Friday News Roundup — May 1, 2020
Moral International Leadership; Putin’s Endgame; Artillery in the Modern Age; Amash for America; Milk Carton Kim; Plus News You May Have Missed
Good Friday morning from Washington, D.C., where we continue to assemble each week’s roundup from our various quarantine locations. We hope that you and yours remain safe and well.
This week, CSPC hosted the first of its online Zoom discussions with the inaugural event featuring David Kilcullen. The next in the series will be on Friday, May 15th, when we will be joined by former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon to discuss the future of the Intelligence Community in light of the return of Great Power Competition and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global environment.
Please click here to register for this event.
Also, this week, CSPC’s Joshua Huminski reviewed Thomas Rid’s latest book, “Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare,” for the Diplomatic Courier.
In this week’s roundup, Dan starts with by exploring how America’s moral leadership will matter in great power competition. Joshua looks at the latest from the Kremlin on Putin’s leadership during the pandemic. Ethan looks at how new attention is being paid to artillery in the U.S. military. Chris covers what the entry of Justin Amash as a Libertarian candidate for president means in 2020. Michael covers how the questions surrounding Kim Jong-Un’s fate reveal the weaknesses of strongmen, and, as always, we wrap with news you may have missed.
Don’t Cede the High Ground
Dan Mahaffee
One of the late Ambassador Abshire’s favorite quotes — and you learned them by heart working for him — was to cite Napoleon’s aphorism that “the moral is to the physical as three to one.” In the military sense, it was to say that the morale of the soldiers and the belief in their cause could overcome physical limitations, but in the ambassador’s writings, it often took on a broader sense of how things like leadership, character, and morals matter, both for individuals and countries as a whole.
Moral leadership of that nature is becoming increasingly important in light of both the response to the COVID pandemic and the increasingly contentious competition with China and broader competition with great powers. How we respond to this crisis, and the message we send to the world about our morals, and what America is, do matter. That is why we must be concerned about things like the administration’s 90-day immigration ban and what it may manifest into, as well as statements that increase paranoia about Chinese students, Asian Americans, or doubts about their loyalty.
First, consider the competition we face. This week, CSPC hosted one of the first in a series of online book events. This inaugural event featured David Kilcullen, a military strategist and researcher whose latest book is entitled “The Dragons & the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West.” In this fascinating read, Kilcullen examines how U.S. preeminence following the Cold War gave way to the adaptations by “the dragons” — Russia and China — and “the snakes” — international terrorist groups and non-state actors — have adapted to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the United States and its allies so that they can avoid the former and exploit the latter.
As Kilcullen’s book notes — alongside the broader arc of the examination of great power competition underway at CSPC — the preeminence of the United States in terms of conventional military power has led our enemies to alternative means of confrontation. In terms of kinetic force, think of Russia’s invasion of Crimea with “little green men;” Chinese fishing militias in the South China Sea; or both nations’ interest in anti-satellite weapons to exploit U.S. reliance on space-based communication, navigation, and intelligence. At the same time, competitors seek to extend competition to domains outside those of traditional military competition — think of China’s wielding of economic influence, market access, and the creation of national champions like ZTE and Huawei to corner the vital communications technologies of the future.
At CSPC, we have focused on U.S. strategic planning through the lens of great power competition. U.S. power in terms of pure military and economic power is no longer paramount. Following World War II and the tensest days of the Cold War, we were in many ways lucky that our enemy was the Soviet Union and that its autarkic Communist economy could never match what the free, increasingly-integrated markets of the West could produce. Today, Russia plays its limited resources adeptly to challenge the United States, while China seeks to build an alternate system where just enough economic freedom for the sake of prosperity exists alongside ironclad political and informational authoritarianism.
This competition for military and economic influence will grow more and more heated over the coming years, as adversaries will seek to close one, if not both, of those gaps. Where we continue to have an advantage is our moral authority. It is a strength, but it is one that we must continue to protect and build upon. It is fair to lament increasingly acrimonious debates about continued protections for public health versus the need to re-open the economy. At the same time, does it not say something about the United States that we value both human life and the spirit of enterprise? To maintain moral leadership, these concerns must be balanced and weighed holistically, not in the “I only win when you lose” sense of today’s political punditry.
