© Charlotte Graham/Pool via REUTERS

Can a leader be incompetent and lacking in ideas—while at the same time be convinced that he is a revolutionary? In the case of Boris Johnson, the answer seemingly is “yes.”

Britain’s prime minister, courtesy of Eton College and Oxford University, makes for an unlikely agitator against the Establishment. But this master of reinvention and marketing is determined to go down in history as one of the greats who will change his country – and the world. Like his lodestar, Winston Churchill, Johnson thinks he is battling to save his nation from the enemy.

It is, of course, all nonsense, a figment of his ever-fertile brain. But it matters because he believes it, and a worrying proportion of voters believe him too.

What therefore is the grand plan? Johnson doesn’t do detail—his chaotic handling of the coronavirus pandemic attests to that. But he does have a sharp eye for the popular (and populist) and has spent a career constructing a persona around that. He identified from early on, from the mid-late 1980s, the benefits he would accrue from euroskepticism. He then pursued it relentlessly. Many interlocutors attest to the fact that he didn’t actually believe it. But that wasn’t the point.

His entire identity has been artfully constructed—his shambolic appearance, his unfortunate turns of phrase, his ostentatious unpunctuality. It has allowed him to stand out from the crowd, to build a base. Like US President Donald Trump, he turned conventional wisdom on its head. Personality traits that mainstream members of public life regard as weaknesses, he saw as a strength. Like Trump, he has not trimmed these back since taking office, defying those who predicted that he would.

Hitting Easily Identifiable Targets

Like Trump, Johnson has not learnt gravitas in the face of the biggest global crisis for 75 years. He stumbles around, suggesting laws, changing his mind, blithely indifferent to the effect the shambolic leadership style is having on ordinary lives. What is remarkable, however, is how his opinion poll ratings have dropped only slightly—and in line with a normal first year in office for a leader.

He must therefore be doing something right. I scratch my head to see what exactly it is. But I will attempt to deconstruct the underpinnings of an agenda for the Johnson premiership.

First of all, he is good at hitting easily identifiable targets. He said he would “get Brexit done,” come what may, and unlike his predecessor, the dithering Theresa May, he did just that. He had no idea what would follow, but he deduced that decisiveness was, in voters’ minds, more important than content. Even as the negotiations floundered over the spring and summer, he declared that he would not delay the deadline for transition —deal or no deal—whatever the consequences.

Throwing Money Around

COVID-19 may have diverted him from his post-Brexit reveries; it may have exposed his failings, but, bizarrely for a crisis as existential as this one, it has also allowed him to luxuriate in his customary optimism—and to invite the Great British Public to do the same. How so? As with other countries, the economic exigencies have required the Treasury to throw the rule book into the bin. He can now throw money around with abandon, giving expression to his preferences and his prejudices. It did not go unnoticed around the world that pubs in Britain opened earlier than schools.

Like the British children’s television character, Bob the Builder, he has allowed himself to be termed Boris the Builder. “Build, build, build” was the slogan pinned to the lectern when he gave a speech in the English Midlands recently. Not content with being compared to Churchill, Johnson now likens himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Promising a “New Deal” to “rebuild Britain,” and blaming his predecessors for Britain’s woes, he vowed to use the coronavirus crisis “to tackle this country’s great unresolved challenges of the last three decades.” He continued: “To build the homes, to fix the National Health Service, to tackle the skills crisis, to mend the indefensible gap in opportunity and productivity and connectivity between the regions of the UK. To unite and level up.”

Much of the money will be spent in the North of England, which he is right to say has been starved of investment for decades. Johnson recognizes that many people in poorer, non-metropolitan parts of the country, the so-called “Red Wall” of traditional Labour voters, enabled his big majority in December’s general election by “lending” him their support. They did so because of Brexit, antipathy towards the then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn—and his promises to “level up” the country. At the same time, Johnson’s people believe that they can keep a portion of the younger, more environmentalist, voters on side by pushing ahead with a green agenda. This could include incentives towards jobs and projects that help meet or even accelerate the country’s net zero carbon targets.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak—the only member of the cabinet to have emerged from coronavirus crisis with his standing enhanced—will announce a National Infrastructure Strategy as part of his budget in October. By then, unemployment in the UK will have soared as the well-received salary deferral scheme comes to a close. And most likely a second wave of the pandemic will have led to either a second national lockdown or more selected local ones. The atmosphere will be one of frustration and anxiety.

Taxes or Spending

Longer term, Johnson faces two interlinked dilemmas. With the UK having spent the best part of a decade under David Cameron paying down the deficit, he will have accrued one that dwarfs all previous challenges. Public opinion and economic thinking have long since moved away from ultra-austerity, but this current government will, within a few years, have to start addressing the problem. If Johnson refuses to cut spending, he will have to raise taxes. Which brings me to his underlying philosophical dilemma—if that isn’t too fancy a term to give it. How does he reconcile the dreams of many Brexiteer ideologues of creating a low-tax, low-regulation Singapore on the Thames, with his high-spending, earthy, nostalgic view of Britain? Could he create both? Could he have his cake and eat it. It is highly unlikely, but not impossible. He will try.

He has a certain amount of wriggle room. The Conservatives’ standing on the economy remains considerably above that of Labour, a traditional advantage they have almost always enjoyed over the years. Yet the steely and forensic approach of the still-new Leader of the Opposition, Keir Starmer, is beginning to unnerve Downing Street.

Even if Johnson’s ratings for economic competence begin to suffer, he has something else to fall back on. Again, in a mirror of Trump, he plays the culture war whenever he feels he is having a bad week.     

