom Kippur to cleanse the person of sin through the transference of sins to a chicken, which is then ritually killed in the street); halal slaughter practices by Muslim communities; the killing and consumption of dog meat in China and South Korea (taken as metonyms for all Asian cultures); detusking elephants and other killings of large animals; and vivisections by pharmaceutical companies.

      The examples have been carefully selected, attempting to characterize non-white people as inherently violent, as Kapparot and the Yulin dog meat festival are annual, while the vivisections, religious slaughtering and big game hunting are relatively common practices. National socialists use these moments of violence against animals to make audiences wonder: Would these “others” attempt to mainstream such practices if given the opportunity?

      Embed from Getty Images

      Beyond this, though, is an implication of supremacism, with white people displaying the more advanced emotions of empathy and compassion absent in the “uncivilized” communities that commit animal cruelty. The videos and images are incredibly violent — blood spurting, animals squealing and resisting their victimization, and carcasses in disrepair. Aside from being graphic in their own right (as any slaughter video, kosher, halal or otherwise, is want to be), the cruelty in these videos may be said to also encourage audiences to extrapolate — if this is how these communities treat innocent animals, how might they treat white people?

      Using a Different Brush

      Finally, in addition to the obvious attempts to paint the Nazis as less brutal than these other groups through their contrasting approaches to animal welfare, the use of animal content is meant to chip away at mainstream anti-Nazi sentiment. These images clearly seek to generate an implicit connection between viewer and subject, resulting in the humanizing of individuals involved in a regime considered so brutal that it is widely denounced as unequivocally inhumane.

      As social media commenters in these sections — even those professing not to be radicalized but mere observers of said content — have noted, seeing and hearing about Nazis’ care for animals has the effect of chipping away at the whole evil characterization of the Nazis as depicted in mainstream history. According to the logic of neo-Nazi propagandists, if Nazis were not always cruel and instead cared for innocent animals, then the stories about Nazism — and by extension national socialism — are exaggerated; if stories of their cruelty are exaggerated in this regard, then perhaps they are dramatized in other areas as well, such as in relation to the Holocaust. Meanwhile, if Nazis were caring for animals, i.e., the innocent, then it would stand to reason that they vilified communities that were not innocent and instead the bloodthirsty “others” living in Germany. Thus, neo-Nazis use animal welfare concerns to pull at a thread of the metaphorical tapestry of Nazi evil, a thread that they want to tug to the point where it entirely unravels.

      It warrants reiterating that absent from this modern national socialists analysis is any acknowledgment of the unprecedented violence and cruelty of the Nazi regime. No matter how many kittens SS officers held or dogs that Adolf Hitler posed beside, the reality is that the most brutal butchers of life were the German National Socialists themselves. All of the torturous behaviors Nazis projected onto the “other” —  experimenting on and brutally slaughtering living beings — were acts that Nazis committed against other humans.

      Advertisers and people on dating apps use animals in their content to grab attention, appear relatable and induce those positive thoughts that incline the viewer to further consider them. While for different goals, the same is true for national socialists today. Thus, a puppy falling asleep with a chick speaks less to national socialist interests in the cute and more with their hope that, in time, they can draw viewers near and make them dream of a national socialist world.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      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

      Paranoia and the Perils of Misreading

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      In the summer of 2021, genocide scholar Dirk Moses published an article in the Swiss online journal Geschichte der Gegenwart (History of the Present) titled, “The German Catechism.” He argued that Germany’s sense of its special obligation to Jews after the Holocaust has become a debilitating blockage to thinking through some of the most pressing issues of the present.

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      In Moses’ words, the “catechism” consisted of five strands: 1) the Holocaust is unique because it was the unlimited extermination of Europe’s Jews for the sake of extermination, without the pragmatic considerations that characterize other genocides; 2) it was thus a Zivilisationsbruch (civilizational rupture) and the moral foundation of the nation; 3) Germany has a special responsibility to Jews in Germany and a special loyalty to Israel; 4) anti-Semitism is a distinct prejudice and a distinctly German one — it should not be confused with racism; 5) and anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.

      Leading to Debate

      Moses’ claims, not least his use of the term “catechism” with all of its religious connotations, gave rise to considerable debate in Germany and beyond. (The key texts are now collated on the New Fascism Syllabus website.) Notably, many female scholars, especially women of color, engaged in this debate, which opened a space for a discussion of issues relating to German colonial history, postcolonial approaches to German history and the Holocaust.

      Embed from Getty Images

      But when the discussion took place in the feuilletons of distinguished German-language newspapers, the authors were mainly middle-aged white men. Here, the criticisms, now bound up with the belated German publication of Michael Rothberg’s 2009 book, “Multidirectional Memory,” tended to be more defensive of German memory culture and critical of Moses’ supposed intentions. Left-liberal historians such as Gotz Aly and Dan Diner, who had been instrumental in freeing the federal republic from its self-exculpatory and conservative-nationalist postwar culture, bringing the Holocaust into the center of the national discussion, seemed especially incensed; though this is hardly surprising since these were the very people Moses had in his sights, using an Arendt-inspired tone that seemed designed to enrage.

      The “catechism debate” has revealed some intriguing fault lines in the German politics of memory. Moses’ insistence that the terms of his catechism mean that what began as a progressive movement to make Holocaust memory central to the Berlin republic’s self-understanding has gradually become a conservative shutting down of critical voices who want to address German colonialism and current-day racism has touched a nerve. The responses can be read on the New Fascism Syllabus website, where many fair-minded respondents, such as historian Frank Biess, have attempted to grapple honestly with Moses’ claims and to set out what they think their limits are.

      Yet the debate is significant not just in its own right, but because it has spilled over into the reception of Moses’ new book, “The Problems of Genocide,” a reception that is itself inseparable from the debate over Rothberg’s book, which turned — contrary to Rothberg’s intention to facilitate open discussion — on the extent to which the Holocaust in German memory culture prevents discussion of German (or wider) colonial atrocities or modern-day racism.

      What Does He Say?

      What does Moses argue in his book? The clue lies in the subtitle, “Permanent Security and the Language of Transgression.” By this, he signals that his argument is less about the politics of Holocaust memory — though this features in the book — than the way in which the concept of genocide, contrary to the intentions of many lawyers, historians and political theorists, facilitates rather than hinders atrocities and human rights abuses across the world.

      Critics, especially Holocaust historians, have been quick to condemn what they regard as a conspiracy theory at the heart of the book, namely that Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the term “genocide” and campaigned all his life to have it incorporated into international law, was a Jewish exclusivist who worked with non-Jewish groups in a way that allowed him to get them to take his concept seriously, but who was only concerned with the fate of the Jews under Nazi rule.