On the global stage, during the COVID pandemic, the war of words between the United States and China has increasingly touched upon this moral battleground. Reps. Nye and Rogers touched on this in their op-ed on the battle for influence in the post-pandemic international order. The world is increasingly questioning China’s response to the pandemic’s initial stages, look at Australia for example, and the United States needn’t simultaneously pursue counterproductive approaches such as immigration bans or diving into paranoia about international students.
Security concerns about international study must be balanced with the benefits of the free exchange of ideas and scholarship, as well as an understanding of how international students subsidize Americans’ higher education. When it comes to immigration, we have to continue to remember that from an economic standpoint, America’s immigration problem is not enough immigrants. On a moral level, remember that no one can “become” Han Chinese, few want to become Russian — yet millions have become Americans.
Maintaining this moral leadership won’t be easy. It will require some tough discussions. Modern multiculturalism is a major factor in ongoing political realignments. It’d require getting our own house in order. In discussing inequities ranging from access to education to the nature of policing, let us move our political debate from whether or not these problems exist to meaningful debate about various solutions. Leadership in terms of our values cannot be sacrificed for populism at home or realpolitik abroad. In the growing competition for influence, character matters.
Putin: From Man of Action to Bored Monarch
Joshua C. Huminski
The erosion of the façade that Moscow is well in control of the Covid-19 outbreak in Russia steadily continued at the end of April. In a televised meeting with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, announced he was diagnosed with Covid and would be self-isolating as a result. Andrei Belousov, the first deputy prime minister, will act as a temporary replacement. Putin unexpectedly appointed Mishustin as prime minister in January after dismissing the cabinet.
Separately, in a televised speech, Putin announced that the lockdown was extended until 11 May. In what were his most somber comments to date since the outbreak of the virus, Putin warned that “Ahead of us is a new stage, perhaps the most intense stage of the fight against the epidemic,” adding, “he risks of getting infected are at the highest level, and the threat, the mortal danger of the virus persists.”
Most strikingly, coming from a president who largely downplayed the effects of the virus and said that it was under control, Putin said, “assuming that the threat has supposedly decreased and is now going to bypass us would be careless and even dangerous.”
Putin’s remarks came as Russia overtook China in the number of confirmed cases with over 106,000 compared with 84,000. It should be noted that there is little to no confidence in the data related to or provided by China, which has consistently concealed or falsified its Covid data. Analysts are equally suspect about Russia’s official tallies, which seem low by comparison. Some believe that Russia is ascribing fatalities related to Covid to other causes such as pneumonia.
The quality of testing itself across the country is also weak. The Ministry of Health authorized doctors to diagnose Covid without a lab result as the tests administered showed an alarmingly high rate of false negative results.
Russia is slowly extending measures to prevent the spread of the virus, but the damage may already be done. Mishustin announced that the ban on foreigners entering the country is extended indefinitely. It was set to expire on Wednesday.
The president’s dour tone comes amidst the collapse of oil prices, which created a massive budget shortfall forcing the government to dip into its $165 billion national wealth fund, a fund largely derived from the sale of natural resources. Revenues from the energy sector account for over 40% of Russia’s federal budget and nearly half of government spending. The International Monetary Fund forecast that Russia’s economy could contract by 5.5% this year. The Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov warned that the national wealth fund could last only until 2024, four years short of the forecast issued only a month ago.
The economic stimulus package offered by Moscow may not satisfy the public or actually result in real relief. Government officials said that the package is equivalent to 2.8% of Russia’s GDP, but could rise to 6.5% with deficit spending. Analysts point out that most of the relief is seen in tax holidays and loan guarantees and the injection of state funds is only about 0.6% of GDP.
The disparities between Moscow and Russia’s periphery are increasing criticism of Putin and the government’s response. At least 25% of the country’s ventilators are located in Moscow or St. Petersburg while hospitals in lesser developed parts of Russia are being supplied with equipment that expired over a decade ago.
The inconsistent message, the limited economic relief, and Putin’s engagement or lack thereof is a striking contrast with the “can-do” man of action image the president cultivated to date. Indeed, critics point out that seems more like a bored monarch than an executive in control of a crisis. Putin staked much of his image and leadership on revitalizing Russia on the world stage and presenting an image of strength abroad. The seizure of Crimea, the efforts in Syria, and the confrontation with the West all played well in a non-crisis, non-pandemic environment, but most Russians are quickly losing interest in foreign affairs when staring a crisis at home in the face.
Russians are clearly unhappy with the response thus far and took to a Yandex, a Russian map app, in a virtual protest tagging the Kremlin and other government buildings with slogans critical of the president. Putin’s popularity fell to 63% in March, his lowest since November 2013.
