#Mark Applebaum

[tagnoob]

My Books of 2024

Time for another annual round up, this time around the books I read in 2024. The year 2024 is almost up I record my reading over at Goodreads.  I understand that the site is now under something of a cloud as people have realized Amazon owns it, because some tech oligarch needs to own everything these days.  But I am a creature of habit and continue to use the place.  And the joke is on Amazon.  I…

[nicklloydnow]

“As I sat across a table from a minister in the Bulgarian government in his office in Sofia, he shook his head and then held it in his hands. “I can’t believe it. It is impossible,” he said. “It would be a disaster. How can Americans not see that?”

He was speaking about the prospect of Donald Trump being reelected president of the United States. His despair at the prospect echoed that of others from government, business, and the media with whom I spoke during a recent trip to Eastern and Central Europe. But his palpable fear of a Trump return to office was not abstract or in any way based on political preferences. As he and others explained to me, it was based on the fact that they all felt that a Trump win would have a direct and profoundly negative impact on the lives of people in all of Europe.

The view the Bulgarian minister and others expressed to me was that a Trump win would result in a redrawing of the map of Europe in ways that would enable and embolden Vladimir Putin while simultaneously weakening the NATO alliance. Indeed, a Trump win would amount to nothing less than an undoing of many of the gains that came to the West through winning the Cold War and of many of the most important achievements forged in the wake of World War II.

This view is based not only on Trump’s public statements and actions while in office and since but also on a European perception of the Russian threat that is much more sweeping and menacing than most Americans and many of our leaders in Washington seem to grasp.

Anne Applebaum, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author who has written extensively on the former Soviet Union and emerging authoritarian threats, told me, “Many Europeans are afraid that a second Trump administration would work together with the Russians and their far-right allies in Europe—both those in power in Hungary and Serbia, as well as those who lead opposition parties in France and Germany—to transform European politics, destroy the European Union, and eventually dismantle NATO as well. That would make it easier for Russia and China to divide and dominate the continent for both economic and political advantage.

“Of course this is not in America’s interest,” she went on, “but Trump does not act in America’s interest.”

As for awareness of the sweeping nature of this threat, she said, “Many Europeans do understand this threat. A German member of parliament recently said to me that he fears Europe will soon be facing three hostile, autocratic, and illiberal states: Russia, China—and the U.S.”

When I mentioned my impressions of my conversations to former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, he said, “What you’ve heard is fairly widely shared and feared across not only Central and Eastern Europe but the rest of Europe as well. The general assumption, especially after Trump’s ‘If you don’t pay, I’ll tell Russia to do whatever the hell they want,’ conjures up the images of Bucha, mass killings, torture, rape, etc., we have come to associate with Russia. It can’t be undone.”

This has, in Ilves’s eyes, produced increasing support for developing plans for Europe to attempt to go it alone in the wake of a Trump victory. Countries that were once skeptical of such approaches, like France, are in the process of developing them. “[Emmanuel] Macron’s Autonomie strategique is purely the result of an understanding—right or wrong—that Trump will abandon Europe and NATO in favor of his strongman buddy Putin,” Ilves wrote in an email. “Someone who believes Putin more than his own intelligence services (as we saw in his Helsinki meeting) is not someone people in Europe trust.” Ominously, he concluded, “In any case everyone seems to expect that after a Trump victory, transatlantic relations will be worse than they have been since WW2.”

General Mark Hertling, who commanded the U.S. Army in Europe and spent 12 years working with leaders and other military commanders within the region, said, “A former senior ranking military leader from Romania recently said something that I found insightful. Many of us thought that the election of Trump by the people of the U.S. in 2016 was just an anomaly, he said. We saw the effects of his presidency by the way he disparaged the members of NATO, implied he wouldn’t support (and [would] even pull out of) the alliance, and through the appointment of specific terrible ambassadors to European postings. We were glad, he continued, that you returned to normalcy with the Biden election, but the potential of another Trump presidency would cause a complete loss of faith in the U.S. He said, ‘It would be much like how we all feel about Hungary, or Turkey.’”

(…)

Further, there is a widespread concern, most recently manifested in the wake of several incidents in Poland, of Russia employing “hybrid measures” like sabotage to damage and weaken neighboring governments that oppose it. Threatening language from Putin and his supporters directed at new members of NATO like Sweden and Finland, at the Baltics, and indeed at all of NATO are the reason that most of those states closest to Russia are so committed to stopping Russia in Ukraine and making the country pay a heavy price for its aggression as a way of mitigating the threat they collectively face from Moscow.

How Trump may handle these issues in a new administration with a new team is of grave concern to those in the region and U.S. experts. For example, Hertling told me, “One of the other things I heard (from Europeans) after Trump was elected was that while he and his staff in the [White House] were often out of touch with the culture and issues in Europe, several European leaders told me they depended on the ‘old hands’ in State, and the competency of the military assigned to Europe, to keep things on the rails. I would be afraid that the 2025 plan would take those old hands out of their positions, replacing them with those who don’t understand the history of the former Soviet satellites, their fight for freedom over the last three decades, or the intricacies of places like Transnistria, South Ossetia/Abkhazia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. If Russian actions are not countered in Ukraine, those who used to be under the Russian boot—the Baltics, Poland, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Bulgaria—would then be in the crosshairs. We are already seeing increased Russian actions in Georgia, Moldova, Poland, and Kaliningrad.” (Kaliningrad Oblast is Russian territory that sits between Lithuania and Poland, extending to the Baltic, a vestige of post–World War II territorial division that provides a strategic forward position for the Russians in Eastern Europe.)

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who worked on East European issues during his time on the National Security Council staff, described his perception of how the dominoes would fall across the continent should Trump once again occupy the Oval Office. “A Trump victory in 2024 would undoubtedly lead to the end of American support for Ukraine,” Vindman said. “Without American political and material support, Ukraine would be forced to fight the war with considerably less resources and would likely remain on the defensive footing indefinitely. Trump would also likely push [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy to immediately enter negotiations with Putin (despite the Russian government’s repeated bad-faith approach to negotiations over the past two years). While Trump and his team would likely present this as a diplomatic victory, we should remember that Trump’s interests in Ukraine are mostly grounded in seeking Vladimir Putin’s personal approval and his personal vendetta against Zelenskiy and me.”

He continued: “Any negotiation signed by the Ukrainian government in this state of duress would be a victory for Russian interests in Eastern Europe and would be followed by renewed hybrid warfare efforts against Georgia and Moldova. The end result of this would be effectively canceling Georgian, Moldovan, and Ukrainian EU membership and keeping all three states within Moscow’s sphere of influence.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute offered the following critique of the current Washington understanding of the evolving situation along Europe’s Eastern flank and specifically of the constraints the Biden administration has placed on support for Ukraine, such as limitations on where U.S.-supplied weapons can or cannot be used that weaken Ukraine’s position and may increase the risks associated with a potential second Trump presidency: “In a time when we are fixated on Putin’s redlines, we have missed the most important: He has set Russia on a path of constant and enduring conflict with the West, requiring aggression and provocations that justify a wartime economy and complete concentration of political power in him as president. His aggression takes a variety of forms: combat in Ukraine, cyberattacks on NATO allies, disinformation campaigns, and election interference. He has subjugated the long-term prospects of Russia to his campaign of aggression, meaning Russia will suffer political and economic isolation for the foreseeable future. Finally, he relies on Russia’s relationship with China, despite Russia being the clearly junior partner. These moves will not be easily reversed, even when Putin leaves the scene.”

(…)

But in Eastern Europe, reminders of what life was like under Moscow’s domination are everywhere. So too are signs that a return to those very bad old days could be just around the corner. Our delays in providing aid to Ukraine and the limitations we have placed on the use of that aid are one sign that many in Washington do not fully realize the implications or extent of Putin’s moves against the West. But for those in the region, there would be no sign more frightening of that disconnect from reality than electing to the U.S. presidency an avowed Putin fanboy like Trump.”

“A week after Emmanuel Macron decided to call a snap parliamentary election, the upcoming vote has turned into one of the most crucial in post-war French history. At stake at the two-round election on June 30th and July 7th is the serious possibility of a government led by the hard-right or hard-left. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (rn) is well ahead in the polls, followed by the New Popular Front, an alliance of left-wing parties. Either could mean extremist politics, economic populism and financial instability. Among Mr Macron’s allies, fears are growing of a rout. “He has thrown us under a bus,” says one minister.

(…)

The biggest bloc is the hard right. Ms Le Pen’s rn held only 88 seats out of 577 in the outgoing lower house. Now, according to a poll by ifop published on June 15th, it tops first-round voting with 35%, though other polls have the rn as much as five points lower. The remains of the divided centre-right Republicans, who had 61 seats in the outgoing National Assembly, are polling at 7%. Many Republicans are co-operating with Ms Le Pen’s rn, which breaks the cordon sanitaire that has henceforth kept her party untouchable by the mainstream.

The left, meanwhile, is running nine points behind RN in the same poll, under the banner of the New Popular Front. It is a left-wing alliance of four parties: Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France (lfi), the Communists, the Greens and the Socialists. Finally, Mr Macron’s centrist Renaissance-led alliance trails in third place, with 19%.

(…)

An analysis by Le Figaro, a newspaper, based (somewhat tendentiously) on voting to the European Parliament on June 9th, suggested that the rn could come top in nearly two-thirds of the constituencies on June 30th. Thanks to Ms Le Pen’s efforts to make her party more presentable and shed its formerly thuggish image, the rn’s support base has spread from its traditional strongholds of the industrial north-east and the south of France into villages and suburbs even in places such as Brittany. Moreover, according to this analysis, in 536 second-round run-offs Ms Le Pen’s candidates would face not Mr Macron’s but those of the left-wing front. Renaissance and its friends would go through to the second round in as few as 41 constituencies, half of them in the Paris region.

