The Cosmopolicast

In Part I of this essay, French foreign policy and security specialist Nicolas Tenzer begged France to weigh the implications of its alliances more carefully. Today, he explains his recommendations in detail.

We recorded this podcast last weekend. Since then, Russia has escalated its brinkmanship in and around Ukraine, and Czech authorities have expelled 18 Russian diplomats identified as operatives of the SVR and GRU. The Czech Republic holds them responsible for the 2014 blast at an ammunition depot, in the village of Vrbetice, which killed two Czech citizens. Czech police are seeking, in particular, the operatives who in 2018 tried to poison Sergei Skripal and his daughter with the nerve agent Novichok, in Salisbury. Czech officials have asked their allies to expel Russian diplomats in solidarity. We are waiting to see if they do.

In the past week, we’ve also received reports that Navalny is near death. Yesterday, the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote, “Navalny’s life is in Putin’s hands right now. If Putin allows Navalny to die in prison, no believer in human rights—no believer in right and wrong—should ever meet with Putin again. Period.”

The gravamen of Tenzer’s case lies in his response. “I fully agree with you, Mike,” he wrote. “But should world leaders have met with Putin and shaked his hand after the war crimes he committed in Syria, where he deliberately killed more civilians than ISIS?”

This podcast will be of special interest to those who wonder how French foreign policy is made and which institutions must be strengthened—or created—to put it on a more consistent footing. We meant only to record a brief introduction to this essay, but found ourselves having such an interesting conversation that we kept talking for nearly an hour.

Part I is here.

By Nicolas Tenzer

Paris

Alliances require a common narrative, and France can play a leadership role in these alliances if it is a principled power. In speeches before the UN General Assembly in September 2017 and September 2018, Emmanuel Macron invoked his support of people who are fighting for their freedom. He did so again recently, in Lithuania, supporting Belarusian demonstrators. He made the case for the universality of human rights, and took a clear stand against moral relativism and those who see these rights as a merely Western notion. These speeches lifted spirits, and particularly, the spirits of those in France who supported him because they share these values.

But Macron’s verbal blunders, and his deviations from the very principles he has articulated, have been dismaying. He condemned in no uncertain terms Assad’s crimes against humanity, but his actions against the regime in Damascus were limited. At first, he portrayed Russia as a partner in Syria, particularly in discussions of humanitarian relief, despite Russia’s war crimes and Putin’s unyielding support for Assad. His hopes for Russia’s cooperation have been, predictability, doused in cold water. He also suggested that Moscow, through the OSCE, could be a partner in resolving the crisis in Belarus, despite Moscow’s aid to the Lukashenko regime and the Kremlin’s control of Belarusian state media. Again, he was forced to abandon this unrealistic position.

Macron’s recent interview with CBS, broadcast on April 18, illustrates the predilection for equivocation that characterizes his foreign policy. It was marked by his signature phrase “en même temps,” meaning “at the same time,” which he used extensively during his 2017 presidential campaign. (France must have social solidarity and, en même temps, a free market; the state must be interventionist and, en même temps, embrace free enterprise; France must be tolerant and, en même temps, fearless in affirming its values.)

In the CBS interview, he properly called for a firm discourse toward Russia in the face of its massive deployment of troops to the Ukrainian border and within Ukraine, in the Donbass and Crimea, which has been illegally annexed since 2014. He advocated new sanctions, which is the proper stance. He even went so far as to speak of “red lines.” He did not specify these red lines, however, presumably to preserve strategic ambiguity or to avoid seeing them promptly flouted, as in Syria. En même temps, he called for discussions with Putin’s regime, even though these have never led to anything but the weakening of our position, and there is no reason to think this reality has changed.

More surprisingly, Macron accused others of naïveté about the Russian regime. He intimated that he had not been naïve, but other countries, which he did not name, had suffered from this affliction. Obviously, the term naïve might, charitably, describe such EU member states as Germany, Italy, Austria, and in particular Hungary. But most of our allies in Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Nordic countries would respond that the term applies in equal measure (and with equal charity) to France. One wonders, too, whether the Kremlin, as the French president again implied, can truly contribute to the resolution of crises—from Syria to Belarus, from Ukraine to any number of African countries—when it has been the main instigator of these crises. In any event, Macron’s plan for a new “architecture of security and trust” with Russia, whatever that meant, is now dead—fortunately.

Contradicting his speeches at the UN, Macron has criticized “the fetishization of human rights.” He was slow to condemn the atrocities perpetrated by Beijing against the Uighurs, even if he did ultimately do so, and firmly. He offered only weak support to Hong Kong’s democracy activists. The asylum he offered to refugees was timid compared with Germany’s.

He spoke firmly to President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi about human rights during his January 2019 visit to Egypt. He put all his weight behind the campaign for Oleg Sentsov’s release, too. But since then, he appears to have lost ideological coherence. In December 2020, Sisi was awarded France’s highest distinction, the Grand-Croix of the Légion d’Honneur. This is a customary protocol on state visits, but human rights activists were outraged. Macron’s sincere support for the Belarusian opposition wasn’t accompanied by financial support to these figures or by support to Belarusian civil society organizations, free media, and universities. Nor did France provide asylum to Belarusian activists and students as publicly as Lithuania and Poland did.

He has at times returned to the path of moral coherency, as during his speech to the UN on September 22, 2020, but his speeches have not led to the actions one might expect. Even his rhetoric is sometimes subtly off. For example, he properly condemned Azeri aggression and Turkish support for it in Nagorno-Karabakh, but he missed the opportunity to condemn the use of prohibited weapons. France joined the rest of the world in acquiescing to Russia’s insertion of troops into both Armenia and Azerbaijan. It had no real choice: During the final months of the Trump Administration, Washington was missing in action, and without US involvement, it was impossible to prevent this outcome. But rhetoric still matters. Echoing the Minsk Group, France condemned the arrival of Syrian fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh. But these were mercenaries, properly speaking, not jihadis; by calling them “jihadis,” France mimicked the rhetoric of the Russian and Syrian regimes. This rhetoric is a major source of concern in its own right, and especially rich coming from the Kremlin, given its surpassing responsibility for the Syrian chaos.

The President’s north star in foreign policy, his most significant impulse, has been his engagement with Europe. Engaging with Europe, however, demands restoring the coherency of his impulses. He must grasp that the plight of the Belarusian people, of Russian and Chinese dissidents, of demonstrators in Hong Kong, and in Lebanon (where Macron did clearly take the side of the demonstrators against the entrenched political elites) are all aspects of the same struggle, despite the great diversity of these situations.

Some argue that no foreign policy can be entirely coherent. Tactical alliances, they hold, despite the challenge they pose to black-and-white thinking, are necessary; the demand for consistency is a straitjacket, and foreign policy requires room to maneuver. But while this pragmatic attitude has solid support in history, is it still relevant? Set aside, arguendo, economic and commercial considerations. If we can’t bring ourselves to criticize friendly countries, or ones that are in some way useful to us (the Gulf States, who are our allies against Iran, the region’s worst threat, come to mind) in the same way we do our adversaries, we give the impression of inconsistency and hypocrisy.

Why does this matter? It is indispensable now to have consistent principles, and to be seen to have them, for three reasons. First, without them, we cannot draw the public’s attention to the behavior of rogue states. The public’s support is a prerequisite to any legitimate action in the world, an imperative that increases as the legitimacy of governments declines.

Second, in Europe, law and power are intrinsically linked. We cannot move toward a more powerful Europe without justifying this development in the law.

Finally, even though these dictatorships and criminal regimes compete with one another, they form a grouping of historically and territorially revisionist powers, a revisionist Internationale. Indeed, their revisionism is an instrument of war—hybrid war, in the term of art—against those who stand against them seeking freedom. We see it at work from Syria to Belarus, from Venezuela to Myanmar. Those seeking freedom compose another international grouping; we may call them an Internationale of liberty.