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      Moses does indeed set out something like this argument, saying that to “mobilise action about Jews … it made strategic sense to link the fate of Jewish and non-Jewish victims of Nazis under a single conceptual umbrella. This is the task that Lemkin’s genocide concept was designed to perform. Far from unthinkingly eliding the differences between Jewish and non-Jewish victims as supposed by Lemkin’s critics decades later, uniting them was the point of the concept.” His conclusion is that “if anyone is to blame for the problems of genocide, it is Lemkin.” In response, Omer Bartov, exemplifying the critical reading of Moses’ book, claimed in an Einstein Forum debate that Moses was putting forward what sounds like a “Jewish–Zionist plot.”

      Moses’ reading is debatable. Putting it forward requires dismissing Lemkin’s own autobiographical claims that he was moved, as a child, by learning of the Ottoman Empire’s massacres of Armenians and, more importantly, asserting that Lemkin remained a Jewish Zionist-nationalist from the 1920s — an orientation well documented by James Loeffler — through to the wartime and postwar period. But this is a reading that, albeit contestable, is well within the norms of intellectual history.

      Revisionism is what historians do all the time, and there is nothing about Moses’ position that justifies reaching for one’s metaphorical gun. Besides, this is not the heart of the book, which has a far more expansive remit than Lemkin and Holocaust historiography, taking in a remarkable range of references in world history. He has set out his argument plainly and in detail on numerous occasions. (See, for example, his talk with Geoff Eley at the University of Michigan or his interview on the New Books in Genocide Studies website.)

      What Does This Mean?

      It seems that what is happening here exemplifies Moses’ argument that Holocaust studies is riven by paranoia. Why should seeing the Holocaust as exemplifying the “problems of genocide” — understood in Moses’ terms — mean that one is downplaying the Holocaust? The opposite is the case: The Holocaust should tell us something about the destructive potential of modern states, but it has been siloed in a way that reduces the force of its potential critique, permitting “business as usual” in the modern world. Why, to return to old debates in genocide studies, should placing the Holocaust in a comparative context diminish its significance?

      Embed from Getty Images

      If one were to compare the Holocaust with the Boston Tea Party or the Peterloo Massacre, the critics would be justified in objecting. But analyzing it alongside other horrific occurrences, such as the Armenian, Rwandan or Cambodian genocides or cases of genocide in settler-colonial contexts, not only allows one to understand genocide as a generic phenomenon, but it also throws into sharper relief what distinguishes the Holocaust from other genocides — since none are the same. One can be a responsible Holocaust historian and still subscribe to the idea that motivates genocide studies.

      This is a case of fighting the wrong enemy. In the same way that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) sometimes seems more concerned about which historians have signed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism and reinforcing its own singular and narrow definition of anti-Semitism than about combating the radical right, especially as it seeps into mainstream politics in the United States and elsewhere, Moses’ critics have embarked on seeking to have him “canceled” in a kneejerk fear that his critical takedown of the “genocide” concept paves the way to anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

      What Dirk Moses is seeking to do is to show how the idea of genocide has had opposite effects to those intended, if not by Raphael Lemkin, then by his followers today. He is hardly proposing a world of anarchy or an opening the floodgates to scholarly anti-Semitism. One does not have to agree with everything that Moses says to accept that this is a serious book. Dismissing it as anti-Semitic is nothing more than paranoia in action.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      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

      Judicial Creativity Makes the News

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      The criminal justice system in the United States may not be the best imaginable model for producing effective crime control. Given the numbers of people incarcerated, neither does it appear to be an effective tool of dissuasion. Its rate of 629 people incarcerated per 100,000 is five times as high as France (119) and seven times higher than Italy (89), the home of Cosa Nostra, ‘Ndrangheta and the Camorra. Only El Salvador begins to approach the US figure (572), an ungovernable, poverty-stricken nation in which criminality has become a way of life for its youth, largely deprived of any other perspectives.

      On the other hand, it has consistently demonstrated its creativity. American legislators at both the state and federal level have always found imaginative ways of improving the performance of a legal system designed to protect and sometimes even reward anyone who can afford an expensive lawyer (or team of lawyers) and crush anyone who cannot, especially if their ethnicity places them in a group reputed to be inclined to criminal activity.

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      California’s creative legislators were the first to initiate the brilliant idea, subsequently followed by more than 20 other states, of “three strikes and you’re out.” The national sport, baseball, provided them with the perfect model for setting the rules of civil behavior. The law was apparently “crafted to be largely symbolic.” It quickly achieved its purpose of consolidating in the public’s mind the idea of an identifiable, always-to-be-feared criminal class.

      Legislators and jurists invested much of their creative energy in finding acceptable ways to avoid sending people with lavish lifestyles to jail for a broad class of antisocial behavior, corporate crime, despite the fact that it frequently provokes major societal disasters. Senator Mitt Romney and the Supreme Court insisted that we think of corporations as people. But when they commit crimes, even with catastrophic consequences for millions of people’s lives, the courts not only cannot send a corporation to prison, they refrain from being too hard on the people at the top of those corporations who implemented the crimes since, after all, they were just doing their (well-paid) job and serving the economy. The same logic applies to members of the political establishment whose job responsibilities occasionally include committing war crimes across broad swaths of the world in the name of America’s sacrosanct “national security.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Jeffrey Epstein clearly belonged to that same elite. Given the sums of money he controlled, he achieved something akin to a corporate identity. In 2008, he was convicted in a Florida court on an absurdly mild charge that had little to do with the crimes he was known to have committed. Thanks to arrangements that were made with federal prosecutors, he served a simulacrum of incarceration in which for 13 months he was free during the day but condemned to spend his nights in a public jail.

      In 2019, the mounting evidence of his criminality made the decision to arrest him unavoidable. Possibly in consideration of his powerful friends and associates, Epstein had the good sense to commit suicide in his jail cell when nobody was looking. Could there have been some complicity in his noble self-sacrifice? As Bill Gates famously said, “he’s dead, so in general you always have to be careful,” meaning that once he could no longer talk, Epstein’s friends conveniently no longer needed to be so careful.

      Epstein’s demise in jail — whether assisted or self-inflicted — was a new crime scene. The criminals, in this case, were identified as the two black prison guards who were charged with monitoring his cell. Instead, they slept or surfed the web on that fatal night. They falsified their report and, like everyone else in the institution, were totally unconcerned by the fact that the video surveillance system was not working. Being the kind of people they were (black working class), they were duly called to account for their crime.

      Last week, the BBC reports, “US prosecutors have dismissed charges against two prison guards who falsified records the night Jeffrey Epstein killed himself on their watch.” The prosecutors “asked a judge to dismiss their case, saying the pair have complied with a plea deal.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Plea deal:

      A procedure that allows judicial authorities to avoid the literal application of the law and to arrange things in whatever they deem the public interest to be, either in the interest of identifying the true, powerful, higher-level culprits hiding in the wings or in the interest of protecting them.

