Putin, Crusaders and Barbarians

PEPE ESCOBAR • FEBRUARY 26, 2021

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/putin-crusaders-and-barbarians/

Moscow is painfully aware that the US/NATO “strategy” of containment of Russia is already reaching fever pitch. Again.

This past Wednesday, at a very important meeting with the FSB board, President Putin laid it all out in stark terms:

We are up against the so-called policy of containing Russia. This is not about competition, which is a natural thing for international relations. This is about a consistent and quite aggressive policy aimed at disrupting our development, slowing it down, creating problems along the outer perimeter, triggering domestic instability, undermining the values that unite Russian society, and ultimately to weaken Russia and put it under external control, just the way we are witnessing it transpire in some countries in the post-Soviet space.

Not without a touch of wickedness, Putin added this was no exaggeration: “In fact, you don’t need to be convinced of this as you yourselves know it perfectly well, perhaps even better than anybody else.”

The Kremlin is very much aware of “containment” of Russia focuses on its perimeter: Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asia. And the ultimate target remains regime change.

Putin’s remarks may also be interpreted as an indirect answer to a section of President Biden’s speech at the Munich Security Conference ( Here is an excellent analysis, in Russian).

According to Biden’s scriptwriters,

Putin seeks to weaken the European project and the NATO alliance because it is much easier for the Kremlin to intimidate individual countries than to negotiate with the united transatlantic community (…) The Russian authorities want others to think that our system is just as corrupt or even more corrupt.

A clumsy, direct personal attack against the head of state of a major nuclear power does not exactly qualify as sophisticated diplomacy. At least it glaringly shows how trust between Washington and Moscow is now reduced to less than zero. As much as Biden’s Deep State handlers refuse to see Putin as a worthy negotiating partner, the Kremlin and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have already dismissed Washington as “non-agreement capable”.

Once again, this is all about sovereignty. The “unfriendly attitude towards Russia”, as Putin defined it, extends to “other independent, sovereign centers of global development.” Read it as mainly China and Iran. All these three sovereign states happen to be categorized as top “threats” by the US National Security Strategy.

Yet Russia is the real nightmare for the Exceptionalists: Orthodox Christian, thus appealing to swathes of the West; consolidated as major Eurasian power; a military, hypersonic superpower; and boasting unrivaled diplomatic skills, appreciated all across the Global South.

In contrast, there’s not much left for the Deep State except endlessly demonizing both Russia and China to justify a Western military build-up, the “logic” inbuilt in a new strategic concept named NATO 2030: United for a New Era.

The experts behind the concept hailed it as an “implicit” response to French President Emmanuel Macron declaring NATO “brain dead”.

Well, at least the concept proves Macron was right.

Those barbarians from the East

Crucial questions about sovereignty and Russian identity has been a recurrent theme in Moscow these past few weeks. And that brings us to February 17, when Putin met with Duma political leaders, from the Liberal Democratic Party’s Vladimir Zhirinovsky – enjoying a popularity surge – and the Communist Party’s Gennady Zyuganov to United Russia’s Sergei Mironov, as well as State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.

Putin stressed the “multi-ethnic and multi-religious” character of Russia, now in “a different environment that is free of ideology”:

“It is important for all ethnic groups, even the smallest ones, to know that this is their Motherland with no other for them, that they are protected here and are prepared to lay down their lives in order to protect this country. This is in the interests of us all, regardless of ethnicity, including the Russian people.”

Yet Putin’s most extraordinary remark had to do with Ancient Russian history:

Barbarians came from the East and destroyed the Christian Orthodox empire. But before the barbarians from the East, as you well know, the crusaders came from the West and weakened this Orthodox Christian empire, and only then were the last blows dealt, and it was conquered. This is what happened…we must remember these historical events and never forget them.

Well, this could be enough material to generate a 1,000-page treatise. As it stands, let’s try at least to – concisely – unpackage it.