In the televised statement Putin said, “We will need utmost concentration, discipline and mobilization. We must ensure that the wave of the epidemic finally subsides, which will enable us to carefully remove the restrictions step by step and return to the normal rhythm of life.” It is unclear whether the president himself has the utmost concentration in this current crisis and it could imperil his efforts at remaining in power.
The King of Battle
Ethan Brown
Previously in this space, analysis of DoD modernization efforts have seen the Marines wave goodbye to their armored battalions, the US Army exploring its next generation of Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (helicopters) and the US Air Force revolutionizing the command and control enterprise under the JADC2 initiative. Continuing the defense modernization theme for 2020, this week’s analysis will review another US Army program re-orienting itself for power competition with Russia and China: Long Range Artillery, more affectionately known as The King of Battle.
Who is this King?
Artillery is simply, a really big gun. Some of the more impressive pieces throughout history are found in the European theaters of both World Wars- like the Schewer-Gustav howitzer deployed against Stalingrad in 1942 by the Nazi Wehrmacht whose rounds measured 800mm in diameter (about 31 inches); or the French Obusier de 520 Modele 1916 railway gun, which fired a 520mm (20 inch) round over the Maginot Line in the First World War. The Japanese Navy takes the title for maritime artillery, whose Yamato class battleships were equipped with 18.1” guns.
The post-WWII inventory has seen a departure from the gargantuan cannons mentioned above, with the US Army and Marine Corps varieties settling on the effective 105mm & 155mm howitzers in both towed and self-propelled formats. Over the course of the 20th century, artillery turned the tide of multiple major battles. The eastern front into Berlin was opened by the Red Army’s 9,000 pieces of artillery and rockets sending a barrage along an 18.5-mile gap, ensuring the fall of Berlin in what is allegedly the largest artillery battery in recorded history. In the Spring of 1951, Lt. General James Van Fleets 8th Army, X Corps turned back a massive Chinese communist offensive thanks mainly to mass artillery fires over seven days near the 38th parallel. In Desert Storm, the fear of Iraqi fire batteries and associated chemical weapons were deemed so critical that artillery counterfire was determined to be the most important force-multiplier for the ground invasion.
Of all the force application enterprises altered under the Global War on Terror’s low-intensity conflict paradigm, the US Army’s artillery branch may well have suffered the most attrition. In the climes of Afghanistan and Iraq, the disparity in firepower between US/coalition operators and their insurgent adversaries was so stark that artillery became a marginalized factor in operations. Further, the operational counter-insurgency (COIN) environment and sensitivity to civilian casualties rendered the sheer devastation of artillery unusable in many cases. The rapid evolution of Close Air Support and precision guided aerial delivered munitions was the solution to the COIN problem, leaving LRA on the sidelines. In short, the artillery branch stagnated. This is truly a shame, as “arty” has fairly earned its moniker as the King of Battle based on its capacity for sheer destruction and its psychological effects.
The Science Behind Artillery’s Devastation
Imagine a mostly-full beer keg (95.04lbs or 43.2kgs) hurtling through the air at 827 meters per second (about 1800 mph), climbing upwards of 25,000 feet into the air while traveling 19 miles (Capitol Hill to Mount Vernon in a direct line), and then slamming into the ground within a football field length (300 feet) of your position. Unable to calculate the factor of winds aloft, humidity, vegetation density, and some other factors usually reserved for the Advanced Field Artillery Tactical Data System (AFATDS), some quick bar-top math (Force = [2 {mass * velocity}] / time) calculates the force of that beer kegs impact is equal to about 69,000 newtons, or roughly 517 foot-pounds per square inch.
That is the force of impact by a single [keg-sized] 155mm M107 HE cartridge fired from an M777 Self-Propelled howitzer. Not included in this equation is the explosive force of the 7kgs of TNT or Composition B high-explosive packed into the projectile. The formula above simply demonstrates the force of a chunk of titanium flung vigorously across the battlespace. One round. The author has called in many artillery fire missions over the course of a decade long career, and seldom observed a battery of fewer than 6 rounds.