      Contextual Note

      The case of these two prison guards undoubtedly deserves a bit more reflection than US media seem willing to offer. The briefest attempt at reflection might include the consideration that subjecting the guards to the full force of the law in a trial involve the risk that they might implicate other people, including their own superiors, to prove their innocence.

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      In the imagined case that the two guards were not just neglectful but had received specific instructions not to carry out their normal duties that night, faced with the prospect of prosecution, they would undoubtedly be inclined to reveal in a public courtroom that they were simply following orders. In the equally imagined case that they were offered a chance to live their lives in peace after some sort of agreed settlement, part of the settlement would obviously include the dismissal of any charges against them.

      Instead of entertaining and investigating such hypotheses, the prosecutors issued this statement: “After a thorough investigation and based on the facts of this case and the personal circumstances of the defendants, the Government has determined that the interests of justice will best be served by deferring prosecution.” How, we might ask them, do they define “the interests of justice,” and justice for whom?

      Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, found the procedure suspicious. He called the plea deal “unacceptable” and demanded “a report detailing the prison agency’s failures.” The BBC article subtly expresses its own doubts in the following remark: “It is unclear why the document was not filed until 30 December.” Let the reader wonder about that.

      “As part of a plea deal,” the BBC reports, “the pair agreed to complete 100 hours of community service and co-operate with an investigation by the justice department’s inspector general.” What about the other parts of the deal? And what does cooperating entail? Could it involve agreeing to a law of silence? The reader is still wondering.

      A classic plea deal seeks to implicate people higher up on the criminal ladder. But nothing prevents it from doing just the opposite.

      Historical Note

      Ironically, just this week, Glenn Greenwald exposed a different, equally suspect story of a possible plea deal, this one concerning WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Denouncing the control intelligence agencies have achieved over corporate news media, exemplified by the permanent presence of former high-level officials of the CIA and FBI as salaried staff of the networks, Greenwald cites former FBI Assistant Director and MSNBC employee Frank Figliuzzi. He argues that if extradited from the UK, “Assange may be able to help the U.S. government in exchange for more lenient charges or a plea deal. Prosecutions can make for strange bedfellows. A trade that offers a deal to a thief who steals data, in return for him flipping on someone who tried to steal democracy sounds like a deal worth doing.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      This would be a plea deal with purely political ends and no relation to any form or idea of justice. Instead, it relies on the radical injustice of obsessively prosecuting whistleblowers. The enmity between the intelligence agencies and Donald Trump is such that any prospect of legally embarrassing the former president appears worthwhile in the eyes of many people at MSNBC and in the establishment of the Democratic Party.

      Then there’s the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted last week of sex trafficking as Jeffrey Epstein’s partner and accomplice. Many in the media are speculating about the possibility of a reduced sentence if she is willing to name names. The prosecution ” confirmed no plea bargain offers were made or received,” according to Ghislaine’s brother, Ian Maxwell, who expects “that position to be maintained.

      Plea deals clearly offer scope for impressive feats of creativity by those in the judicial system who know how to use them.

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

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

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      in World Politics

      America Is on the Edge of a Critical Precipice

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      As we enter a new year, there is every warning you can think of that the Biden presidency, its promise and its transformational potential will come to a crashing end in 2022. When circumstance, willful ignorance and an utter disdain for governmental achievement and good governance conspire together to undermine aspiration, no amount of policy response will win the day. Only passion and anger have any chance at success.

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      Into that mix, up steps Joe Manchin, a US senator from West Virginia to put the transformational agenda of the progressive movement in America on life support. Amid the cascade of bad news here, there is also plenty of “democratic” absurdity. In his last reelection in 2018, Manchin won a six-year US Senate seat from West Virginia with a whopping total of 290,510 votes. Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020 with over 81 million votes. So what? In the land of the free, Manchin’s personal agenda, the agenda of the fossil fuel industry and apparently that of a sliver of America trumps that of a president elected by a significant majority of all Americans who voted in the presidential election.

      It is largely the ongoing institutional paralysis of the US Senate that gives Manchin and a handful of other US senators veto power over virtually all legislative initiatives. This paralysis is now so deeply ingrained that the results are almost always foreordained. In America’s two-party system, the Republican Party is presently committed solely to a scorched earth drive to political victory at the cost of even the most basic of policy discussions.

      West Virginia and More

      This is the fertile ground in which corruption and influence peddling thrive. Here again, Manchin steps up to the plate, this time to institutionally piss on the 93% of West Virginia’s children who are eligible to benefit from a child tax credit that is about to expire. Since this should be a huge incentive for him to support the extension of the child tax credit, Manchin’s singular effort to kill the legislation can only be explained by fealty to some special interest that surely doesn’t give a damn about those children.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Moreover, the child tax credit is just one pillar of the transformational safety net legislation that Senator Manchin and those who have likely bought his vote are attempting to bury. Corrupting special interests and their right-wing Republican allies are also hard at work scuttling universal pre-school education, childcare and elder care assistance, increased nutritional security for children, paid family leave, some measure of drug price controls, improved Affordable Care Act access and Medicare and Medicaid benefits, and support for affordable housing alternatives.

      Critically, as well, the proposed transformational social legislation that has already been passed by the US House of Representatives includes a significant (yet modest) effort to meet our national and international commitments to confront climate change. In fact, it may be antipathy toward these latter provisions that has pushed Manchin to abandon the West Virginia children and their families he would like you to think he cares about.

      Much of this should come as no surprise. After all, the legislative process in America is working as it was designed to work, ensuring that corporate interests, corrupt influence peddlers and wealthy Americans are able to bludgeon democratic reform with impunity. Unfortunately, no amount of policy response will win the day tomorrow in the face of the perfidy that is winning today. It will take a street fight to even begin to turn the tide.

      No Other Way Forward

      I do not say this lightly, but I see no other way forward. Adding voting rights, abortion rights, gun control and police reform to the scrapheap of history will make the rout complete. So, all Americans who understand the nation’s peril either seize this moment or they will continue to live in a country rife with inequality, racial and social injustice, gun violence, fundamental inequity and corruption. America will never be better if no one forces it to be better.

      To start, President Biden has to step up and demand that the key elements of the social safety net and climate change legislation be passed now. He must identify a legislative path forward and demand in no uncertain terms that all applicable legislative tools need to be utilized to that end. He must also make it clear that he will go directly to the people as their president to forge the necessary alliances to meet his legislative objectives. Then, every senator and every representative must be required to cast a vote, for or against. There is no choice.

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      If the legislation fails to pass the Congress, then Biden must call the people to the streets. This means that those of us who care on our own behalf or on behalf of others either answer the call or accept an America unworthy of our allegiance. There is no choice.

