From time to time, Cold War issues sneak their way into the news cycle. Russia’s move to tighten its economic ties with Ukraine can effectively be interpreted through the lens of the Cold War. Ukraine is a buffer state between Russia and the US influenced West, i.e. Europe, while the former Soviet State is also a part of Russia’s immediate sphere of influence.
With the European Union expanding, the Westernization of Ukraine represents a heightened threat to Russian influence. Consequently, Russia, which is trying to hold onto its super power status, uses its renewed economic power more and more to ensure it can maintain a meaningful sphere of influence. As a natural gas and oil supplier for a large part of Europe, Russia has economic influence thanks to its status as a supplier and the revenue from its fossil fuels. Certainly, Russia’s use of economic power to sustain its sphere of influence hints at an insecure state. That said, Russia’s pardoning of political prisoners including political opponent oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, along with Putin’s more diplomatic approach to foreign policy such as in the case of Edward Snowden, suggest Russia is turning to soft power over brutality. In many ways, this suggests Putin feels more secure in his authority and Russia’s stability; however, it also suggests he is adapting to the dynamics of our international community, which rejects brutal behavior. Either way, it seems the goal is to strengthen Russia’s sphere of influence and the legitimacy of its authority throughout the world. Unfortunately, Russia has yet to be fully assimilated into the International Community, despite the fact the Cold War ended in the mid to late 1980’s. A large part of this is that Russia is ill-democratic, i.e. Russian democracy is more superficial and could easily return to pure authoritarianism. Another part is a failure of our global economy and political community to treat Russia as a global partner. Russia’s blame in this failure stems from its desire to maintain Russian super power status. Instead of becoming a member of an economic block of countries, Russia seeks to dominate its partners. Western blame in the failure to fully incorporate Russia into the International Community stems from fear. There is a large segment of Ukrainians who fear the oppression of Russian influence, just as Americans feared British dominance even decades after the Revolutionary War. There is also an innate fear that tightening economic ties with Russia will lead to Russian oppression. It goes without saying, Russia’s coercive actions against Ukraine and other East European nations only reinforce these fears.
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Finally passing a budget, the US Congress did what it should have done years ago had the attitudes of our political leaders been different. In many respects, the Budget that passed did little except break our political moment toward another government shutdown. That said, it is a good thing that the new budget will replace Sequester cuts with targeted spending cuts.
If we see similar deals that replace Sequester cuts with greater targeted cuts, historians will view the Sequester as successful and Americans will likely see the option added to our politicians’ limited arsenal for compromise. Unfortunately, our leaders are not proactive in their management of our country as the sequester paradigm allows eventual results at unnecessary costs. Until we see a more proactive generation of leaders seeking preventive policies, our reactive political environment must be addressed with reactive solutions like sequesters. Moving forward, our political leaders must now turn toward different policy pursuits. Most of those issues our politicians are inclined to pursue are divisive, i.e. Obamacare and immigration, thus they will end with no public policy benefits and greater division that revived our government’s descent toward dysfunction. Consequently, our leaders should build on this latest fiscal success by building compromise solutions for other fiscal issues like tax reform. While Federal Reverse Chairman Ben Bernanke will soon leave his post, the world is waiting for the Fed to start tapering its so-called quantitative easing programs intended to provide stimulus to the US economy. What will be most interesting is if the end of the program actually helps the US economy.
The Fed’s actions are macroscopic measures designed to drive overall growth of our economy. Unfortunately, an economy built on policies geared toward financial capital, versus intellectual and/or labor capital, is an economy that will drive wealth into the pockets of those who hold the most financial capital, i.e. the already wealthy. In other words, economic growth in our country is driving economic disparity instead of creating quality jobs and other opportunity to disperse the nation’s wealth, because these policies make investments in Main Street businesses less attractive. Meanwhile, the Fed’s approach intentionally drives down the cost of borrowing, especially for banks, thus making loans to Main Street has become a poor investment, whereas, burrowing to fund stock purchases, or other financial instruments with greater performance, becomes far more lucrative. Ripple effects like these only add to the macroscopic impact of the Fed’s actions. If economic growth is truly driving income inequality, our country has a serious problem, even if the Fed’s efforts are halted, while corrupting the disparity could take decades thanks policies like disproportionately favorable tax rates for capital gains. Wall Street is supposed to be a reflection of Main Street, not the driver of our economy. Financial Services are only truly profitable when they are servicing the real money in the real economy; otherwise, they are simply distorting the value of wealth in their favor by driving up commodity and consumer prices in order to consume a far larger piece of the American pie. Consequently, the changes in Fed policies will most importantly offer America and the rest of the world a chance to better understand the impact of macroscopic policies that focus solely on growth. What I think we need to learn is how to generate more growth on the microscopic level, i.e. within communities, to rebuild the Main Street economy. This means focusing on how money flows throughout our economy and less on how much growth we see in terms of GDP and stock prices. Once again, the American People, alongside the rest of the world, are learning the NSA has far more skeletons in the closet than it would like to admit, including the fact the NSA has the ability to hack cell phones and has been gathering cell phone conversations of Americans all along. Again and again, we continually hear our national security officials and political leaders either dodging questions or making assurances that the US national security apparatus is behaving itself.
Quite frankly, they cannot make these assurances, because no one in our government knows what is going on in the shadows. For example, it has been confirmed that former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been held in Iran since 2007, was actually a CIA contractor. What is most shocking is that he was working on an unauthorized intelligence gathering operation. The reality is that our national security apparatus operates with little actual oversight while a few revisions in data gathering rules is not going to solve the problem. We need stronger oversight measures, including safe, formal channels for leaking top-secret information when the good guys in our CIA and NSA see wrongdoings. While few will shed tears over the execution of King Jong Un’s uncle Jang Song Thaek, the develop is a interesting plot twist in the horror story that is Communist North Korea. For those who felt Kim Jong Un may be a puppet leader, this latest development shows his rule is not to be challenged while he is clearly looking to place blame for the regime’s failures on the previous generation. Unlike his self-serving father, it seems the young dictator is once again trying to show his people, and the world, that he is to be taken seriously as a leader with a mission to prove himself worthy of his beloved grandfather’s legacy.
It is highly unlikely the purge is Kim Jong Un’s way of eliminating hardliners from his regime in order to spur reforms; it is far more likely he wishes to prove himself the most hardened hardliner of all. Unfortunately, this medieval approach to consolidating power likely means world leaders will be far less willing and able to cooperate with the Kim Jong Un regime should an opening for diplomacy arise. After all, this type of behavior is unacceptable to our modern civil society, considering the uncle could have been jailed or excommunicated. More importantly, it reveals the insecurities of the young Kim Jong Un that will prevent him from compromising. Considering North Korea’s increasing aggression toward South Korea, the US, China, and the rest of the International Community during the last days of Kim Jong Il and the rise of Kim Jong Un, this latest turn of events hints at a regime desperately trying to proof itself the unquestioned power in North Korea. Unfortunately, North Korea’s inability to express its insecurities and aggression outwardly likely means the North Korean People will see an even harsher future. As Kim Jong Un purges his inner circle, he will probably intensify the government’s neglect and abuse of all North Koreans. As the People experience greater hardships, the Kim Jong Un regime will crush them into silence and that will spark even greater outrage that will someday lead to major civil unrest. The more Kim Jong Un tightens his grip, the more the North Korean People will have to defend themselves. After all, even the most abused people can only neglect their own interests, and/or allow others to neglect their interests, for so long before they have to fight for what they need and want. As such, the predictably cruel nature of the authoritarian regime will likely create greater instability as the North Korean People have already been neglected and abused for far too long. |
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April 2020
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