His agitator-in-chief, Dominic Cummings, having ignored the condemnation of his breaking lockdown rules and driving 400 kilometers from London to his parents’ home in the city of Durham, is back at his voracious best (or worst). Johnson’s right hand man loves to be noticed. This Rasputin-meets-Richelieu is even creating a new fashion, of dress-down tracksuit with shepherd’s walking stick. His call at the start of 2020 for “misfits and weirdos” to apply to work with the new government attracted the attention that was no doubt intended.

English Exceptionalism 2.0

Cummings likes to identify enemies and then remove them. He has already got rid of the government’s most senior civil servant, the Cabinet Secretary, and his equivalent in the Foreign Office. He wants wholesale reform of Whitehall and has also set his sights on the defense sector and the intelligence agencies. The assault on the BBC is incessant.

The plans have two aims. One is to create greater efficiency, which is to be applauded. Many a prime minister, not least Tony Blair, lamented the bureaucracy’s ability to stop fresh thinking. Alongside this is a more pervasive idea to create an English Exceptionalism 2.0. This borrows from nostalgic notions of an island nation, freed from the shackles of unprincipled Europeans, a nation of true-born and free Englishmen where liberties are uppermost. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has recently taken to attacking Russia and China for their human rights records, gliding over the fact that a parliamentary report into Russian influence, which Johnson refused to publish for nearly a year, revealed the extent to which the government deliberately failed to investigate Kremlin involvement in the Brexit referendum or the 2019 election.

Just as COVID-19 has turned all governments’ plans on their heads, so other events will also intervene. Two are easy to predict. Scottish parliamentary elections in May 2021 could produce a further uptick in support for the Scottish National Party. That will encourage Nicola Sturgeon to push hard for a second independence referendum. Johnson will seek to refuse it, leading to an epic struggle.

The single most important event will be the US presidential elections. If Trump wins (God forbid), Johnson’s role as the president’s best buddy will be enhanced. A trade deal with the US will be easier to negotiate (albeit more on the Americans’ terms). Yet it will cement a US-UK relationship that will be seen by much of the world as dangerously toxic. If Biden prevails, Johnson will have lost his prop. He will have to operate in a world that may, just may, be returning to the mainstream. How would he operate then? Would he be capable of another reincarnation? Such is his hubris, he would certainly try, suggesting all along that he was never the nationalist-populist that he was so “unfairly” accused of being.

John Kampfner’s new book Why the Germans Do It Better (Altantic Books) is out now.

The post The Master of Reinvention appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Belarus is an example of a country that made one wrong decision, and then for three decades its citizens have had to live with that choice—or in some cases die or languish in prison as a result. In Belarus, the death penalty is carried out with a shot to the back of the head. This is the case with politically motivated verdicts, too, only then the bodies are never found. The KGB is still called the KGB. It is Belarus that is the real heir to the USSR, or Soviet Union, with Russia coming in second. In 1991, when Belarusians voted on whether they wanted independence or preferred to stay in the USSR, 83 percent replied that they did not want independence. They got it against their will. After several years’ experience with democracy, they elected Aleksander Lukashenka in 1994 and allowed him to rule in true Soviet fashion, or at least did not put up too much of a fight. Belarusian society has repeatedly committed the sin of omission. And the opposition committed the sin of disintegration.

When Lukashenka came to power in 1994, he did so completely democratically. But then he seized control of the Constitutional Tribunal, then the public media, and then he subjugated the security services, the police, and the Central Election Commission. He staffed them with loyal underlings and took care of their salaries, and they made sure he was reelected. Maria Kolesnikova, the only one of the three opposition leaders who is still in Belarus (Svitlana Tsikhanouskaya is in Lithuania and Veranika Tsepkalo is in Russia), admitted openly that aside from the most recent election on August 9, Lukashenka would have won all previous presidential elections—democratically. Other opposition figures hold a different view, but do not deny that the president long enjoyed substantial support from the public. But he falsified this year’s electoral results, because a win of 55 percent would mean he is not the only leader, that he has some competition. And that’s out of the question. There was no opposition in the USSR.

History Unfolding

Why would Lukashenka have won? Because although he is a bandit, he is also a very skillful political player. Twenty-six years of dictatorial rule, maintaining independence from Russia and the West, and above all, a pretty good standard of living in Belarus—these are real achievements. Hardly anyone travels to Belarus, so few people know anything about the country, outside of a few specialists. Now that history is unfolding here, there are a handful of foreign journalists. Most did not receive accreditation and therefore did not come, but several journalists from Poland and Ukraine came without accreditation. I stayed in several places in Minsk, touring nearby towns and villages, and I was surprised by the quality of highways all across Belarus (funded by a special tax imposed for this purpose), the cleanliness and orderliness of the cities, the complete absence of traffic jams (they only happen when protesters try hampering the police), and the selection of goods in stores. Even in small towns, you can buy a hundred kinds of fish, and even sushi, despite the fact that Belarus is the largest landlocked country in Europe. These goods are too abundant to be destined for the oligarchs, because the Belarusian model gives the dictator a monopoly on corruption. Lukashenka controls corruption just as he controls election results or television programming. Of course, there is a group of rich people, but this is a society completely unlike Ukraine or Russia.