      Meanwhile, it is way past time to eliminate minority rule in the US Senate, not just for the moment but forever. Understand that there will be no voting rights legislation, no abortion rights bill, no gun control measures and no police reform measures if a Republican Party in the minority in Congress can effectively prevent the majority party and its president from confronting the issues they were elected by the majority to confront. Again, back to Biden and his legislative allies, this time to demand an end to the filibuster to move critical legislation forward. There is no choice.

      Although much attention has been focused on the social safety net, climate legislation and infrastructure funding, critical voting rights legislation must now be moved front and center. Any talk of seizing the moment based on today’s majority will be rendered meaningless if today’s majority cannot vote in tomorrow’s elections.

      Voting

      The vilest forces on America’s political landscape are now laser focused on control of the right to vote at all levels of government and then using that control to ensure electoral outcomes that reflect a narrow right-wing and racist agenda. If successful, this path will enshrine economic, racial and social inequality for generations to come. That pernicious work is well underway and advancing with success.

      In this context, I am hardly the first person to suggest that a democracy that properly encourages a minority voice in its political discourse ceases to be a democracy when that minority is permitted to rule with no corresponding responsibility to govern. This, unfortunately, is the state of play in today’s Congress. It can only change if President Biden and his allies call us to the streets and we respond in numbers unseen before in this nation.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      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

      US Foreign Policy in the Middle East Needs a Rethink

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      In 2019, former US President Jimmy Carter told a church congregation about a conversation he had with Donald Trump, the incumbent president at the time. He said Trump called him for advice about China. Carter, who normalized US ties with China in 1979, told the president that the United States had only been at peace for 16 years since the nation was founded. He also called the US “the most warlike nation in the history of the world.”

      Biden’s New Culture of Brinkmanship

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      Carter considers his time in office to be peaceful, but his record says otherwise. Under his one term as president from 1977 to 1981, the US was still instigating conflicts across the world. The most notable was the Iran-Iraq War, which the US, the Soviet Union and their allies were heavily involved in by supporting the Iraqis.

      Causing Trouble

      The Civility Report 2021, a publication of the Peace Worldwide Organization, labels the US the world’s worst troublemaker. The evidence for this is clear.

      First, the US maintains at least 750 military bases in around 80 countries. It also has more than 170,000 troops stationed in 159 countries. Second, in 2016, The Washington Post reported that the US has tried 72 times to overthrow governments of sovereign nations between 1947 and 1989. These actions were in clear violation of the UN Charter. Third, the US continues using economic sanctions against numerous countries to force their leadership to bow to Washington’s demands.

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      The worst example is Iran, which the US has sought to use a policy of “maximum pressure” against. Sanctions are also in clear violation of the UN Charter and affect civilians more than the political leaders they seek to squeeze. These unwarranted interventions in Iran have brought pain and suffering to people in a country that is not known for its human rights.

      The US, meanwhile, is known well as a country that pays lip service to human rights, democracy and peace. It talks about a lack of democracy in some nations but favors tyrannical rulers in others. This includes countries like Bahrain, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

      The US today is the world’s only superpower, and with such power comes great responsibility. If the US is truly interested in human rights, democracy and peace, then it too must change its actions. It must begin by complying with the UN Charter and respecting international law. Washington must right its many wrongs — particularly in the Middle East — not because it is forced to do so, but because it is the right thing for a world in which peace can prosper. For this to become a reality, there are a number of areas for the US to consider.

      Never Forgotten

      The first area is addressing the US relationship with Iran. In the 1980s, in violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the United States and its European allies provided assistance to Iraq when it leader, Saddam Hussein, ordered the use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops. Most victims of that attack in 1988 died instantly, while many others are still suffering from the consequences. Some survivors of the chemical warfare now struggle to find inhalers in Iran, which is scarred by sanctions. The US should acknowledge the role it played in the war and provide reparations for the injuries and damage it caused. 

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      Today, the draconian sanctions the US has placed on Iran has deepened a rift with the European Union, Russia and China, all of which signed a nuclear agreement with Tehran in 2015. The US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018 under US President Donald Trump led to the reintroduction of crippling sanctions that have hurt the Iranian middle class and the poor, causing hardship and death.

      Washington must lift its unlawful sanctions, which Trump introduced to bring Iran to its knees. The US thinks that Iran is meddling in the affairs of countries like Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and that a policy of “maximum pressure” will force it to rethink its foreign policy. The Trump administration used this as an excuse to pull out of the nuclear deal, despite the Iranians complying with all of its obligations under the JCPOA. The US under President Joe Biden should also comply with the JCPOA by rejoining the agreement and lifting sanctions.

      In the long term, a détente between the US and Iran could pave the way for the Iranians to forgive the 1953 coup d’état against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh. During the Cold War, a US-orchestrated campaign led to the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh. He was replaced with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the brutal last shah of Iran, who himself was overthrown in the 1979 Revolution. In a country struggling under US sanctions, memories of the coup have never been forgotten.

      Lies Over Iraq

      Iraq is another country where US actions have not been forgotten. If you attack anyone without being provoked, any court with an ounce of justice would require you to repair the inflicted damage. Relations between nations work in the same way. If a nation harms another without provocation, the aggressor is expected to repair the damage caused.

      In 2003, under the false pretext that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ties with al-Qaeda, the US under President George W. Bush invaded Iraq. The result was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his government, the destruction of infrastructure, the death of hundreds of thousands in the years to come and the displacement of 9.2 million Iraqis.

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      The US invasion inevitably led to the rise of radical groups like the Islamic State (IS), which in 2014 seized territory in Iraq and Syria. The trillions that American taxpayers paid for the Iraq War could have been well spent in the US on addressing poverty, building high-speed rail networks or repairing infrastructure. Instead, the dollars were spent on bombs and bullets to counter insurgents like IS.

      When Iraqis led by Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Mahdi al-Muhandis formed a resistance against IS militants and expelled them from Iraq, many people were jubilant that their country was freed. Instead of congratulating Soleimani and Muhandis for the role they played, the US violated Iraq’s territorial integrity. In a US drone strike at Baghdad airport in January 2020, both men were assassinated in violation of international law. The US action was not only unlawful, but it also puts all foreign diplomats in danger by setting a precedent for other countries to assassinate enemies.

      There are two ways the US can make up for its illegal actions of 2003. First, holding those responsible to account for the invasion and human rights violations would show the world that the US is serious about the rule of law. That includes the likes of Bush and his accomplices, who lied and betrayed the trust of the American people, as well as security and military personnel who went beyond the rules of war. Holding such persons to account would restore respect for the US across the world by demonstrating that no one, not even the president or American soldiers, is above the law. Second, providing reparations for the loss of Iraqi and American lives, the injuries caused, the people displaced and the property destroyed is essential.