(…)

Above all, voters seem no longer either ashamed or nervous about backing the rn. As early as December 2023, for the first time, fewer people (41%) judged the party to be a “danger for democracy” than thought that it was not (45%). Ms Le Pen’s party is in triumphant mood. She has won support from Marion Maréchal, her niece, who was kicked out of Reconquest, Eric Zemmour’s ultra-Catholic far-right party, for her “world record betrayal”.

Ms Le Pen’s victory at the European vote, with over twice the score of Mr Macron’s centrists, has already begun to shake up politics on the nationalist right. Eric Ciotti, head of the centre-right Republicans, is defiantly putting up over 62 candidates in an alliance with the rn. Indeed Mr Ciotti’s decision led, mid-week, to scenes in Paris worthy of a melodramatic mini-series. The party met to oust him. Mr Ciotti holed himself up alone at party headquarters, filming himself to dramatic music in an empty office. A court then invalidated that expulsion, leaving him to claim the right to the party’s logo and, apparently, its finances. Some Republicans, such as Othman Nasrou, a candidate in the western Paris suburb of Les Yvelines, are having to stand under the banner of “the republican right”. Republicans against Mr Ciotti’s alliance say they are putting up nearly 400 candidates anyway.

The political shenanigans have been no less surreal on the left, where electoral expediency has triumphed over deep political differences. As part of a pre-election pact announced on June 14th, the New Popular Front announced a swathe of populist economic policies that would reverse much of Mr Macron’s agenda since he has been in power, including raising the minimum wage by 13% to €1,600 net a month, lowering the legal pension age from 64 years to 60, capping energy prices even though costs have stabilised and restoring the wealth tax. Moderate Socialists, in return, secured a promise to support Ukraine against Russia.

(…)

In a further twist, on June 15th François Hollande, a former Socialist president, declared—to initial denials at his own party headquarters—that he was standing for the Socialists in his old rural heartland of the Corrèze. Portraying himself as a bulwark against the hard right, he declared that “the situation is grave”. By agreeing to run under the left-wing alliance, Mr Hollande is both lending it legitimacy and attempting to wrest control of it.

The sense of chaos and rising risk of extremism will continue to weigh on the markets. Already French assets have taken a battering. Between the start of June 10th and the end of June 14th the French stockmarket, the world’s sixth biggest, fell by 6%. Shares of domestically focused firms such as banks dropped by more than this. A key measure of perceived risk, the yield on French ten-year government bonds compared with German ones, increased by 0.29 percentage points. France’s budget deficit is projected by the imf to be about 5% in 2024. The policies of the rn, and the New Popular Front alliance of left-leaning parties, both imply a substantial further increase in the deficit. The more the odds rise of either political group becoming the largest force in parliament, or even having a majority, the more jittery markets will get.

The most likely outcome on July 7th remains a hung parliament, with the rn the biggest party. Mr Macron’s alliance faces massive losses. Those who have spoken to the president say that he remains “combative” and determined not to cede to what he calls the “spirit of defeat”. Kylian Mbappé, a French football star, has called on voters not the back “the extremes”. Mr Macron’s supporters point to the courage it took to let the people decide too. But the people seem to be gripped by a sort of dégagiste (get rid of them) fervour. And France looks ever closer to entering the uncharted territory of a government led by the hard right; or possibly by the hard left; or perhaps a chaotic hung parliament with no government at all. It is not a pretty picture.”

[mariacallous]

The war in Ukraine has altered the course of global history. These authors explore how. When Vladimir Putin's forces sought to conquer Ukraine in February 2022, they did more than threaten the survival of a vulnerable democracy. The invasion unleashed a crisis that has changed the course of world affairs. This conflict has reshaped alliances, deepened global cleavages, and caused economic disruptions that continue to reverberate around the globe. It has initiated the first great-power nuclear crisis in decades and raised fundamental questions about the sources of national power and military might in the modern age. The outcome of the conflict will profoundly influence the international balance of power, the relationship between democracies and autocracies, and the rules that govern global affairs.

In War in Ukraine, Hal Brands brings together an all-star group of analysts to assess the conflict's origins, course, and implications and to offer their appraisals of one of the most geopolitically consequential crises of the early twenty-first century. Essays cover topics including the twists and turns of the war itself, the successes and failures of US strategy, the impact of sanctions, the future of Russia and its partnership with China, and more.

Contributors: Anne Applebaum, Joshua Baker, Alexander Bick, Hal Brands, Daniel Drezner, Peter Feaver, Lawrence Freedman, Francis Gavin, Brian Hart, William Inboden, Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Michael Kimmage, Michael Kofman, Stephen Kotkin, Mark Leonard, Bonny Lin, Thomas Mahnken, Dara Massicot, Michael McFaul, Robert Person, Kori Schake, and Ashley Tellis.

[irasobrietate]

In 2023 I was very successful with my 24 Before 2024 list but then failed miserably at my 24 in 2024 last year. But I'm gonna make a 25 in 2025 list anyways. I broke it up into 5 groups of 5: nonfiction, classics, short story anthologies, Book of the Month, and Fox & Wit (because I've not been reading my book box books and I need to either remedy that or cancel my subscription).

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan

Asexual Erotics: Intimate Readings of Compulsory Sexuality by Ela Przybylo

How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum

Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Yellow Wall-Paper and Other Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Native Son by Richard Wright

Collected edition of A Room With a View, Howard's End, and Maurice by E.M. Forster

At Midnight: 15 Beloved Fairy Tales Reimagined edited by Dahlia Adler

Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction edited by Sheree Renee Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight

Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People edited by Andrea D. Lobel and Mark Shainblum

It Gets Even Better: Stories of Queer Possibility edited by Isabela Oliveira nd Jed Sabin

Wings of Renewal: A Solarpunk Dragon Anthology edited by Claudie Arseneault and Brenda J. Pierson

The Attic Child by Lola Jaye

Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier

Lone Women by Victor Lavalle

Bronze Drum by Phong Nguyen

Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

The Silver Birds by Apolline Lucy

Beyond the Aching Door by Victoria Mier

Smile and Be a Villain by Yves Donlon

Of Blood, Bones, and Truth by T.M. Ledvina

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23/03/2024 (V of BTS and... Mark Knopfler?)

It’s a short week, largely to prepare for what chaos should be coming the next, but right at the top, Benson Boone clenches his first ever #1 with “Beautiful Things”. I know pretty much no-one who cares about pop music on a deeper level likes this song, but hey, if I’m the only person happy about this other than Booner Boy himself, I’ll take it. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

Given our few new songs, we also only have a handful of notable dropouts to start with, so we’ll bid adieu to the small but decent selection of “Could You be Loved” by Bob Marley & The Wailers, “Angel Numbers / Ten Toes” by Chris Brown, “My Love Mine All Mine” by Mitski and finally, “Disconnect” by Becky Hill and Chase & Status.

As for what’s back, we see returns for “Asking” by Sonny Fodera and MK featuring Clementine Douglas at #73 and, sigh, “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #68, and then a spattering of gains. Our most notable boosts are for “if u think i’m pretty” by Artemas at #59, “Wasted Youth” by goddard. and Cat Burns at #58, “We Ain’t Here for Long” by Nathan Dawe at #55, “Happier” by The Blessed Madonna featuring Clementine Douglas at #54, “Thank You (Not So Bad)” by a bestiary of enemies to good taste at #50, “Green & Gold” by Rudimental and Skepsis featuring Charlotte Plank and Riko Dan at #43, “Birds in the Sky” by NewEra at #34, “Never Lose Me” by Flo Milli surging high and fast up to #23 thanks to her releasing an album that includes a pretty great remix of the song featuring Cardi B and SZA, and then “Austin” by Dasha at #15, “Lovers in a Past Life” by Calvin Harris and Rag’n’Bone Man at #14 and finally, making his way into the top 10 for the first time, “Scared to Start” by Michael Marcagi at #10.

Our top five this week consists of “End of Beginning” by Djo at #5, “Lose Control” by Teddy Swims at #4, “TEXAS HOLD ‘EM” by Beyoncé at #3, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” by Ariana Grande at a new peak of #2 off of the debut, that could grab a week at the top soon, and of course, Benny Boone at #1. Now for our four new songs, which feel like names picked out of a hat and placed onto the chart.

New Entries

#60 - “Been Like This” - Meghan Trainor and T-Pain

Produced by Gian Stone and Grant Boutin

This is a joke, right? Or a soundtrack to a reality television competition, or daytime talk show? T-Pain has grown into his role as wholesome cuddly media figure surprisingly well and a collaboration with Meghan Trainor, whilst demonic, seems to be the best way to seal that position, with this being the lead single for her next album… Timeless. Well, that’s one thing to call your music. Mean jokes aside, hey, T-Pain is here so at least there’ll be some genuine, not as obnoxious charisma? Well, first of all, it’s electro swing, so my first instinct is to step away from my laptop, keel over and die, especially when Meghan starts to singing about how she keeps it juicy and then eventually that she’s “still that bitch”, as if she was ever that bitch to begin with. There’s something so cynical about Trainor’s vocals that I didn’t notice just the true extent of until T-Pain came in with an infectious call-and-response and weirdly-mixed but fun-extruding harmonies that almost would convince me on the entire song if he didn’t have to play to Meghan’s lack of personality, especially when placed against each other in the bridge. T-Pain can sell this as some goofy cartoon clown, but it probably wouldn’t charted without Ms. Trainor, who brings pretty much nothing to the song other than taking it a tad too seriously, despite the fact that there’s no reason, lyrically, for this to even be a duet. Also, Meghan, I’m not sure you can even sing the line about GRAMMYs in T-Pain’s verse on the account of you only have one.