Four-fifths of GDP is generated by the state. Wherever citizens of other post-communist countries such as Poland buy clothes, food, or equipment produced by Western brands, Belarus has its own brands, factories, and advertisements in every market segment. Of course, they are usually of worse quality, but they work, look decent, and function as respectable “replacements.” At purchasing power parity, GDP per capita amounts to $22,000. For comparison, in Ukraine the figure is $10,000. If the Belarusian people succeed in overthrowing their dictator and opening their country to the world, they will be in a vastly better position than the Czech Republic, Hungary, or Poland in 1989. We won’t see Western capital swooping in and buying up whatever it wants and introducing its own brands. Belarusians won’t be relegated to cheap labor, and enterprises won’t collapse. Belarus not only has its own retail chains, restaurants, cars, and clothes, but also a very strong IT sector that Lukashenka cares deeply about and gives almost complete freedom. Of course, the “Belarusian economic miracle” or “Belarusian autarky” is largely financed by Russia, but it is also the result of independent development, good education, good management, and a strong work ethic.

Even Lukashenka’s greatest critics, including those whom he tortured like Ales Mikhalevich (a candidate in the 2010 presidential election), speak approvingly of the standard of living in Belarus. According to Mikhalevich, Belarus belongs to Northern Europe, which is why the country is characterized by cleanliness and a strong work ethic. And you see that everywhere. Lukashenka with all his quirks would not have survived for nearly three decades if Belarusians were starving, if they had nowhere to work and no opportunities to pursue. They emigrate for political rather than economic reasons. The current protests are taking place with slogans demanding freedom, not social improvements, although Belarusians are aware that the economy has for several years been consumed by a crisis.

No Soviet Nostalgia

The Belarusian diaspora has now become as active as its Polish counterpart used to be in the 1980s, and it consists mainly of students, academics, musicians, and corporate employees, not Uber drivers or retail workers. I am working with many emigrés who have come back to help. Others are unable to return to Belarus, but are doing their part from abroad. They are essential for newsgathering—they often have a better idea of what is happening just around the corner because they have the Internet at a time when Lukashenka has been shutting it down within Belarus (the country’s internet service provider is state-owned, although some people use private companies). The emigrés say that they are fed up with Lukashenka because he makes it impossible for them to live in Minsk. Whereas one fourth or one fifth of young people have left countries like Bulgaria and Lithuania, that has not happened in Belarus, and with good reason. Minsk, like any major city, is overflowing with young people and is already as modern as Warsaw or Prague were four or five years ago. In the IT sector the gap is even smaller.

Lukashenka’s problem is that a generation has grown up that no longer remembers the Soviet Union, but knows the West and its values very well. For them, the green and red Soviet flag is a form of treason; they carry the white-red-white flag adopted by the independent Belarusian state in 1918. Like Lukashenka himself, the Soviet flag is only popular among older people who spent their best years in the USSR, want stability, and enjoy regular, decent pensions. For the young generation, the former collective farm director who has ruled the country for 26 years is a freak of nature. They grew up outside the system. That is why nobody has to teach them about democracy or new technologies today.

The authorities have complete control of the official media, so a kind of second media sphere has arisen online. Independent media outlets do exist in Belarus today, mainly as internet portals, and their readership has grown by 300-400 percent in recent weeks, assuming mass scale. The most important of these are Nasha Niva, Radio Svaboda, and TUT.by. Popular channels on YouTube and Telegram (including, for instance, the one run by Siarhei Tsikhanouski, the jailed presidential contender whose wife Sviatlana replaced him on the ballot) also play a role. The most famous video bloggers have as many as several hundred thousand subscribers (Belarus is a country of nine million, with six million eligible voters). Independent media messaging is already reaching a large segment of society, and unofficial media outlets are considered credible. People see them as mainstream news sources where they can get information on issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Bungled Coronavirus Response

Lukashenka is mentally stuck in the 1990s, or even the 1980s. He hasn’t learned anything in terms of his messaging or his worldview, and he is unable to make effective use of the state-run media to counter independent reporting. All he can do is block the internet and cellphone networks at opposition rallies. On Sunday and Monday, the internet was effectively completely shut down. The IT sector and the economy more broadly are suffering as a result, and Belarus has lost some of its credibility with foreign partners. The opposition has ways to get around the internet shutdown using proxy servers and encryption applications. If you use a VPN and Psiphon, sometimes you can manage to connect.

Like some other world leaders, Lukashenka bungled his coronavirus response. When he denied the threat and failed to intervene, it seemed like a moral abdication. That was especially disappointing for the generation who feared for their parents. Belarusians had to deal with the threat of COVID-19 on their own and began to join together to buy masks and equipment, to help the sick and medical personnel. The regime lost ground, and civil society gained it. Bonds of solidarity were formed. People began to get to know each other and communicate with each other. The regime lost its legitimacy because it could no longer guarantee a basic level of security, and the economic crisis was making itself felt. When Lukashenka himself fell ill, instead of evoking sympathy, he merely further discredited himself.

Lukashenka also disregarded the political potential of women, who are propelling the opposition forward. The opposition’s electoral campaign was led by three women, and now it is women who form the backbone of the protests. A president who placed his wife under house arrest, had a son with his personal physician, and is famous for spending money on prostitutes, evokes disgust. The opposition’s women leaders quickly came to an understanding, united the opposition, and organized an exceptionally effective campaign staff. If a German or Polish politician were to visit the opposition’s campaign headquarters, a conversation with their social media specialists, event planners, and sociologists would give them an inferiority complex. I have observed several election campaigns in Poland and Germany, and there is really no comparison. This surplus of modernity is a reaction to the country’s political backwardness. The Polish opposition would do well to learn that it takes unity to overthrow a dictator. In Belarus, the opposition’s success took much more effort than winning an election in an ordinary democratic country. Breaking the government’s monopoly on information required IT specialists, very good social research, and the best social media specialists.