      Famine in Yemen

      Yemen is another place where bombs have destroyed the country under the watchful eye of the Americans. In 2015, a Saudi-led coalition supported and armed by the United States, Britain and France began indiscriminatingly bombing Yemen in response to a takeover by Iran-backed Houthi rebels. The destruction of Yemen has led to accusations of war crimes by all parties involved. It has also resulted in 5 million people being on the brink of famine and millions more facing starvation.

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      The US must promptly stop all military and intelligence support to the coalition. As the one nation with such political power, the US must work on bringing the combatants together by implementing the UN Charter that calls for respecting “the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.”

      As citizens in a free world, we must assume responsibility for our political leaders’ actions. First, as a bare minimum, we should realize that the problems we cause for others, sooner or later, will come back to haunt us. The example of US support for the mujahideen during the 1980s in Afghanistan is well known. Second, electing the right political leaders who strive for freedom and peace will not only benefit people in faraway lands, but also in the US itself. Instead of taxpayer dollars being spent on weapons, cash can be reinvested into our society to educate children, improve access to health care and do much more.  

      United, we can put “maximum pressure” on the US to become a leader in creating a world free from war, oppression and persecution.

      *[The author is the founder and president of Peace Worldwide Organization, a non-religious, non-partisan and charitable organization in the United States that promotes freedom and peace for all. It recently released its Civility Report 2021, which can be downloaded here.]

      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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      ASEAN’s Myanmar Strategy, Slow But Steady

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      On December 6, the world saw Myanmar’s leaders ousted by a military takeover earlier this year receive their first verdict in a series of trials. National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint were both initially sentenced to four years in prison for inciting dissent and breaking COVID-19 rules. While her sentence was subsequently halved after a partial pardon by General Min Aung Hlaing, Suu Kyi faces a total of 11 charges that might see her spend the rest of her life in prison.

      How Deep Are the Roots of Democracy in Southeast Asia?

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      When the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) declared Min Aung Hlaing persona non grata at the leaders’ summit back in October, it resulted in the quick release of over 5,600 political prisoners. However, it also precipitated resistance to ASEAN’s plan for a non-violent ceasefire. This was characterized by the rejection of the request by ASEAN’s envoy to Myanmar, Dato Erywan Yusof, to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and other detained leaders. With more verdicts pending, what will ASEAN’s next steps be?

      Bitter Pill

      It is easy to berate ASEAN for its delayed response to the February coup and to what has now become a humanitarian crisis, with nearly 1,300 dead, 200,000 displaced and 3 million in need of assistance. However, the immediate move by the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom to enforce economic sanctions on Myanmar has not produced the hoped-for results.

      Although economic sanctions affect many industries across the country, such as the military conglomerates Myanmar Economic Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd, they have done little to nudge the military leaders toward a ceasefire. Instead, repression and bloodshed intensify by the day.

      The inefficacy of economic sanctions is a difficult pill to swallow, but it forces us to confront two realities. First, the military leaders assign very low importance to economic growth vis-à-vis the pursuit of their political agenda. In this crisis, the main focus of the military leaders is to right what they believe is wrong, namely nurturing a “true and disciplined democracy” based on the claim that the landslide NLD win in November 2020 was rigged.

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      The verdict against Aung San Suu Kyi is an indicator that despite a persistent international backlash, the economy has taken a backseat and will continue to be compromised if it means that the junta can legitimize its position.

      Economic and travel sanctions like those implemented by the European Union, the US Treasury, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, among others, will limit the movement of the military leaders and hold businesses in a tight chokehold. As the fight for survival continues, economic sanctions will only cause the skyrocketing of prices on goods most people will no longer be able to afford. Along with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this will only help to drag half of Myanmar’s population into poverty in 2022.

      Secondly, curtailing Myanmar’s dealings with global actors like the US, the EU and the UN is not as fruitful as many would like to think. To offset the newest round of sanctions, Myanmar’s military leaders have linked arms with superpowers on the other side of the political spectrum, like China and Russia. Therefore, the remaining challenge for ASEAN is to develop a non-violent strategy that can bring a quick end to the bloodshed while making room for negotiations aimed at giving the people of Myanmar a say in their own future.

      From 1988 to 2021

      Despite the suppression of the 1988 uprising, when a military junta again seized power, and the ensuing crackdown on civil rights, then-Burma was admitted to ASEAN in 1997. The move was not without controversy, with continuing international pressure to make the admission contingent on democratic concessions from Yangon, but geopolitical and economic considerations drove ASEAN’s decision. Unsurprisingly, Myanmar’s accession opened a new set of challenges for the bloc, especially vis-à-vis its non-interference principle.

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      The policy discourages states from intervening in the internal affairs of fellow members, including criticism of state actions against its citizens, and condemns those perceived to be in breach of the non-intervention principle. It also denies support to any rebel group seeking to destabilize the government of a neighboring state, providing political support and material assistance to members to counter disruptive activity. To put it broadly, the non-interference policy means that all member states tend to take a hands-off approach when it comes to the national affairs of their regional counterparts.

      As a result, one of the main criticisms faced by ASEAN over the decades has to do with its delay in interfering in regional emergencies, like the 2015 Rohingya crisis that was later identified as ethnic cleansing by the United Nations. Thus, it was only by 2005 that ASEAN arrived at a collective consensus to bar Myanmar from the 2006 chairmanship to void a boycott by the West, with the US and the EU condemning the military’s refusal to implement democratic transition and release Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1990 election but was placed under house arrest instead of assuming office.

      The association’s silence on its member states has become a significant liability for ASEAN’s reputation. Seeking to enhance the bloc’s international standing and to attract financial support and foreign investment, ASEAN nations finally had a common cause to intervene for the sake of regional stability. Myanmar’s eventual agreement to give up the chairmanship that year also meant the bloc was effective in keeping the military leaders updated on its incremental steps in having a more active approach for the sake of the social and economic stability of all member states.

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      Fast forward to February 2021, and both Myanmar and ASEAN find themselves in a near-identical predicament. After international criticism fueled lengthy discussions that lasted over two months, ASEAN reached the Five Point Consensus as its action plan. The surprise election of Dato Erywan Yusof as the bloc’s special envoy for Myanmar outside the original list of nominees followed, demonstrating not only the internal divides within the bloc but also indicating that Yusof was the only sound choice for ASEAN to earn the trust of all stakeholders and to make decisions with required caution.

      These moves show that extensive efforts have been taken in order for ASEAN to reach a consensus with the Myanmar leaders and, more importantly, for ASEAN to ensure Myanmar was still included in the process. The Five Point Consensus is a gradual strategy that offers a way for ASEAN to begin negotiations with the Myanmar military through diplomatic engagement and respecting the hard-fought national independence of other member states.