#52 - “Never be Lonely” - Jax Jones and Zoe Wees

Produced by Jax Jones, Mark Ralph, Neave Applebaum and Tom Demac

I actually really like Jax Jones’ producer tag, it’s cute and rhythmic, has a little stutter to it. It’s nice. I have to say more than that, don’t I? I have to acknowledge Zoe Wees’ voice being misued and manipulated to just sounding characterless, I have to acknowledge how this heavily interpolates the drop from “Rhythm is a Dancer” by Snap!, one of the best Eurodance songs ever despite some… regrettable lines. It spent six weeks at #1 in 1992, blocking off Jimmy Nails, Freddie Mercury, Luther Vandross, Janet Jackson and of course, “Ebenezer Goode” by the Shamen from the top spot, before reappearing in remixed form in 2003 and 2008, reaching the top 40 again both times. “Never be Lonely” doesn’t work as an update of the song because of completely different lyrical content that I actually hate, asking someone to tell her how it feels that she’ll always be there for them, it’s really patronising and weird. It doesn’t work as a reimagining or reinterpretation because it goes for the same tone, and doesn’t adopt or adapt any of the original lyrical conceits. The one thing it does have is a Cascada remix. Yes, that Cascada. I have no idea why, but it exists.

#18 - “Going Home” (Theme from Local Hero) - Mark Knopfler’s Guitar Heroes

Produced by Guy Fletcher

Oh, so I guess this episode really will get as serious as cancer. This one might take a while to explain. So in 1983, Bill Forsyth wrote and directed Local Hero, a highly-acclaimed comedy drama that is actually former US Vice President Al Gore’s favourite film. Its soundtrack features a five-minute instrumental piece known as the “Theme of the Local Hero”. I’ve never seen the film so I don’t know how exactly it appears or makes sense within its narrative but I do know it has far transcended its origin. “Going Home” was the first single in Mark Knopfler’s solo career and has become a staple in both his and his band’s live performances, as well as becoming another theme, now for Knopfler’s home football team, Newcastle United. It’s probably the most lukewarm take of all time to say that “Going Home” is a beautiful piece, it honestly gives me goosebumps from its transcendent new-age introduction and excellently distant sax from Michael Brecker, that eventually transform into a very 80s-sounding but still profoundly triumphant jam that emulates the feeling of a journey in the UK pretty well. Maybe that’s what the film’s about, I don’t know. It peaked at #56 in 1983, whilst Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was #1 - good week for rock epics, I guess.

If you know Knopfler from anything, it’s likely his band Dire Straits, one of the few important British rock bands that hit #1 in the States and never back over here on the islands - their #1 is of course “Money for Nothing”. The legacy of Dire Straits is not something tangible for me or that I’ve ever really understood, their sound was varied and evolved through what was ultimately a very short career. They’re not a legendary act but are still big names and incredibly well-connected, especially Knopfler, who has played and produced extensively for many artists and soundtracks. In January, Knopfler sold over 100 of his guitar and amp equipment at auction and in March, he’s compiled a charity ensemble to cover “Going Home” in support of cancer awareness.

Its status as a charity single is the only possible explanation for why this nearly 10 minute instrumental piece even touched the charts let alone the top 20, but it is stuffed with big names, from rock icons like Brian May, RIngo Starr and Joan Jett and newer cats like Sam Fender and Orianthi to genuine oddballs like Keiji Haino and head-scratching inclusions like, uh, Brad Paisley, who I will only ever remember for “Accidental Racist”. There are over 60 musicians on this record and damn near all of them contributed through their guitar playing, other than Ringo on drums, The Who’s Roger Daltrey on my favourite, the harmonica (that you can barely hear at times - Daltrey’s harmonica should be put to better use), and a few others. You can tell that Fletcher and Knopfler did their best job to try and collate recordings that were clearly from different times, places, equipment set-ups and audio qualities, but this is still basically a meandering pile of guitar overdubs that lasts longer than some full EPs and doesn’t really let you register any single guitarist as them playing. The collectiveness of it may just be the point, to show a united front against cancer or what have you, and there’s definitely a lot to appreciate if you’re an in-depth fan of guitar playing or a guitarist yourself, of which I’m not. I will admit, this is genuinely impressively easy to sit through for how lengthy it is, largely because of the dexterity on display, the fact that the melody of the original “Going Home”, even when developed on in the many ways it is within this piece, is still so infectious, and also because it comes out of not just cynical philanthropy but a genuine passion for the guitar as an instrument. The cover art is a Sgt. Peppers parody of the musicians standing in front of a famous guitar shop in London, and the wide array of musicians from a lot of different genres, eras and even techniques shows how wide and universal this feels an appreciation of the guitar… but I’ll say what my dad always said about Dire Straits (because, really, dads are the only people with viable Dire Straits opinions): “it all becomes much of a muchness.” My favourite of theirs is “Walk of Life” by the way, it’s so goofy. Love it.

#14 - “FRI(END)S” - V

Produced by Connor McDonough and Riley McDonough

V is the latest of the BTS boys to release a solo English single, seemingly leading towards a solo career like Jung Kook, with credits stacked full of Anglophone pop songwriters and production from the McDonough brothers that results in a very serviceable pop song that I’m not sure would get much attention outside of the fact that it’s a BTS member, hence why sales jacked this one’s chart position up so high. It’s not a bad little song at all, in fact I like the distorted guitar lick and the amount of emotion V shows in his vocals despite all the effects, he has a real unique texture against the slodgier indie drums and the infectious bed of harmonies in the pre-chorus. The one way I could see this getting big organically would be that fun albeit gimmicky chorus that makes this an anti-climactic friend zone anthem, though the gimmick wears off after the second time and doesn’t really develop into anything new in the second chorus other than some pretty gross, reverb-drenched spectacle. I usually wouldn’t give this manufactured bedroom pop much more of the time of day but there’s not much in the way of obnoxious performance or toxic lyrics here, it’s just that it really could be any other vaguely bitter male singer’s song. The first most obvious comparison is Joji due to their vocal textures, but Charlie Puth or Lauv could have easily made this work too, though probably not as well as V does here, especially not Puth. God, that would be horrible. Thank God for BTS that this song was never offered to Puth (not that he’d accept a song he didn’t spend 20 hours writing and producing himself, of course). Ugh, enough Puth talk, let’s end the episode.

Conclusion

God, this was not a great week, huh? Even if I’m not fussed about the new version, the composition of “Going Home” makes Mark Knopfler and friends get a lock for Honourable Mention, and it really does end up as the song with the most - if not the only - human passion in this selection. Worst of the Week goes to Meghan Trainor, surprise, surprise, for “Been Like This” with T-Pain, and that’s all. Future, Shakira, O-Rod, Tyla, Hozier, Headie One, Artemas, Cardi B, Lil Nas X, Bryson Tiller, they could all hypothetically show up next week and it would be a big one, so prepare for that and who knows what else? It’s 2024, anything can chart. As for now, thank you for reading, rest in peace to Cola Boyy but we go on and I’ll see you next week!

[olehswiftcomstock]

Sherry, TPTT, Keepers, the rest, use all available weapon, including the best of phantoms, to eliminate (And in case of feasible conditions, flay them) referenced here people, also permanently lock their bank accounts, you can use those money to short already mentioned stocks or freeze them inside. Act on my behalf. This order can't be cancelled or edited. This is order.

 

Achleitner, Paul M. (DEU), Former Chairman Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG; Treasurer Bilderberg Meetings

Adeyemo, Adewale (USA), Deputy Secretary, Department of  The Treasury

Albares, José Manuel (ESP), Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation

Altman, Roger C. (USA), Founder and Senior Chairman, Evercore Inc.

Altman, Sam (USA), CEO, OpenAI

Applebaum, Anne (USA), Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Arnaut, José Luís (PRT), Managing Partner, CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut

Auken, Ida (DNK), Member of Parliament, The Social Democrat Party

Azoulay, Audrey (INT), Director-General, UNESCO

Baker, James H. (USA), Director, Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Barbizet, Patricia (FRA), Chairwoman and CEO, Temaris & Associés SAS

Barroso, José Manuel (PRT), Chairman, Goldman Sachs International LLC

Baudson, Valérie (FRA), CEO, Amundi

Beurden, Ben van (NLD), CEO, Shell plc

Bourla, Albert (USA), Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc.

Buberl, Thomas (FRA), CEO, AXA SA

Burns, William J. (USA), Director, CIA

Byrne, Thomas (IRL), Minister of State for European Affairs

Campbell, Kurt (USA), White House Coordinator for Indo-Pacific, NSC

Carney, Mark J. (CAN), Vice Chair, Brookfield Asset Management

Casado, Pablo (ESP), Former President, Partido Popular

Chhabra, Tarun (USA), Senior Director for Technology and National Security, National Security Council

Donohoe, Paschal (IRL), Minister for Finance; President, Eurogroup

Döpfner, Mathias (DEU), Chairman and CEO, Axel Springer SE

Dudley, William C. (USA), Senior Research Scholar, Princeton University

Easterly, Jen (USA), Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Economy, Elizabeth (USA), Senior Advisor for China, Department of Commerce

Émié, Bernard (FRA), Director General, Ministry of the Armed Forces

Emond, Charles (CAN), CEO, CDPQ

Erdogan, Emre (TUR), Professor Political Science, Istanbul Bilgi University

Eriksen, Øyvind (NOR), President and CEO, Aker ASA

Ermotti, Sergio (CHE), Chairman, Swiss Re

Fanusie, Yaya (USA), Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security

Feltri, Stefano (ITA), Editor-in-Chief, Domani

Fleming, Jeremy (GBR), Director, British Government Communications Headquarters

Freeland, Chrystia (CAN), Deputy Prime Minister

Furtado, Isabel (PRT), CEO, TMG Automotive

Gove, Michael (GBR), Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Cabinet Office

Halberstadt, Victor (NLD), Co-Chair Bilderberg Meetings; Professor of Economics, Leiden University

Hallengren, Lena (SWE), Minister for Health and Social Affairs

Hamers, Ralph (NLD), CEO, UBS Group AG

Hassabis, Demis (GBR), CEO and Founder, DeepMind

Hedegaard, Connie (DNK), Chair, KR Foundation

Henry, Mary Kay (USA), International President, Service Employees International Union

Hobson, Mellody (USA), Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments LLC

Hodges, Ben (USA), Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, Center for European Policy Analysis

Hoekstra, Wopke (NLD), Minister of Foreign Affairs

Hoffman, Reid (USA), Co-Founder, Inflection AI; Partner, Greylock

Huët, Jean Marc (NLD), Chairman, Heineken NV

Joshi, Shashank (GBR), Defence Editor, The Economist

Karp, Alex (USA), CEO, Palantir Technologies Inc.

