Policy Wonk

2020-11-05 18:43:56 At least in this domain the return to the US golden age has happened! // Foreign Affairs https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-08-07/democracy-fragile-republic Open / Comment

2020-11-04 00:56:49 Found an amazing tool to experience Twitter bubble in the US politics — you just choose which perspective you want to see (from socialist to alt-right) and get a live Twitter feed. Especially fun on the day of the election: https://socialbubble.so Open / Comment

2020-10-10 05:35:49 Thoughts on the game theory of Armenia Azerbaijan conflict.

The main book on conflicts is still Thomas Schelling’s “Strategy of conflict” in which he develops an idea of a focal point. Focal point is basically a point of coordination accepted by all actors such as splitting the bill 50/50 if there are no other instructions.

One of the possible implications of the idea is that If one country attacks another, the defendant can usually retreat up to some point without compromising its security. For example, if the army retreats up to the main river which is a focal point — this is an equilibrium and the offender will not move forward. However, if the army retreats farther back, the focal point is passed and the whole country’s security is compromised.

The problem of contested regions such as Nagorno-Karabakh seems to be the shift in the focal point. Both countries know that the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh does not fully compromise the security of Armenia and Azerbaijan (the focal point is not crossed). Therefore, for all the immense loss of human life and tragedy, the conflict can be perceived as cheap by warring parties and can be continued forever.

In this framework the possible solution is to make one of the parties “own” Nagorno-Karabakh so much, that it will perceive all armed conflicts as compromising security of the whole country.

I really hope that Armenia and Azerbaijan will achieve peace and the great human tragedy will stop. However, in order not to protract the conflict for another several decades, peacemakers should be bolder and finally define the concrete status of the region. Open / Comment

2020-09-12 14:12:06 Why states do not help each other out even in the most dire situations? The second part of Mearsheimer’s theory answers this tragic question which is repeated every time when there is a turmoil.

Just remember that the US entered both First and Second World Wars really late when the main participants have already blooded themselves out. UK entered the Second World War only after France was conquered letting Paris to be occupied by the Nazis and both countries simply left Czech Republic to be devoured by Nazi Germany. Humanitarian disasters such as the genocide in Rwanda or current conflict in Myanmar though not part of the great power politics are part of the same problem.

Mearsheimer has a simple answer. Because states rationally maximise their own power, they always prefer to pass the task of dealing with the threat to others rather than doing it themselves. Mearsheimer calls it buck-passing in contrast to balancing. All great powers hope that someone else will solve the problem and they will not be forced to spend precious resources.

This was the case of France and Nazi Germany — all other powers were happy to pass the buck of containing the Nazis to France. However, this case also shows how the strategy of buck-passing backfires. France did not manage to contain Nazi Germany and the fall of Paris significantly increased the power of the Nazis, almost allowed them to conquer Europe and resulted in tens of millions of deaths.

If only the strategy was to balance the threat together and not to buck pass, the early coalition of France, UK, Soviet Union and the US could have easily contained Hitler at the early stages. However, the tragedy of great power politics leads to tragic results. Open / Comment

2020-09-10 16:09:59 Waking up from the summer sleep and moving to the University of Chicago where I am now studying, I thought that the channel is too focused on the empirical part of international relations without covering the theory. However, theory is the foundation of any research which explains the world that empirics rigorously describes.

In IR theory is mainly made through books and not articles, therefore each idea will be spread through several days or weeks in discussion of its different sides and implications. Bearing in mind my new place of study, it will be sensible to start with the great hard-core realist theory of the Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and his book “The Tragedy of Great Power Politics”.

Mearsheimer calls himself offensive realist and has a simple and powerful idea. All great powers are constantly trying to gain more power and establish a hegemony over the whole world. As firms competing at the market with cut-throat competition great powers are not interested in maintaining status quo. They are interested in becoming a monopoly. Because otherwise someone else will establish the monopoly over them.

The fact that we are not living in the state of constant war is simply the result of the rationality of great powers — sometimes the conditions are not favourable, great powers are amassing resources and waiting for more benign circumstances. However, they never abolish the idea of increasing their share of world power and changing the rules in their favour.

This behaviour of world powers which may seem irrational or morally abhorrent is a result of simple fear. The international system has no authority, states have military power and countries cannot be sure in the intentions of their neighbours. This uncertainty causes fear and the most optimal response when attack is the best defence and you should eat in order not to be eaten.