      Middle Ground

      To find a middle ground, Yusof has proposed measured, non-violent strategies that would begin with humanitarian assistance and policy guidance through the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre, followed by a more substantive discussion with the junta in exchange for full access to all parties. ASEAN is currently playing a calculated game of push-and-pull. The military leaders need their relevance in Myanmar politics to be acknowledged, which ASEAN has already indirectly provided; in response, the junta’s lack of cooperation and reciprocity to the consensus protocol provided room for ASEAN to plan its next step. 

      In comparison to the economic sanctions, by barring Myanmar’s representatives from this year’s summit, ASEAN has taken a more calculative approach in allowing the junta to consider the consequences of non-cooperation. Simultaneously, ASEAN‘s secretary general, Dato Lim Jock Hoi, stressed that humanitarian assistance “should not be politicised.” At the end of the October leaders’ summit, His Majesty Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah reiterated that “Myanmar is an integral part of the ASEAN family and their membership has not been questioned.”

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      Despite repeated urgency for stronger action, ASEAN recognizes that coercive strategies are not effective in seeking a final resolution. As much as this is a race against time, it is also unproductive to rush political negotiations that can result in more harm than good. It is clear that ASEAN has moved beyond its non-interference principle and is exercising both caution and effort as the sole moderator in this crisis. Ultimately, continuous criticism can only achieve so much.

      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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      When the Green Deal Is a No Deal

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      Let’s start with a tricky question. Is the European Union’s Green New Deal a path toward the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050, as European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen sees it? Or do you agree with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s view of the deal as a “utopian fantasy”? Whatever interpretation you are leaning toward, the question itself reveals the current polarization across Europe.

      Why Does the Radical Right Oppose European Integration?

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      As in many other situations when an urgent EU response is needed, like when human rights violations are happening right on the bloc’s borders and shores, the roots of this political polarization are an intended result of populist anti-EU rhetoric spearheaded by the likes of Orban and other illiberal leaders. Nevertheless, the supposed dividing line between “old” and “new” EU member states on the perception of the green transformation is a by-product of failing Europeanization, something Orban and his consorts cannot be blamed for exclusively.

      Fear of Falling Behind

      Card players know the expression “new deal” as the reshuffling of a deck of cards that squares the players’ chances of victory. The Green New Deal, introduced in December 2019 by the European Commission, however, will not reset economic and social inequalities either globally or within the European Union itself. In the case of Hungary, for instance, among its nearly 10 million inhabitants, “income inequality has increased over the past decade and inequalities in access to public services remain high,” according to the 2020 country report by the European Commission.

      Cohesion reports show that although previous policies have made significant contributions, economic and social disparities between member states persist. That’s why the European Commission installed the Just Transition Mechanism and the Just Transition Fund alongside other measures such as the Social Economy Action Plan to compensate possible losers of the transition with funding and social inclusion measures.

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      Experts point out the open questions regarding exactly how much public money will flow to the east. A big part of the transition is to be lifted by private investments. Heated debates on green taxation and investments are partly fueled by fears of “falling further behind the West.”

      Concerns like this engender a general mistrust toward EU policies in the eastern European region. While the current framing of the Green New Deal focuses on the promise of a growth strategy with winners only, recipients in the east traditionally have doubts. Looking back to the 20th century, Europe has had plenty of experience with transitional processes, but lessons learned from various approaches vary tremendously across the continent.

      Bad Memories

      The Czech Republic, for example, is often presented as a transition success story. Yet a more differentiated view shows that the country is still struggling with the destructive effects of an unfinished transition. More than three decades after the change of regime, the political elite is dominated by businesspersons who gained economic power in the 1990s and have established a clientelist system characterized by a cascade of corruption scandals. Still facing a “wage curtain” vis-à-vis the West, the voters’ frustration with such legacies spelled defeat for Prime Minister Andrej Babis’ party in this year’s parliamentary election.

      The new government in Prague is trying to distance itself from previous paths and promotes a transition toward a green economy, emphasizing sanctions against polluters. The rhetoric, however, shows that the government’s commitment to change has its limits when prosperity is at risk. “The Green Deal represents a huge opportunity for Europe to invest in sustainable development, renewable energy and the circular economy. We will support any such measures which will not economically affect the living standards of the population of the Czech Republic,” Petr Hladík, deputy-mayor of Brno, stated recently.

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      Hungary has undergone several economic transitions after World War II. During the 1960s, a centrally-planned economy became more open. Then the so-called “goulash communism” paved the way toward a market economy, which was realized after the fall of the communist regime in 1989.

      The economic transition has brought market integration and foreign investments, but also, 17 years after Hungary’s EU accession, welfare levels have not reached those of the original member countries. In the years after 1989, Hungarians experienced high unemployment, social insecurity and a general decline in productivity that has often been seen as the material shock of the transition process.

      In the country’s collective memory, the transition has strong connotations with the rise in social inequality or, as Herman Hoen put it, the reforms that encompassed “welfare gains for some at the expense of others.” Negative experiences from transition periods, therefore, fuel the mistrust and general pessimism toward narratives of change and progress.

      When it comes to environmental awareness that forms the basis for climate action, we must understand that both Marxist and capitalist ideologies have been strongly shaped by a worldview that sees nature as an obstacle to economic growth. Environmentalists in countries like Hungary, former Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria had successfully channeled a broad critique of the system by raising environmental concerns. But soon after the initial democratic transition, attention shifted toward economic priorities.

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      Some argue that the transitions of 1989-90 in Eastern Europe have ended with the accession to the EU in 2004 but, facing a democratic backlash, clientelism and attempts at state capture today, it seems more appropriate to describe it as an incomplete transition. Particularly, civil society and social movements offer insights into the non-linearity of democratic consolidation processes.

      Although post-communist countries have very different transition processes and experiences, some suffering more, others less, they still share common struggles with social injustice and corruption as well as bad memories of the era of transformation.

      Disillusionment

      As a result of this disillusionment, many post-communist countries experienced a massive exodus to the West. According to Ivan Krastev, “With social inequality rising and social mobility stagnating in many countries in the world, it is easier to cross national borders than class barriers.” Many of those who stayed have become supporters of Orban and other populists who claim to be treated as second-class members of the EU and call out alleged double standards. Blaming Brussels for high energy prices, for example, falls on fertile ground.

      In addition, growing disparities in fundamental values and migration practices fuel fears over further disintegration of the EU along an increasing east-west divide. If we look at the perception of climate action in Europe, this divide can be detected here too. In fact, although all member states agreed on the Green New Deal, it has many stumbling blocks in its path.

      A study by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that “Europeans are divided over a range of climate issues, including the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), the role of nuclear energy in Europe’s future energy mix, bridging technologies with which to facilitate the transition to net zero, and the socio-economic consequences of closing down carbon-intensive industries.” The study also reveals that alliances along this fault line do not align in two diametrically opposed camps. This enables varying alliance-building measures and avoids stagnation when it comes to major decisions ahead.