The Great Eurasian Steppe – one of the largest geographical formations on the planet – stretches from the lower Danube all the way to the Yellow River. The running joke across Eurasia is that “Keep Walking” can be performed back to back. For most of recorded history, this has been Nomad Central: tribe upon tribe raiding at the margins, or sometimes at the hubs of the Heartland: China, Iran, the Mediterranean.

The Scythians (see, for instance, the magisterial The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe, by Barry Cunliffe) arrived at the Pontic steppe from beyond the Volga. After the Scythians, it was the turn of the Sarmatians to show up in South Russia.

From the 4^th century onwards, Nomad Eurasia was a vortex of marauding tribes, featuring, among others, the Huns in the 4^th and 5^th centuries, the Khazars in the 7^th century, the Kumans in the 11^th century, all the way to the Mongol avalanche in the 13^th century.

The plotline always pitted nomads against peasants. Nomads ruled – and exacted tribute. G. Vernadsky, in his invaluable Ancient Russia shows how “the Scythian Empire maybe described sociologically as a domination of the nomadic horde over neighboring tribes of agriculturists”.

As part of my multi-pronged research on nomad empires for a future volume, I call them Badass Barbarians on Horseback. The stars of the show include, in Europe, in chronological order, Cimmerians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, Khazars, Hungarians, Pechenegs, Seljuks, Mongols and their Tatar descendants; and in Asia, Hu, Xiongnu, Hephthalites, Turks, Uighurs, Tibetans, Kirghiz, Khitan, Mongols, Turks (again), Uzbeks, and Manchu.

Arguably, since the hegemonic Scythian era (the first protagonists of the Silk Road), most of the peasants in southern and central Russia were Slav. But there were major differences. The Slavs west of Kyiv was under the influence of Germany and Rome. East of Kyiv, they were influenced by Persian civilization.

It’s always important to remember that the Vikings were still nomads when they became rulers in Slav lands. Their civilization in fact prevailed over sedentary peasants – even as they absorbed many of their customs.

Interestingly enough, the gap between steppe nomads and agriculture in proto-Russia was not as steep as between intensive agriculture in China and the interlocked steppe economy in Mongolia.

(For an engaging Marxist interpretation of nomadism, see A.N. Khazanov’s Nomads and the Outside World).

The sheltering sky

What about power? For Turk and Mongol nomads, who came centuries after the Scythians, power emanated from the sky. The Khan ruled by the authority of the “Eternal Sky” – as we all see when we delve into the adventures of Genghis and Kublai. By implication, as there is only one sky, the Khan would have to exert universal power. Welcome to the idea of Universal Empire.

In Persia, things were slightly more complex. The Persian Empire was all about Sun worship: that became the conceptual basis for the divine right of the King of Kings. The implications were immense, as the King now became sacred. This model influenced Byzantium – which after all was always interacting with Persia.

Christianity made the Kingdom of Heaven more important than ruling over the temporal domain. Still, the idea of Universal Empire persisted, incarnated in the concept of Pantocrator: it was the Christ who ultimately ruled, and his deputy on earth was the Emperor. But Byzantium remained a very special case: the Emperor could never be equal to God. After all, he was human.

Putin is certainly very much aware that the Russian case is extremely complex. Russia essentially is on the margins of three civilizations. It’s part of Europe – reasons including everything from the ethnic origin of Slavs to achievements in history, music, and literature.

Russia is also part of Byzantium from a religious and artistic angle (but not part of the subsequent Ottoman empire, with which it was in military competition). And Russia was influenced by Islam coming from Persia.

Then there’s the crucial nomad influence. A serious case can be made that they have been scholarly neglected. The Mongol rule for a century and a half of course is part of the official historiography – but perhaps not given its due importance. And the nomads in southern and central Russia two millennia ago were never properly acknowledged.

So Putin may have hit a nerve. What he said points to the idealization of a later period of Russian history from the late 9^th to early 13^th century: Kievan Rus. In Russia, 19^th century Romanticism and 20th-century nationalism actively built an idealized national identity.