Artillery is not exactly precision, but it is accurate. The difference- precision means hitting a particular copse of trees from 15 miles away, accuracy means hitting the ten-digit grid passed to the Fire Direction Center, whether that grid plots on the copse or if it actually charts on the next ridgeline over. Artillery will level everything in, around, and near the copse of trees and shake the earth in the process. Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History regaling of WWI drumfire is a haunting narrative of the effects of an artillery barrage, and gives a glimpse of the psychological effects of artillery fire.
Artillery and National Security
Like many things that suffered attrition under the counter-terrorism banner of GWOT, artillery employment and the thunderclap of the cannonade faded from readiness. But in keeping with the GPC-focus of DoD modernization, the artillery branch is making a dramatic comeback with both technological evolution and a return to simple, devastating systems. Further, long range fires are in the pole position for the Army’s “Big 6” modernization initiatives, even ahead of the FLRAA program.
This prioritization is significant, as the following Google Earth kmz screengrab highlights many areas of critical interest to both the US national security and international order in the Indo-Pacific region are well within range of Chinese long-range precision fires systems, particularly Taiwan and Okinawa. While the US Navy and its maritime partners will continue to take on the challenge of safeguarding the blue waters (once the COVID-19 pandemic is passed), the US Army will need to augment the reach and presence of the navy with counterfire batteries with more speed and precision than the weapons possessed by the People’s Liberation Army.
Proximity distances from Mainland China to US bases and Allies (Google Earth kmz)
Many of those PLA weapons systems, like the hypersonic S-400 anti-air missile system or the DF-41 ballistic missile launch package are already pointed at Taiwan, which is of particular worry for any future confrontation involving the United States. The S-400 is among the most sophisticated and lethal air-defense systems in the world, and Taiwan is well within the WEZ (Weapons Engagement Zone) of the S-400, rendering any western forces air interdiction against Chinese aggression a tall order to say the least.
Long range artillery capable of suppressing these anti-air systems makes that problem much easier to solve. Regardless of how lethal the S-400 might be, it’s difficult to use the fire and control system against US aircraft when those exploding beer kegs are crossing the Taiwan Strait and landing all around a PLA missileer in mass. The beauty of artillery is in its relatively simple science- low-tech compared to hypersonic missiles and tougher to defeat via the information and digital warfare spectrum.
The Indo-Pacific theater poses unique artillery challenges due to the ranges involved- which differentiates from the European theater for artillery application. Europe is a true maneuver theater, where the Indo-Pacific consists primarily of sea lanes, meaning the “Big 6” priorities must apply to both arenas with equal supremacy via different mechanisms. In Europe, the expectation of applying US Army artillery and missiles into predictable areas of Russian aggression require mass and shortened resupply against a ‘central front’; the speed of Russian maneuver is expected to be much more complex and reactive, demanding a responsive and flexible artillery direction. In the Indo-Pacific sea-lane and counter-battery fight, the extreme distance means fewer shots (opportunities) which must be maximized with precision.
As the US Army is returning to expanded theater level fires, the command and control is evolving alongside. Long considered a tactical level asset, artillery has been used as an extension of maneuver in preparatory, supportive, and defensive constructs. In the age of GPC, artillery is destined to become a strategic level asset requiring a change to [and dramatic improvement of] the C2 enterprise. This is precisely why the JADC2 system of systems is such a critical endeavor- long gone are the days of ground v. air v. sea doctrine and warfighting norms. The next fight is guaranteed to demand full interoperability of the entire DoD and its capabilities, and artillery will be one of the many hammers used to strike down international aggression.
Libertarianism’s Knight in Shining Armor
Chris Condon
So far, the 2020 Libertarian Party presidential primary has been dominated by two candidates: Jacob Hornberger and Vermin Supreme. Many libertarians have lamented this state of affairs for months, as Hornberger has run two independent campaigns in the past that have failed miserably and Supreme is an absurd political satirist (who I have met and greatly enjoy). As hope for the Libertarian Party waned, classical liberals and libertarians faced the unwelcome prospect of a largely binary election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, two decidedly unlibertarian candidates. Then, this week, Representative Justin Amash (I-MI) announced that he has formed an exploratory committee to seek the nomination. While the announcement did make waves in the libertarian community, it also ruffled feathers across the nation and across the political spectrum.
For context, Justin Amash has been an ideological libertarian at least since entering the House of Representatives in 2011. He has consistently scored highly on small government scorecards, voting to reduce public spending and restore constraints on government power. He has often joined Sen. Rand Paul (perhaps Congress’ most famous libertarian currently serving) and Rep. Thomas Massie in opposing measures with broad, sometimes bipartisan support. He has always harbored an independent streak, often bristling at House leadership of both parties (including Speaker John Boehner and Speaker Paul Ryan). After President Trump was elected, Amash grew even more disdainful of GOP leadership, and criticized the president on multiple occasions. For this, he earned the ire of many congressional Republicans without the gumption to step out of line.