A Distinctive Identity

Another error by Lukashenka was losing his Russian guarantor. Russia, of course, prefers Lukashenka to the opposition and will not let Belarus out of its sphere of influence, but it no longer intends to make his life easier. Lukashenka can be satisfied that he was able to take advantage of Moscow for so long. He received raw materials at a steeply reduced rate, keeping the economy and the standard of living in Belarus at a much higher level than, for example, in Ukraine, but he was supposed to pay by surrendering independence. Meanwhile, integration with Russia has not taken place at the economic, legal, or political level. Belarus was supposed to adopt the Russian ruble, a common judiciary system, and a common parliament; state-owned enterprises were supposed to be handed over to Russia. Nothing like this ever happened, or if it did, only on a semi-fictitious basis. Even cultural Russification has begun to regress instead of solidifying. The independent media is bilingual, the Belarusian language is slowly recovering. Few dream of joining Russia anymore. Paradoxically, it was Lukashenka who created the Republic of Belarus as a country with a distinctive identity, even if it is linguistically Russified.

How will Russia react if Belarus breaks free of the dictator’s shackles? It will release its closest ally from its sphere of influence. That does not seem up for debate at all, and yet it is not an obvious point. I asked a number of excellent experts on the region, both inside Belarus (Valer Bulhakau) and abroad (Adam Michnik and Timothy Snyder), and all agreed that Russia would not intervene. There will be no Ukrainian scenario, because that has simply not paid off for Russia. It gained the Donbass and Crimea—meaning it gained only problems—and lost Ukraine. Before 2014, Ukrainian society was favorable to Russia and largely spoke Russian. Russia had economic influence and an ally. And now the Russian language is disappearing in Ukraine, the economy is slowly recovering, the military is arming, and Russia is the country’s primary enemy in the eyes of Ukrainians. Anyone who claims otherwise is just ashamed to admit it.

If Russia were preparing something, we would already see the groundwork being laid by the Russian press. There would be propaganda slandering the opposition, Putin would be inventing conspiracy theories and amassing troops at the border. Green men would not have gotten caught like the Wagner Group mercenaries who were mocked and shown half naked on TV. Lukashenka would be waxing poetic about Slavic unity, not shouting at Russia and accusing the mercenaries of attempting to take over his country. Nothing like that is happening. Russia is waiting for Belarus to define itself so that it can deal with whoever is in power. Putin is probably hoping that the Belarusian people will soon start quarreling internally, gas and oil can be sold to them at market prices, and the West will offer Belarusians little more than scholarships. That is better for Russia than seizing Vitebsk and then holding it at an astronomical cost while facing further Western sanctions. Belarusians would turn away from Russia, and in a few years Russian would cease to be their language.

Crackdown Backfires

A better scenario, for both sides, is to pursue something akin to the status of Armenia—a relatively independent, democratic state, generally favorable to Russia, that remains outside NATO and EU structures. This would suit the democratically-minded political elite, which does not want war. That creates a kind of geopolitical window of opportunity for the opposition at a time when the dictator’s authority is collapsing. At a time when the world is being flooded by a wave of authoritarianism, democracy could be spectacularly successful in the place one would least expect, that is, in Belarus, which had been forgotten by everyone.

Both experts and the people on the street estimate support for Lukashenka at no more than 15-20 percent, mainly in the provinces. There I encountered very sharp disputes between Lukashenka’s supporters and his opponents. Everyone talks about politics. You can feel that history is unfolding before our eyes. The situation is changing daily. Election day and the following day saw demonstrations. The opposition formulated a plan long before the election so that everyone would know what to do, even if the internet was shut off. Last Sunday’s protest, on August 9, took place at Minsk’s Victory Square, as planned. Lukashenka sent in the riot police, who managed to take control of the square bit by bit. The next day, people started to organize themselves around metro stations. A barricade was erected at the intersection near the Riga shopping center, but the sharpest confrontation took place at the large intersection by the Pushkinskaya metro station. There, the riot police were not content with taking control of the area. At one point, without warning, they attacked, shooting rubber bullets (photos and recordings were published on Facebook). The authorities moved from defensive to offensive operations. The internal troops armed with shields and clubs disappeared, replaced by riot police armed with rifles and undercover agents tracking down and arresting journalists.

Stun grenades, flash bangs, and water cannons were only a prelude to rubber bullets (including some produced in Poland, something the Polish Ministry of National Defense has failed to explain, even though is obligated to monitor sales by third countries), beatings, and combing the area for dispersed demonstrators. Thousands of people were arrested and then tortured in jail. Some 40-50 people were locked up in an eight-person cell. In Gomel, people were kept in police vehicles due to a lack of space at the detention center. As a result, one young man died. The independent press also documented the first instances of live ammunition being used.

Opposition Rebounds

Lukashenka’s security services moved on to a new phase the next night. They no longer waited for the demonstrators to show up, but began to demonstratively punish anyone who came out onto the streets. Cars were beaten with truncheons, and their drivers were pulled out and beaten. I drove past several such situations, and I saw one victim being resuscitated. On two separate nights, I saw 60-80 armored vehicles driving along Minsk’s main street, Independence Avenue. The sadistic violence had an effect. The demonstrations stopped. After 7,000 people were arrested, it seemed that Lukashenka would survive.

And then a miracle happened. On Wednesday, August 12, women and girls took to the streets en masse, wearing white, holding flowers, and showing the V sign. They lined the streets and demonstrated against violence. They demonstrated all day. It brought tears to one’s eyes. The car horns howled again. In the afternoon, the doctors who tended to the victims of police beatings joined in, saying they had never experienced anything like this before. The next day, Thursday, workers began to go on strike. One factory after another joined the strike. It began with the country’s largest and most prestigious industrial enterprises: the BelAZ truck factory, the nitrogen plant in Grodno, and tractor manufacturing plants in Minsk. Then the railroad joined, followed on Friday by the Minsk Metro. The workers stood with the women.