The interpretation of Kievan Rus poses tremendous problems – that’s something I eagerly discussed in St. Petersburg a few years ago. There are rare literary sources – and they concentrate mostly on the 12^th century afterward. The earlier sources are foreigners, mostly Persians and Arabs.

Russian conversion to Christianity and its concomitant superb architecture have been interpreted as evidence of a high cultural standard. In a nutshell, scholars ended up using Western Europe as the model for the reconstruction of Kievan Rus civilization.

It was never so simple. A good example is a discrepancy between Novgorod and Kyiv. Novgorod was closer to the Baltic than the Black Sea and had closer interaction with Scandinavia and the Hanseatic towns. Compare it to Kyiv, which was closer to steppe nomads and Byzantium – not to mention Islam.

Kievan Rus was a fascinating crossover. Nomadic tribal traditions – on administration, taxes, the justice system – were prevalent. But on religion, they imitated Byzantium. It’s also relevant that until the end of the 12^th century, assorted steppe nomads were a constant “threat” to southeast Kievan Rus.

So as much as Byzantium – and later on even the Ottoman Empire – supplied models for Russian institutions, the fact is the nomads, starting with the Scythians, influenced the economy, the social system, and most of all, the military approach.

Watch the Khan

Sima Qian, the master Chinese historian, has shown how the Khan had two “kings”, who each had two generals, and thus in succession, all the way to commanders of a hundred, a thousand, and ten thousand men. This is essentially the same system used for a millennium and a half by nomads, from the Scythians to the Mongols, all the way to Tamerlane’s army at the end of the 14^th century.

The Mongol invasions – 1221 and then 1239-1243 – were indeed the major game-changer. As master analyst Sergei Karaganov told me in his office in late 2018, they influenced Russian society for centuries afterward.

For over 200 years Russian princes had to visit the Mongol headquarters in the Volga to pay tribute. One scholarly strand has qualified it as “barbarization”; that seems to be Putin’s view. According to it, the incorporation of Mongol values may have “reversed” Russian society to what it was before the first drive to adopt Christianity.

The inescapable conclusion is that when Muscovy emerged in the late 15^th century as the dominant power in Russia, it was essentially the successor of the Mongols.

And because of that the peasantry – the sedentary population – was not touched by “civilization” (time to re-read Tolstoy?) Nomad Power and values, as strong as they were, survived Mongol rule for centuries.

Well, if a moral can be derived from our short parable, it’s not exactly a good idea for “civilized” NATO to pick a fight with the – lateral – heirs of the Great Khan.

 

 

Pasiones y emociones

Gustavo Gordillo

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/03/06/opinion/017a1eco

Para México la pregunta central del momento es: ¿qué se juega en las elecciones de este junio?

Entre partidos. Para los tres partidos centrales de la oposición que hoy marchan juntos, es su existencia misma la que está en juego. PRI y PAN probablemente prevalecerán, pero bastante disminuidos. De los otros partidos pequeños: del Trabajo, Movimento Ciudadano y Verde; al menos uno puede perder su registro. De los nuevos partidos quizás dos sobrevivan. Morena, aún si gana, arriesga seguir el viejo camino perredista de un enjambre de pequeños y mezquinos intereses sin más perspectiva que la transferida por la popularidad de López Obrador.

La primera batalla. Desde la elección presidencial, AMLO obtuvo triunfó en la batalla por los símbolos. Ese triunfo tiene sustento en una transformación central del quehacer gubernamental: hacer visibles a los excluidos sociales.

La segunda batalla que se presenta, como recordó varias veces Norbert Lechner, es acerca de la definición de la política. AMLO la definió de manera eslabonada con el símbolo central: política es todo aquello que busque mejorar la situación de los pobres. Que busque, repito, no necesariamente que lo logre. Me acuerdo de que alrededor del segundo año de gobierno de Calderón su popularidad era alta y a la pregunta a los encuestados del por qué de su aprobación, muchos contestaron: porque le echa ganas.