Kissinger, Henry A. (USA), Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.

Koç, Ömer (TUR), Chairman, Koç Holding AS

Kofman, Michael (USA), Director, Russia Studies Program, Center for Naval Analysis

Kostrzewa, Wojciech (POL), President, Polish Business Roundtable

Krasnik, Martin (DNK), Editor-in-Chief, Weekendavisen

Kravis, Henry R. (USA), Co-Chairman, KKR & Co. Inc.  

Kravis, Marie-Josée (USA), Co-Chair Bilderberg Meetings; Chair, The Museum of Modern Art

Kudelski, André (CHE), Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group SA

Kukies, Jörg (DEU), State Secretary, Chancellery

Lammy, David (GBR), Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, House of Commons

LeCun, Yann (USA), Vice-President and Chief AI Scientist, Facebook, Inc.

Leu, Livia (CHE), State Secretary, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

Leysen, Thomas (BEL), Chairman, Umicore and Mediahuis; Chairman DSM N.V.

Liikanen, Erkki (FIN), Chairman, IFRS  Foundation Trustees

Little, Mark (CAN), President and CEO, Suncor Energy Inc.

Looney, Bernard (GBR), CEO, BP plc

Lundstedt, Martin (SWE), CEO and President, Volvo Group

Lütke, Tobias (CAN), CEO, Shopify

Marin, Sanna (FIN), Prime Minister

Markarowa, Oksana (UKR), Ambassador of Ukraine to the US

Meinl-Reisinger, Beate (AUT), Party Leader, NEOS

Michel, Charles (INT), President, European Council

Minton Beddoes, Zanny (GBR), Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

Mullen, Michael (USA), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Mundie, Craig J. (USA), President, Mundie & Associates LLC

Netherlands, H.M. the King of the (NLD)

Niemi, Kaius (FIN), Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat Newspaper

Núñez, Carlos (ESP), Executive Chairman, PRISA Media

O'Leary, Michael (IRL), Group CEO, Ryanair Group

Papalexopoulos, Dimitri (GRC), Chairman, TITAN Cement Group

Petraeus, David H. (USA), Chairman, KKR Global Institute

Pierrakakis, Kyriakos (GRC), Minister of Digital Governance

Pinho, Ana (PRT), President and CEO, Serralves Foundation

Pouyanné, Patrick (FRA), Chairman and CEO, TotalEnergies SE

Rachman, Gideon (GBR), Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, The Financial Times

Raimondo, Gina M. (USA), Secretary of Commerce

Reksten Skaugen, Grace (NOR), Board Member, Investor AB

Rende, Mithat (TUR), Member of the Board, TSKB

Reynders, Didier (INT), European Commissioner for Justice

Rutte, Mark (NLD), Prime Minister

Salvi, Diogo (PRT), Co-Founder and CEO, TIMWE

Sawers, John (GBR), Executive Chairman, Newbridge Advisory Ltd.

Schadlow, Nadia (USA), Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

Schinas, Margaritis (INT), Vice President, European Commission

Schmidt, Eric E. (USA), Former CEO and Chairman, Google LLC

Scott, Kevin (USA), CTO, Microsoft Corporation

Sebastião, Nuno (PRT), CEO, Feedzai

Sedwill, Mark (GBR), Chairman, Atlantic Futures Forum

Sikorski, Radoslaw (POL), MEP, European Parliament

Sinema, Kyrsten (USA), Senator

Starace, Francesco (ITA), CEO, Enel S.p.A.

Stelzenmüller, Constanze (DEU), Fritz Stern Chair, The Brookings Institution

Stoltenberg, Jens (INT), Secretary General, NATO

Straeten, Tinne Van der (BEL), Minister for Energy

Suleyman, Mustafa (GBR), CEO, Inflection AI

Sullivan, Jake (USA), Director, National Security Council

Tellis, Ashley J. (USA), Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment

Thiel, Peter (USA), President, Thiel Capital LLC

Treichl, Andreas (AUT), President, Chairman ERSTE Foundation

Tugendhat, Tom (GBR), MP; Chair Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Commons

Veremis, Markos (GRC), Co-Founder and Chairman, Upstream

Vitrenko, Yuriy (UKR), CEO, Naftogaz

Wallander, Celeste (USA), Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

Wallenberg, Marcus (SWE), Chair, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB

Walmsley, Emma (GBR), CEO, GlaxoSmithKline plc

Wennink, Peter (NLD), President and CEO, ASML Holding NV

Yetkin, Murat (TUR), Journalist/Writer, YetkinReport

Yurdakul, Afsin (TUR), Journalist, Habertürk News Network

Zeiler, Gerhard (AUT), President Warnermedia International

[readingsquotes]

So I want to explain exactly what it is that I think makes The Atlantic terrible and why I think we’d all be better off if it stopped publishing. My basic criticism is that while it presents itself as a magazine of ideas—which makes readers feel as if they are engaging intelligently with important issues—it in fact covers those issues in such a superficial and slipshod way that people are liable to be left with a worse understanding of the issue than when they went in, though they may be wrongly convinced that they have learned something. I do think that the ideological suppositions that predominate (with exceptions) in The Atlantic’s pages are dangerous and wrongheaded, but my critique of the magazine’s glib carelessness with ideas would be valid even if I was not also annoyed by its tendency to publish aggressive criticism of my fellow leftists and a never-ending sequence of cheap swipes at protesters.

....

When The Atlantic casts doubt on Palestinian death statistics, for instance, it gives people license to think that the destruction of Gaza is not as bad as it actually is. Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a doctor who worked in Gaza and who has a master’s degree in public health, said he was “shocked to see the sloppiness with which The Atlantic reported this story” and disturbed when a friend told him that The Atlantic is their go-to source for “serious news” on Israel-Palestine. (Likewise, I have been sent Montefiore’s article by several people who have told me it seemed fair and intelligent, when in fact it is egregiously dishonest and misleading.) Sidhwa notes that he received no response from the Atlantic’s editors when he submitted a letter correcting the article. (His first-person accounts of the reality in Gaza, written with Dr. Mark Perlmutter, are essential reading for anyone who is actually interested in “serious news” about the conflict.) Under editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, a former IDF prison guard, the magazine has a distinct bias against Palestinians, whose voices rarely show up in its pages. 

The drumbeat for war is constantly pounded in the pages of the Atlantic by hawkish contributors like Eliot Cohen, Anne Applebaum (hired despite a history of openly advocating war crimes, which was perhaps considered a qualification rather than a red flag), and David Frum (whose execrable Atlantic writing on immigration I have debunked before). The contributors tell us not to be squeamish about supporting large-scale killing, because “Insisting that the Israelis find a humane way of destroying an enemy, without collateral damage, is absurd” and “it is possible to kill children legally.” Cohen tells us that “Iran Cannot Be Conciliated,” and we must use “Chicago rules” against our enemies, meaning ruthless mobster amorality, and we must certainly not try to end wars with diplomatic negotiation. With recent new evidence of the horrors of the U.S. Marines’ 2005 Haditha massacre, it’s worth remembering that the Atlantic saw fit to publish the headline “Why We Should Be Glad the Haditha Massacre Marine Got No Jail Time.” (That article made the extraordinary claim that “preserving the fairness and impartiality of the American legal system” necessitated giving light sentences to Marines who were “almost certainly guilty of war crimes.”) 

[workflowers]

40 Cryptograms (2006) - Mark Applebaum

[burlveneer-music]

Kronos Quartet - Winter 2020 Release: Kronos' Fifty for the Future #31–35 of 50 - Mark Applebaum, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Susie Ibarra, Vladimir Martynov, and Henry Threadgill

Kronos’ Fifty for the Future is commissioning a collection of 50 new works – 10 per year for five years – that are devoted to the most contemporary approaches to the string quartet and designed expressly for the training of students and emerging professionals. The works are being commissioned from an eclectic group of composers – 25 men and 25 women – and the collection is beginning to represent the truly globe-spanning state of the art of the string quartet in the 21st century.

On February 6, we released the scores and parts, audio recordings, and many more resources for Fifty for the Future works by Mark Applebaum, Hawa Kassé Mady Diabaté, Susie Ibarra, Vladimir Martynov, and Henry Threadgill, which join previously released pieces by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Laurie Anderson, Ken Benshoof, Raven Chacon, Islam Chipsy, Aftab Darvishi, Fodé Lassana Diabaté, Rhiannon Giddens, Philip Glass, Yotam Haber, Joan Jeanrenaud, Garth Knox, Aleksander Kościów, Nicole Lizée, Soo Yeon Lyuh, Onutė Narbutaitė, Kala Ramnath, Karin Rehnqvist, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Trey Spruance, Tanya Tagaq, Stephan Thelen, Merlijn Twaalfhoven, Aleksandra Vrebalov and Wu Man. Anyone can now learn to play these string quartets... including you!

Visit Fifty for the Future at www.50ftf.kronosquartet.org/

[nicklloydnow]

“Over the past six days, Ukraine’s armed forces have broken through the Russian lines in the northeastern corner of the country, swept eastward, and liberated town after town in what had been occupied territory. First Balakliya, then Kupyansk, then Izium, a city that sits on major supply routes. These names won’t mean much to a foreign audience, but they are places that have been beyond reach, impossible for Ukrainians to contact for months. Now they have fallen in hours. As I write this, Ukrainian forces are said to be fighting on the outskirts of Donetsk, a city that Russia has occupied since 2014.

