Archive for the ‘Europe’ Category

How the West betrayed Mikhail Gorbachev and seeded the Ukraine conflict

Thursday, September 1st, 2022

Mikhail Gorbachev died on August 30, 2022. Since then, praises have flowed from Western leaders. Those praises obscure how the West betrayed Gorbachev after he fell from power, and how that betrayal seeded the Ukraine conflict.

The story is complicated because Gorbachev’s fall was triggered by Communist Party hardliners, so the troubles which befell Russia thereafter are also significantly due to Russian actions. That said, Gorbachev sought a partnership for peace, prosperity, and democracy. After he fell, the West reneged on its handshake agreement with him.

A tribute to Gorbachev’s inspiring vision

Before turning to the details of that betrayal, a tribute to Gorbachev is warranted. Gorbachev sought to transform the Soviet Union from a closed repressive system into an open consultative socialist system that would be part of the European family. That aspiration was described as glasnost (openness) and was pushed through the Perestroika reform movement.

(more…)

Neoliberalism and the Road to Inequality and Stagnation: A Chronicle Foretold

Friday, April 29th, 2022

My latest book has recently been published by Edward Elgar.

The book explores the impact of neoliberal policies on the US, Europe, and the global economy. It shows how the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession were predictable outcomes of the neoliberal policy experiment, as is the emergence of global “race to the bottom” competition. It also explains how Europe’s economic fragility is connected to the neoliberal design of the euro. Neoliberalism creates a particular variety of capitalism and is a political choice. That means society is tacitly engaged in a “war of ideas”, the outcome of which will influence our future political economic trajectory.

The book is available HERE. The cheapest option is the e-book purchased via Googleplay (price = $13.11).

Ukraine: what will be done and what should be done?

Thursday, February 24th, 2022

Preamble/Postscript:

While rightly condemning Russia for its invasion, the mainstream media continues to selectively report the history behind these events. In my view, its omissions are intentional and contribute to the tragedy. They inflame public understanding, render a diplomatic resolution more difficult, and lock us into a worse trajectory.

Let me make further clear my argument: (1) President Putin is head of the Russian state which is under slow-motion implacable attack by US-led NATO. (2) After failing to secure a satisfactory diplomatic resolution, he has taken action to head off that attack.

If you accept those two propositions, the Ukraine story is massively more complicated than simply claiming Putin is an aggressor and we (the US) are good. There will be no lasting peace until that complexity is fully engaged.

What will be done and what should be done?

The inevitable has happened. Russia has invaded Ukraine. It was inevitable because the US and its NATO partners had backed Russia into a corner from which it could only escape by military means.

In effect, Russia confronted a future in which the US would increasingly tighten the noose around its neck by further eastward expansion of NATO, combined with military upgrading by the US of its Eastern European NATO proxies.

Accompanying that militarization was the prospect of a ramped-up propaganda war in which western media fanned the flames of public animus against Russia. Side-by-side, US government financed entities (such as the National Endowment for Democracy and the German Marshall Fund) would seek to influence European and Russian politics with the goal of regime change.

At this stage, there are two questions. What will be done? And what should be done?

(more…)

American Exceptionalism and the Liberal Menace: the US and Ukraine

Sunday, February 13th, 2022

American exceptionalism is the most dangerous doctrine in the world, and it has been on full display in the current Ukraine crisis. Worse yet, the loudest advocates have been America’s elite liberal class.

The doctrine of exceptionalism holds that the US is inherently different from and superior to other nations. That superiority means the US is subject to a different standard. Its actions are claimed to be benevolent and above international law, and the US is entitled to intervene at will around the world, including building a global network of military bases and garrisons that it would never permit another power to have.

The Liberal Menace

In today’s United States, liberals are the most extreme proponents of American exceptionalism. In contrast, Republicans and conservatives are inclined to justify foreign policy by appeal to raw power, with the US doing what it wants because it can.

For myself, I have long been leery of American liberals. I term them the “liberal menace”. That is because they have been a major obstruction to progress toward a social democratic society for the past forty years.

(more…)

A crisis made in the USA: why Russia will likely invade Ukraine

Sunday, January 16th, 2022

Preamble. Living in the US and writing honestly about US-Russia relations (and China too) is very difficult. That is because the US is the aggressor, but Russia is an authoritarian country. That split is used by the US establishment to shuffle discussion away from US aggression on to Russian authoritarianism. Side-by-side, anyone calling the US on its aggression is labelled pro-Russian. In that way, the US establishment cleverly inoculates itself against criticism and taints its critics.