After years of this delicate relationship with the Party, Representative Amash grew tired. On July 4, 2019, he officially and publicly declared that he was leaving the Republican Party, making him a rare independent voice in the House of Representatives. In this role, he has made many unpopular stands of principle. Perhaps most notable among these is Amash’s decision to vote in favor of the impeachment of President Trump, making him the only conservative member of the House to do so. Rep. Amash has not had the most amicable relationship with President Trump, who once called him “one of the dumbest, most disloyal men in Congress.” Amash’s impeachment vote solidified the president’s hatred, and likely alienated him from many Republicans in his district who support the administration regardless of circumstance.
Many of the reasons Justin Amash left the Republican Party are the same reasons he has begun the arduous journey to the presidency. The ideologically isolated representative has seen the precipitous decay of Congress during his time in the chamber, owing to the hyperpartisanship on display there. Neither party seems particularly interested in any sort of fiscal restraint, pursuing peace abroad, or civil liberties, three critical points of debate in American politics. Instead, the parties have become dangerously obsessed with one thing and one thing only: winning elections. This is true regardless of the means used to achieve victory, from ignoring sexual assault allegations to gerrymandering to demonizing immigrants and refugees. As an institutionalist who is concerned greatly with all of the aforementioned key issues, Amash likely felt something had to be done.
That said, Rep. Amash’s announcement was met with criticism from all sides this week. Democrats and #NeverTrump Republicans charge that Amash is jeopardizing Vice President Biden’s chances by seizing the votes of disaffected Americans who would have otherwise voted for Biden. Trump loyalists, who clearly have never been fans of Amash, assert that he will siphon off conservatives who aren’t entirely satisfied with the president’s job performance, allowing Biden to win by splitting the Republican vote. Some Libertarians, who presumably seriously support a man with a boot on his head for the presidency, find Amash to be a secret authoritarian who doesn’t adequately represent the interests of the Libertarian Party. While some may assess this as a grim prognosis for Amash’s campaign from the start, perhaps such intense opposition manifests the critics’ weakness and fear.
President Trump is deeply unpopular, has been accused of sexual assault, displays ignorance regarding important issues (including his recent musings on COVID-19 treatments), and will be 74 at the time of the 2020 election. Former Vice President Biden is intensely opposed by progressives in the Democratic Party after a drawn out battle with Sen. Bernie Sanders, has been accused of sexual assault, cannot string together a coherent sentence, and will 78 this November. As a quick recap, the candidates of both old parties would be the oldest president in American history, have trouble articulating themselves, and have allegedly engaged in unsavory (and perhaps illegal) conduct towards women. With this in mind, it hardly seems that a campaign by Justin Amash is the biggest problem the GOP and Democratic Party must wrestle with.
Vehement, knee-jerk opposition to Justin Amash stems from the fact that he is eminently able to exploit these aforementioned weaknesses. Amash has a track record of standing on principle, he has never been accused of sexual assault, is cool under pressure and can easily articulate his views, and will be 40 years old in November. His only arguable weakness is the lack of support for his political views; Amash himself has asserted that most Americans’ political views rest on a foundation of classical liberalism. Since Rep. Amash espouses limited government, balanced budgets, non-interventionism abroad, and the protection of civil liberties, he hopes he can tap into this vein which runs through the electorate. The argument is similar to that of 2016 Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, but with nearly ten years of federal experience and a more serious demeanor, Amash may have better chances under the Libertarian banner.
Justin Amash may be a major player in 2020, or he may simply be a blip on the national political radar like Governor Gary Johnson. If he secures the Libertarian nomination, one thing is for certain: he will provide a solid choice for those uncomfortable with the two deeply flawed options presented by the major parties.
It’s 10 O’Clock, Do You Know Where Your Glorious Leader Is?