(…)

Russian troops are not fighting back. More than that: Offered the choice of fighting or fleeing, many of them appear to be escaping as fast as they can. For several days, soldiers and others have posted photographs of hastily abandoned military vehicles and equipment, as well as videos showing lines of cars, presumably belonging to collaborators, fleeing the occupied territories. A Ukrainian General Staff report said that Russian soldiers were ditching their uniforms, donning civilian clothes, and trying to slip back into Russian territory. The Ukrainian security service has set up a hotline that Russian soldiers can call if they want to surrender, and it has also posted recordings of some of the calls. The fundamental difference between Ukrainian soldiers, who are fighting for their country’s existence, and Russian soldiers, who are fighting for their salary, has finally begun to matter.

(…)

Back in March, I wrote that it was time to imagine the possibility of victory, and I defined victory quite narrowly: “It means that Ukraine remains a sovereign democracy, with the right to choose its own leaders and make its own treaties.” Six months later, some adjustments to that basic definition are required. In Kyiv yesterday, I watched Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tell an audience that victory should now include not only a return to the borders of Ukraine as they were in 1991—including Crimea, as well as Donbas in eastern Ukraine—but also reparations to pay for the damage and war-crimes tribunals to give victims some sense of justice.

(…)

That original mission has already failed. There will be no such “new era.” The Soviet Union will not be revived. And when Russian elites finally realize that Putin’s imperial project was not just a failure for Putin personally but also a moral, political, and economic disaster for the entire country, themselves included, then his claim to be the legitimate ruler of Russia melts away. When I write that Americans and Europeans need to prepare for a Ukrainian victory, this is what I mean: We must expect that a Ukrainian victory, and certainly a victory in Ukraine’s understanding of the term, also brings about the end of Putin’s regime.

To be clear: This is not a prediction; it’s a warning. Many things about the current Russian political system are strange, and one of the strangest is the total absence of a mechanism for succession. Not only do we have no idea who would or could replace Putin; we have no idea who would or could choose that person. In the Soviet Union there was a Politburo, a group of people that could theoretically make such a decision, and very occasionally did. By contrast, there is no transition mechanism in Russia. There is no dauphin. Putin has refused even to allow Russians to contemplate an alternative to his seedy and corrupt brand of kleptocratic power. Nevertheless, I repeat: It is inconceivable that he can continue to rule if the centerpiece of his claim to legitimacy—his promise to put the Soviet Union back together again—proves not just impossible but laughable.

(…)

The possibility of instability in Russia, a nuclear power, terrifies many. But it may now be unavoidable. And if that’s what is coming, we should anticipate it, plan for it, think about the possibilities as well as the dangers. “We have learned not to be scared,” Reznikov told his Kyiv audience on Saturday. “Now we ask the rest of you not to be scared too.””

“The sudden advance made by Ukraine’s forces into Russian-occupied territory is not only a brilliant tactical move; it could prove a decisive turning point in the war.

The seizure by Ukrainian forces of two key towns – Izyum and Kupiansk – means that an area the size of Lancashire has been liberated from the Russian invader. And Kyiv’s forces are still pushing on.

The last time Russian forces had to retreat so close to Moscow was 1941 – when they were being pushed back by the German onslaught.

(…)

In his great novel War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy outlined how battles are often won for no other reason than that one side wants victory more than the other.

Ukrainians have shown they are willing to die to keep their country free. But few Russian soldiers see any glory in throwing away their lives for Putin’s arrogant misadventures.

During the ‘Great Patriotic War’ – Russia’s term for its heroic repulse of Hitler during the Second World War – millions of Russian conscripts were mown down on the steppes by German machine-gunners, tanks and artillery.

In contrast, Putin has been able to mobilise only about 750,000 troops. Of these, thanks to leaks from the Russian finance ministry, we know that ‘death grants’ have been paid to the families of 48,000 soldiers.

This represents the biggest Russian loss of life since 1945, and includes some of their best-trained and equipped forces. By some counts, Russia has lost 14 generals – a scale of losses unpre-cedented for almost 80 years.

(…)

When the invasion was launched, thousands of Russian riot police were mobilised to sign up to fight, believing that Kyiv would fall within days and the ‘special military operation’ would become a police matter.

How wrong they were. The Ukrainian resistance picked off many of these units – which means they are no longer available to stamp out any upcoming protests on Russia’s streets.

Putin also bet that sky-rocketing energy prices would split the West, eroding Nato’s unity as public opinion in Europe especially turned against aiding Ukraine. But he is losing the war too fast, and rising fuel prices are not undercutting western solidarity with Ukraine in the way he imagined.

Unless Moscow now sees a dramatic change of fortune, it is not hard to imagine Putin’s generals and spy chiefs deciding to make him the scapegoat for the war – and withdraw the bedraggled remaining troops.

He will never retire – or be retired. An ousted Putin would more likely suffer a nasty ‘fall’ or sudden fatal ‘illness’ – like so many of his own critics during the ugly years of his presidency.

And that, conversely, is why we may be approaching the most dangerous moment in the war. Schooled in Russia’s history and the ignominious end of so many of its leaders, Putin might be willing to do anything to prevent his assassination – even going nuclear to save his own skin.

(…)

Could the US possibly stand aside? Wouldn’t President Joe Biden instead have to threaten American intervention to try to stop further use of nukes? Would China stand by its Russian ally?”

“Economically, the nation’s parlous fiscal and monetary situation is leading the country in the direction of high inflation if not hyperinflation. Diplomatically, the approach of winter and the shifting sands of European and American politics pose a threat to Western unity that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is hoping will give him leverage. Without an immediate increase in Western support, Ukraine will struggle to sustain its success on the battlefield.

The good news from the eastern front was conspicuous by its absence from the speech delivered by Zelenskiy at YES on Friday. A “winter of discontent” lay ahead not only for Ukraine but for all of Europe, he warned; the next 90 days of the war with Russia would be decisive.

(…)

In a realist perspective, Russia would seem bound to prevail over Ukraine sooner or later. Its territory is 28 times larger; its GDP is nine times larger; its population is 3.3 times larger. Western sanctions do not alter the fact that Russia still has significant (if reduced) revenue from exporting its gas and oil, whereas Ukraine is heavily dependent on Western economic and military assistance. Time might seem to be more on Russia’s side than Ukraine’s.

(…)

The invader is at an inherent disadvantage in the face of a strong nationalist sentiment. Putin has inadvertently turned the formerly divided and disgruntled inhabitants of Ukraine into the Ukrainian people. And wars of national liberation against declining empires are more often successful than not. That is why there aren’t many empires left.

(…)

Right now, Ukraine is not only fighting for its freedom; it’s a proxy for a US-led effort to weaken Russia (and perhaps also to deter China from similar aggression). The Ukrainian war effort is sustainable only thanks to large-scale military and financial aid from the US and its Anglosphere and European allies. At the same time, US-instigated sanctions (especially technology export controls) are driving the Russian economy and military back into the late 20th century.

(…)

If the US further increased its supply of precision weaponry to Ukraine and added tanks to the mix, the Russian positions in Kherson, Luhansk and Donetsk could probably be made unsustainable. Similarly, if the EU further increased its economic support for Ukraine, the risk of an inflationary crisis would recede.

There is a scenario — I would give it a 20% probability — that the Russian position in Ukraine now unravels. This is a largely colonial army, its best battalions severely depleted by six months of highly destructive warfare, its ranks replenished by raw recruits from impoverished provinces east of the Urals. Its morale is low. Such armies can be brought to a tipping point if they encounter well-armed, well-organized and well-motivated opponents. Defeat in land war is much less about killing enemy soldiers than getting them to surrender, flee or desert.

(…)

The war in Ukraine has now entered its seventh month. Most wars are shorter. Of 88 wars between states since 1816, nearly a quarter lasted less than two months and 38% between two and six months. Of the remaining 35, 12 were over within a further six months, seven lasted up to two years, 12 two to five years, and four more than five years.

In other words, a war that continues for six months has a roughly one-in-three chance of lasting no longer than a year in total, but an equal chance of lasting between two and five years. We should not forget the Korean War, the first “hot” war of Cold War I, which lasted three years and did not end with a conclusive peace agreement — merely an armistice.

The Ukrainian army may be winning. The Ukrainian economy is losing. As is typical in a war of this sort, the invaded country suffers a severe decline in output simply because productive land and assets are taken over by the enemy or destroyed. At the same time, one-third of Ukrainians have been displaced by the war; over 6.8 million have left the country and the rest are internally displaced. A large proportion have lost their jobs and homes.

Ukraine’s GDP shrank by 15.1% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022. In the second, it shrank by 37%. The overall annual contraction of output will be around 33%, according to government estimates. Unemployment is at Great Depression levels.

The total damage caused by the war to Ukrainian infrastructure and housing was estimated last week in a World Bank report at $97.4 billion. The same report estimates total losses from the shuttering of business at $252 billion.

(…)

Although the Ukrainian government has an ambitious plan for the reconstruction of the country (price tag: $750 billion), it needs much more modest sums right now simply to stay afloat. As Shmyhal put it, “Infrastructure needs to be rebuilt before the winter in order for people to survive — I mean this literally.”

In the familiar pattern of an economy at war, public spending has soared while tax and other revenues have collapsed. Tax revenue in Ukraine now covers just 40% of government spending. The Finance Ministry says it requires approximately $5 billion (2.5% of pre-war GDP) in foreign aid per month to cover nonmilitary spending. To date, however, Ukraine has received $17.5 billion in aid, roughly half of the amount pledged by international partners — and far short of the government’s needs.

The Europeans are the main culprits. The EU promised Ukraine 9 billion euros in budgetary support in May, but only about 1 billion has been disbursed. The National Bank of Ukraine has had to buy roughly $8.2 billion in war bonds as the government dares not try to sell new debt on the international market so soon after “reprofiling” (i.e. delaying payments for two years) its existing external debt. Inflation, which began the year at 10%, is now at 24% and rising. The central bank has raised interest rates to 25% but it has also been obliged to devalue the hryvnia by 25% against the dollar.