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      According to a Eurobarometer survey from 2019, the awareness for necessary actions against climate change is increasing in all member states. When it comes to the question of whether climate change is one of the most serious problems, countries like Bulgaria, Romania and Lithuania are at the other end of the scale. Socio-demographic data show a clear correlation between awareness and the financial stability of respondents. Those with fewer financial difficulties are most likely to consider climate change as the most serious problem.

      In the case of Hungary, there is a true clash of perceptions with the European Commission. But Viktor Orban is facing an election in early 2022 that might lead to a change in the power balance. In the end, the benefits from the financial resources of the Green New Deal might speak in its favor.

      Bedtime Stories of Growth

      “This transition will either be working for all and be just, or it will not work at all,” said Von der Leyen after the College of Commissioners had agreed on the European Green Deal. According to the Commission’s Just Transition Mechanism, the most vulnerable regions and sectors should receive compensation for disadvantages. When facing informed criticism of gender-blind environmental policies, studies on energy poverty in former communist countries, the concept of “black ecologies” as well as the colonial legacy and the continuing global injustice of the Anthropocene, we must admit that it is impossible for today’s policies — and politicians — to predict who will make up tomorrow’s vulnerable groups.

      There is no doubt that Europe needs inclusive and smart policies, but regulations alone will not be enough. All green transformation mechanisms must be accompanied by multi-dimensional democratic reform. This means, first of all, the establishment of transnational agoras for grassroots participation in environmental policymaking. There needs to be a strong and broad democratic foundation as policy can only succeed once the trust in institutions is restored. Political culture and path dependencies are powerful and often underestimated barriers of change that can hardly be addressed by policy alone and require strong local civil societies.

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      Speaking of trust, the European Commission’s current narrative of a “new growth strategy” carries the risk of creating a false promise of a “transition without losers” while not being able to think ahead to identify all obstacles. Even if serious endeavors can alleviate most of the social costs of the transition, the measures will fail if structural reforms of the social welfare systems and education are being neglected.

      Coping with the climate emergency uncovers the EU’s biggest weakness, namely its various divisions. Cohesion policies need to be more inclusive to guarantee effectiveness. While many actors within the bloc and on its margins have already joined the new gold rush for renewables, the scramble for the enormous EU funds brings severe risks of corruption and exploitation of natural resources in countries with weak economies and democracies, like the Jadar project in Serbia clearly demonstrates.

      Universal Change of Perspective

      Nationalistic and ethnic biases have led to dysfunctions and hampered cooperation among civil society actors before and after 1989. Donatella Della Porta and Manuela Cainai’s demands for a “Europeanization from below” should not be caught up in the dynamics of a green transition. We have a historic chance for environmental concerns to be expressed on all levels of society, and the ears of EU institutions are wide open.

      With the liberal opposition in Hungary joining forces against illiberal politicians in power, civil society’s ability to compromise and cooperate will decide its success. If it takes its role as watchdog and mediator between society and state seriously, it will need to develop trustworthy narratives of transition.

      From a global perspective, the current story is built on risky grounds. The old growth strategy cannot be simply supplanted by a new one. If the Green New Deal means an agreement where, in the end, power and money stay concentrated in the global north while resources and advantages of the EU’s margins — such as the western Balkans — are exploited, the outcome of the transition will be a total disintegration of the EU accompanied by severe social upheavals. 

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      For many people then, the Green New Deal will not be a deal at all. The main responsibility for decarbonization lies with the global north. In this sense, the EU’s framing of climate action must be aligned with an honest inconvenient truth that it is not a trade deal with winners only but a unilateral sacrifice of privileges and a total change of perspective for the sake of all humanity.

      As Mariana Mazzucato recently stated in Nature Sustainability, “What is needed now is to move beyond the static debate about growth or no growth and instead focus on fundamentally redirecting development towards achieving the goal of a more inclusive and sustainable planet. We need to pivot from a reactive market-failure-fixing approach towards a proactive market-shaping one.”

      It is crucial that the Green New Deal is not just seen as a top-down policy bundle or a golden pot of money from Brussels, but a chance to reduce inequalities and to create a “good jobs economy.” The EU’s climate policies are indeed paving the way for decarbonization, but divisions within the bloc will always remain and might even further increase once the motor of growth revs up. The fight against climate change and injustice will then once again be led by civil society and proactive citizens, who need to follow a shared vision and hold politicians and corporations accountable for their actions.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Institute for the Danube Region and Central Europe.]

      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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      Could There Be War With Russia?

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      First, let’s be clear: Russia already invaded Ukraine. At the end of February 2014, Russian soldiers without insignia seized key facilities in Crimea and then helped secessionists in eastern Ukraine some weeks later. Crimea is now under Russian control and a civil war continues to flare up over the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.

      Second, the United States has repeatedly provoked Russia by pushing the boundaries of NATO ever eastward. Virtually all of Eastern Europe is part of the military alliance, and so are parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Ukraine is in a halfway house called “NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partners” and it has contributed to NATO-led missions.

      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      A majority of Ukrainians — those not living in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk — support NATO membership, according to a November 2021 poll. Such poll results are no surprise given that membership would provide Ukraine with the additional insurance of NATO’s collective defense clause. Of all the countries considering membership in NATO, Ukraine is the one that most threatens Russia’s national interests in what it calls the “near abroad.”

      That’s some of the necessary context to the recent news that Russia has been massing around 100,000 soldiers along its border with Ukraine, coupled with medium-range surface-to-air missiles. Russia argues that such maneuvers are purely precautionary. Ukraine and its supporters think otherwise.

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      The United States has rallied its allies to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine. It has promised to levy additional economic sanctions against Moscow as well as send more US troops to Eastern Europe to add to the several thousand American soldiers in Poland as well as those stationed at four US military bases in Bulgaria, a military facility on Romania’s Black Sea coast and elsewhere. The Biden administration has been clear, however, that it wouldn’t send US soldiers to Ukraine to confront Russian invaders.

      Putin, meanwhile, has demanded that Ukraine’s membership in NATO be taken off the table. He has also called for an immediate security dialogue with the United States and has been strategizing with China’s Xi Jinping on how to coordinate their policies.

      The transfer of troops to the Ukrainian border may simply be a test of the West’s resolve, an effort to strengthen Putin’s hand in negotiations with both Kyiv and Washington, a way of rallying domestic support at a time of political and economic challenges or all of the above. Given enormous pushback from the Ukrainian army among other negative consequences of a military intervention, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not likely in the cards. Putin prefers short wars, not potential quagmires, and working through proxies wherever possible.

      A hot war with Russia is the last thing the Biden administration wants right now. Nor is an actual détente with Moscow on the horizon. But could Putin’s aggressive move raise the profile of US-Russia relations in such a way as to lay the foundation for a cold peace?

      Fatal Indigestion?