In the face of these major international threats, the French president must raise the public’s awareness. These debates cannot remain on the margins of politics. It is a welcome sign that elected officials are growingly engaged with significant international issues, from Belarus to Chinese internment camps to the defense of Hong Kong’s special status to human rights violations in Iran. This attention is all the more essential because states hostile to freedom are waging war against democratic norms on our own soil; they shape public opinion by supporting movements that create disorder, stir up trouble, and promote the most extreme parties.

Rediscovering the Reality Principle

Crisis has prompted the French president to rediscover the Reality Principle, as he himself recognized when he spoke of “the tragedy of history.” Contrary to the idealistic notion that the threat of authoritarian regimes may be made to disappear, either by negotiation or through economic development (development has become a fetish, too, one often contradicted by the evidence), realism consists in recognizing the severity of threats and giving oneself ample means to fight them. For French policy, this means changing the software in four key respects.

First, in the conduct of diplomacy, we must grasp that the regime is always more important than the state, and its actions now more important than ancient history. If a head of state seeks to grasp reality, he or she must first understand the dynamics and the specific ideology of regimes—a point we have understood since Aron. Russia does not exist, in the abstract, on the international scene, without Putin’s regime. Nor does China exist without the regime of Xi Jinping, nor Turkey without Erdoğan’s regime. Invoking the great figures of Russian literature or music, the thousand-year-old civilization of China, or the splendors of Isfahan is of little use when dealing with the dangers posed today by Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran. It serves merely to reproduce the rhetoric of these regimes.

If a regime’s actions are hostile, we must strengthen the forces opposed to it, particularly the political opposition. We must do so not merely because our principles demand it, but because it is in our interest to do so. We must, especially, do much more to assist the political groups, NGOs, and media who are fighting for freedom. This may include supporting countries, recognized or unrecognized, and particularly Taiwan, which deserves much more of our solidarity because, for now, it is the only democratic China. In today’s international landscape, politics must take precedence over geographic and historical considerations. We cannot accept the old notion of great power politics, wherein the most powerful nations are worth more than the “small nations” Milan Kundera described. In the same spirit, we must support Kyiv, attacked by Moscow; and Taipei, threatened by Beijing, without the rhetorical deflection to “both sides” typical of our diplomatic language. Here, as elsewhere, Europe must not seek a so-called balance.

Second, we must beware the trap of believing that our adversaries are as rational as we are. We tend to equate rationality with interests. But interests are not merely material, economic, or linked to a certain geopolitical disposition. They include values—another point Aron emphasized half a century ago. Our values include peace, law, justice, freedom, and democracy. Some regimes share none of these values; they exploit multilateral organizations and wage propaganda wars—if not outright wars—within democracies so better to besmirch these values and render them obsolete.

Our hierarchy of interests is not theirs; striving to hold discussions with them based on our shared sense of rationality is not only senseless, but diplomatically futile. We must grasp how they perceive their interests accurately if we wish our inducements and our sanctions to work.

The illusion of stability

Third, we must be vigilant against the temptation to focus on so-called stability and prioritize what has been termed an “eradicationist” policy. Short-term stability can endanger longer-term stability, especially when it leads us to support dictatorships that are doomed eventually to collapse under the weight of popular pressure. The pursuit of stability above all tends to establish a peace that enshrines domination and subjugation, or freezes a conflict in place. It is thus neither truly peaceful nor stable. For very different reasons, it would not be stabilizing to reach an agreement on the Donbass that rewards Russian aggression, nor one that acquiesces to Assad’s seizure of Idlib, nor one that accedes to the the domination of Libya by Haftar’s forces. Ending a conflict is not a goal in and of itself.

In all these cases, a peace of this kind would legitimize the victory of a large, hostile state. This would be to the detriment, in Ukraine’s case, of a smaller country struggling for freedom and integrity. It would be to the detriment, in Syria, of international criminal law, for it would make it even more difficult to bring Assad, who has committed crimes against humanity, to trial. It would be to the detriment, in Libya and Syria alike, of real security in the longer term.

Essential though the fight against all forms of terrorism may be, an eradicationist policy cannot replace foreign policy or the reform of existing governments. Assad’s objective alliance with terrorist movements has been demonstrated; his utter destruction of Syria is a godsend for the terrorist groups of tomorrow; beyond that, the limits of eradicationist policy in Algeria, in the Tunisia of Ben Ali, and today, in Sisi’s Egypt, are clear. If we adopt the discourse of the dictators of these countries, in whose lights the choice is between tyranny and Islamist terrorism, and who have translated this discourse into the repression, above all, of democratic movements, we will have lost everything—our principles and our security alike. In the Sahel, and particularly in Mali, an eradicationist policy is a tool exploited by ineffective incumbent governments to stay in power. It doesn’t necessarily improve our long-term security, nor our understanding of the local landscape.

The fourth rule concerns the destiny of Europe. In the past, we failed to think of Europe as a power; we saw it, according to a rather French doctrine, as a balance of power. Now that the desire to endow Europe with the attributes of a power has become widespread, some continue to seek a balance of power—an antique notion whose relevance to the contemporary world remains to be demonstrated. Proponents of this idea believe Europe should not only ensure a balance of power between the United States and China, but act as a mediator in any conflict between the largest powers, be they in Europe itself, or the Middle East, or even in Asia. Sometimes, this geography-enchanted vision—which is strategically incoherent under current conditions—places Russia in Europe. It’s a vision in which the European Union practices a kind of subtle equidistance so better to ease conflicts and contribute to a more stable international order. Somehow, according to this vision, the EU should practice a mix of commitment and neutrality. But any Europe that means to be a power in its own right must respect two principles that contradict this idea of a balance of power.

Defining its own path

The first principle is respect for alliances, both within Europe and outside of it. Solidarity always trumps neutrality.

The second takes the form of an affirmation: Europe does not need to define itself “in relation to” anyone, and it doesn’t need an internal balance of power. It defines itself in relation to its principles and it acts accordingly. In particular, Europe does not have to define itself in relation to the United States. It need not seek distance from the United States on principle. It should seek convergence with Washington when it is in line with Europe’s security interests, especially in the face of the systemic dangers posed by Moscow and Beijing today. It should express difference only if it genuinely disagrees.

It is critical that France retain the ability to define its own path without compromising its principles, and it is in this context that we should assess Emmanuel Macron’s call for European strategic autonomy. He may envision this as a hedge against the risk of the withdrawal of the United States. In the best-case scenario, he may envision it as a path to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance.

Had Trump been re-elected, and had he demonstrated, as expected, increased subservience toward Putin—up to and including withdrawing the United States from NATO—Europe would have had to transform the alliance into a European organization. It is very far from being one. With Biden’s election, we must gratefully consider the Atlantic Alliance our only true bulwark against threats and strengthen it. It will be a long time before Europe is able to offer security guarantees as powerful as Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. France must invest more thought, and also determination, to mitigate the risk of the “brain death” of the Alliance.

If European strategic autonomy emerges, it may involve something beyond NATO, which remains a purely defensive alliance. The value of strategic autonomy could be imagined, for example, by recalling our situation in 2013, when Barack Obama refused to enforce his red lines in Syria following the chemical attacks on Ghouta. Had Europe some form of strategic autonomy, it could have intervened alone. This counterfactual serves to illustrate the positive potential of the term. But for its defense, Europe will continue to rely on NATO, whatever its future form.

Here we return to the question of timescales. We must have a long-term vision for strengthening, one way or another, our ability to defend ourselves. Structures are less important in this than capacity, and rhetoric less important than resolve. We can imagine a future in which Europe is reconciled with a more democratic Russia; indeed, this is devoutly to be hoped. But this prospect, by definition uncertain and even chimerical, must not distract us from the immediate tasks before us, nor from scenarios that are alas more likely and their implications for our defense. Still less should such pleasant chimeras lead us to join the rhetorical chorus of our adversaries and weaken our alliances.  