The security services were at their wits’ end. They had not foreseen something like this. How could they shoot and beat women, doctors, and workers armed with heavy machinery? The opposition regained the streets, restoring control of the situation and regaining political effectiveness. Social media was flooded with photos and videos of police officers throwing their uniforms into the trash and their torn-off epaulets into the toilet. Paradoxically, the lack of leaders strengthened the protest, because Lukashenka did not know whom to arrest. The protesting women were not afraid of anything. They stood in front of KGB buildings, they seized every street. Fifty soldiers were stationed in front of the National Assembly, and they symbolically lowered their shields. Women started adorning them with flowers and embracing the soldiers. This further discredited the Lukashenka regime, and served as a disarming example for other members of the security services.

Regime Teetering?

On Saturday, August 15, the staff of Belarusian state television (primarily technical staff, but also some presenters) began to show solidarity with the protestors. On Sunday, state television reported on the protests for the first time. This was yet another breakthrough. Natalya Kachanova, chairwoman of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament, showed up, but she was not able to mollify the crowd. She was joined by Natalya Eismont, Lukashenka’s press secretary and wife of Ivan Eismont, head of the state television company. The next breakthrough came when Belarusian diplomats began to oppose Lukashenka, beginning with the ambassador to Slovakia.

Lukashenka responded with a rally on Independence Square on August 17, with some 5,000-7,000 supporters who had been bussed in. Two hours later, the opposition showed that it was able to mobilize between 200,000 and 500,000 people. Lukashenka ordered paratroopers from Vitebsk to the western border. Officially, this was a reaction to actions by Lithuania and Poland. Lukashenka stated that the army had the strength and the means to quell peaceful protests. He also added that he had reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding Russian assistance in pacifying the demonstrations. According to Lukashenka, Russia would respond as soon as it received a request from authorities in Minsk. He announced that the opposition would not come to power even after his death.

Speculating about the possible collapse of the regime in Belarus, we can rule out all scenarios that involve an agreement between Lukashenka and the opposition. The so-called the Spanish road to democracy or a round table scenario is out of the question. Lukashenka can end up either like Yanukovych or like Ceausescu—in exile (living off the fortune he stole) or shot in the same manner in which he killed his political opponents. His closest allies will face either the same fate, that, or international justice.

The post Belarus Primed to Break Free appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

A new generation of Belarusians has clashed violently with the security forces this week in reaction to what is widely perceived as a rigged presidential election on Sunday. The incumbent, Aleksander Lukashenka, was officially declared the victor on August 14, with 80.1 percent, while the promising challenger, Svitlana Tikhanovskaya, was attributed just 10.1 percent. These results, which had been provisionally published earlier, have been vehemently disputed.

Electoral observer reports have severely criticized the electoral process, the system of early voting and the counting of votes. A survey conducted by the Berlin-based Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) prior to the elections found that less than 10 percent of young Belarusians said they intended to vote for Lukashenka.

The online survey was conducted from June 22 to July 4 among 2,000 respondents aged 18-34 who live in the country’s six largest cities and offers some insights into current developments in the country. Events since the election demonstrate that the regime has severely misjudged the public support that Tikhanovskaya and her team have gathered. Protests, strikes, and solidarity chains illustrate the growing distance between the paternalist regime, entirely dependent on its power structures, and society.

Worsening Economy and Decreasing Trust

Discontent has been on the rise and contradicts Belarus’ self-image as a stable welfare state caring for the well-being of its citizens in exchange for political freedoms. Russia’s generous energy subsidies have ended, real incomes have fallen and the official unemployment rate (2.3 percent) is widely perceived as fiction. Not much is left of the so-called “Belarusian model.”

The authorities’ mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic has now added to the already growing societal grievances. Young people have been hit particularly badly by the pandemic. Nearly 40 percent of the respondents in our survey stated that their employment situation had changed due to COVID-19—some were forced into unemployment and most into part-time employment. 53 percent of the young people surveyed were in full-time employment.

Trust in key state institutions has been eroding in the first half of 2020 in the context of the pandemic. In February 2020, young people expressed on average neutral trust ratings for the president and the security forces and positive ratings for the army. These numbers had deteriorated remarkably by the summer with 75 percent of young people expressing no trust in the president and the security forces. The numbers will likely have evolved further over the six weeks since the survey was carried out.

Today’s low approval rates are moreover a culmination of a gradual erosion of the relationship between youth and the establishment. In 2017, as part of the so-called parasite law, the authorities introduced a special tax for the unemployed. This triggered a wave of social protests across the country, leading to its revocation. Other measures included the tightening of a law penalizing the possession of (even light) drugs and the de facto abolition of deferments for young male conscripts to solve the armed forces’ recruitment problems.

Politicization of Youth

During the electoral campaign, young people had joined the large opposition rallies early on and they have been at the forefront of the post-election protests. Usually, protest participation among young Belarusians is low, on average below 5 percent, given the dangers to personal safety. This time threats to personal well-being have not stopped people from taking to the streets and expressing their frustration about the rigged election and the system in place.

A major factor in this mobilization has been social media. The Warsaw-based telegram channel NEXTA (nearly 2 million subscribers) and the channel of the independent news portal tut.by have turned into the main conduit through which people abroad and in the country communicate by means of encrypted traffic. For long, the internet has absorbed young people’s frustration and these digital natives have now turned into keyboard warriors. However, with the periodical internet shutdowns, activism has taken to the street.

