Don’t turn a blind eye on this...Come out and support Ukraine as much as you can...
And if we win we will become as blossoming as Europe and Europe will be flourishing more than ever.--Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy (March 4, 2022)
I am writing this in a protectorate under the umbrella of Pax Americana, which I understand as empire with liberal characteristics. It is imperial because it fundamentally relies on a hegemon who holds the strings of military and economic power, and benefits from having the world's reserve currency. Some of its protectorates fall under NATO or AUKUS umbrella, others have more direct effective security guarantees (Japan, South Korea, Israel, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.) In some cases it's not entirely clear how wide the freedom of independent movement in foreign policy is for countries under Pax Americana. But anyone who has followed the development of a new sanctions regime on Russia during the last two weeks would have noticed that this empire is capable of rapid coordination and consensus building even when non trivial economics interests are at stake.
I use 'liberal characteristics' because within the empire it is broadly governed by public rules, by mutual consultation, and commitment to free-ish markets in goods and capital, and Pax Americana functions most smoothly when the protectorates themselves approximate liberal democracy. It is not wholly liberal (as restrictions on movements of peoples testify), and it lacks a federative structure (although some sub-units have it) among other obvious shortcomings (including non-trivial rights violations of populations in non-trivial number of places). It is also not wholly liberal in its approach to the world, especially when it comes to energy supply, Islamic rejectionists of Pax Americana, and revolutions that are taken to be anti-capitalist in character.
One interesting feature of Pax Americana since 1989 is its ability to accommodate a modus vivendi with would-be-competitors (China, Russia, and even to some degree India) who reject liberalism or American hegemony (or both). The motives for this accommodation have, as in most statecraft, been varied: ranging from nuclear deterrence and from economic opportunism (including legalized graft with American and European elites being bought by foreign interests), to a liberal faith that drawing states into win-win rule-governed trade and cultural/scientific relations will transform would be competitors into would be collaborators. This has also meant ignoring and soft-pedalling, even appeasing, all kinds of military aggression and local/regional rights violations. More insidiously, it has meant that the red lines of Pax Americana became fuzzy to its enemies and, more dangerously yet, to its own rulers (with former President Trump going so far as repeatedly signaling acquiescence in the dissolution of Nato and its network of treaties).
By contrast, I understand China and Russia, for all their differences, as mercantilist, nationalist dictatorships (hereafter MNDs). By 'Mercantile' I mean an approach to trade designed primarily to increase state power and to serve the economic interest of relatively narrow ruling elites. Under mercantilism war is profitable to the elites and the state, and so always a live option. By putting it like this I don't mean to ignore wholly the fascist elements in contemporary Russia (not the least the willingness to use thugs to enforce obedience), or the ways in which Christianity (in its orthodox variety) has become an instrument of state, and the significance of one-party nominally Marxist rule in China. I also don't mean to deny that war is quite profitable for some elites in liberal empire.
I don't mean to suggest only China and Russia (etc.) are nationalist. It's fair to say that neither nationalism nor war has been banished from Europe. That's sad, but not unexpected. But the reactions to the (2022) Russian invasion of Ukraine also reveal that there really are two kinds of nationalisms competing for influence at the moment, and surprisingly hostile to each other. The first kind is a nationalism that instinctively leans toward authoritarianism & strongmen. It may well be democratic (as in majoritarian rule), but it dominates local minorities, and has a distrust of pluralism and open borders. If given the opportunity such nationalism may well grow into imperialism. These authoritarian nationalists are cheering on Putin (or are quiet now).
The second kind of nationalism is stimulated by a foreign enemy, and need not be authoritarian at all. The nation is a means toward independence and freedom that's compatible with cosmopolitan desire to join up with other independent nations while protecting minority rights. The second kind of nationalism can be found in folk cheering on Ukrainian nationalism (which, in practice, may not always be so pluralist). The ideal type of this kind of nationalism is Scottish civic nationalism. And when President Zelenskyy addresses European crowds and heads of state he is very much drawing on a shared understanding of this more cosmopolitan nationalism centered on a common idea of a free and peaceful Europe. If one wishes to avoid confusion one can call the second kind of nationalism -- with a nod to Kant [8:291] -- 'patriotic.'
Historically, during the nineteenth century especially, liberalism has made common cause with nationalism of both varieties. (Roughly: before 1871 the second kind; after 1871 the first kind.) The escalated attack on Ukraine, which is being attacked in part because it wishes to participate in and taste the fruits of Pax Americana and join the EU, has clarified for many that they do not wish to be fellow travelers of the first kind of nationalism. And even for those that often naturally embrace the first kind of nationalism (e.g., the leadership of Poland, Hungary, and, perhaps, Turkey), see in Pax Americana a lesser evil than Russian expansion.