Nicolas Tenzer is a senior French civil servant and the founding president of the Paris-based independent think tank, Centre d’étude et de réflexion pour l’Action politique (Center for Study and Research for Political Decision). An expert and author on foreign policy and security, he has written three official reports for the French government. He is a guest professor at Sciences-Po Paris.

This essay is based upon a French original published in The Conversation.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

Henry signed off after the Cosmopolitan Globalists finished recording the China Cosmopolicast. (If you haven’t yet listened to that, we highly recommend it; it’s the best so far, except maybe for the Russia Cosmopolicast.)

But Adam, Monique, Vivek, and Claire hung around a while longer to chat. We assumed we were done recording, so we were very relaxed. We’d planned just to throw the last part out, but when we listened to it, we liked it. So we decided to release it as a bonus. If you’ve ever wondered what Cosmopolitan Globalists say when they think no one’s listening, here’s your chance.

Claire: Is it really fair, Adam, to say Americans were jackal imperialists in China?

Adam: You bet.

Claire: Oh.

Adam: When you get the Chinese in their cups, they’ll tell you about the days before the nuclear tests at Lop Nur. They were utterly humiliated knowing the US could annihilate them and they could do nothing about it. It still gnaws at them. Vivek, I’d worry if I were you. If China can’t get its hands on Taiwan, it’s apt to take out its frustration on India.

Vivek: I totally agree. India has neglected its military. The problem with India is that it’s like the US. It’s a fractious, querulous democracy where it’s impossible to get a consensus—even about questions like, “Ought we to defend ourselves?”

Adam tells us a terrifying story about things people in the extremities of the American military have said, in private, about China and India. We find it so horrifying we can’t quite believe it, but as Adam remarks, Americans have gone crazy.

Oy, vey.

Claire: Wow.

Adam: It’s the Zeitgeist.

Claire: Yeah. The crazy is wafting across the Atlantic. You can smell it. But I still can’t quite believe 75 million Americans voted for more of the crazy.

Adam: I know. And the woke left is absolutely nuts too.

Claire: Out of their everloving gourds! Crazy all around.

Adam: But most Americans are actually still sane. It’s the activist wings of the parties that are stark-staring nuts. It’s our clickbait media that causes everyone believe that everyone else has gone insane.

Claire seizes upon this opportunity to promote the Cosmopolitan Globalist.

(Claire—didn’t mention it during the podcast, but I should have. I recently heard a presentation by Katherine Gehl, of whom I knew nothing. She spoke for fifteen minutes, then fielded questions, and by the end, I was sold. I think she’s right. The change she’s suggesting—a variant on ranked-choice voting—would make a big difference to American politics. The TED talk below seems to be a variation of that presentation, but aimed at kindergarteners. I liked the adult version better. Here’s the book on which the talk is based.)

Adam and Claire explain the phrase garnisht mit garnisht (and the synoptic, syncretic Bagel) to Vivek and Monique.

Claire: Is Trump the first Westerner in history to be quite so hallucinogenic in his indignity?

Monique: Berlusconi.

All: Yes, Berlusconi.

Monique: Italian politics are horrifying. But then there’s the pilgrimage route. The Via Francigena runs behind my house. Through the verdant green hills of Sienna. Sometimes I think of going back to Canada, but how could I leave this?

(We briefly discuss the relevance of Book VIII of Plato’s Republic to Silvio Berlusconi.)

Adam: Let’s have Cosmopolicast in which we discuss spectacle, literacy, and American dysfunction.

All: We’re completely enthusiastic about the idea.

We discuss the spread of le cheesecake to Paris. Is there such a thing as boxed French wine? Adam says yes. Claire says no.

Claire: Will the world ever recover from the pandemic?

Adam: Yes, unless there’s another zoonotic epidemic, which is likely, because we keep encroaching on all the places where viruses marinate.

(He has an idea about what to do about this, however.)

Adam: Both parties are a trainwreck …

—Academia’s devolved into a clown show!

—The humanities are in the trash!

—Our think tanks are venal and corrupt!

—No one thinks!

—Oy, vey.

People don’t read anymore, Claire and Adam worry. This is very serious. It’s the root of the rise of the childish, black-and-white thinking, and the inability to grasp nuance. What will happen when people can no longer read at all?

Claire: How do you even have a legal system if people can’t read?

We agree we must devote a whole podcast to this topic.

Adam is worried we’re losing the most important ideas of the Enlightenment, including the notion that positive-sum relationships are possible and desirable. “If we lose the gossamer thread of the positive sum,” he says, “not one of our institutions is sustainable. Not one.”

—Yep.

—It’ll be Lord of the Flies …

Oy, vey.

Here’s the article, “The Darkening Mind,” in which Adam expands upon the points he makes in the podcast. It’s outstanding, actually. I hadn’t read it before. If you found the aftercast interesting, do read it.

And here’s Adam’s article about the loss of deep literacy.

(Together, I think they offer much more than any podcast could—they’re written, you see. But you tell us. The aftercast versus the articles. Which one did you find more valuable?)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

Henry signed off after the Cosmopolitan Globalists finished recording the China Cosmopolicast. (If you haven’t yet listened to that, we highly recommend it; it’s the best so far, except maybe for the Russia Cosmopolicast.)

But Adam, Monique, Vivek, and Claire hung around a while longer to chat. We assumed we were done recording, so we were very relaxed. We’d planned just to throw the last part out, but when we listened to it, we liked it. So we decided to release it as a bonus. If you’ve ever wondered what Cosmopolitan Globalists say when they think no one’s listening, here’s your chance.

Claire: Is it really fair, Adam, to say Americans were jackal imperialists in China?

Adam: You bet.

Claire: Oh.

Adam: When you get the Chinese in their cups, they’ll tell you about the days before the nuclear tests at Lop Nur. They were utterly humiliated knowing the US could annihilate them and they could do nothing about it. It still gnaws at them. Vivek, I’d worry if I were you. If China can’t get its hands on Taiwan, it’s apt to take out its frustration on India.

Vivek: I totally agree. India has neglected its military. The problem with India is that it’s like the US. It’s a fractious, querulous democracy where it’s impossible to get a consensus—even about questions like, “Ought we to defend ourselves?”

Adam tells us a terrifying story about things people in the extremities of the American military have said, in private, about China and India. We find it so horrifying we can’t quite believe it, but as Adam remarks, Americans have gone crazy.

Oy, vey.

Claire: Wow.

Adam: It’s the Zeitgeist.

Claire: Yeah. The crazy is wafting across the Atlantic. You can smell it. But I still can’t quite believe 75 million Americans voted for more of the crazy.

Adam: I know. And the woke left is absolutely nuts too.

Claire: Out of their everloving gourds! Crazy all around.

Adam: But most Americans are actually still sane. It’s the activist wings of the parties that are stark-staring nuts. It’s our clickbait media that causes everyone believe that everyone else has gone insane.

Claire seizes upon this opportunity to promote the Cosmopolitan Globalist.

(Claire—didn’t mention it during the podcast, but I should have. I recently heard a presentation by Katherine Gehl, of whom I knew nothing. She spoke for fifteen minutes, then fielded questions, and by the end, I was sold. I think she’s right. The change she’s suggesting—a variant on ranked-choice voting—would make a big difference to American politics. The TED talk below seems to be a variation of that presentation, but aimed at kindergarteners. I liked the adult version better. Here’s the book on which the talk is based.)

Adam and Claire explain the phrase garnisht mit garnisht (and the synoptic, syncretic Bagel) to Vivek and Monique.

Claire: Is Trump the first Westerner in history to be quite so hallucinogenic in his indignity?

Monique: Berlusconi.

All: Yes, Berlusconi.