El Congreso. ¿Para qué quiere AMLO ganar otra vez el Congreso? Yo tengo dos presunciones basadas en su actuación política. Busca, en primer lugar, una reforma política. Casi todos los expertos en estos temas están a favor de reformas políticas. Para muchos, una de las más evidentes tiene que ver con la anomalía de que el Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación sea última instancia en materia electoral lo que mina la fuerza jurídica y política de la Corte Suprema. Pero no creo que el gobierno quiera reformar esto.

Los que gozan de mala fama. En cambio, está el ámbito de los partidos mismos. Los que sobrevivan a estas elecciones presentarán un lamentable espectáculo a los ciudadanos. Se fortalecerá su impopularidad. Se presentan entonces dos caminos. Fortalecer la figura de partidos rompiendo las cerraduras que existen, pero estableciendo barreras para obtener el registro, para obtener prerrogativas y para entrar al congreso. Hay otro camino: reducir su presencia a partir de dos medidas que serían bastante populares dado el desprestigio de los partidos: disminuir drásticamente las prerrogativas y ampliar las cuotas y los periodos para su registro.

La ciudadanía. Para quienes creemos que la democracia requiere de cuerpos intermedios, la segunda opción sería fatídica. Al contrario, la primera opción delineada mas arriba debería complementarse con una profunda reforma municipal que dote de poder de decisión, de recursos suficientes y de capacidad ejecutora. No creo que esto le interese actualmente al gobierno.

El triunfo contundente en las elecciones legislativas del presidente Bukele en El Salvador, la secuencia de la derecha insurreccionista y sus aliados institucionales en Estados Unidos, y las elecciones mexicanas tienen algo en común cada vez más frecuente en el escenario mundial. El peso de las emociones y las pasiones.

Los nuevos emos. Pierre Ronsavallon habla de tres tipos de emociones en la política contemporánea: emociones de posición (el sentimiento de abandono, de ser despreciado), emociones de intelección (entender el mundo y darle un sentido a partir de teorías complotistas) y emociones de acción (expulsar actores de la escena política: ¡que se vayan todos!).

Importan estas discusiones porque si las elecciones de junio son decisivas, lo son también las expresiones de protesta y movilizaciones de las mujeres. Este 8 de marzo reafirmarán que son el sujeto clave de la historia que estamos viviendo.

http://gustavogordillo.blogspot.com/

Twitter: gusto47

 

New admin will continue leading the US on the wrong path: Global Times editorial

By Global Times Published: Mar 04, 2021

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1217376.shtml

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered his first foreign policy speech on Wednesday, in which he put forward the eight most urgent foreign policy priorities. Although he talked about confronting China in the last part of his speech, in this way he was actually emphasizing this point. Blinken claimed that China is the US' "biggest geopolitical test" of the century. He called China "the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system." 

Also on Wednesday, the US released the "Interim National Security Strategic Guidance," describing China in the same tone as Blinken. But neither Blinken's speech nor the interim guidance report has outlined specific policies toward China. Blinken ambiguously said, "Our relationship with China will be competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be."

It can be seen that whatever terms the Biden administration has used to define China, it has inherited the Trump administration's thinking on its China policy. But the new administration will not resort to every possible means to deal with China. What the new administration differs from its predecessor is that it has expressed willingness to conditionally collaborate with China and has in public delivered its reluctance to engage in an all-out confrontation with China.

The Trump administration was extremely self-confident and arrogant, and its way to interact with China was to blackmail China without any bottom line. The Biden administration has apparently perceived that the Trump way didn't work out well. They are going to try to engage in a systemic game with China, including relying more on allies to strengthen an international siege of China.