A lot of friends of cosmopolitanism and pluralism have a natural distrust of intense nationalism, especially because its loudest advocates are natural authoritarians. So, the revival of a more civic and cosmopolitan nationalism to balance it is not altogether unwelcome even to those who keep a distance of patriotism and national identity. And Ukrainian heroisms will strengthen the prestige of patriotic nationalism. For, Putin's recent escalation of his eight year war on Ukraine and patriotic Ukrainian heroism has induced re-armament of European liberal democracy, has increased its willingness to arm Ukraine, and has ended European appeasement of Putin.
By focusing on Putin's regime's mercantile-nationalistic character (and downplaying its Christian-fascist tendencies), I want to facilitate a sober discussion of its escalating aggression, especially amongst those liberals (of classical free market and egalitarian types), who naturally and quite humanely recoil from the current sanctions regime which falls asymmetrically on innocents and the less well connected in Russia, and is likely to entrench the existing regime because now its elites have more opportunity for rents, bribery, and smuggling. It is foreseeable that the sanctions and policy of isolation strengthen the repressive apparatus and reduce the likelihood of regime change in the short run because they undermine the (relatively weak, alas) opposition in Russia. The war and sanctions also hurt poor people the world over, especially because it is to be expected that food and energy prices will increase.
MNDs are not easy to defeat; often the best one can hope for is gradual mitigation and internal evolution. And while this is not heroic, it is always to be wished for. And, if in its foreign policy, China remains as cautious as it presently is it will remain a viable competitor to Pax Americana while simultaneously being enriched and enriching (economically, scientifically, and culturally) those that fall under Pax Americana.* And, perhaps, in its rivalry it will even occasion further renewal of liberalism. (As regular readers know, during last decade or so, I have come to believe that the survival of liberalism in its traditional Anglo and European heartlands cannot be taken for granted and that it exhibits malaise and drift through financial recession, pandemic, Brexit, and a 'war' on terror that jointly have made authoritarian, nationalist-mercantilist leadership increasingly seem more attractive to non-trivial parts of electorates.)
But MNDs can be defeated. Liberalism both grew out of mercantilism and, where joined to nationalism, has defeated some MNDs before. And it has done so by bankrupting them while maintaining military supremacy. The most notable example is, of course, the implosion and bankruptcy of the French monarchy over a thirty year period after the Seven Year's war.
I argued last week that while sanctions and isolation are lousy policies, the alternatives are worse. In my view the justification of the present sanctions and policy of isolation and disinvestment toward Russia is to reduce its war-making capability, to increase its internal coordination costs, and to end the enrichment that has made its aggression toward its neighbors so easy. The present plans to accelerate decoupling from Russian hydrocarbon sources fit this strategy, too. The asset freeze on the Russian central bank has induced a financial implosion and will, I suspect, end ruble convertibility. And while I worry that Ukraine is being armed and financed just sufficiently and cynically to maintain itself in a war of attrition with Russia without any hope of acquiring the kind of arms that could see it reverse Russian gains, such a war of attrition will also bankrupt Russia (and/or make it a client state of China which, I argued last week, is probably the best to be hoped for by outsiders in present circumstances).+
But while it is unlikely that Putin will change his policies or be unseated by sanctions and isolation, these also make it unlikely that his regime can survive his demise (he is almost 70 now). Maintaining the unity of the Russian federation with its ageing population will be a herculean task once foreign cash is absent. More important the battle-field in Ukraine and the more visible economic stagnation and relentless propaganda will sap its slogans from whatever vitality they might once possess; its military victories, if any, will take on an increasingly pyrrhic character. And he has gifted Europe's liberal democracies the greatest gift of all: a population re-alerted to what is at stake in political life, and nearly united, patriots and cosmopolitans alike, in rejecting Putin's poisoned chalice. (To be continued.)
*It seems silly to call it the 'West' since the economic center of gravity of Pax Americana is moving toward the Pacific.
+The less cynical explanation is that Nato wishes to avoid further escalation because of Russia's nuclear deterrence. But such deterrence has never prevented proxy-warfare before.
I worry that even the weak-tea objections of the EU about ethnonationalist illiberalism of member states will be swept away with this rising external threat,will be something if Russia ends up being another North Korea for China tho I doubt if foreign corporations will give up that market in the long run:
https://chinatalk.substack.com/p/the-new-old-cold-war-with-tooze-and?s=r
Posted by: dmf | 03/09/2022 at 08:01 PM