A recent paper published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research urges the government to raise tax revenue and to sell domestic debt rather than monetize it through the central bank. I heard nothing in Kyiv to suggest this advice is going to be heeded. In the words of the Swedish economist Anders Aslund, “The greatest immediate risk to the Ukrainian economy is that the EU does not deliver sufficient budget support soon enough.” In that case, he added, the Ukrainian government “will be forced to print money so that the current high inflation … proceeds to hyperinflation.”

(…)

Russia’s invasion force at the outset of the conflict numbered between 175,000 and 190,000, plus around 34,000 in separatist militias from the self-proclaimed Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics. Estimates of Russian casualties —killed and wounded — range widely. In August, the US and UK both put total Russian casualties at around 80,000. From this, Western analysts infer total deaths of 20,000 to 25,000. These figures include non-regular forces, such as the Donbas militias and mercenaries from the Wagner Group. The Russian casualty figures released by Ukraine are even higher. As of Sept. 1, Ukraine’s army reported killing over 48,000 Russian troops.

Western estimates imply a mortality rate of at least 9% to 12%. If Ukrainian claims are right, the figure is much higher: 25%-28%. These rates are staggeringly high by the standards of 20th- and 21st-century conflict. For example, US battle deaths in the Korean War amounted to 1.88% of the total force deployed there.

We know much less about Ukrainian military mortality. We should probably therefore assume that Ukrainian losses are on a similar scale to Russia’s.

Compare all these estimates to the death toll with the nine-year US war in Iraq, which saw 3,500 US soldiers killed in action and 32,000 wounded, or the US campaign in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, which cost the lives of over 2,000 American service personnel and left more than 20,000 wounded. In both cases, the fractions killed in action of total forces deployed were miniscule by the standards of today’s war in Ukraine.

Over 10 years, beginning at the end of 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan saw 15,000 Soviet soldiers killed and over 50,000 wounded. Russia may have suffered comparable casualties in just the first 10 weeks of this war.

(…)

Both sides urgently need to raise, arm and train additional forces. On Aug. 25, Putin ordered a 137,000-person increase in military personnel, raising the target number of active-duty service members to 1.15 million by January. Russia has also established new, highly paid “volunteer” battalions (400 men from each of Russia’s 85 regions). However, many of these new battalions and other units are undermanned. The Third Army Corps, now being sent to Ukraine, is one-third of its planned size. For reasons of domestic politics, Putin appears unwilling to risk proclaiming that this is a real war that necessitates general mobilization.

By contrast, Ukraine declared a general mobilization on Feb. 24 and currently has 700,000 troops across the military, national guard and territorial forces. Ukraine is no longer prioritizing fresh manpower, with Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov stating that the priority is now technical specialists rather than general recruits.

(…)

Meanwhile, Ukrainian morale could scarcely be higher. An August opinion survey found that 98% of Ukrainians believe their country will win the war. They are less willing today to give up on the idea of North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership than they were in April. Around 90% of Ukrainians either “strongly approve” or “somewhat approve” of Zelenskiy; 88% “strongly approve” of Ukraine’s military. Instead of weighing concessions, Ukraine’s leaders are openly discussing the liberation of Crimea to restore the pre-2014 borders, something 64% of Ukrainians believe is achievable by the end of the war.

(…)

Zelenskiy is right: The next three months will be crucial — though we should look even further ahead, beyond mid-December into January and February, usually the coldest months of the year in Ukraine. With the right military and financial assistance, Ukraine could celebrate the first anniversary of this war by driving Russia further back, if not all the way to the status quo ante of February 23, 2022. Without it, a winter of discontent will inevitably blow some of the stardust off the former entertainer turned war leader — and confront the Ukrainian people with the harsh reality that few struggles for national liberation have ever been won inside 12 months.

Between Lexington and Yorktown lay six long years.”

[balioc]

BALIOC’S READING LIST, 2021 EDITION

This list counts only published books, consumed in published-book format, that I read for the first time and finished.  No rereads, nothing abandoned halfway through, no Internet detritus of any kind, etc.  Also no children’s picture books.

1. Lies of the Beholder, Brandon Sanderson

2. Cthulhusattva, various (ed. Scott R. Jones)

3. The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy, Christopher Lasch

4. The Solitudes, John Crowley

5. On Safari in R'lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera, Elizabeth Bear

6. The Mask of Mirrors, M. A. Carrick

7. The Cult of Smart, Fredrik deBoer

8. A Russian Doll & Other Stories, Adolfo Bioy Casares

9. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character, Jonathan Shay

10. The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares

11. Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power, Anna Merlan

12. Bloodline, Will Wight

13. Lammas Night, Katherine Kurtz

14. Never Knew Another, J. M. McDermott

15. Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Anne Applebaum

16. When We Were Executioners, J. M. McDermott

17. The War on Normal People: The Truth About America's Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future, Andrew Yang

18. We Leave Together, J. M. McDermott

19. The House of Always, Jenn Lyon

20. The Assassins of Thasalon, Lois McMaster Bujold

21. Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Drew Karpyshyn

22. The Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, Tom Holland

23. The Maidens, Alex Michaelides

24. The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, Various (ed. Benedicta Ward)

25. Hawkwood's Sword, Christian Cameron

26. The Dying Earth, Jack Vance

27. The Eyes of the Overworld, Jack Vance

28. The Most Holy Trinosophia, the Comte de Saint Germain (ed. P. Manly Hall)

29. Cugel's Saga, Jack Vance

30. Rhialto the Marvellous, Jack Vance

31. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law, Mary Roach

32. Strange Beasts of China, Yan Ge

33. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance, Various (ed. George R. R. Martin & Garner Duzois)

34. The Dragon Waiting, John M. Ford

35. An Unclean Legacy, Jenna Moran

36. The Girl and the Stars, Mark Lawrence

37. The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Alexandre Dumas

38. Ten Years After, Alexandre Dumas

39. Louise de la Vallière, Alexandre Dumas

40. The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas

41. Reaper, Will Wight

42. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Grace Lin

43. Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV, Franz Funck-Brentano

44. The Moon and the Sun, Vonda N. McIntyre

45. The Liar's Knot, M. A. Carrick

46. The Last Graduate, Naomi Novik

47. Knot of Shadows, Lois McMaster Bujold

48. Jade Legacy, Fonda Lee

49. Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

50. Zadig; or, the Book of Fate, Voltaire

Plausible works of improving nonfiction consumed in 2021: 11

[“plausible” and “improving” are being defined very liberally here]

Works written by women consumed in 2021: 17

Works written by men consumed in 2021: 30

Works written by both men and women consumed in 2021: 3

Balioc's Choice Award, Fiction Division: An Unclean Legacy

>>>> Honorable Mention: The Dying Earth

Balioc’s Choice Award, Nonfiction Division: The Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

>>>> Honorable Mention: The Cult of Smart

Cultural Heritage Award For "Good Job Spending Many Hundreds of Pages Painstakingly Foreshadowing and Setting Up a Plot That Will Instantly and Dramatically Go Nowhere": The Vicomte de Bragelonne et al.

Cultural Heritage Award For "Some of You Guys are Pretty All Right, Some of You are Entirely Bonkers, But All of You Have Like 1000% More Integrity and Insight than Your Contemporary Counterparts": The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks

**********

Somehow, impressively, this year was even worse for my reading habits than 2020. I didn't read nearly enough -- you'll notice a lot of very short works on that already-pretty-damn-short book list -- and, overall, the stuff I did read was much too low-quality.

(I was seriously contemplating making a couple of snarky anti-awards this year. Some of those books were bad.)

Public transit really made a difference, man.

Anyway. Onwards and upwards. I'm guessing that 2022 may continue to be pretty rough, reading-wise, but...we will do better.

I continue to seek recommendations for Really Good Reading Material. Especially recommendations for Really Good nonfiction -- stuff in the "I now feel I know something substantial and important about the world" or "I now feel like I've been shown how to see things in a whole new light" categories. Excellent fiction is also great, of course, but I do have a small stack of plausibly-excellent fiction to which I haven't gotten yet (so that I could plow through easily-digestible trash, in many cases).

[bookmarkquotes]

'Is it music? ... This is not the important question. The important question is, is it interesting?' -Mark Applebaum | View more inspirational quotes at Jar of Quotes.

[antoine-roquentin]

As the virus seized the world last year, a new, epidemiological metaphor for bad information suggested itself. Dis- and misinformation were no longer exogenous toxins but contagious organisms, producing persuasion upon exposure as inevitably as cough or fever. In a perfect inversion of the language of digital-media hype, “going viral” was now a bad thing. In October, Anne Applebaum proclaimed in The Atlantic that Trump was a “super-spreader of disinformation.” A study earlier that month by researchers at Cornell found that 38 percent of the English-language “misinformation conversation” around COVID-19 involved some mention of Trump, making him, per the New York Times, “the largest driver of the ‘infodemic.’”

This finding resonated with earlier research suggesting that disinformation typically needs the support of political and media elites to spread widely. That is to say, the persuasiveness of information on social platforms depends on context. Propaganda doesn’t show up out of nowhere, and it doesn’t all work the same way. Ellul wrote of the necessary role of what he called “pre-propaganda”:

Direct propaganda, aimed at modifying opinions and attitudes, must be preceded by propaganda that is sociological in character, slow, general, seeking to create a climate, an atmosphere of favorable preliminary attitudes. No direct propaganda can be effective without pre-propaganda, which, without direct or noticeable aggression, is limited to creating ambiguities, reducing prejudices, and spreading images, apparently without purpose.

Another way of thinking about pre-propaganda is as the entire social, cultural, political, and historical context. In the United States, that context includes an idiosyncratic electoral process and a two-party system that has asymmetrically polarized toward a nativist, rhetorically anti-elite right wing. It also includes a libertarian social ethic, a “paranoid style,” an “indigenous American berserk,” a deeply irresponsible national broadcast media, disappearing local news, an entertainment industry that glorifies violence, a bloated military, massive income inequality, a history of brutal and intractable racism that has time and again shattered class consciousness, conspiratorial habits of mind, and themes of world-historical declension and redemption. The specific American situation was creating specific kinds of people long before the advent of tech platforms.

