| | | | Beware of Putin's Bleak, Last Man Standing Strategy | | To understand why Vladimir Putin insists on meddling in US elections, just look at the biggest lesson of the Cold War, suggests Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. That great power struggle was won through internal, not external strength. And Putin knows that's how it will likely end this time, too.
"Until recently, this would have been a contest that the US was supremely confident of winning. After all the great strength of the west is meant to be the legitimacy and stability created by democracy as well as the superior economic performance. 'Freedom works' was the confident boast of former US president Ronald Reagan," Rachman writes.
"But in the Trump era, the idea that the US system is inherently more stable than its rivals can no longer be taken for granted. The hatreds on both sides of the US political divide are so strong that even mainstream journals such as the New Yorker and Foreign Policy have run articles on the possibility of a second American civil war."
"Putin knows that Russia has grave internal weaknesses. But he also can see that the US has serious problems of its own. That is why he has adopted a strategy that some analysts call 'last man standing.' Its bleak aim is to play up the weaknesses of the West, before Russia's own weaknesses overwhelm Mr Putin."
| | America's Long-Distance "Welfare" Recipients | | | America has spent tens of billions on security assistance to allies in the Middle East over the past decade. But you wouldn't know it judging by the results, write Andrew Miller and Richard Sokolsky for the American Conservative. Indeed, the assistance is looking like an increasingly expensive – and even counterproductive – welfare program.
"Washington has become so fixated on doling out billions of dollars for this purpose that it often forgets what this assistance is for in the first place: securing US interests. More often than not, our allies and client states take the money and use their weapons in pursuit of policies inimical to US interests or kvetch about American unreliability. Saudi Arabia, which has used American-supplied weapons to visit ruin on Yemen and strengthen Jihadist groups there, is a poster child for this phenomenon," they write.
True, "US officials have excellent access in Middle Eastern capitals, but it is hard to attribute this to military assistance and arms sales. The United States remains a predominant international player and most countries do not have the luxury of ignoring Washington for long. Pentagon officials argue that the provision of material support increases their contacts with foreign militaries, creating opportunities to learn more about partner armed forces. In practice, however, recipient countries take great precautions to limit and regulate US access to their troops." | | How Xi's Power Grab Makes China Weaker | | | The Chinese Communist Party's plan to drop term limits for the country's presidency might empower Xi Jinping. But in the long term it will only weaken China's political system, argues Evan Osnos in the New Yorker.
"When political scientists assess a country's future, one measure is resilience," Osnos writes. "How well does it handle shocks, such as when a top leader goes crazy or starts to enrich his family and his cronies? How able are its courts and its press to expose and punish wrongdoing? How robust and creative are the ranks of its rising politicians? Do they have the independence and the protection to challenge their elders and to introduce bold new ideas? For the past generation, China has tacked toward some of those attributes and away from others, but, by any measure, establishing Xi in the Presidency for years to come does not contribute to political resilience." | | The Dangers of Getting Stressed Out About Doomsday | | From global warming to artificial intelligence to nanobots, the list of potential threats to civilization keeps getting longer. But assuming that humanity is constantly on the brink of disaster is not only futile – it could be dangerous, writes Steven Pinker in the Globe and Mail.
One danger "is that false alarms to catastrophic risks can themselves be catastrophic. The nuclear arms race of the 1960s, for example, was set off by fears of a mythical 'missile gap' with the Soviet Union. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was justified by the uncertain but catastrophic possibility that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and planning to use them against the United States," Pinker writes. "Sowing fear about hypothetical disasters, far from safeguarding the future of humanity, can endanger it."
"A second hazard of enumerating doomsday scenarios is that humanity has a finite budget of resources, brainpower and anxiety. You can't worry about everything. Some of the threats facing us, such as climate change and nuclear war, are unmistakable, and will require immense effort and ingenuity to mitigate. Folding them into a list of exotic scenarios with minuscule or unknown probabilities can only dilute the sense of urgency."
| | A Saudi Prince Wants More Bang for His Buck | | Saudi Arabia's military got a late-night shake-up Monday, with several key positions changing hands. Thank the growing frustration of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the kingdom's military performance for the abrupt changes, says Ben Hubbard for The New York Times.
"Over several decades, Saudi Arabia has spent hundreds of billions of dollars assembling an impressive array of military hardware from the United States, Britain and other countries. But the heavy spending never translated into an effective fighting force that would enable the kingdom to protect itself and engage in military ventures abroad," Hubbard writes.
"Prince Mohammed has spoken publicly of his frustration over the gap between the kingdom's military spending and its capabilities, which has become clear during the war in Yemen. The new changes seem to be part of an effort to narrow the gap."
"The military appointments fit into a wider reorganization of the kingdom's armed forces that seeks to make them more efficient and stronger players in the region, [Atlantic Council nonresident fellow Mohammed] Alyahya said."
| | About Those Jolly Snow Scenes… | | Snowball fights in Rome might make for great postcard images. But a heatwave in the Arctic has created the frigid temperatures in parts of Europe – and alarm among climate scientists, Jonathan Watts reports for The Guardian.
"Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north," Watts writes.
"The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month."
"'This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,' said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University."
| | Why Latin America Won't Wait for Uncle Sam | | Once upon a time, the kind of political and humanitarian implosion taking place in Venezuela would have prompted the United States to lead a regional response. Under the Trump administration? Not so much, writes Shannon O'Neil for Bloomberg View. But that might not matter like it used to.
"Latin American nations today differ from their more passive past incarnations. With a combined GDP of more than $5 trillion, and two of the world's 15 biggest economies, the region's increasing economic heft means more resources are available to address the costs of such a crisis," O'Neil writes.
"Mexico recently joined the growing roster of Latin American nations that contribute to peacekeeping missions. Nearly all the countries are democratic, with most committed to spreading these ideals broadly.". | | | | | | |
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