Clashes with Police

Immediately following the presidential elections, it was predominantly young people who clashed with the special police force OMON and the Belarusian internal troops. The clashes have so far led to the arrest of more than 6,000 people, 250 hospitalizations and two confirmed fatalities. Young people on the streets are not, as Lukashenka suggests, criminals and unemployed people, but instead—our data suggests—they are a diverse group, including women and men, people with different economic backgrounds and from different cities. A heightened political interest and dissatisfaction with the status quo are the factors that unite them.

The brutal crackdown by the police force against activists and ordinary citizens alike are not new. The results of previous presidential elections in 2006 and 2010 have been equally contested when security forces violently quashed protests. Belarus under Lukashenka has always been a police state—with Europe’s highest police density rate. The security apparatus has proved to be particularly reform-resistant.

There are indications that such a response has been prepared in advance to prevent domestic destabilization. Nevertheless, there have been several online testimonies by members of the security forces quitting an apparatus perceived as oppressive.

The president has up to now been able to rely on the unfailing loyalty of Belarusian elites and state employees. This loyalty is grounded in their socialization. Most of them built careers under the current president, who represents continuity. For many commentators, the election this year raised hopes that this loyalty could dwindle, since it had become clear that elites, especially in the regions, are no monolithic bloc. But whether high-rank officers will abandon their loyalty and turn against the regime remains doubtful.

Europe’s Response?

Reactions by the European Union and Germany, as current holder of the EU Council presidency, to the events in Belarus have so far been muddled. There are two major hurdles to an adequate response.

First, Europe lacks a coherent Belarusian policy, because there was no need to have one. For many European policy-makers, Belarus played only a marginal role as it seemed dominated by Russia. The politicians who are now horrified by the events in Minsk and elsewhere are mostly the same ones that supported the lifting of sanctions in 2016—against the appeals of Belarusian civil society.

Second, formulating a coherent policy under current conditions is difficult given internal splits. Poland and Lithuania have been the first to condemn the elections and were joined by several other European countries and the EU. Whereas Lithuania seeks a leading position, Poland lacks credibility to advocate for human rights given its own conflicts with the EU over the rule of law. Other EU members, notably Hungary, have been less vocal, has been largely silent due to vested interests.

On the other hand, if Europe stays on the sidelines and only expresses compassion with Belarusians, this will lead to justified criticism. Not acting in such a moment of crisis is also a statement. It is important that the EU provide every support possible for the Belarusian opposition and stays engaged beyond the election period, something it has failed to do in the past.

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Source: Ember/Agora Energiewende

The public discourse about the energy transition tends to focus on the additive side: can we add enough wind turbines so that they produce a quarter of our electricity? From a climate protection point of view, however, it is the subtractive side of the transition that is relevant. The objective is to avoid burning fossil fuels, and it doesn’t matter to the atmosphere whether we do so by running the dryer on renewable power, making it more efficient, or not turning it on at all.

It’s a bit like tobacco, another product we burned for a long time before we were aware of the health effects. You might have no hope of giving up cigarettes unless you exercise, meditate, or vape. But doing all of those things, as nice as they might be, will do little to reduce your risk of lung cancer if you still smoke a pack a day.

This irksome fact—that we need to stop consuming still-valuable resources—is what makes the low-carbon energy transition different from previous transitions and coal exits such an important part of EU climate policy.

Coal’s Dying Embers

The good news is coal is on the way out in Europe. In 2019, wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels for the first time ever, as EU-27 power plants burned 339 million tons of coal, down from 586 million tons in 2012. The pandemic-blighted year of 2020 has seen a further drop, with EU coal power generation down nearly a third thanks to a mild winter, low demand during lockdown, and the falling cost of renewables.

Though the trend line is clear, the Europe-wide statistics mask major differences between countries. Sweden, Austria, and Belgium have already closed down their last coal power plants. Coal is increasingly irrelevant for power production in the United Kingdom, Italy, and France, which all plan to quit coal completely over the next few years. Lagging behind are Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece, and the Czech Republic, which all generate a sizable share of their electricity from coal but do limited damage to the climate because of their relatively small economies.

Then there’s Germany and Poland. Each generated about as much electricity from coal as the rest of the EU combined in the first half of 2020, and each plans to burn coal for many years to come.

The Kohleausstieg

In July, Germany adopted a law to ensure the end of coal power by 2038 at the latest. Unfortunately, the Kohleausstieg will happen so slowly that it is incompatible with the Paris Agreement goals—to reach those targets, the German Institute for Economic Research found, Germany would have to quit coal by 2030. Critics also argue that the law will give power companies too much compensation for running coal-fired plants that won’t be profitable anyway.

On the other hand, the process has been a shining example of how to steer and manage the decline of an important industry, with power companies, coal miners and coal regions, and a majority of the Bundestag able to reach a compromise. The €40 billion set aside for coal-dependent regions is a sign that the government realizes the scale of the job. And the coal exit could go faster in the end: the German Federal Network Agency, for one, expects it to be wrapped up by 2035. An expensive date that arrives too late is better than none at all.

Light at the End of the Mine

Poland has set no date for its coal exit. Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin recently said, “We believe that Poland’s dependence on coal energy will come to an end in 2050 or even 2060,” a timeline that makes Germany’s plodding exit look like a hundred-yard dash.

While the nationalist-conservative PiS government is especially close with the coal industry, politics is not the only obstacle to rapid change. Poland is wary of replacing some coal with Russian gas (as Germany has done) and also has no nuclear power plants (a soon-to-be-realized German objective). Ahead of the 2019 parliamentary elections the biggest opposition group, the European Coalition, proposed 2040 as an end date for coal. It appears Poland’s coal replacement will be a slow one, whoever is in charge.