Monique: Italian politics are horrifying. But then there’s the pilgrimage route. The Via Francigena runs behind my house. Through the verdant green hills of Sienna. Sometimes I think of going back to Canada, but how could I leave this?

(We briefly discuss the relevance of Book VIII of Plato’s Republic to Silvio Berlusconi.)

Adam: Let’s have Cosmopolicast in which we discuss spectacle, literacy, and American dysfunction.

All: We’re completely enthusiastic about the idea.

We discuss the spread of le cheesecake to Paris. Is there such a thing as boxed French wine? Adam says yes. Claire says no.

Claire: Will the world ever recover from the pandemic?

Adam: Yes, unless there’s another zoonotic epidemic, which is likely, because we keep encroaching on all the places where viruses marinate.

(He has an idea about what to do about this, however.)

Adam: Both parties are a trainwreck …

—Academia’s devolved into a clown show!

—The humanities are in the trash!

—Our think tanks are venal and corrupt!

—No one thinks!

—Oy, vey.

People don’t read anymore, Claire and Adam worry. This is very serious. It’s the root of the rise of the childish, black-and-white thinking, and the inability to grasp nuance. What will happen when people can no longer read at all?

Claire: How do you even have a legal system if people can’t read?

We agree we must devote a whole podcast to this topic.

Adam is worried we’re losing the most important ideas of the Enlightenment, including the notion that positive-sum relationships are possible and desirable. “If we lose the gossamer thread of the positive sum,” he says, “not one of our institutions is sustainable. Not one.”

—Yep.

—It’ll be Lord of the Flies …

Oy, vey.

Here’s the article, “The Darkening Mind,” in which Adam expands upon the points he makes in the podcast. It’s outstanding, actually. I hadn’t read it before. If you found the aftercast interesting, do read it.

And here’s Adam’s article about the loss of deep literacy.

(Together, I think they offer much more than any podcast could—they’re written, you see. But you tell us. The aftercast versus the articles. Which one did you find more valuable?)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

From Claire—So a Ukrainian, two Estonians, two Americans and a Canadian walked into the Cosmopolicast—and I’ve been looking for the right punchline all day, but it’s just not happening.

Still, it’s a great podcast.

Before anything else, though. Yesterday, in haste, I copied the wrong map into our newsletter. It was an important map, too. Here’s the right one, without which you can’t make sense of the whole business about the chicken neck. My mistake—not Vivek’s—and I apologize.

We rounded up our favorite people from the former Soviet satellite states to discuss Russia, and as you might imagine, none of them are amused. Vladislav Davidzon—remember the piece he wrote for us about Ukraine?—called in from a Georgian sanitorium. Scott Abel joins us from Tallinn. Estonia’s former president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, reinforces the Estonian contingent from his lonely farmhouse in the Estonian countryside. Jon Nighswander (who began his career as a Russianist) joins us from Vienna.

We ask just what, exactly, Putin thinks he’s doing. He’s now sent tanks, troops (85,000 of them, at last count) and long-range guns to loom, thuggishly, on Ukraine’s borders and in its stolen territories. Why? He couldn’t seriously be planning to gnaw off another chunk of Ukraine, could he? His last meal has been giving him serious indigestion. Is he testing to see what the EU will do? (The EU has already made it clear it is eager to beclown itself, as Toomas notes.)

Is this a test of the new US administration? Is Moscow angling to get control over the Crimean water supply? Or is Putin just keen to make of himself the maximum possible nuisance to any adult in the world who is trying to accomplish anything useful or constructive? (If you missed it, John Oxley discussed all of these possibilities in this recent newsletter.)

Scott tells us what he’s hearing on the grapevine from Estonian parliamentarians with deep ties to Russia.

Toomas surmises that Russia’s goal is simply to screw up Ukraine—and all of its neighbors—so badly they’ll never be able to get their act together enough to join Europe or NATO.

We discuss Putin’s strategy of creating and exploiting frozen conflicts. We ask whether Russia actually could roll over all of Ukraine, if it wanted to. (It could, we think, but it would destroy the Russian state.)

Toomas and Jon ask why Ukraine doesn’t just tell Putin, “Fine. Take the Donbass and choke on it. Have fun.” Vladislav explains how Ukrainians would view this.

We decide the odds of full-scale invasion are about 30 percent. The odds are against it, in other words, but we sure wouldn’t bet the farm on this assessment.

We talk about how Europe views Ukraine, and why Ukraine hasn’t made as much social and economic progress as Estonia. (Vladislav points out that Ukraine has, on the other hand, built one of the most formidable militaries in Europe in the past seven years, which Estonia hasn’t, though he was too polite to mention this.)

Vladislav and Toomas note that Putin is out of touch—literally and metaphorically—and growingly reliant on paranoid, hardline elements in Russia’s security forces for information. The advice they’re providing him is not necessarily good. We worry about accidents and miscalculation.

Jon notes that Russia has achieved the needless goal of completely alienating the rest of Ukraine, which would otherwise have remained sympathetic to Russia. Scott says he’s observed the same thing among Russophone Estonians.

We end by talking about Navalny and the grotesque declaration by Amnesty International that they don’t propose to support him because he once said something politically incorrect. (He’s Russian. They want a Russian opposition figure who’s clued in on the latest Oberlin campus mores? Good luck with that.)

We discuss Russian philosophy. Toomas says Russia is not part of Europe: It’s always been at the forefront of counter-Enlightenment thinking.

True that, I reply, but counter-Enlightenment thinking is, actually, authentically European. You can’t argue that everything illiberal that happens in Europe is not truly European. That gets into no-true-Scotsman territory very fast.

We wrap things up with a round of mirth at Russia’s expense.

As always, if you have any questions, for any of us, leave them in the comments. We’ll try to answer as best we can.

And please don’t forget, as Dr. Johnson said, that no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. We would love it if you subscribed. If you’ve subscribed already, would you consider becoming a supersubscriber? Our supersubscribers—to whom we are exceedingly grateful— brought you this podcast today. Thank you, both of you!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

From Claire—So a Ukrainian, two Estonians, two Americans and a Canadian walked into the Cosmopolicast—and I’ve been looking for the right punchline all day, but it’s just not happening.

Still, it’s a great podcast.

Before anything else, though. Yesterday, in haste, I copied the wrong map into our newsletter. It was an important map, too. Here’s the right one, without which you can’t make sense of the whole business about the chicken neck. My mistake—not Vivek’s—and I apologize.

We rounded up our favorite people from the former Soviet satellite states to discuss Russia, and as you might imagine, none of them are amused. Vladislav Davidzon—remember the piece he wrote for us about Ukraine?—called in from a Georgian sanitorium. Scott Abel joins us from Tallinn. Estonia’s former president, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, reinforces the Estonian contingent from his lonely farmhouse in the Estonian countryside. Jon Nighswander (who began his career as a Russianist) joins us from Vienna.

We ask just what, exactly, Putin thinks he’s doing. He’s now sent tanks, troops (85,000 of them, at last count) and long-range guns to loom, thuggishly, on Ukraine’s borders and in its stolen territories. Why? He couldn’t seriously be planning to gnaw off another chunk of Ukraine, could he? His last meal has been giving him serious indigestion. Is he testing to see what the EU will do? (The EU has already made it clear it is eager to beclown itself, as Toomas notes.)

Is this a test of the new US administration? Is Moscow angling to get control over the Crimean water supply? Or is Putin just keen to make of himself the maximum possible nuisance to any adult in the world who is trying to accomplish anything useful or constructive? (If you missed it, John Oxley discussed all of these possibilities in this recent newsletter.)

Scott tells us what he’s hearing on the grapevine from Estonian parliamentarians with deep ties to Russia.

Toomas surmises that Russia’s goal is simply to screw up Ukraine—and all of its neighbors—so badly they’ll never be able to get their act together enough to join Europe or NATO.