President Vladimir Putin confronts a decisive historical moment. Talks with the US and its NATO partners have shown that the US has no intention of reversing its grinding long-running campaign against Russia. The US wants regime change in Russia. That does not mean democracy, talk of which is just camouflage for the true strategic objective of a permanently weakened Russia. All that matters is Russia be weakened, and the well-being of Russians is truly of no consequence in Washington.

That is the landscape Putin confronts. The implication is Russia’s position is unlikely to strengthen in years to come. Consequently, now may be the most favorable moment to take actions that both strategically strengthen Russia and achieve its own secondary long-term political goal of partial reunification of the historic European component of Russia (i.e., reabsorption of Belarus and Eastern Ukraine).

Implacable US antipathy

The baseline for the argument is recognition that the US has an implacable antipathy to Russia. That antipathy has a long history. In 1918 the US invaded Siberia, intervening in the Russian civil war between the Tsarist Whites and Reds. The invasion set the stage for pre-Cold War hatred of the Soviet Union.

(more…)

The US and Russia: beware of Neocons and liberals preaching democracy promotion

Wednesday, December 8th, 2021

Every week my e-mail box receives a steady stream of articles aimed at cultivating public animus to Russia. The articles are always wrapped in a narrative in which Russia is a threat to democracy in Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. The effect is to create public support for hardline action (economic and/or military) against Russia.

(more…)

The Fracturing of Globalization: Implications of Economic Resentments and Geopolitical Contradictions

Tuesday, January 15th, 2019

The last forty years have witnessed a third wave of globalization which can be termed “neoliberal globalization”. Now, there are indications that the era of neoliberal globalization might be drawing to a close, as evidenced by the trade war between the US and China. This paper argues the fracturing of neoliberal globalization reflects the growing impact of economic resentments and geopolitical contradictions. The paper presents a simple analytical framework that constructs the global economy in terms of a core consisting of the US, China, and the EU. It then examines how globalization creates economic resentments and geopolitical tensions within and between members of the core, thereby fracturing globalization. The rise of US – China geopolitical competition promises to twist the character of the global economic order, which stands to be shaped by strategically motivated economic integrations and recalibrations rather than generalized global economic integration. The paper then extends the analysis to non-core country blocs and examines how they are impacted by globalization and the rise of US – China geopolitical competition. READ MORE

Three Globalizations, Not Two: Rethinking the History and Economics of Trade and Globalization

Tuesday, July 24th, 2018

The conventional wisdom is there have been two globalizations in the modern era. The first began around 1870 and ended in 1914. The second began in 1945 and is still underway. This paper challenges that view and argues there have been three globalizations, not two. The first half of the paper provides empirical evidence for the three globalizations hypothesis. The second half discusses its analytical implications. The Victorian first globalization and Keynesian era second globalization were driven by gains from trade, and those gains increased industrialized country real wages. The neoliberal third globalization has been driven by industrial reorganization motivated by distributional conflict. Trade theory does not explain the third globalization; capital’s share has increased at the expense of labor’s; and there can be no presumption of mutually beneficial country gains from the third globalization.

READ PAPER HERE

Globalization Checkmated? Political and Geopolitical Contradictions Coming Home to Roost

Tuesday, July 24th, 2018

The deepening of economic globalization appears to have ground to a halt and the process may even unravel a little. The sudden stop has surprised economists, whose belief in globalization has strong parallels with Fukuyama’s (1989) flawed end of history hypothesis. The paper presents a simple analytic model that shows how economic globalization has triggered political and geopolitical contradictions. For the system to work, politics within countries and geopolitics across blocs must be supportive of the system. That is missing. The model is applied to a global economic core consisting of the US, China, and the European Union. It is revealing of multiple tensions, fracture lines, and contradictions. Within the US, globalization has delivered economic outcomes that have estranged the electoral bases of both major political parties. It has also delivered outcomes that are inconsistent with the US neocon geopolitical inclination. President Trump is a product of those forces, and he will likely prove to be a historically significant figure. That is because he has surfaced geopolitical contradictions that cannot be swept back under the rug. Ironically, his biggest impact may be on the European Union, particularly Germany, which is being compelled to recognize the neocon nature of the US and the vulnerabilities of dependence on US exports and technology. China was already aware of its vulnerabilities in those regards.

READ PAPER HERE

Is the US hypocritical to Criticize Russian Election Meddling?

Monday, March 26th, 2018

Thomas Carothers has recently written an article in Foreign Affairs, the prestigious elite journal published by the US based Council on Foreign Relations. The article asks is the US hypocritical for criticizing Russian election meddling?

Given the place of publication, the unsurprising conclusion is it is not. The problem is the US is a champion meddler. Consequently, the argument crumbles every time Mr. Carothers reaches for substance. READ MORE