It’s not as if Polish decision-makers are unaware that the future for coal is not bright. The CEO of state-owned coal giant PGG, Tomasz Rogala, admits that “the situation is critical.” The Ministry of State Assets, which Sasin leads, reportedly planned to introduce a restructuring plan for PGG in late July. The plan would have closed several loss-making mines this year, temporarily cut miners’ salaries, created a fund for miners who quit to receive retraining, and perhaps even set a coal exit date of 2036.

In the face of pressure from powerful trade unions, however, the government had to walk back its restructuring plans. (Poland is going ahead with a plan to combine its three utilities in two groups, one for coal and one for non-coal energy, which could pave the way for more changes to come.) It now wants to set up a commission, including union representatives, to find a solution acceptable to all.

Coal miners will benefit from the government’s recent creation of a strategic reserve of hard coal worth €30 million, the latest installment of state support for an industry that has come to rely on it. Polish miners are having to dig deeper and deeper to access coal, which makes it more expensive. In fact, Polish firms have been importing huge quantities of Russian coal because it is cheaper and higher quality, quite a contradiction for a country with such concerns about becoming dependent on energy from the east.

Angry Neighbors

Higher costs for mining, pressure from citizens upset about foul air—in 2016 Poland had 33 of the 50 most polluted cities in Europe—these are the internal forces working against the Polish coal industry. But there is external pressure too, mostly from Brussels. The rising cost of EU emissions permits over the last three years has only added to coal-fired plants’ expenses. And one reason that Polish utilities have risked miners’ fury to import Russian coal is because its sulfur content is low enough to comply with EU regulations, unlike the Polish stuff.

As European climate regulations get stricter and the EU budget gets larger, these external pressures will grow. For instance, according to the EU budget and recovery package agreed last month under Germany’s EU Council presidency, Poland will receive only 50 percent of the funds it is eligible for under the EU’s €17.5 billion Just Transition Fund because it has declined to sign up to the EU goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.

Missing out on a small share of that money, meant for the EU’s most vulnerable fossil fuel-dependent regions, won’t fundamentally change the coal equation for Polish leaders. Yet the fact that the EU is making some funds conditional on climate action (if not adherence to the rule of law) sets a precedent that could be costly for Warsaw. If the EU approves the European Commission’s proposal to increase the 2030 emissions reduction target from 40-55 percent, Poland would have real difficulties meeting its obligations.

Unsatisfying Council Conclusions

By the time of the next EU budget negotiations in 2027, coal will face an even more unfavorable environment. EU politics will be even more Europeanized, perhaps even with transnational lists for European Parliament candidates. The next budget will likely represent a bigger share of member-share revenue and be more conditional on climate action—and pressure from international bodies and trading partners will weigh heavier too.

We could even look ahead to Germany’s next European Council presidency, sometime around 2034. Greta Thunberg will be 31, the next generation of youth climate activists will be even less compromising, and EU consumers will demand more information about the carbon footprint of their products. Poland and Germany, however, will still be burning coal for electricity. Coal may be in decline in Europe, but there is still a lot of work to do to ensure we aren’t having the same debates about coal exits in seven years, or in fourteen.

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There is no doubt that the French are a self-sufficient bunch. After all, it was a Frenchman who once wrote, “Hell is other people.”

COVID-19 or not, the French rarely travel abroad for holidays. In terms of food, most French people think they have it best. And at housewarming parties in Paris, the music playlist is usually primarily made up of chansons and French rap classics.

And despite President Emmanuel Macron’s attempts to turn Europe into a global “balancing power,” what happens abroad doesn’t seem to spark much interest at home. The evening news on the public channel on average dedicates 16 percent of its coverage to European and foreign news. By comparison, that proportion rises to 50 percent in Germany. No surprise then that polls show the average French person knows little about the functioning of the EU.

But if this cliché about French aloofness is easily backed up with data points, another common trope about the Gauls doesn’t: that of French arrogance.  At least when it comes to the present, the French are brutally self-critical.

Ruminating

In fact, France seem to be among the least chauvinistic countries in Europe. Asked whether they think their culture is superior to others, 36 percent of the French answered “yes” in a recent poll. This compares to 46 percent in the United Kingdom and 45 percent in Germany.

Or take the COVID-19 crisis: unlike other nations, the Republic’s citoyens won’t rally around the flag. Among Europeans, the French give their government the lowest grades for its handling of the pandemic. Never mind that four of France’s neighbors have significantly higher death-per-capita rates. Never mind either that France’s short-time work benefits are among the most generous, also explaining why consumption is almost back to pre-crisis levels.

Of course, one could explain the French’s dim view of the state’s COVID-19 response as being due to Macron’s unpopularity. But by French standards, the president is actually polling relatively well. At 39 percent, Macron’s approval ratings surpass his predecessors François Hollande (23 percent) and Nicolas Sarkozy (35 percent) at the same point in their terms.

The negative view the French have of their country goes far beyond the complaint du jour. As Macron put it, “We are a country that for decades is divided and in doubt.”

Livre de Plage

Claudia Senik, an economics professor at the Paris School of Economics researching happiness, might have one explanation for why the French are so downbeat about themselves.

Studying cross-national polls, she found that the French have much lower levels of life satisfaction than other countries with similar socio-economic profiles. Senik observed that even when living abroad, French expats are less happy than the local population. This led her to argue that there must be something about France’s cultural “mentality” and education that makes them less happy than their wealth would otherwise suggest.