We discuss Putin’s strategy of creating and exploiting frozen conflicts. We ask whether Russia actually could roll over all of Ukraine, if it wanted to. (It could, we think, but it would destroy the Russian state.)

Toomas and Jon ask why Ukraine doesn’t just tell Putin, “Fine. Take the Donbass and choke on it. Have fun.” Vladislav explains how Ukrainians would view this.

We decide the odds of full-scale invasion are about 30 percent. The odds are against it, in other words, but we sure wouldn’t bet the farm on this assessment.

We talk about how Europe views Ukraine, and why Ukraine hasn’t made as much social and economic progress as Estonia. (Vladislav points out that Ukraine has, on the other hand, built one of the most formidable militaries in Europe in the past seven years, which Estonia hasn’t, though he was too polite to mention this.)

Vladislav and Toomas note that Putin is out of touch—literally and metaphorically—and growingly reliant on paranoid, hardline elements in Russia’s security forces for information. The advice they’re providing him is not necessarily good. We worry about accidents and miscalculation.

Jon notes that Russia has achieved the needless goal of completely alienating the rest of Ukraine, which would otherwise have remained sympathetic to Russia. Scott says he’s observed the same thing among Russophone Estonians.

We end by talking about Navalny and the grotesque declaration by Amnesty International that they don’t propose to support him because he once said something politically incorrect. (He’s Russian. They want a Russian opposition figure who’s clued in on the latest Oberlin campus mores? Good luck with that.)

We discuss Russian philosophy. Toomas says Russia is not part of Europe: It’s always been at the forefront of counter-Enlightenment thinking.

True that, I reply, but counter-Enlightenment thinking is, actually, authentically European. You can’t argue that everything illiberal that happens in Europe is not truly European. That gets into no-true-Scotsman territory very fast.

We wrap things up with a round of mirth at Russia’s expense.

As always, if you have any questions, for any of us, leave them in the comments. We’ll try to answer as best we can.

And please don’t forget, as Dr. Johnson said, that no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. We would love it if you subscribed. If you’ve subscribed already, would you consider becoming a supersubscriber? Our supersubscribers—to whom we are exceedingly grateful— brought you this podcast today. Thank you, both of you!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

From Claire—We think this is our best Cosmopolicast yet.

Do you remember Adam Garfinkle’s debate with Vivek about China, the 7th Fleet, and the future of US power? We brought Adam on the podcast to discuss this, and Henry Hill joined us. Is Chinese global hegemony inevitable? Vivek says yes. Adam says no. Who’s right?

We ask what the Chinese regime is really all about: Is it Marxist? Leninist? Maoist? Neo-totalitarian? Revanchist? Nationalist? Imperialist? How well does the West understand China? How well does China understand the West? What does China want? When does China want it? What should we do about it? Who would win a war for Taiwan? What would happen if the US didn’t fight—or lost? Is the US overreacting?

Do you agree it’s our best podcast? We’re genuinely keen to know. I’m new to podcasting and don’t quite trust my instincts about what’s good and what’s not. If we all enjoyed the conversation, does that mean it was a great podcast? Or might it just be that we’re all terribly fond of each other and haven’t spoken for a long time? Your thoughts would truly be useful for us in structuring and editing future Cosmopolicasts.

Also, when do you listen to podcasts? Why do you listen to them? What do you look for in deciding which podcasts to download? Do you prefer hearing more of us or fewer on a show? What’s the ideal podcast length? Any technical advice, or suggestions about the format?

The more you tell us what you’d like, the better we can make you happy.

The Cosmopolitan Globalists are reading …

Here’s a list of the books and essays we discussed, along with a few we didn’t. If you’d like to suggest further reading, tell us in the comments and we’ll update the list.

Newsletters

* Ananth Krishnan’s India-China newsletter.

* Bill Bishop’s Sinocism, “the presidential daily brief for China hands.”

Articles, reports, speeches

* The essential Document No. 9, or the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere. From the introduction to ChinaFile’s translation:

[M]any of the actions taken and techniques used under [Xi’s] leadership suggest a return to ideas and tactics that hark back to the days of Mao Zedong. One such signal came during this past spring, when reports began to appear that the Party leadership was being urged to guard against seven political “perils,” including constitutionalism, civil society, “nihilistic” views of history, “universal values,” and the promotion of “the West’s view of media.” It also called on Party members to strengthen their resistance to “infiltration” by outside ideas, renew their commitment to work “in the ideological sphere,” and to handle with renewed vigilance all ideas, institutions, and people deemed threatening to unilateral Party rule. These warnings were enumerated in a communiqué circulated within the Party by its General Office in April, and, because they constituted the ninth such paper issued this year, have come to be known as “Document 9.”

The Chinese authorities accused dissident journalist Gao Yu of leaking the document and sentenced him to seven years in prison. He paid a harsh price to tell you what Document 9 says, so do read it.

* The Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and the Outline of Long-Term Goals for 2035. (Owen—Google Translate does a good job with it. Very interesting to skim. If it weren’t for the other things, like genocide and taking over the world, I’d be pretty excited to see a plan like that. It gives the sense that the future will be better for China than its present or past. I wish the West had more of that attitude.)

* Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China. Transcript of a speech by John Garnaut, an Australian journalist who used to cover China, then joined the Australian government as a China policy advisor. He led the response to China’s influence campaigns in Australia.

* Implementing Grand Strategy Toward China: Twenty-two US Policy Prescriptions, by Robert D. Blackwill for the Council on Foreign Relations.

* The Problem with Friendship, by Frank Lavin. “China and the United States have both arrived at roughly the same position, albeit by different paths.”

* The Sino-American rivalry in cultural context, by Adam himself.

Books

* A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language, by David Moser.

* Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping, by François Bougon.

* Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, by Robert Kaplan.

* Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century, by Josh Rogan.

* By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783, by Michael Green. (This is the book you want if you’re looking for a comprehensive survey of the history and major themes of American foreign policy in Asia.)

* The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China, by Julia Lovell.

* The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh, a fictional saga that takes place at the outbreak of the first Opium War.

Video

François Bougon discusses his biography of Xi. If you don’t understand French, click the gear icon, choose “Subtitles,” then pick your target language. You may also have to fiddle with the CC button, left of the gear icon.

Would you kindly try that and let us know how well it works? Is it easy to get subtitles in your target language? Is the translation good enough for you to enjoy it? We hope so, because we’d like to make foreign-language broadcast news and analysis like this a a regular feature.

Advances in machine translation have been revolutionary in the past few years, so much so that suddenly, we’ve got an open window into cultures and societies that only recently were severely inaccessible—geographically, politically, linguistically.

So far, it doesn’t seem many people have fully understood this, which is why we plan to build an International News Translation Superhighway. If you’re new here, take a moment to read that proposal. Don’t you think it’s a great idea? If you do, please subscribe. That’s what we’ll use your money for.

As you can see from this interview, Francophone television shows about foreign affairs are often much better than their Anglophone equivalents. They’re more serious, generally more in-depth, and above all, they exist in the first place. If you can muddle along with the subtitles and if you find the quality of the translation satisfactory, we’ve got lots of interesting debates and discussions—from all over the world—we can share with you.

Behind the Cosmopolitan Globalist editorial curtain:

We thought of this after we finished recording:

Claire: Hey, I’ve always thought the Opium Wars deserve a riveting, historically accurate, multi-part documentary on Netflix suitable for compulsive binge-watching. Why hasn’t anyone made one, I wonder? As far as I know, there’s been never been any treatment of it in film or television. But it has everything—war, dramatic personalities. You could have incredible sets. Might it be because it would inflame Chinese sentiment, and China’s the biggest consumer market?

Monique: That’s precisely why they haven’t produced one yet. Unfortunately.