      The civil war in Ukraine does not often make it into the headlines these days. Ceasefires have come and gone. Fighting along the Line of Contact that separates the Ukrainian army from secessionist forces breaks out sporadically. Since the beginning of the year, 55 Ukrainian soldiers have died and, through the end of September, so have 18 civilians, including four children. Many residents of the border towns have fled the fighting, but millions who remain require humanitarian assistance.

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      For the Russian government, this low-level conflict serves to emphasize its main message: that Ukraine is not really a sovereign country. Moscow claims that its seizure of Crimea was at the behest of citizens there who voted for annexation in a referendum. It argues that the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk are simply exercising their right of self-determination in a political climate that discriminates against Russian speakers. Such fissures in the territory of Ukraine, according to this logic, suggest that the government in Kyiv doesn’t have complete control over its borders and has thus failed at one of the principal tests of a nation-state.

      For Ukraine, the issue is complicated by the presence of a large number of Russian-language speakers, some of whom feel more affinity for Moscow than Kyiv. A 2019 law that established Ukrainian as the country’s primary language has not helped matters. Anyone who violates the law, for instance, by engaging customers in Russian in interactions in stores, can be subjected to a fine. So far, however, the government hasn’t imposed any penalties. That’s not exactly a surprise given that the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who objected to the law when he was running for office, is more comfortable speaking Russian in public.

      Despite its domestic challenges and the recent history of Russian military incursions, Ukraine is very much a country. It is a member of the United Nations. Only a handful of states — Somalia, Palau — have neglected to extend it diplomatic recognition. There is no strategic ambiguity about Ukraine’s place in the international order as compared to, say, Taiwan.

      Not even Putin, despite his paeans to “one Russia,” realistically contemplates trying to absorb a largely resistant country into a larger pan-Slavic federation with Russia and Belarus. After all, Moscow has had its challenges with the much smaller task of integrating little Crimea into the Russian Federation. Upgrading the peninsula’s infrastructure and connecting it to the Russian mainland has cost tens of billions of dollars even as the sanctions imposed by the West have cost Russian corporations more than $100 billion. A water crisis in Crimea — because Ukraine blocked the flow from the Dnieper River into the North Crimean Canal — has offset the infrastructure upgrades Moscow has sponsored, leading to speculation last year that Russian would invade its neighbor simply to restart the flow of water.

      Invading Ukraine to resolve problems raised by the earlier invasion of Crimea would turn Vladimir Putin into the woman who swallowed a fly (and then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, then a bird to catch the spider and so on). Such a strategy promises larger and more diverse meals followed by the inevitable case of fatal indigestion.

      An Improbable Peace?

      So far, the Biden administration has offered a mix of threats and reassurances in the face of a possible Russian invasion. New sanctions and the dispatch of additional troops to Eastern Europe have been balanced by the refusal of the administration at this point to consider any direct involvement in Ukraine to counter Russian forces. Biden communicated this strategy not only in speeches, but in a two-hour telephone call with Putin last week. It was, by all accounts, a diplomatic conversation, with no bridge-burning and no Donald Trump-like fawning.

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      Biden and Putin may meet in early 2022. If that sounds like deja vu, you’re right. After Russia mobilized troops on Ukraine’s border last April, a Biden–Putin summit took place in mid-June in Geneva. Long ago, North Korea discovered that missile launches were an effective way of getting Washington’s attention. Russia can no longer count on Trump’s affection for authoritarian leaders to secure summits, so it has now adopted the North Korean approach.

      The important thing is that Putin and Biden are talking and that the respective diplomatic establishments are engaging with one another. The problem is that both leaders face domestic pressure to take a more aggressive stance. In the United States, bipartisan efforts are afoot to send Ukraine more powerful armaments and escalate the threats against Moscow. In the Russian Duma, far-right nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and putatively left-wing leaders like Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov have at one point or another called for the outright annexation of Ukraine’s Donbass region. Also, the approval ratings of both Putin and Biden have been dropping over the last year, which provides them with less maneuvering room at home.

      To resolve once and for all the territorial issues involving Ukraine, the latter has to be sitting at the table. The civil war, although still claiming lives, is thankfully at a low ebb. But it’s important to push through the implementation of the 2014 Minsk accords, which committed Ukraine to offer special status to Donetsk and Luhansk that would provide them greater autonomy within Ukrainian borders. Ukraine can bring such a compromise to the table by pushing stalled constitutional amendments through the parliament.

      Crimea is a different problem. Even if Ukraine has international law on its side, it cannot easily roll back Russian integration of the peninsula. As the Brookings Institution’s Steven Pifer points out, success might be the best form of revenge for Ukraine. If the country manages to get its economic act together — a difficult but not impossible task — it will present itself as a better option for Crimeans than being Moscow’s charity case. Queue a second referendum in which Crimea returns to Ukraine by popular demand.

      The question of NATO membership should be treated with a measure of strategic ambiguity. The US government won’t categorically rule out Ukrainian membership, but it also can deliberately slow down the process to a virtual standstill. Russia has legitimate concerns about NATO troops massed on its border. Putin’s demand that the alliance not engage in a military build-up in countries bordering Russia is worthwhile even outside of its value as a bargaining chip.

      Another major thorn in US-Russia relations is Washington’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. Obviously, it should be up to Germany where it gets its energy, and surely Russia is no worse than some of the places the US has imported oil from in the past (like Saudi Arabia). But the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is yesterday’s problem. The pipeline will soon become a huge stranded asset, a piece of infrastructure that will send unacceptable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and will be made redundant by the falling price of renewable energy. The European Union, additionally, is considering a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that will only add to the cost of imported natural gas, stranding that particular asset even earlier than expected.

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      Everyone talks about the United States and China working together to battle climate change. The same spirit of cooperation should animate US-Russia relations. The Russian government has been a little bit more forthcoming of late on setting decarbonization goals, but it has a long way to go, according to the analysis of these three Russian environmental activists.

      Imagine Washington and Moscow working together to wean themselves off of their mutual dependency on fossil fuels. Let’s call it a “green détente” that includes regular “carbon control” summits designed to reduce mutual emissions, much as arms control confabs have aimed to cut back on nuclear armaments.

      Of course, there are plenty of other issues that can and will come up in talks between the two superpowers: denuclearization, cyberwarfare, the Iran nuclear agreement, the future of Afghanistan, UN reform. Sure, everyone is talking about avoiding worst-case scenarios right now. The conflict over Ukraine and the conflict inside Ukraine are reminders that the United States and Russia, despite powerful countervailing pressures, can indeed go to war to the detriment of the whole world. Perhaps Putin and Biden, despite the authoritarian tendencies of the former and the status-quo fecklessness of the latter, can act like real leaders and work together to resolve mutual problems that go well beyond the current impasse in Ukraine.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

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