This theory has very important implications but also possible limitations. In the days ahead we will discuss how it is proven by the historical cases and what does it say about our existing politics. As a post-scriptum, the Tragedy of Great Power Politics is concisely expressed in the judgement of Bismarck on the independence of XIX century Poland: “I have every sympathy for their situation, but if we wish to survive we have no choice but to wipe them out.” Open / Comment

2020-07-05 10:20:24 There is nothing better to energise your brain on Sunday than hair-splitting in the Law Journals which is also amazingly consequential.

On the pages of the Harvard Law Review there is an amusing debate about the status of Northwest Passage — a maritime straight which can potentially be used to pass directly from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic waters. The passage is not used, because currently it is covered in ice and breaking through it is too costly. However, as the ice is melting there is a debate whether the Northwest Passage should be regulated as international or Canadian waters. In the former case, the passage can be used by all nations, while in the latter the authorisation from Canada (potentially for a fee) should come first.

In order for the passage to be considered international waters, it has to pass geographic and functional test. First, it has to be a straight geographically and second, it has to to be used for navigation. There is no question regarding the first problem, but the functional test provokes fierce debates. The legal definition of international waters is: “straits which are used for international navigation”.

Canada thinks that this means that straights historically used for navigation should become international waters, while the US claims that straights that can potentially be used for navigation are international waters. Obviously, there is no historical use of the Northwest passage, therefore Canada's reading means that the straight stays Canadian, while the US reading means that it becomes international.

In the journal there is a perfect discussion on the grammar of the treaty: “The proper interpretation of this phrase, however, is unclear due to the way that it is structured. Because the phrase “straits which are used for international navigation” is in the present tense, there is not a strong indication, on the text’s face, as to whether the drafters intended that the test be one of historic or potential use. Since both readings are common in everyday language, we must refer to the context of statements that use the phrase “are used” to determine whether the statement refers to historic or potential use.”

Analysing context the author claims that the potential use is more important than historical, but the value of the article is in the discussion itself.

https://harvardlawreview.org/2020/06/the-potential-use-test-and-the-northwest-passage/ Open / Comment

2020-06-22 11:25:30 In a great podcast by Chatham House Harvard trained political scientist and ex Portuguese Europe Minister Bruno Maçães advances a provocative perspective on the role of the US.

Maçães says that Europe and US are currently understanding that they are not parts of the same civilisation. For the last several centuries they have considered themselves to be a unified whole which lead to Europe trying to politically, culturally and economically dominate America and vice versa.

However, there are foundational differences in their worldview. Europe is built on the values of Enlightenment which treats collective identities such as nation, race, ethnicity or religion as socially constructed illusions which have to be got over. America in contrast puts these illusions in the center of its politics. After all, the country was created in order to advance the Protestant mission of a city on a hill.

In order to proceed in a productive way, Europe and America should acknowledge that they are very different. This will diminish the number of negative surprises. After all, Europeans should not be surprised by a peculiarly American leader Donald Trump as they are not surprised by a peculiarly Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Respecting the differences and not trying to remake others in your image will lead to less conflicts, upsets and a much more productive discussion.

https://undercurrents.libsyn.com/episode-58-the-birth-of-a-new-america-and-remembering-rosemary-hollis Open / Comment

2020-06-06 09:27:18 The secret of China’s economic growth is in decentralisation of corrupt institutions.

China’s economic growth is puzzling. The country has no institutions protecting businesses from the government, is quite low in the Doing Business Index and is infamous for jailing business people. However, in “Special Deals with Chinese Characteristics” Chong-En Bai, Chang-Tai Hsieh and Zheng Michael Song from Tsinghua, UChicago and Chinese University of Hong Kong show that widespread favouritism and corruption on a provincial level can actually stimulate growth.

Chinese provinces and cities make a lot of shady special deals with big businesses. For example, Shanghai has a General Motors plant in the city and Shanghai officials protect GM from competition, lobby the central government for better regulation and make preferential deals providing land and other public resources. It may seem inefficient — after all the competition is constrained and shady practices replace a stable legal code.

However, the authors write that as China’s cities and provinces fiercely compete with each other, this arrangement can actually increase economic welfare. Competing for special deals, Chia’s local officials lobby for pro-business regulation, build infrastructure and consequently create an environment conducive for economic growth. Exactly because of competition between local officials, no provincial government can block the development of businesses on a country-level and each one is forced to create pro-business policies in its own domain .

