Sunday Cutdown XXVIII (a) 8 June 2024
Clearing my inbox of stories I want to document
NOTE: A DOUBLE-CUTDOWN THIS WEEKEND TO CATCH ME UP AFTER VACATION LAST WEEK, SO “PART A” TODAY AND “PART B” SUNDAY
1) Yeah, Trumpism really does boil down to certain racial attitudes
WAPO: A new look at the cultural insecurity of Trump supporters
Polling data:
The way to look at this:
It doesn’t prove that everyone who supports Trump is a racist.
It does indicate that, if you’re one, you’re far more likely to be attracted to Trumpism than the Dems.
As I pointed out in America’s New Map, this is the journey we’re on:
The Dems are handling this journey; the GOP is losing its mind over it.
By all US history, Trump should be an independent third-party candidate and not the face of the GOP, but his political insurgency has most definitely captured the Republican Party, which has similarly come under the influence of the Putin regime — not in any serious collusion with the Kremlin (despite Tucker Carlson’s pathetic efforts) but simply by wanting all the same things. Putin’s influence here is real and profound and, like Trump himself, should otherwise be limited to a fringe third-party situation but instead has captured a major party.
2) Water, water — not everywhere
NYT: Abnormally Dry Canada Taps U.S. Energy, Reversing Usual Flow
NYT: When Hydropower Runs Dry
WAPO: Tallest waterfall in China is fed by pipes, officials admit
Per the NYT, A serious change of plans:
Global pollution from electricity generation was set to fall last year, thanks to the growth of renewable energy. Then came the droughts.
Hydropower, the biggest source of renewable energy in the world, was crippled by lack of rain in several countries last year, driving up emissions as countries turned to fossil fuels to fill the gap. To cope with the electricity shortfall, China and India turned to coal plants, and Colombia to natural gas.
A recent report by the International Energy Agency showed that hydropower’s decline last year pushed countries to use dirtier sources of energy that produced an extra 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
Hydro is huge in the West Hemisphere. Per America’s New Map:
In the Western Hemisphere, our water advantage plays out with far less interstate tension. While hydropower (dam-generated electricity) constitutes a mere 16 percent of electricity generation worldwide, Canada (60 percent) and Latin America (45 percent) lead the way on tapping this renewable energy resource. The United States is the fourth-largest producer of hydropower— following world-leading China, Canada, and Brazil, but it accounts for only 6 percent of our electricity.
The trick, of course, will be maintaining that high rate of exploitation amidst climate change’s intensification of precipitation in higher latitudes and droughts in lower latitudes. In South America, states along the Pacific coastline will see their hydropower increased, while nations leeward of the Andes Mountains will suffer a decrease. Meanwhile, ever-wetter Canada, which already supplies a significant amount of hydro-powered electricity to America’s northern states, plans to vigorously cash in on the Biden administration’s push to reduce the role of fossil fuels in US power generation.
Well, climate change is throwing a kink into that Canadian ambition, per the NYT:
In February, the United States did something that it had not done in many years — the country sent more electricity to Canada than it received from its northern neighbor. Then, in March, U.S. electricity exports to Canada climbed even more, reaching their highest level since at least 2010.
The increasing flow of power north is part of a worrying trend for North America: Demand for energy is growing robustly everywhere, but the supply of power — in Canada’s case from giant hydroelectric dams — and the ability to get the energy to where it’s needed are increasingly under strain.
Many energy experts say Canadian hydroelectric plants, which have had to reduce electricity production because of a recent drop in rain and snow, will eventually bounce back. But some industry executives are worried that climate change, which has already been linked to the explosive wildfires in Canada last year, could make it harder to predict when rain and snowfall will return to normal.
Humans make plans and Nature laughs.
Where it does actually get funny, in a pathetic way: China having to pipe in water for its famous natural waterfall — the tallest “uninterrupted” one in the world.