Claire: I don’t see why it need offend them, though. A historically accurate account would confirm their aggrieved worldview. They were genuinely aggrieved. Maybe we should do it in-house?

Vivek: Go for it. It’s a shameful episode in history, one where none of the players smell of roses. Many an Indian business house owes its initial monies to the trade, as do many hongs in Hong Kong, like Jardine Matheson, the Sassoons, Barings. Instead of a film, why don’t we do it like a BBC 4 radio series? A lot less expensive. And still leaves scope for a screen series in the future.

Claire: We wouldn’t have the glorious costumes and sets.

Vivek: There’s quite a bit of material on the Opium Wars and trade during that period available at the Asiatic Library in Mumbai. Much of it focuses on the Indian businessmen who built their fortunes during those times in cahoots with the British. Some of these were business houses like the Tatas! And there’s an extensive collection of papers in some of Kolkata’s libraries that illustrate what the British grandees did. Once this Covid thing is over, I’ll get as much of it as I can for you if you’re interested. The Opium Wars are a fascinating bit of history. Often ignored.

He’s right. Too often ignored. Would you enjoy a riveting, historically accurate, multi-part Opium Wars Cosmopolicast? Let us know.

The Aftercast

After Henry signed off and we said, “It’s a wrap,” we kept talking about America, the Woke mobs, the catastrophic irresponsibility of the academy, and the decline of deep literacy. Fortunately, Monique kept recording, because we ended up with a second podcast’s worth of discussion. If you’d like to hear it, let us know. We’ll fix it up and post it.

The Cosmopolitan Globalist book club

Would you like to join a discussion group with us based on our China reading list? Maybe once a week? Because we could organize that. It could be really interesting. Who would join us if we did?

Finally: Isn’t this a great newsletter? Don’t you think the Cosmopolitan Globalist is going in the right direction? We’d really love it if you subscribed. I know we say that every time, but every time we ask, someone does subscribe, and we love it. We genuinely celebrate every new subscription. Politely asking you to subscribe seems to work, so we’re just going to keep asking. Politely. Would you please subscribe? Don’t you think our venture is worth supporting?

If you especially love us, you could also become a Supersubscriber. It’s wonderful when you do that.

If you can’t subscribe right now, that’s fine. Keep enjoying the newsletter. But would you kindly forward the Cosmopolicast to your friends, asking them to send it to their friends? And ask them to sign up, too? We’ve noticed that people who sign up tend, sooner or later, to subscribe, so we celebrate every new sign-up, too.

Thanks, everyone!

Today’s newsletter was brought to you by Supersubscriber Jeffrey Stein. Thank you, Jeffrey!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

From Claire—We think this is our best Cosmopolicast yet.

Do you remember Adam Garfinkle’s debate with Vivek about China, the 7th Fleet, and the future of US power? We brought Adam on the podcast to discuss this, and Henry Hill joined us. Is Chinese global hegemony inevitable? Vivek says yes. Adam says no. Who’s right?

We ask what the Chinese regime is really all about: Is it Marxist? Leninist? Maoist? Neo-totalitarian? Revanchist? Nationalist? Imperialist? How well does the West understand China? How well does China understand the West? What does China want? When does China want it? What should we do about it? Who would win a war for Taiwan? What would happen if the US didn’t fight—or lost? Is the US overreacting?

Do you agree it’s our best podcast? We’re genuinely keen to know. I’m new to podcasting and don’t quite trust my instincts about what’s good and what’s not. If we all enjoyed the conversation, does that mean it was a great podcast? Or might it just be that we’re all terribly fond of each other and haven’t spoken for a long time? Your thoughts would truly be useful for us in structuring and editing future Cosmopolicasts.

Also, when do you listen to podcasts? Why do you listen to them? What do you look for in deciding which podcasts to download? Do you prefer hearing more of us or fewer on a show? What’s the ideal podcast length? Any technical advice, or suggestions about the format?

The more you tell us what you’d like, the better we can make you happy.

The Cosmopolitan Globalists are reading …

Here’s a list of the books and essays we discussed, along with a few we didn’t. If you’d like to suggest further reading, tell us in the comments and we’ll update the list.

Newsletters

* Ananth Krishnan’s India-China newsletter.

* Bill Bishop’s Sinocism, “the presidential daily brief for China hands.”

Articles, reports, speeches

* The essential Document No. 9, or the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere. From the introduction to ChinaFile’s translation:

[M]any of the actions taken and techniques used under [Xi’s] leadership suggest a return to ideas and tactics that hark back to the days of Mao Zedong. One such signal came during this past spring, when reports began to appear that the Party leadership was being urged to guard against seven political “perils,” including constitutionalism, civil society, “nihilistic” views of history, “universal values,” and the promotion of “the West’s view of media.” It also called on Party members to strengthen their resistance to “infiltration” by outside ideas, renew their commitment to work “in the ideological sphere,” and to handle with renewed vigilance all ideas, institutions, and people deemed threatening to unilateral Party rule. These warnings were enumerated in a communiqué circulated within the Party by its General Office in April, and, because they constituted the ninth such paper issued this year, have come to be known as “Document 9.”

The Chinese authorities accused dissident journalist Gao Yu of leaking the document and sentenced him to seven years in prison. He paid a harsh price to tell you what Document 9 says, so do read it.

* The Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for the National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China and the Outline of Long-Term Goals for 2035. (Owen—Google Translate does a good job with it. Very interesting to skim. If it weren’t for the other things, like genocide and taking over the world, I’d be pretty excited to see a plan like that. It gives the sense that the future will be better for China than its present or past. I wish the West had more of that attitude.)

* Engineers of the Soul: Ideology in Xi Jinping’s China. Transcript of a speech by John Garnaut, an Australian journalist who used to cover China, then joined the Australian government as a China policy advisor. He led the response to China’s influence campaigns in Australia.

* Implementing Grand Strategy Toward China: Twenty-two US Policy Prescriptions, by Robert D. Blackwill for the Council on Foreign Relations.

* The Problem with Friendship, by Frank Lavin. “China and the United States have both arrived at roughly the same position, albeit by different paths.”

* The Sino-American rivalry in cultural context, by Adam himself.

Books

* A Billion Voices: China’s Search for a Common Language, by David Moser.

* Inside the Mind of Xi Jinping, by François Bougon.

* Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific, by Robert Kaplan.

* Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century, by Josh Rogan.

* By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783, by Michael Green. (This is the book you want if you’re looking for a comprehensive survey of the history and major themes of American foreign policy in Asia.)

* The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China, by Julia Lovell.

* The Ibis Trilogy, by Amitav Ghosh, a fictional saga that takes place at the outbreak of the first Opium War.

Video

François Bougon discusses his biography of Xi. If you don’t understand French, click the gear icon, choose “Subtitles,” then pick your target language. You may also have to fiddle with the CC button, left of the gear icon.

Would you kindly try that and let us know how well it works? Is it easy to get subtitles in your target language? Is the translation good enough for you to enjoy it? We hope so, because we’d like to make foreign-language broadcast news and analysis like this a a regular feature.

Advances in machine translation have been revolutionary in the past few years, so much so that suddenly, we’ve got an open window into cultures and societies that only recently were severely inaccessible—geographically, politically, linguistically.

So far, it doesn’t seem many people have fully understood this, which is why we plan to build an International News Translation Superhighway. If you’re new here, take a moment to read that proposal. Don’t you think it’s a great idea? If you do, please subscribe. That’s what we’ll use your money for.

As you can see from this interview, Francophone television shows about foreign affairs are often much better than their Anglophone equivalents. They’re more serious, generally more in-depth, and above all, they exist in the first place. If you can muddle along with the subtitles and if you find the quality of the translation satisfactory, we’ve got lots of interesting debates and discussions—from all over the world—we can share with you.