To take the whole environment into view, or as much of it as we can, is to see how preposterously insufficient it is to blame these platforms for the sad extremities of our national life, up to and including the riot on January 6. And yet, given the technological determinism of the disinformation discourse, is it any surprise that attorneys for some of the Capitol rioters are planning legal defenses that blame social-media companies?

Only certain types of people respond to certain types of propaganda in certain situations. The best reporting on QAnon, for example, has taken into account the conspiracy movement’s popularity among white evangelicals. The best reporting about vaccine and mask skepticism has taken into account the mosaic of experiences that form the American attitude toward the expertise of public-health authorities. There is nothing magically persuasive about social-media platforms; they are a new and important part of the picture, but far from the whole thing. Facebook, however much Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg might wish us to think so, is not the unmoved mover.

For anyone who has used Facebook recently, that should be obvious. Facebook is full of ugly memes and boring groups, ignorant arguments, sensational clickbait, products no one wants, and vestigial features no one cares about. And yet the people most alarmed about Facebook’s negative influence are those who complain the most about how bad a product Facebook is. The question is: Why do disinformation workers think they are the only ones who have noticed that Facebook stinks? Why should we suppose the rest of the world has been hypnotized by it? Why have we been so eager to accept Silicon Valley’s story about how easy we are to manipulate?

Within the knowledge-making professions there are some sympathetic structural explanations. Social scientists get funding for research projects that might show up in the news. Think tanks want to study quantifiable policy problems. Journalists strive to expose powerful hypocrites and create “impact.” Indeed, the tech platforms are so inept and so easily caught violating their own rules about verboten information that a generation of ambitious reporters has found an inexhaustible vein of hypocrisy through stories about disinformation leading to moderation. As a matter of policy, it’s much easier to focus on an adjustable algorithm than entrenched social conditions.

Yet professional incentives only go so far in explaining why the disinformation frame has become so dominant. Ellul dismissed a “common view of propaganda . . . that it is the work of a few evil men, seducers of the people.” He compared this simplistic story to midcentury studies of advertising “which regard the buyer as victim and prey.” Instead, he wrote, the propagandist and the propagandee make propaganda together.

One reason to grant Silicon Valley’s assumptions about our mechanistic persuadability is that it prevents us from thinking too hard about the role we play in taking up and believing the things we want to believe. It turns a huge question about the nature of democracy in the digital age—what if the people believe crazy things, and now everyone knows it?—into a technocratic negotiation between tech companies, media companies, think tanks, and universities.

But there is a deeper and related reason many critics of Big Tech are so quick to accept the technologist’s story about human persuadability. As the political scientist Yaron Ezrahi has noted, the public relies on scientific and technological demonstrations of political cause and effect because they sustain our belief in the rationality of democratic government.

Indeed, it’s possible that the Establishment needs the theater of social-media persuasion to build a political world that still makes sense, to explain Brexit and Trump and the loss of faith in the decaying institutions of the West. The ruptures that emerged across much of the democratic world five years ago called into question the basic assumptions of so many of the participants in this debate—the social-media executives, the scholars, the journalists, the think tankers, the pollsters. A common account of social media’s persuasive effects provides a convenient explanation for how so many people thought so wrongly at more or less the same time. More than that, it creates a world of persuasion that is legible and useful to capital—to advertisers, political consultants, media companies, and of course, to the tech platforms themselves. It is a model of cause and effect in which the information circulated by a few corporations has the total power to justify the beliefs and behaviors of the demos. In a way, this world is a kind of comfort. Easy to explain, easy to tweak, and easy to sell, it is a worthy successor to the unified vision of American life produced by twentieth-century television. It is not, as Mark Zuckerberg said, “a crazy idea.” Especially if we all believe it.

[olehswiftcomstock]

Sherry, Keepers, the rest, use all available weapon, including the best of phantoms, to eliminate (And in case of feasible conditions, flay them) referenced here people, also permanently lock their bank accounts, you can use those money to short already mentioned stocks or freeze them inside. Act on my behalf. This order can't be cancelled or edited. This is order.

List of Participants 2022

 

Achleitner, Paul M. (DEU), Former Chairman Supervisory Board, Deutsche Bank AG; Treasurer Bilderberg Meetings

Adeyemo, Adewale (USA), Deputy Secretary, Department of  The Treasury

Albares, José Manuel (ESP), Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation

Altman, Roger C. (USA), Founder and Senior Chairman, Evercore Inc.

Altman, Sam (USA), CEO, OpenAI

Applebaum, Anne (USA), Staff Writer, The Atlantic

Arnaut, José Luís (PRT), Managing Partner, CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut

Auken, Ida (DNK), Member of Parliament, The Social Democrat Party

Azoulay, Audrey (INT), Director-General, UNESCO

Baker, James H. (USA), Director, Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Barbizet, Patricia (FRA), Chairwoman and CEO, Temaris & Associés SAS

Barroso, José Manuel (PRT), Chairman, Goldman Sachs International LLC

Baudson, Valérie (FRA), CEO, Amundi

Beurden, Ben van (NLD), CEO, Shell plc

Bourla, Albert (USA), Chairman and CEO, Pfizer Inc.

Buberl, Thomas (FRA), CEO, AXA SA

Burns, William J. (USA), Director, CIA

Byrne, Thomas (IRL), Minister of State for European Affairs

Campbell, Kurt (USA), White House Coordinator for Indo-Pacific, NSC

Carney, Mark J. (CAN), Vice Chair, Brookfield Asset Management

Casado, Pablo (ESP), Former President, Partido Popular

Chhabra, Tarun (USA), Senior Director for Technology and National Security, National Security Council

Donohoe, Paschal (IRL), Minister for Finance; President, Eurogroup

Döpfner, Mathias (DEU), Chairman and CEO, Axel Springer SE

Dudley, William C. (USA), Senior Research Scholar, Princeton University

Easterly, Jen (USA), Director, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

Economy, Elizabeth (USA), Senior Advisor for China, Department of Commerce

Émié, Bernard (FRA), Director General, Ministry of the Armed Forces

Emond, Charles (CAN), CEO, CDPQ

Erdogan, Emre (TUR), Professor Political Science, Istanbul Bilgi University

Eriksen, Øyvind (NOR), President and CEO, Aker ASA

Ermotti, Sergio (CHE), Chairman, Swiss Re

Fanusie, Yaya (USA), Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security

Feltri, Stefano (ITA), Editor-in-Chief, Domani

Fleming, Jeremy (GBR), Director, British Government Communications Headquarters

Freeland, Chrystia (CAN), Deputy Prime Minister

Furtado, Isabel (PRT), CEO, TMG Automotive

Gove, Michael (GBR), Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Cabinet Office

Halberstadt, Victor (NLD), Co-Chair Bilderberg Meetings; Professor of Economics, Leiden University

Hallengren, Lena (SWE), Minister for Health and Social Affairs

Hamers, Ralph (NLD), CEO, UBS Group AG

Hassabis, Demis (GBR), CEO and Founder, DeepMind

Hedegaard, Connie (DNK), Chair, KR Foundation

Henry, Mary Kay (USA), International President, Service Employees International Union

Hobson, Mellody (USA), Co-CEO and President, Ariel Investments LLC

Hodges, Ben (USA), Pershing Chair in Strategic Studies, Center for European Policy Analysis

Hoekstra, Wopke (NLD), Minister of Foreign Affairs

Hoffman, Reid (USA), Co-Founder, Inflection AI; Partner, Greylock

Huët, Jean Marc (NLD), Chairman, Heineken NV

Joshi, Shashank (GBR), Defence Editor, The Economist

Karp, Alex (USA), CEO, Palantir Technologies Inc.

Kissinger, Henry A. (USA), Chairman, Kissinger Associates Inc.

Koç, Ömer (TUR), Chairman, Koç Holding AS

Kofman, Michael (USA), Director, Russia Studies Program, Center for Naval Analysis

Kostrzewa, Wojciech (POL), President, Polish Business Roundtable

Krasnik, Martin (DNK), Editor-in-Chief, Weekendavisen

Kravis, Henry R. (USA), Co-Chairman, KKR & Co. Inc.  

Kravis, Marie-Josée (USA), Co-Chair Bilderberg Meetings; Chair, The Museum of Modern Art

Kudelski, André (CHE), Chairman and CEO, Kudelski Group SA

Kukies, Jörg (DEU), State Secretary, Chancellery

Lammy, David (GBR), Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, House of Commons

LeCun, Yann (USA), Vice-President and Chief AI Scientist, Facebook, Inc.

Leu, Livia (CHE), State Secretary, Federal Department of Foreign Affairs

Leysen, Thomas (BEL), Chairman, Umicore and Mediahuis; Chairman DSM N.V.

Liikanen, Erkki (FIN), Chairman, IFRS  Foundation Trustees

Little, Mark (CAN), President and CEO, Suncor Energy Inc.