3) Take it to the limit one more time
FINANCE YAHOO: China’s $8.5 billion in steel spurs Latin America toward tariffs
ASIA TIMES: 2 words explain China export 'surge': Global South
FACEBOOK VIDEO: Krugman Says China Is ‘Bizarrely Unwilling’ to Boost Demand
YAHOO FINANCE: China Risks Trade War on Two Fronts as Low-Tech Exports Soar, Too
China, under Xi, is stubbornly sticking to its export-driven growth model to resurrect the good old days of 8 % growth (often a polite fixation representing Chinese fascination with the lucky number 8).
It is proceeding on two fronts:
Higher-end products, like IT hardware and cars, to the more advanced economies
The usual cheap-end stuff and processed raw materials (e.g., steel) to emerging and lesser-developed economies.
It is engendering resistance from both camps. The world could — and did — live with China’s rise through export-driven growth. The US had encouraged the same with Japan long before, and then the Asian Tigers (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, S Korea), and then China.
But the implied deal was always the same (or always just worked out the same): once you rose, you started playing more by the reasonable rules of advanced-economy competition.
China is refusing that modification under Xi as the economy naturally slows down and should — by all intelligent accounts — shift to promoting a huge rise in domestic consumption.
But Xi either fears that path (loss of tight political control) and/or still believes there is global power to be won by continuing the old ways (a braindead assumption that proves this guy is not all that smart).
The problem is, there isn’t enough global power to be won that old way, because it engenders a lot of pushback from economies that know better or just won’t put up with that behavior any more.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everything started going south (pun intended) when Xi decided to become prez-for-life: the Chinese public checked out on many levels (very reminiscent of Russians under early Gorbachev) and Xi has felt the instinctive need to clamp down ever more both at home and abroad — with the old ways preventing the rise of the new ways, which he fears (and should) leads to pluralistic dynamics within society.
So Xi’s grand strategy now is as clear as it is warped: everything in service to Party domination.
In past generations of leadership, there was a sense of compromise and balance between what needed to be done to rise and how powerful the Party could remain.
That balance is lost under Xi, which makes him the biggest single threat to China’s long-term power trajectory.
In other words, so long as he stays in power, China faces a premature peaking and ultimately decline of its global power.
China will remain competitive alright, but it won’t and can’t become the deeper competitive threat it could develop into so long as Xi sticks with the old ways.
4) Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t catch up!
AAA: Europe Has Fallen Behind the U.S. and China. Can It Catch Up?
The gist:
The list of reasons for what has been called the “competitiveness crisis” goes on: The European Union has too many regulations, and its leadership in Brussels has too little power. Financial markets are too fragmented; public and private investments are too low; companies are too small to compete on a global scale.
“Our organization, decision-making and financing are designed for ‘the world of yesterday’ — pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine, pre-conflagration in the Middle East, pre-return of great power rivalry,” said Mario Draghi, a former president of the European Central Bank who is heading a study of Europe’s competitiveness.
Cheap energy from Russia, cheap exports from China and a bedrock reliance on military protection by the United States can no longer be taken for granted.
Now, the stupid answer here is to say the EU has gone too far in its integration (thus, BREXIT), when the smart answer is that it hasn’t nearly gone far enough. In short, the EU needs to accelerate its evolution toward a United States of Europe.
The last paragraph above is telling: lots of shifts going on and not enough centralized power and decision-making to respond at a speed that engenders self-confidence.
Still, the response on Ukraine and de-coupling from Russian energy … that was impressive.
Democracies are ALWAYS having confidence crises. It’s our self-motivation technique where we spot some “gap” and then go nuts to catch up. The US has this down to a frenetic art. The EU will get better — count on it.
5) Accept invite or no?
NYT: Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year
H/T Jeffrey Itell.
Check your calendar invites because Mother Nature is asking you to make some pretty big changes to your daily schedule.
A simple but very effective measure:
Since last May, the average person experienced 26 more days of abnormal warmth than they would have without global warming, a new analysis found.
That is pretty much a huge shift in every person’s life.
Where it gets worse should look familiar:
The shaded box marks my definition of Middle Earth: 30 degrees north and south of the equator.
6) The real crisis south of the border
POLITICO: ‘The Most Important National Security Issue Facing America, With the Least Amount of Attention’
Smart and worthy piece by Matthew Kaminski on what we should really be worried about WRT Mexico.