Michael Stecher
The most important question in international politics right now is: “Where in the world is Kim Jong-Un?” The leader of North Korea has not been seen in public since April 12 and the period since he was last seen includes the public celebration of his grandfather’s birthday — an important national holiday that he has never missed since coming onto the public stage. Reports in international media have variously claimed that he is in a vegetative state, brain-dead, mostly-dead, all-dead, or relaxing at a luxurious seaside resort. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Wednesday that the administration does not have any additional information to report on the matter, but is “watching it closely.” Sue Mi Terry, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points out that Kim “is obese, smokes and drinks heavily, and has a family history of heart disease,” so even if he is not currently experience a medical emergency, this remains a major issue of concern for the regime.
North Korean politics are obscure and difficult to parse in the best of times, but current circumstances make the glass through which we observe their situation even darker. Jessica Lee at the Quincy Institute argues that the way that international media reporting about North Korea is filtered into English-language sources leaves much to be desired. Reporters struggle to convey the editorial biases of different outlets, and even whether an outlet breaking a story about Kim is primarily an entertainment magazine. North Korea’s internal politics have regional implications because of its nuclear and missile arsenal, as well as its severe food insecurity — in the same remarks from Secretary Pompeo, he mentioned the “real risk that there will be a famine” due to coronavirus — that could cause social collapse.
North Korea’s regime is motivated by an ideology called “juche” that draws on Marxist language, traditional Korean nationalist ideas, and 20th Century fascism conveyed through the lens of Japanese imperialism. This ideology has provided legitimation for three generations of Kim family rule as power has passed from father to son. Kim Jong-Un’s oldest child, however, is only 10 years old (probably).
Regime propaganda focuses on the semi-divine character of the “Mount Paektu bloodline” of the descendents of Kim Il-Sung, but it is not clear that regime stakeholders would accept a woman from the Kim family or Kim Jong-Un’s brother who was passed over because he was perceived as too weak, or whether the military would try to take a more direct role in governance. Complicating this issue further, when Kim Jong-Un took power on his father’s death in 2011, he violently purged the senior leadership ranks, including executing his uncle and assassinating his half-brother. This might mean that, if an unexpected succession crisis is about to take place, many potential leaders will have an incentive to make a play for power rather than wait to be purged.
For all the concerns swirling about North Korea and succession, at least that country has a theory of regime legitimacy that contemplates intergenerational power transfer. The post-Cold War period has seen a proliferation of “personalist dictatorships:” regimes where the leader has direct, unmediated, and de-institutionalized control over the levers of power — in contrast to party-led states like the Soviet Union, military dictatorships like the one currently in power in Sudan, and monarchies. They often completely lack a motivating ideology and exist as graft and patronage tools for the leader’s coterie. According to the most comprehensive study of undemocratic regimes, personalist regimes are the most common form of unfree state, but tend to be shorter-lived than party states or monarchies. Military dictatorships are the shortest-lived, but the ones that do survive longer than 10–15 years tend to become more personalist.
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Saddam Hussein in Iraq built classic examples of personalist regimes. Viktor Orban is trying to create one in Hungary, as is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. Centralizing increasing levels of control in the person of the leader and his hand-picked coterie of advisors is common because it is an effective way of limiting the role of elites in politics and diminishing the risk of coups. In China, Xi Jingping has undertaken a major concentration of power, using corruption trials to purge the Chinese Communist Party of his political rivals and ending the process by which successors had been identified and socialized in the post-Deng Xiaoping era.
Personalist regimes struggle with power transfer, however, precisely because they exist as vehicles for elite suppression. If a dictator identifies and grooms a successor, that person becomes another nexus for political organization. Stakeholders who are not currently insiders can jockey for position with the heir apparent or rally around an alternate candidate, while current insiders need to hedge their support for the dictator to try and ensure they are not purged — there are few polite retirements for former dictators’ hatchet men. A successor may end up not merely a focus for elite discontent, they may even become coup plotters in their own rights if they fear being demoted or discarded.
This is precisely what happened during the Arab Spring in Egypt: senior military leaders, who had been firmly under the thumb of President Hosni Mubarak, were opposed to transitioning their loyalty to his son Gamal. As a result, they stood aside when protestors took to the streets to demand his overthrow and later took greater control of the government and economy when they overthrew Mohamed Morsi in favor of one of their own, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In Russia, Vladimir Putin apparently found the marionette presidency of Dmitry Medvedev to include too much elite politics and declined to name a successor earlier this year, pushing through a series of constitutional changes that will allow him to remain in office through 2036, when he will be 84 years old. The problem he faces in contemplating what happens to his regime will not change in that time, however, he will just increase the risk of a chaotic, unexpected succession crisis as he grows older.