This paper is in line with tradition writing about China as decentralised authoritarianism. It seems that even though “authoritarianism” indeed seems to constrain China’s development, the country is growing with breakneck speed because of its decentralised nature and fierce political competition inside its bureaucracy.

Interestingly, the positive effect of special deals may start to fade due to anti-corruption reforms of Xi Jinping. Local officials become wary of working together with businesses, providing special rights and lobbying Beijing. It would be ironic if anti-corruption laws will have a negative effect on the main pillar of China’s economic growth.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w25839.pdf Open / Comment

2020-05-31 18:27:45 While a strange mix of protests, looting and rioting is tearing apart the US, it is interesting to remember historical cases of rioting. In a great paper “Democratization under the threat of revolution: Evidence from the Great Reform Act of 1832” published in Econometrica Aidt and Frank actually found that exposure to riots in the XIX century Britain made people vote for the democratic reform. We will see if these findings are replicated in the November presidential elections in the US.

In 1830 Britain experienced large-scale riots of agricultural workers in the English countryside. They then got the name of Swing riots. Importantly, the riots were not connected with the desire for democracy and were largely motivated by poverty, poor social conditions and bad harvest. The riots were quite violent and also involved destruction of property, looting and social unrest.

At the same time in 1831 there were parliamentary elections and the hottest topic was the Great Reform Act. The proposed Act greatly increased the number of people who had a right to vote allowing small landowners, farmers and shopkeepers to cast their vote (while before only large landowners were treated as full-fledged citizens). As the debates were captivating the political news at least since 1830, the 1831 election was essentially a referendum on reform.

Aidt and Frank simply look on whether being near the Swing riots had any effect on the share of pro-reform politicians. Their results are striking — landowners who experienced the riots (were in a 10km radius from the riots) were much more likely to vote for pro-reform politicians and the riots effect explains about half of the increase in the vote share of Wigs and Radicals that supported the reform. Therefore, landowners who were harmed by the riots actually became more democratic plausibly seeing democratic reform as a way to ease the tensions in the society.

These results are interesting at least and show current US protests in a different light. However, there are many differences — first, participants of the Swing Riots did not have a right to vote themselves while current protesters will cast their ballots in November; second, the 1830 riots were essentially just expressing grievances of the poor population without any agenda, while these protesters seem to have a clear political plan. It will be interesting to see how it will all play out.

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/254491/Aidt%20et%20al%202015%20Econometrica.pdf?sequence=1 Open / Comment

2020-05-29 13:10:39 While America and China are engaging in huge rows over Hong Kong and Taiwan it is noteworthy to remember a recent book “The Senkaku Paradox. Risking Great Power War Over Small Stakes” by Brookings Institution fellow Michael O’Hanlon. O'Hanlon writes that due to many alliances the US has a very high risk of being drawn into the military action for low stakes problem and therefore proposes to supplement and replace military obligations with commitments to engage in economic war. If this is the mainstream Washington thinking, such proliferation of sanctions and trade disputes without any military consequences is the likeliest future scenario in Asia.

Writing from the American perspective, O’Hanlon states that Washington is dangerously exposed to small local conflicts on the borders of China and Russia (however, conflicts in the Middle East can also be added to this list). The book takes its title from Senkaku islands that are uninhabitable islands in the East China see. They are currently claimed by Japan, thought historically China also lays claims on these islands. Being allied with Japan the US has obligations to involve in the military confrontation if China seizes one of the islands. However, risking a war with China over an uninhabitable island seems stupid to say the least.

Military conflict on the small territories such as sparsely inhabited islands or border-communities can draw America into the large scale military conflict due to it alliance obligations. As a result, Washington will be forced to choose between dropping its allies while suffering a loss of reputation and engaging in the conflict while completely destabilising the global order for nothing.

As O’Hanlon adresses his book primarily to American policy-makers, his recommendations serve for us as an insider view of the American foreign policy thinking. O’Hanlon writes that in order to get out of the Senkaku trap, US has to concentrate its alliance obligations on economic and not military warfare. If his insights are correct and widely adopted, America will use a wide array of sanctions over low stakes conflict but is unlikely to escalate any further.

As a result, we are likely to see more sanctions, trade wars and other methods of economic wars embraced in Washington, however in everything regarding military presence in Asia US seems not to present a credible threat to China.

https://www.brookings.edu/book/the-senkaku-paradox/ Open / Comment