CHILPANCINGO, Mexico — The future of Mexico and its relationship with the giant neighbor to the north is going to be decided in places like the busy streets of this town of 283,000. Not in Mexico’s elections this Sunday, posters for which hang in the central square. Or on the U.S. campaign trail and its shallow debates over the migration crisis at the southern border and “the wall.”
Chilpancingo inhabits a uniquely Mexican liminal space. In the present, it’s the capital of the criminal-ridden Guerrero. A lot of Mexico is on track to become more like it. But there’s an alternate path for the future: one where the government in Mexico City establishes control over this and other lawless regions and takes the country confidently into the first world. Those are the stakes in Mexico — for Mexicans and the U.S.
Read this piece, because I think we’re going to see many more such analyses about Latin American countries as the years go by and the macro stresses of climate change push these nations into even greater troubles that only dramatically increase the human flow northward — a development that will empower transnational criminal organizations all the more and render larger portions of states “ungovernable” as described here.
Per Kaminski, our inability to broad frame the situation is blinding us to its true impact and threat:
In the U.S., particularly but not only on the Republican side, Mexico gets caricatured in dismissive and derisive ways as a narco-state that must be cordoned off.
This all misses the point. Mexico’s criminal networks and their ability to whittle away at state power here present a national security threat to bothMexico and the U.S.
A brilliant bit of envisioning:
Seen through the prism of violence there and its impact on the U.S., Mexico is the rich Afghanistan next door, a place where the central authorities have lost control over key territory to armed groups.
That’s the bad definition, but here’s the upside framing:
Mexico’s narco-state problem matters for larger strategic reasons. Security is the biggest hurdle to Mexico fully becoming part of North America in more than a geographic sense — an economic and demographic engine for the region, and a strong and stable American ally in the global competition against China.
No kidding. This is our LARGEST TRADING PARTNER WE’RE TALKING ABOUT!
We just refuse to view Mexico in this manner:
“There is no more consequential country for the U.S. than Mexico, bar none,” says Dan Restrepo, who was the senior director for the region in Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “But we don’t treat it like that. Not at all.”
Big-time duh!
This is the reality that speaks to my argument about political and economic integration with the US as THE logical path forward:
“There is no internal Mexican matter anymore. Everything that affects us is an American matter,” says Jorge Castañeda, who was foreign minister under former President Vicente Fox from 2000-2003 and supports the opposition candidate on Sunday.
Brilliant piece by Kaminski. Great reporting as well.
7) Yes, it doesn’t make sense in the real world but, more importantly, does it make sense in theory?
NEWSWEEK: Is China About To Invade Taiwan? Experts Weigh In
Turns out when you ask the experts, the answer remains the same as it have basically been for decades:
Analysts have said China is likely to keep piling pressure on the Beijing-skeptic administration, but raising the risk of regime-destabilizing failure may keep President Xi Jinping from pulling the trigger.
Despite all the hype on our end, the underlying reality remains unchanged. We can pursue this regional arms race by proxy with China for as long as Beijing wants.
8) What do you want to do with your country?
WAPO: How do we want America to be?
From a retired USN admiral of great accomplishments:
Now, a former president has been convicted by a jury in New York, and we have a choice to make. We can show the world that we are still exceptional and continue to lead the international community with integrity and pride, or we can prolong the onslaught of crassness, vulgarity, pettiness and righteous indignation and descend into national mediocrity, where there is nothing of value worth emulating.
Russia needs to put Putin in the rearview. He is the nation’s biggest problem.
China needs to put Xi in the rearview. He is the nation’s biggest problem.
The US needs to put Trump in the rearview. He is currently our nation’s biggest problem and threat to democracy.
In each instance, we have essentially 20th century leaders underperforming in 21st century conditions. Biden falls into that category as well — just not nearly as much as Trump.
I want America to remain exceptional. Trump destroys that quality and reduces us to being like everyone else.
My identity as an American is hugely important to me. It trumps my religion and it trumps my race.
9) India’s democracy doing just fine
ALJAZEERA: Modi’s BJP to lose majority in India election shock, needs allies for gov’t
Before the election there was a lot of fear about Modi having too much power.