There is some concern that younger people in the United States and Europe are less convinced that living in a democracy is essential. Democratic regimes, however, solve the fundamental problem of power transitions. Elite politics take place alongside mass politics in the open at regularly scheduled intervals. No coalition defeats are permanent, political rivals are not imprisoned or executed, and most of the business of government goes on regardless of who is in power. That is how it is supposed to happen, anyway. Many leaders who are now personalist dictators (and many more who seek to become them) began as democratically elected leaders in countries whose institutions buckled under the strain they presented. The regimes these leaders install are necessarily more brittle than the ones they replace; unmediated power is more valuable than constrained power and political actors are likely to fight harder to acquire and maintain it. The move from an institutional regime like a democracy to a personal one is the recipe for violence and civil war. We may be about to see a volcano erupt in Pyongyang, but the risk of a cataclysm exists just below the surface in capitals around the world.
News You May Have Missed
Dozens of Decomposing Bodies Found In Trucks at Brooklyn Funeral Home
Aida Olivas
On Wednesday, April 29, New York police discovered several cadavers being stored in a tractor trailer and a U-Haul outside a funeral home in Brooklyn. The owner stated his business, like many others in his industry, had run out of space. He began using the trucks as extra storage space after the city reported shortages on refrigerated trailers for New York’s death care system. After police made the gruesome discovery, the area was sectioned off and was being treated similarly to a crime scene. While the Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home had not received complaints in the past, New York’s Health Department began an investigation into the business which may receive fines or have its license suspended.
Hispanic Caucus Calls on Trump Admin to Investigate Working Conditions for Meatpackers
Aida Olivas
Latino lawmakers are urging Trump to give meat processing workers temporary emergency standards to follow and to provide necessary safety precautions. There have been many companies who did not provide protective equipment to their workers and it has resulted in a large number of worker deaths and illnesses. Representative Castro from Texas stated, “a majority of these workers are either Latino workers or some of them undocumented or refugee workers from other countries…very vulnerable populations [without the] political or economic power…to change their working conditions”. Along with this, many lawmakers have asked the administration to temporarily cease deportations, and to provide coronavirus relief packages to Latino households and undocumented immigrants since they make up a large part of the workforce for industries the president is attempting to reopen; including meat processing plants. Various agencies and organizations have also joined together to issue health and safety recommendations, particularly, to meat, pork, and poultry plants.
Studies Leave Question of “Airborne” Coronavirus Transmission Unanswered
Aida Olivas
Although it is yet to be properly confirmed, studies have found there is evidence of the possibility Coronavirus particles can remain in the air for several hours. This is not to say there is evidence of aerial transmission and the World Health Organization has stated that, based on evidence gathered, it is “not a major driver of transmission”. Conflicting research from the Rocky Mountain Laboratories (which is a part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) claim “virus particles aerosolized with laboratory equipment remained viable — still capable of growing in a cell culture — for up to three hours while suspended in the air”. Other reports and papers have found similar results but not all have established if the airborne virus samples were still active. Currently, more studies are being conducted to receive more conclusive results of the possibility of the virus being infectious while airborne.
Vilnius Launches Plan for Socially Distant Bars and Restaurants
The capital of Lithuania has found a way to encourage residents to patronize bars and restaurants without increasing their risk of contracting coronavirus. The city will turn over public spaces — parks, plazas, and even city streets — to bar and restaurant owners who will be able to serve clients in an environment that allows them to stay at least 2 meters apart. Vilnius’s mayor, Remigijus Šimašius said that preserving the health and safety of residents was of paramount importance, but that this would allow more businesses to “open up, work, retain jobs and keep Vilnius alive.”
Interest Rate Cuts Incentivize Investments in Turnips, Tarantulas
When the lockdowns started, critical goods like flour and toilet paper were suddenly in short supply. So too were Nintendo’s newest video game console, the Switch, and copies of its most popular new game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. People who did manage to get themselves into that particular fantasy world found that they could quickly become “rich” by depositing units of in-game currency into the bank and changing the time on the console’s internal clock so that large amounts of interest had accrued. By reducing the virtual interest rate, Nintendo is closing this loophole and pushing players towards finding more productive ways of generating returns, like hunting rare, dangerous tarantulas. In a world with literal magic money trees, however, it is not clear what additional steps the central bank can take to stimulate the economy in the event of a recession.
The views of authors are their own and not that of CSPC.