Such manner toward China actually releases three messages. First, after the presidential transition, Washington has completed its domestic mobilization to reset China-US relations. Their position seeing China as a "strategic rival" has been consolidated. Second, the Biden administration has realized that it is not realistic to defeat China. The US needs an approach to deal with China, in which the US can maintain its advantage over China in the long run. Third, the current government underlines more on building US power, including solidifying its alliance system.

The room for China to relieve its tensions with the US through talks appears to be very narrow, but the possibility of conflicts between the two countries has also declined. China and the US will get involved in a long-term game in which pressure will be piled on all domains. The one who will make more achievement in terms of strength building will stand in a relatively proactive position to influence the future trend of the bilateral ties.

The Biden administration has adjusted its predecessor's unmannerly attempts trying to crush China and has reconstructed it's tactic of putting pressure on China. This has resulted from China's efforts of withstanding the pressure of the US-launched trade war and boosting its own might. China should devote itself to defining the new round between China and the US by continuing to realize China's expansion in terms of national strengths and frustrating Washington's plan to solidify its allies to counter China.

Despite the new US administration's grand ambitions and big talks, it is not sure about achieving such goals. The mechanism that drives US economic development is outdated and it is difficult to generate any positive energy now. US allies have divergences with Washington over China. The US lacks reasons to demand its allies to counter China with the same strength as it does.

China should continue its reform and opening-up efforts, and push forward its 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) as scheduled. China should work with the US to ease tensions while holding an easy mind in the face of serious disputes. By doing so, China will have a strategically relaxed mind-set and more room to interact. It is easier for China to paralyze the US' China's containment strategy than for the US to go against the trend and advance such a strategy.

It is high time that the Chinese people focus on doing their own things well. China's two sessions have begun, an annual occasion when China elaborates its development plans. The US is thinking of how to contain China, while China is thinking of how to develop itself. It is crystal clear who's design is healthier and can be better implemented.

 

¿Qué pasó en El Salvador?

Ángel Guerra Cabrera

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2021/03/04/opinion/024a1mun

La apabullante victoria alcanzada por el presidente de El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, en las elecciones del domingo pasado implica que tendrá la mayoría absoluta en la Asamblea Legislativa y la mayoría de las alcaldías del país. Aunque ingresó en política y gobernó la capital en representación de la ex guerrilla del Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN), en su gestión presidencial ha devenido en un abanderado del neoliberalismo recargado, en luna de miel con Donald Trump, un aventurero político enfermo de ambición personal y de ostensibles ínfulas autoritarias, hombre sin ética, al igual que el magnate neoyorquino.

Cuenta, sin embargo, con un espectacular 71 por ciento de popularidad y ya había arrasado en las elecciones presidenciales de 2019, en las que obtuvo 53 por ciento de los votos. En ellas, el candidato de Arena, la derecha tradicional, alcanzó 31.72 por ciento de sufragios. Pero muchísimo peor le fue al abanderado del FMLN, que luego de dos periodos consecutivos de gobierno de esa formación no llegó ni a 15 por ciento de los votos. Este dato mostraba desde entonces enorme insatisfacción de los electores con la gestión gubernamental del FMLN, organización que desde la lucha armada y después de los acuerdos de paz, cuando se convirtió en partido político, había defendido dignamente las banderas de la izquierda en el país y ganado un importante reconocimiento entre sus homólogos de América Latina y el Caribe. Su prestigioso y esclarecido líder, Schafik Handal, fallecido en 2006, llegó a ser uno de los más destacados referentes de la izquierda en nuestra región.