Now, analysts seem to be freaking out in the opposite direction.
Make up your minds!
The Indian people have spoken: yes to Modi keeping his job (which he has performed well) but no to the BJP running without any checks on its policies.
A coalition government forces those checks and balances in a parliamentary system.
We should be happy with this outcome. It’s good for everybody.
It’s not so much a rejection of anybody but rather a call for compromise, and that is always good for a democracy.
Simmer down, now!
10) A Rubicon being crossed, for real
BBC: Anger in Moscow after Ukraine allowed to hit Russia with Western weapons
The ruleset on this is shady.
In Cold War proxy wars, it was okay for one side, using one superpower’s weapons, to attack both the other side and that opposing superpower’s troops in theater (like killing US troops in Vietnam).
What’s far more tricky about this situation is the reality that strikes against the enemy’s sanctuaries is effectively a direct attack by our proxy on the opposing superpower’s homeland. Remember MacArthur wanting to invade China during the Korean War? A big no-no.
Here the necessary broad framing benefits from a counterfactual: what if this dynamic was operating in the opposite direction — say, Cuban forces directly attacking Florida territory and assets using Russian weapons — much less killing American citizens in the process? Would we be able to stomach that for long? At all? Or would we go uptempo with a scary vengeance (as we are known to do)?
There is the natural desire on our side to say yes to every Ukrainian request that keeps them feeling like they have a punter’s chance of “winning” this conflict.
But, short of Putin falling from power or dying in office, a true “win” seems out of the question for Ukraine (i.e, a restored country). At best we’re looking at a stomach-able trade: Russia keeps what it has stolen and Ukraine is fast-passed into NATO and the EU. Both sides simultaneously feel f#@ked over and both feel like they’re won/proven something.
But US munitions hitting targets inside Russia? That is a very dangerous escalation unless we’re working on a solution set of this nature.
Otherwise we risk signaling to Putin that this is a one-way street as far as Russia’s options for escalation are concerned. And frankly, Ukraine is not worth that risk.
11) Mad Max, for real
FORBES: Russia’s Mad Max War Bikes Are A Bad Idea
Always fun to read David Axe in Forbes.
The photos and his descriptions of Russian efforts to up-armor motorcycles is amusing and sad:
Ideally for the Russians, the ATVs and bikes move fast enough across the no man’s land to dodge most of the drones the Ukrainians fling at their attackers. Any if any FPV drones do catch up to the assault groups, cage armor should catch the drones before they impact the vehicles or their crews.
It’s a good theory: cage armor is effective enough that armies all over the world are adopting it for ground vehicles—and even docked submarines, apparently. It’s one thing to add a cage weighing a couple of tons to a 40-ton tank with a 1,000-horsepower engine, however. It’s another to pile armor onto a 1.5-ton ATV or a 200-pound dirt bike, each producing less than a hundred horsepower.
More than one army learned this the hard way in the 1910s and ’20s, arguably a golden era for military motorcycles. While the fast, nimble bikes worked great for couriers and scouts, they were too vulnerable for troops who might face heavy enemy fire.
Paging Steve McQueen.
We’ll look back on this period as a pathetic time in which we sought to keep humans in the battlespace against the rising tide of drones. We will fail dramatically and training authorities will teach these lessons learned (the hard way) for decades on end.
12) New Delhi feeling the heat
WAPO: Deaths mount and water rationed as India faces record heat
NYT: In Delhi’s Parched Slums, Life Hangs on a Hose and a Prayer
Very scary stuff to consider: India simultaneously under that much environmental stress while it is aggressively cashing in its demographic dividend.
That is the superpower story of this century, upon which much of the world’s future depends.
to mash up your points 6 (Mexico) and 10 (the Rubicon). Certain Republicans inc. the former Potus have suggested US forces attack Mexican cartel assets inside Mexico. Would not a possibility then become the cartels with say Russian weaponry initiating attacks inside the US with medium range drones etc. Thereby creating a situation akin to Ukraine/Russia or perhaps more aptly Israel relative to the Iranian backed proxies. Seems folks should ponder 2nd, 3rd order consequences prior to initiating yet another hot war.