Behind the Cosmopolitan Globalist editorial curtain:

We thought of this after we finished recording:

Claire: Hey, I’ve always thought the Opium Wars deserve a riveting, historically accurate, multi-part documentary on Netflix suitable for compulsive binge-watching. Why hasn’t anyone made one, I wonder? As far as I know, there’s been never been any treatment of it in film or television. But it has everything—war, dramatic personalities. You could have incredible sets. Might it be because it would inflame Chinese sentiment, and China’s the biggest consumer market?

Monique: That’s precisely why they haven’t produced one yet. Unfortunately.

Claire: I don’t see why it need offend them, though. A historically accurate account would confirm their aggrieved worldview. They were genuinely aggrieved. Maybe we should do it in-house?

Vivek: Go for it. It’s a shameful episode in history, one where none of the players smell of roses. Many an Indian business house owes its initial monies to the trade, as do many hongs in Hong Kong, like Jardine Matheson, the Sassoons, Barings. Instead of a film, why don’t we do it like a BBC 4 radio series? A lot less expensive. And still leaves scope for a screen series in the future.

Claire: We wouldn’t have the glorious costumes and sets.

Vivek: There’s quite a bit of material on the Opium Wars and trade during that period available at the Asiatic Library in Mumbai. Much of it focuses on the Indian businessmen who built their fortunes during those times in cahoots with the British. Some of these were business houses like the Tatas! And there’s an extensive collection of papers in some of Kolkata’s libraries that illustrate what the British grandees did. Once this Covid thing is over, I’ll get as much of it as I can for you if you’re interested. The Opium Wars are a fascinating bit of history. Often ignored.

He’s right. Too often ignored. Would you enjoy a riveting, historically accurate, multi-part Opium Wars Cosmopolicast? Let us know.

The Aftercast

After Henry signed off and we said, “It’s a wrap,” we kept talking about America, the Woke mobs, the catastrophic irresponsibility of the academy, and the decline of deep literacy. Fortunately, Monique kept recording, because we ended up with a second podcast’s worth of discussion. If you’d like to hear it, let us know. We’ll fix it up and post it.

The Cosmopolitan Globalist book club

Would you like to join a discussion group with us based on our China reading list? Maybe once a week? Because we could organize that. It could be really interesting. Who would join us if we did?

Finally: Isn’t this a great newsletter? Don’t you think the Cosmopolitan Globalist is going in the right direction? We’d really love it if you subscribed. I know we say that every time, but every time we ask, someone does subscribe, and we love it. We genuinely celebrate every new subscription. Politely asking you to subscribe seems to work, so we’re just going to keep asking. Politely. Would you please subscribe? Don’t you think our venture is worth supporting?

If you especially love us, you could also become a Supersubscriber. It’s wonderful when you do that.

If you can’t subscribe right now, that’s fine. Keep enjoying the newsletter. But would you kindly forward the Cosmopolicast to your friends, asking them to send it to their friends? And ask them to sign up, too? We’ve noticed that people who sign up tend, sooner or later, to subscribe, so we celebrate every new sign-up, too.

Thanks, everyone!

Today’s newsletter was brought to you by Supersubscriber Jeffrey Stein. Thank you, Jeffrey!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

The Cosmopolitan Globalists, one and all, wish our readers, all and one, a happy Easter.

Our China Cosmopolicast, with Adam Garfinkle, Henry Hill, and the editors, is our best so far. We’re itching to hit “publish.” But we figure no one will listen to it on a holiday, and we certainly wouldn’t want anyone to miss it. So above is a trailer. (It is our first trailer. We are proud.) We’ll publish it in two parts, beginning either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on your request. Tell us in the comments. And we may even post the post-cast, that is, what we said to each other after saying, “It’s a wrap.”

We promise that if you ever find a better introduction to China policy for a literate lay audience, we’ll refund your subscription. It’s exactly what I had in mind on when I tweeted this:

Meanwhile, if you only read one article about China, be sure it’s this one: The Longest Telegram: A visionary blueprint for the comprehensive Grand Strategy against China we need.

In the pipeline this week: Nicolas Tenzer discusses French foreign policy. Gabi Mitchell reports on the Israeli elections. Jon Nighswander writes about the Black Sea spy scandals. Tomaž Zaniuk might discuss the Orbanization of Slovenia. Benjamin Wolf and Alexander Hurst—in Vienna and Paris, respectively—diagnose the problem with Europe. We’ve also got another great podcast in the works, about Russia and Ukraine, with Scott Abel in the Baltics and Vladislav Davidzon in Georgia.

Oh, one more thing! Here I talk diplomatic history with Robert Zoellick, who promises to write for us. Yes, I ask him whether he has any regrets about China’s entry to the World Trade Organization. But listen first to the part about his book, which I really loved, and his role in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end.

Here’s the article he mentioned: The China Challenge.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

The Cosmopolitan Globalists, one and all, wish our readers, all and one, a happy Easter.

Our China Cosmopolicast, with Adam Garfinkle, Henry Hill, and the editors, is our best so far. We’re itching to hit “publish.” But we figure no one will listen to it on a holiday, and we certainly wouldn’t want anyone to miss it. So above is a trailer. (It is our first trailer. We are proud.) We’ll publish it in two parts, beginning either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on your request. Tell us in the comments. And we may even post the post-cast, that is, what we said to each other after saying, “It’s a wrap.”

We promise that if you ever find a better introduction to China policy for a literate lay audience, we’ll refund your subscription. It’s exactly what I had in mind on when I tweeted this:

Meanwhile, if you only read one article about China, be sure it’s this one: The Longest Telegram: A visionary blueprint for the comprehensive Grand Strategy against China we need.

In the pipeline this week: Nicolas Tenzer discusses French foreign policy. Gabi Mitchell reports on the Israeli elections. Jon Nighswander writes about the Black Sea spy scandals. Tomaž Zaniuk might discuss the Orbanization of Slovenia. Benjamin Wolf and Alexander Hurst—in Vienna and Paris, respectively—diagnose the problem with Europe. We’ve also got another great podcast in the works, about Russia and Ukraine, with Scott Abel in the Baltics and Vladislav Davidzon in Georgia.

Oh, one more thing! Here I talk diplomatic history with Robert Zoellick, who promises to write for us. Yes, I ask him whether he has any regrets about China’s entry to the World Trade Organization. But listen first to the part about his book, which I really loved, and his role in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end.

Here’s the article he mentioned: The China Challenge.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit claireberlinski.substack.com/subscribe

From Claire—and now, it’s Wednesday afternoon. The Suez is unblocked. But listen all the same to our Saturday night Cosmopolitan Globalist Partycast, because it is one fine discussion of global shipping and it was a rollicking good Saturday night—by pandemic standards.

We marvel at the weirdness of China’s recent diplomatic self-sabotage. We drink. We ask what Macron’s thinking about Russia. We wonder just who actually believes it. Does he? We gossip about Germany. We gossip about the Atlantic Council. We wander around looking for popcorn. We ask if the United States is really so broke that it should sacrifice Estonia. We miss smoking.

Vivek Kelkar weighs in from Mumbai. Jon Nighswander from Vienna. Rachel Motte from Houston. Owen Lewis from Alberta. Akshaya Jose from Paris—me, too, of course. Toomas Hendrik Ilves from Estonia. (We don’t know where in Estonia he is, exactly, but we understand it involves a promising herd of moose.) Monique Camarra, as usual, runs the Cosmopolicast out of Siena. Thank you, Monique!

The below is extremely paraphrased. Reading it is no substitute for listening to it, as you will find out to your detriment on the final exam.

Part I: The Cosmopolitan Globalists resolve that the Suez Canal crisis is bogus

First we did a go-round to see who had the best idea for getting that ever-loving ship unstuck.

Toomas: Zeus! SOS, Suez! I came up with that yesterday.

A moose snorts in the background.

Claire: Why can’t we just blow it up?

Toomas: The environmental damage wouldn’t be so nice.