Pero si el resultado que obtuvo la ex guerrilla en la elección presidencial de 2019 fue famélico, en la del domingo pasado casi desaparece como opción electoral, y ello hace que no pueda aplazar más un profundo y doloroso examen de conciencia, fraternamente acompañada por sus pares de la región. Dicho con todo respeto, muchas cosas tienen que haberse hecho mal y muchas insuficiencias deben haber existido en el trabajo del FMLN, sobre todo en los 10 años que fue gobierno, para llegar a una situación en la que no pocos de sus militantes y simpatizantes han votado por los partidos de Bukele, la opción más representativa de los intereses del imperialismo estadunidense y del neoliberalismo en el país centroamericano, ahora que Arena desfallece. Bukele es un producto efímero de la crisis abismal del sistema de partidos políticos asociado a la perpetuación del neoliberalismo, que observamos hoy en el mundo y particularmente en América Latina y el Caribe. La democracia es cada vez más incompatible con el neoliberalismo.

Con la correlación de fuerzas que un 66 por ciento de los votos le proporcionará en el Legislativo, Bukele puede pasar, sin negociar con otros partidos, cualquier legislación de su interés; nombrar un tercio de los jueces de la Corte Suprema, al fiscal general, a los miembros del Tribunal de Cuentas, e incluso modificar la Constitución, incluida la prolongación a más de uno de los mandatos presidenciales. Más de un observador ha afirmado en estos días que la votación del domingo equivale a elegir una dictadura por voto popular.

Aun sin las extraordinarias atribuciones de que dispondrá de ahora en más y sin contar con representación parlamentaria, el jefe del Ejecutivo se ha negado a transparentar en qué ha gastado un crédito del FMI solicitado para enfrentar la pandemia, no ha entregado la dotación de fondos para los gobiernos municipales sin que se conozca el destino que les ha dado e irrumpió en la Asamblea Legislativa, escoltado por soldados y policías, para exigir la aprobación de un presupuesto adicional para sus planes de seguridad. Se asegura que una parte de los fondos etiquetados para la pandemia han sido repartidos ilegalmente durante la campaña electoral a sus simpatizantes en forma de despensas y bonos por Nuevas Ideas y Gana, los partidos del presidente. Éste ha instigado una campaña de odio contra la oposición, sobre todo contra el FMLN, dos de cuyos simpatizantes fueron asesinados en plena capital hace unos días por elementos de seguridad.

Bukele ha sobrendeudado al país y enfrentará una situación económica y social muy difícil. Mientras, el FMI le exigirá recortes a la inversión social cuando más la necesita el país. No la tendrá fácil si el FMLN realizara una profunda autocrítica y saliera a elaborar un radical programa de oposición con las organizaciones populares. El neoliberalismo es ya insostenible y tiene hoy vida muy limitada, como demuestran Argentina y Bolivia. Aunque Bukele sea muy diestro, como se ha visto, en la elaboración de mensajes a la carta para los distintos sectores y ducho en publicidad y redes, la realidad pura y dura indicará más temprano que tarde al pueblo el camino correcto, siempre que cuente con un liderazgo entregado y comprometido con sus intereses.

Twitter: @aguerraguerra

 

 

Irma Eréndira cayó de la gracia de AMLO

Al Presidente no le gustó como manejó discursivamente el caso Bartlett; mucho menos la sanción

Hernán Gómez Bruera

MARTES, 2 DE MARZO DE 2021

https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/opinion/2021/3/2/irma-erendira-cayo-de-la-gracia-de-amlo-264237.html

La distancia entre Irma Eréndira Sandoval y el presidente López Obrador se antoja insalvable. AMLO la recibe cada vez menos en privado y no se los ve juntos en actos públicos. La última vez que estuvo en una mañanera fue el 23 de enero de 2020, cuando el primer año de gobierno asistió siete veces.

Incluso a finales del año pasado AMLO auscultó nombres de posibles sucesores, pero ninguno aceptó su oferta.

El presidente sabe bien cuál es el papel que la secretaria jugó para pretender imponer a su hermano Pablo Amílcar, de ahí que ayer este haya tenido que retirarse. Varios secretarios le contaron de las llamadas que recibieron de la misma funcionaria que los audita —nótese ese detalle— para pedirles su apoyo. AMLO sabe también que ella y su marido fueron uno de los factores clave en la operación mediática en contra de Félix Salgado Macedonio.