Looney, Bernard (GBR), CEO, BP plc

Lundstedt, Martin (SWE), CEO and President, Volvo Group

Lütke, Tobias (CAN), CEO, Shopify

Marin, Sanna (FIN), Prime Minister

Markarowa, Oksana (UKR), Ambassador of Ukraine to the US

Meinl-Reisinger, Beate (AUT), Party Leader, NEOS

Michel, Charles (INT), President, European Council

Minton Beddoes, Zanny (GBR), Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

Mullen, Michael (USA), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Mundie, Craig J. (USA), President, Mundie & Associates LLC

Netherlands, H.M. the King of the (NLD)

Niemi, Kaius (FIN), Senior Editor-in-Chief, Helsingin Sanomat Newspaper

Núñez, Carlos (ESP), Executive Chairman, PRISA Media

O'Leary, Michael (IRL), Group CEO, Ryanair Group

Papalexopoulos, Dimitri (GRC), Chairman, TITAN Cement Group

Petraeus, David H. (USA), Chairman, KKR Global Institute

Pierrakakis, Kyriakos (GRC), Minister of Digital Governance

Pinho, Ana (PRT), President and CEO, Serralves Foundation

Pouyanné, Patrick (FRA), Chairman and CEO, TotalEnergies SE

Rachman, Gideon (GBR), Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, The Financial Times

Raimondo, Gina M. (USA), Secretary of Commerce

Reksten Skaugen, Grace (NOR), Board Member, Investor AB

Rende, Mithat (TUR), Member of the Board, TSKB

Reynders, Didier (INT), European Commissioner for Justice

Rutte, Mark (NLD), Prime Minister

Salvi, Diogo (PRT), Co-Founder and CEO, TIMWE

Sawers, John (GBR), Executive Chairman, Newbridge Advisory Ltd.

Schadlow, Nadia (USA), Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute

Schinas, Margaritis (INT), Vice President, European Commission

Schmidt, Eric E. (USA), Former CEO and Chairman, Google LLC

Scott, Kevin (USA), CTO, Microsoft Corporation

Sebastião, Nuno (PRT), CEO, Feedzai

Sedwill, Mark (GBR), Chairman, Atlantic Futures Forum

Sikorski, Radoslaw (POL), MEP, European Parliament

Sinema, Kyrsten (USA), Senator

Starace, Francesco (ITA), CEO, Enel S.p.A.

Stelzenmüller, Constanze (DEU), Fritz Stern Chair, The Brookings Institution

Stoltenberg, Jens (INT), Secretary General, NATO

Straeten, Tinne Van der (BEL), Minister for Energy

Suleyman, Mustafa (GBR), CEO, Inflection AI

Sullivan, Jake (USA), Director, National Security Council

Tellis, Ashley J. (USA), Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs, Carnegie Endowment

Thiel, Peter (USA), President, Thiel Capital LLC

Treichl, Andreas (AUT), President, Chairman ERSTE Foundation

Tugendhat, Tom (GBR), MP; Chair Foreign Affairs Committee, House of Commons

Veremis, Markos (GRC), Co-Founder and Chairman, Upstream

Vitrenko, Yuriy (UKR), CEO, Naftogaz

Wallander, Celeste (USA), Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs

Wallenberg, Marcus (SWE), Chair, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB

Walmsley, Emma (GBR), CEO, GlaxoSmithKline plc

Wennink, Peter (NLD), President and CEO, ASML Holding NV

Yetkin, Murat (TUR), Journalist/Writer, YetkinReport

Yurdakul, Afsin (TUR), Journalist, Habertürk News Network

Zeiler, Gerhard (AUT), President Warnermedia International

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Have you read Anne Applebaum’s new book The Twilight of Democracy? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts as a Brit living and working in Europe about how she writes about the schism in conservatism around democracy in the post 1989 era.

I must thank you for dropping this question because I would not have got around to finishing this book if I hadn’t been prompted by your question. I was sent The Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends some time ago by a good friend of mine who works as a newspaper foreign correspondent and knows Anne Applebaum well. I don’t know her but I have read a few of her journalistic pieces over the years when she was with the Economist and the Spectator.

I also read her harrowing book The Gulag: A history (2003). Applebaum's account of the Gulag was majestic and full of pathos. Almost 40 years after Robert Conquest's classic, The Great Terror (1968), she brought the terrible history of the Soviet camps to life again. She made brilliant use of Gulag and secret police archives to write a compelling history of how cruel and evil the Soviet system really was. Her book is one of the most vivid histories we have of a system - "the meat grinder", Russians called it - that marked or destroyed the lives of millions.

So it was with trepidation I approached this latest book because it’s dealing with weighty stuff. It’s partly a brilliant political reportage, partly a Central European-style psychodrama, partly a political analysis, and partly a personal diary. It is also a postscript to a distinct epoch when the Berlin Wall comes down and we enter the post-Cold War. The story Applebaum tells is that of the death of anti-communism as the public philosophy of the West. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union wasn’t only America’s principal military adversary but also its ideological and moral “other.” Both left and right in America and Western Europe defended their competing visions of a liberal society in reaction to the Stalinist nightmare. But in the absence of the Red Menace both the left and the right turned on liberalism and that continues today with Trump in America, Brexit and the EU, and Victor Orban in Hungary.

I cowardly put it near the back of my reading queue because I already reading more than a few weighty tomes (mostly history and literature books) and I didn’t want my senses to be overloaded. I typically have fifteen books on the go and I travel with four whenever I’m stuck in a business class lounge or in a hotel room and so I can switch according to my mood. With Applebaum’s book I also wanted to take notes and so I took my time with it. I’ve finished it but I’m still processing my thoughts on it. I hope to write up a book review as part of my on going Treat Your S(h)elf post in my blog. So don’t hold your breath.

I’m glad that I’ve read it, but it’s a haunting book, that’s for sure. It’s a potent, and somewhat apocalyptic, reminder that democracies are only as strong as the people who live in them, that there is nothing about them that is ontologically strong and secure. In order to continue to function as they should, they require buy-in and maintenance and support and, above all, faith. Without those things they are subject to corrosion and destruction from within.

I love how she mixes the personal with the political because Applebaum as a Yale and Oxford educated historian and journalist, and as someone who is married to then Polish deputy foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, was as connected as anyone in the 1990s and 2000s to both liberal and conservative wings in Western democracies.

It’s a great opening to start at a soirée of the great and the good to see the dramatic scene.

On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Applebaum and her husband Radek Sikorski, who was then Poland’s deputy foreign minister, hosted what sounded like a really great party. Their home was filled with American and British journalists, Polish dignitaries, and some of their neighbours. Applebaum characterises them as representatives of “the right,” which at the time meant something vastly different from what it means today. They were staunch anti-communists in the Thatcherite tradition, who were optimistic about Poland’s embrace of democracy and free markets. The gathering was held at an old manor house that had been abandoned in 1945 by its previous owners, who had fled from the advancing Red Army. It turns out Sikorski’s family had purchased and renovated the dilapidated house, making it the perfect metaphor for a nation rising from decades of oppression at the hands of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the friendships and the optimism that animated that celebration have largely evaporated in the past 20 years or so. According to Applebaum, “Nearly two decades later, I would now cross the street to avoid some of the people who were at my New Year’s Eve party. They, in turn, would not only refuse to enter my house, they would be embarrassed to admit they had ever been there.”  

Many of her Polish friends, colleagues, and acquaintances have abandoned their belief in classical liberalism and embraced an illiberal right-wing authoritarianism that sees democracy as flawed and free markets as rigged by elites. She maintains that the bitter political divisions that developed among those who attended this party in Poland are similar to those now found in many countries today, including Hungary, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and the United States.

“Were some of our friends always closet authoritarians?” Applebaum wonders. “Or have the people with whom we clinked glasses in the first minutes of the new millennium somehow changed over the subsequent two decades?” The book is an admirable quest for answers and goes a long way toward providing them. 

Applebaum identifies several factors that have contributed to the rise of twenty-first-century illiberal movements, often using personal anecdotes to illustrate her points. She is not then particularly concerned with theories, nor is she attempting to offer a grand thesis about the phenomenon. She makes a few passing references to the ideas of Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno among others, and relies on the work of a behavioural economist, Karen Stenner, to point out that about a third of the world’s population simply has an authoritarian disposition that makes them deeply suspicious of views different from their own.

Indeed throughout the book, Applebaum is as concerned with people as she is with processes, in that she often focuses on the individuals whose choices and political actions have led to the current state of affairs. There’s a potent truth here, for it’s a fact that no authoritarian is able to rise to power without having the support of at least some of those in positions of cultural authority to buy in, what Applebaum, following in the footsteps of Julien Benda’s classic 1927 book, The Treason of the Intellectuals, refers to these sycophants as clercs. These are the people who make authoritarianism palatable to the masses, whether through their positions in powerful media or by distorting museum exhibits to support a dominant agenda (which has happened in Hungary).

Applebaum helps us better understand the disturbing increase in division, the roiling anger, the willingness to discard democracy by not just the elites but also the masses and especially the populists. It used to be we understood revolution by charting the inequality and desperate poverty that led to them, but in Hungary, Poland, Spain, the UK, and in the United States, while many may be hungry few are starving. And those in the streets of London and Washington are hardly destitute.

Applebaum writes, “They have food and shelter. They are literate. If we describe them as ‘poor’ or ‘deprived,’ it is sometimes because they lack things that human beings couldn’t dream of a century ago, like air-conditioning or Wi-Fi. In this new world, it may be that big, ideological changes are not caused by bread shortages but by new kinds of disruptions. These new revolutions may not even look like the old revolutions at all. In a world where most political debate takes place online or on television, you don’t need to go out on the street and wave a banner to assert your allegiance. In order to manifest a sharp change in political affiliation, all you have to do is switch channels, turn to a different website every morning, or start following a different group of people on social media.”

Applebaum is a very good writer; her style is lucid, and her arguments are bracing. This has made her one of the most powerful voices of the anti-populist resistance. But the strength of her new book is not so much in exposing the authoritarian nature of populists in power but in revealing the intellectual hollowness of the anti-communist consensus. I didn’t find myself agreeing to everything in the book because it’s not always easy to compare apples to oranges when one looks at the USA, Britain, Europe, and Eastern Europe. Culture and history gets in the way of easy generalisations.

Overall, this book is, at least my first impressions, something of an intellectual call to arms. It reaches out to each of us, asking us to do our part to ensure that democracy doesn’t go the way of so many other failed political systems. As she reminds us near the end of the book: “no political victory is ever permanent, no definition of ‘the nation’ is guaranteed to last, and no elite of any kind […] rules forever.” There’s something more than a little terrifying about the idea that history is one long cycle, that every political victory must be re-fought again and again and again. But such, alas, is the nature of modernity.

Thanks for your question.