Claire: Owen, you’d be good at this. What do we do?

Owen: I’m a geologist, not an engineer.

Claire: I don’t get why the US hasn’t fixed this. You can understand all of US foreign policy in the 20th century if you think of the US as this giant machine designed to keep the SLOCs open. That’s our whole mission in life.

Toomas: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!

Jon: A lot of Chinese trade to Germany goes through that canal. It’s going to have a lot of knock-on effects.

Claire: I wouldn’t expect Germany to do anything, but this is what America exists to do.

Vivek: The US has never been able to do much about the Suez Canal. Ever. It was shut for eight years between 1967 and 1975! Even after the Sinai accords, you still couldn’t use it for two years because it was full of mines.

Toomas: Maybe it’s not so bad, and global warming has come to our assistance. You can go along the northern route, so who cares?

Claire: Huh? I’m having trouble visualizing this.

Monique gets a map.

Jon: It’s great for China and Russia. Turns Harbin into a major shipping center. Awful for India.

Toomas: Look at Russian side of the northern route. Look at coast of Russia, which used to be frozen in winter. Now it’s open. This is why the PRC is a member of the Arctic Council.

Owen: It’s mostly summer shipping, though.

Toomas: It’s April. You have six months to deal with the Suez Canal. Screw it.

Claire: So this whole Suez Canal crisis is bogus?

Toomas: For India, it’s a disaster.

Rachel: It’s bad for all the boats that are stuck.

Toomas: The next problem—if you go around the Cape of Good Hope: Somali pirates.

Claire: That’s just what I thought! Why did Twitter make fun of me for saying it?

Toomas: They’ll have an orgy.

Claire: I mean yeah, right? Banquet!

Jon: Wouldn’t the Americans come in then?

Toomas: No, they have to go around, too. Imagine a traffic jam in Los Angeles, and people decide this is a perfect time to start robbing cars. The police can’t get to you—they’re stuck in traffic, too—

Claire: How would you fight off Somali pirates if you’re stuck on a ship off the coast of Africa and you’re not properly insured for fighting pirates?

We do a quick go-round.

Claire: And what good does it do to be the mightiest seafaring power the world has ever seen if we can’t deal with a blocked canal and a bunch of pirates? Where is our tax money even going?

Toomas: We’ll see. You do have a US naval presence in the Indian Ocean, and you have Diego Garcia. Maybe they could start doing renditions there again. It doesn’t take that long to get any fleet anyplace—six or seven days, max.

Claire: This has got to be our special area of expertise. If it isn’t, what are they doing with the money?

Toomas: It wasn’t wasted, all kinds of things were prevented.

Jon: If you were to be cynical, US-China trade isn’t really affected, because it mostly goes across the Pacific. So what’s mostly affected is Europe-China trade. It has a dire effect on China. From the US point of view, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.

Claire: Wow, yes.

Jon: Show Europe there are some risks associated with that relationship.

Part II: The Cosmopolitan Globalists wonder what’s wrong with Chinese diplomats

Toomas: Moving on, the utter collapse of EU relations with China in the past week—it’s like progressive FM rock in the late 1960s. Chinese Wolf Warrior diplomacy—

Claire: Yeah, what are they thinking?

Background: China’s ambassador to France was recently summoned and “firmly reminded” not to call French citizens “ideological pests,” “small-time hoodlums” and “crazed hyenas.” Then on March 22, the US, EU, UK, and Canada announced coordinated sanctions against Chinese officials directly involved in the abominations in Xinjiang. China promptly declared that in retaliation it would sanction pretty much everyone who’s anyone in Europe. Those who weren’t on the sanctions list felt properly ashamed.

Toomas: They’re just shooting themselves—

Monique: They’ve been everywhere.

Toomas: Every member state ambassador to the political committee of the EU—these are the people who make all the decisions—they’ve all been declared persona non grata. Ten think tanks, too, including some of the best! So now you’ve declared all these important, crucial people and institutions in the EU under sanction. And your trade is collapsing! There’s no f— way the EU-China trade agreement will in any way stand a chance of being ratified by the European Parliament—

Background: Remember what we wrote about that? Two parts, here and here.

Claire: Why did Merkel even embarrass herself by trying to make that deal?

Toomas: Because they’ll do anything for trade.

Jon: The German auto industry largely dictates foreign policy. When you’re an export nation, you’re always vulnerable.

Toomas: For thirty years, the Germans have caved into Russia because of “Wandel durch Handel!” Change through trade!

Claire: No one wants to see a vulnerable Germany, though. We all know how badly that can go.

Toomas: No. No. They’re too pacifist.

Claire: Compared to what?

Toomas, Jon: The next Chancellor is going to be a Green.

Toomas: They’re too Franco-centric. Even you, Claire, think France is the center of Europe when in fact it’s just part of the periphery.

Claire: I am not at the center, you say?

Part III: The Cosmopolitan Globalists wonder what Macron could possibly be thinking

Toomas: Macron has this grand vision about how he’s going to proceed while ignoring a population of Europe larger than France. And he thinks he can get away with it. “Oh, we will bring zee Russians in!”

Claire: Yeah, none of us understand this. Which constituency is he flattering?

Toomas: —ignoring 75 million East Europeans who are up against Russia, not listening to them, and he goes and does this.

Claire: But no one serious believes his claim that Russia can be seduced into being a normal European power, right? So what does he think he’s doing?

Toomas: I guess he wants to be the roi philosophe. The visionaire.

Claire: But it’s not very visionary. It’s been tried and failed.

Toomas: For about 200 years. The main problem is that the Russians haven’t been in Paris since 1814.

Claire: But he has a competent intelligence staff. They’ve got to be telling him, “This won’t work?”

Toomas: But he doesn’t listen to them. He thinks he’s smarter than they are. “That’s why I’m president and you’re not.” I don’t know, I can’t figure it out, either.

Claire: It’s weird.

Toomas: There’s also a lot of bizarrely Huntingtonian thinking France. “Our ultimate foe is Islam and Russia is a Christian nation.” I’ve heard this from foreign policy people.

Jon: They’ve never heard of Russia’s Muslim population, apparently?

Toomas: Which just gets bigger the more they invade—

Claire: This is the crazy stuff that Russia puts on the Internet, but why would smart people fall for it? Still, Macron put his finger on something a lot of people in Europe are thinking. America is down for the count, or off to the Pacific, and we need to go it alone, and that means making choices …

Toomas: A, I would work to counteract that—yes, the Pacific is the future theater and China is the—but to equate Russia with—

Claire: —it’s no stupider than the strategic fantasy I keep hearing from Americans: “We’re should team up with Russia to take on China!”

Toomas: But the smart people don’t say that.

Claire: They do! I’ve heard genuinely smart people say this.

Toomas: These are clowns. Think tanks bought with Koch Brothers’ money. The Atlantic Council, which used to be the paragon of transatlanticism, suddenly has a new section built up and paid for by the Koch people—

Claire: —Could they be right? Is the US just too broke to take on anything but China?

Toomas: No, no, no. The stupidity of the US and EU not forming and economic-tech alliance—the EU is obsessed with GAFA; the US doesn’t pay attention to Europe, this is my thesis—

Claire: —That is my thesis.

Toomas: Kinetic warfare as we’ve known it is over. Operationally, since 2007, the Newtonian basis of warfare no longer holds. Geography-based security thinking is dead.

Akshaya: To the contrary, the pandemic has really brough geography-based security thinking back.

Toomas: My point is that now you can just shut countries down, at a distance, without missiles.

Claire: You’re both right. So we’re in trouble.

Toomas: We’re in trouble.

Part IV: Pandemic Redux.

Claire: It seems as if with the pandemic we’ve slipped into an entirely new era, doesn’t it? We’re just standing at the edge of a void, staring at it, with no idea what’s on the other side.

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