Pero el descontento frente a Irma Eréndira viene de tiempo atrás. Al Presidente no le gustó como manejó discursivamente el caso Bartlett; mucho menos la sanción que, contrario a sus instrucciones, le impuso a su hijo por la compra a altos precios de ventiladores, algo que AMLO habría percibido como injusto.

El presidente también se enteró lo que la secretaria hizo a Miguel Ángel Lozada --ex director de Exploración y Producción de Pemex--, a quien inhabilitó injustamente por diez años, para finalmente ser absuelto por el TFJA ante la falta de evidencias. Irma Eréndira le había asegurado a AMLO que Lozada era culpable, cuando todo parece indicar que buscaba apartarlo de un área estratégica dentro de la paraestatal o tal vez simplemente lucirse.

A AMLO, como a varios secretarios, les irrita el protagonismo de una secretaria que busca cualquier oportunidad para figurar. Por esa razón, en más de una ocasión le ha llamado la atención en reuniones de trabajo tras haberse anticipado en dar a conocer información a la prensa, sin consultarlo previamente o sin socializar los temas con sus pares. 

En el gabinete se percibe el trabajo de Irma Eréndira como uno fundado en el sospechosismo y el mal trato a sus pares. Molesta su arrogancia y prepotencia y ha sorprendido que llegue a las reuniones acompañada de un séquito de ayudantes y escoltas que muy pocos funcionarios utilizan. “Todo lo que nadie haría en la 4T lo hace ella”, aseguró una fuente.  

Al caso de Irma se suman los de John Ackerman que también han puesto en aprietos al gobierno y a la 4T. En Palacio Nacional aseguran que al Presidente no le gustó nada la forma en que el académico estadounidense intentó reventar el proceso de selección de consejeros del INE, por mencionar solo un hecho.

Irma Eréndira podría mantenerse en su puesto porque al presidente no suelen gustarle las destituciones. Quizás el retiro de su hermano de la contienda en Guerrero le permita conservar su puesto. Sin embargo, cada vez estará más marginada y podría terminar siendo un florero.

Algunos sugieren que, en realidad, López Obrador está convencido que la Secretaría de la Función Pública no sirve para nada, a tal punto que le ha dejado una sola subsecretaría. ¿Será que está pensando eliminar esa dependencia y asunto resuelto?

POR HERNÁN GÓMEZ BRUERA
HERNANFGB@GMAIL.COM
@HERNANGOMEZB

 

America Is Not ‘Back.’ And Americans Should Not Want It to Be.

Unless President Biden challenges the fundamental premises of U.S. foreign policy, he will repeat the mistakes of his predecessors, but in a more competitive world.

By Stephen Wertheim

Mr. Wertheim is a historian of American foreign policy and the director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank.

• Feb. 24, 2021

https://archive.vn/wZHdl#selection-383.0-417.13

“America is back,” President Biden has declared in every major foreign policy speech he has given since taking office. He means to restore what he sees as the essence of global leadership — the United States joining with allies to “fight for our shared values” — that his predecessor defiled. Back, then, is America’s quest to order the world in the name of democracy, human rights, and the American way.

After four years of Donald Trump, the impulse to return to familiar habits is understandable. But those habits, especially the moralization of one country’s armed dominance, have proved destructive. What matters is whether the Biden administration will actually make America — No. 1 in armed force and arms dealing — less violent in the world. In that regard, Mr. Biden’s larger vision, of the United States, dividing the globe into subordinate allies and multiplying adversaries, and shouldering the burdens toward both, remains troubling, no matter how high-minded his rhetoric or diplomatic his actions.

Mr. Biden has signaled some improvement so far. He has cut off Washington’s support for “offensive operations” in Yemen and related arms sales to Saudi Arabia, reversing the awful policy initiated by President Barack Obama and intensified by President Trump. He has taken steps toward re-entering the nuclear agreement with Iran, essential for avoiding future wars.

Even the decency of his words marks a welcome change from the assaults of Mr. Trump, who recast the United States in his own bullying image. When Mr. Trump, in his 2016 campaign, professed to be “the most militaristic person there is,” more observers should have taken notice. He often acted accordingly in office, imposing draconian sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and leaving hundreds of troops in Syria “only for the oil.”

And yet it is far from clear that a demagogic militarist in the White House caused more harm through war-making than his two bipartisan predecessors. Mr. Trump found it easy to deliver on his promise that “our military dominance must be unquestioned:” he needed only to inherit the armed forces globally deployed for decades. In the end, he escalated many existing conflicts but managed to avoid launching new ones (though he came close with Iran) and put the Afghanistan war on a path to termination.

That is why Mr. Trump’s tenure makes it more important, not less, to be critical of what came before him. America’s version of “liberal internationalism” — code for global military dominance exercised on behalf of liberal values — remains the primary source of decades of foreign policy disaster. Unless Mr. Biden challenges the very premise, he will repeat the same mistakes, now in a more competitive world.

“We will meet the responsibility of defending human liberty against violence and aggression,” George W. Bush declared in gearing up to commit a supreme act of violent aggression, the invasion of Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis paid with their lives. Mr. Bush, re-elected, waxed lyrical about “ending tyranny in our world.”

Like the current president, Barack Obama entered office collecting plaudits for not being his predecessor. “America is back,” he even proclaimed in 2012. But Mr. Obama, despite frequently resisting calls for intervention, failed to get through his first term without launching a disastrous military escapade. This one, undertaken on humanitarian grounds and with multilateral backing, aimed to prevent a massacre in Libya. To stand idly by, Mr. Obama explained, would have “stained the conscience of the world.” The intervention ultimately lengthened Libya’s civil war and led to the destruction of the regime, unleashing chaos, terrorism, and slavery. More broadly, Mr. Obama expanded and streamlined perpetual war-making via drones and special forces across the greater Middle East.

In Washington, few consciences, or careers, have been stained by America’s sins of commission. Foreign policy elites have displayed more ingenuity in developing justifications for armed dominance, toggling through such rationales as stopping genocides in the 1990s, spreading democracy in the 2000s, and containing China’s and Russia’s authoritarian influence most recently. The record of Mr. Trump, broadly similar in military terms to his politesse predecessors, lays bare the limits of deploying the coercive power of the United States on behalf of humankind.

Investing military might with self-righteous moralism has not only produced one policy failure after another. It has also tarnished the very ideals conscripted into power politics. In crusading to spread American-style freedom, presidents have put the credibility of liberal democracy on the line. When their campaigns failed abroad, a segment of Americans turned to strongman rule at home. Possibly Mr. Trump, with his bottomless performances of cruelty, could become president only after previous leaders treated fundamental issues of power and justice with superficial moralizing and left others to pay the price.

After Mr. Trump, Americans must not be content for their country to do bad things for better reasons. America is not “back,” and we should not want it to be.

President Biden should brake firmly with the pre-Trump status quo. He has wisely ordered an audit of America’s military footprint, and he should use it to bring home many of the roughly 200,000 troops scattered across the globe and thereby disentangle the United States from regional disputes. In May, he can become the president who ends America’s war in Afghanistan, honoring the United States’ agreement to withdraw. From there, he should wind down the war on terror, build peace with North Korea rather than naïvely trying to denuclearize it, and tell the Pentagon that “great power competition” will not be the organizing principle of relations with China and Russia.

Only then can he make good on his commitment to orchestrate cooperation against the world’s foremost threats, such as pandemic disease and climate change, and invest in the American people where they live and work.

The task for Mr. Biden, and a new generation, is not to restore American leadership of the world but rather to lead America to a new place in the world.

Stephen Wertheim (@stephenwertheim) is a historian of American foreign policy and the director of grand strategy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He is the author of “Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy.”

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