It’s easy to see where Senik is getting her cues: The French associate intelligence with skepticism. This is still the country that gave birth to René Descartes and existentialism. Today’s best-selling authors are the likes of Virginie Despentes, Michel Houellebecq, and Édouard Louis, who depict contemporary France as a decaying and violent society. More conciliatory books are relegated to the livres de plage category: A distraction to accompany your sunbathing at the beach, but not serious literature.

Finally, there is also a “foul your own nest” premium. Actor Gerard Depardieu insults the French as “a people of idiots” and takes on Russian citizenship. He is only surpassed by comedian Louis de Funès in box office sales. The late rock’n’roll and pop icon Johnny Hallyday moved to Switzerland in the 2000s bashing France’s tax system. Still, the country’s entire political elite joined the roughly 1 million French who flooded the streets of Paris to attend the star’s funeral in 2017. The French love the ones that hate them.

Declinism

Nonetheless, there is more to France’s ruthless self-criticism and declinist tradition than intellectual vanity. Questioned about his negativism, Houellebecq wondered whether he is depressive or the world is depressing.

Indeed, the state of the world has not helped. In geopolitical terms, the former imperial power has long been in decline. And France’s dirigiste economy and society made the country look passé for much of the last 30 years of liberal hegemony.

Add to this the exceptional expectations the French have of their state, and France’s malaise is unsurprising. Frustration is a function of expectations minus reality, psychologists say. The republic’s moto of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” written above every school entrance, is a high bar compared to Germany’s “Unity, Law, and Freedom.”

No wonder the French see their past presidents as a succession of failures. No wonder France has been leading from behind in the OECD’s trust in government indicator for a long time. The paradox, however, is that despite the fact that politics unremittingly disappoints the French, they continue to perceive the state as the solution to each and every single economic and societal problem.

Beyond the Nation State

Another interesting finding from Senik’s research is that foreigners that move to France gradually adopt the locals’ tendency to see the wine glass half empty. It’s been a bit more than two years since I’ve moved to Paris, so please allow me to finish on a slightly optimistic note.

First, the country’s gloomy intellectual establishment is wrong-footed by their compatriots every once in a while. Houellebecq rubbed his eyes in astonishment at Macron’s election in 2017, commenting, “This is the first time I’ve seen positive thinking actually work.”

And second, because of their state-centrism the French sense more strongly the limits of the nation state in today’s world. Europe is no longer just an instrument for French great power status, as Charles de Gaulle viewed it, but a necessity for France to protect its way of life. This explains how Macron managed to get elected not in spite of, but rather thanks to his ambitious EU platform. And this change in the scale of thinking—going beyond the nation state—is what the world needs to confront most major challenges.

And now on to your livre de plage!

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© Agencja Gazeta/Adam Stepien via REUTERS

The outcome of Poland’s presidential election on July 12 will cause ripples not only in the country itself, but also in Europe. Formally, the Polish presidency is a mostly ceremonial post, though with the power to veto laws. Yet symbolically, the result of the election will shape whether Poland becomes more open or closed—and its role within the post-Brexit, coronavirus-era EU.

Since 2015, Poland has been governed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which combines social conservatism with a statist approach to the economy. While not opposed to Poland’s EU membership, it has adopted a more defiant attitude to the EU, similar to that of Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán. Its overhaul of the country’s judiciary, including the Supreme Court, has led to a drawn-out conflict with the European Commission, which has accused the PiS government of undermining the rule of law.

In this election, Poles will choose between Andrzej Duda, the PiS-backed president (he left the party after he was elected in 2015), and Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, who hails from the centrist Civic Platform (PO), the old party of Donald Tusk, who served as Polish prime minister before taking on the presidency of the European Council. Both of the candidates were born in 1972, have a background in academia, and served as members of the European Parliament. Politically, though, they are on opposite sides of the PO-PiS conflict that has dominated Polish politics for more than a decade.

PiS vs. PO, Reloaded

In the first round of the election on June 28, Duda came first with 43.5 percent of the vote, followed by Trzaskowski with 30.5 percent. The rest of the vote was split between several candidates: Szymon Hołownia, a liberal Catholic who ran as an independent, with 13.9 percent, far-right national Krzysztof Bosak, with 6.8 percent, agrarian candidate Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz with 2.4 percent, and center-left candidate Robert Biedroń. The other candidates got less than 0.3 percent. As no one candidate attracted over 50 percent of the votes, there will be a Duda-Trzaskowski runoff on July 12.

Despite the coronavirus epidemic, the health and economic situation has not figured prominently in the election campaign. Instead, Duda tried to mobilize socially conservative voters with homophobic rhetoric, calling LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) rights an “ideology” more destructive than communism. This was a direct attack on Trzaskowski, who signed an LGBT Declaration for Warsaw last year, after he was elected mayor.

Foreign policy hasn’t been much of a campaign issue, either, even though Poland’s president is the state representative in international affairs and commander-in-chief of the armed forced. At a basic level, this reflects the longstanding consensus in Polish politics, whereby Poland is firmly rooted in the EU and NATO. However, there are significant differences in emphasis between the two candidates.

A Visit to the White House

Duda has banked on relations with the United States. On June 24, four days before the first round, he made a last-minute visit to the White House to meet with President Donald Trump. Although no concrete decisions were made, the meeting was meant to show Poland’s close relationship with the US. The visit came with an apparent endorsement from Trump: “And I do believe he has an election coming up, and I do believe he’ll be very successful,” he said at the joint press conference with Duda in the Rose Garden. This raised eyebrows in Poland and beyond, with one European diplomat warning that Poland is taking a risk by being so close to such a controversial politician, who might not be re-elected later this year. Trzaskowski responded to Duda’s meeting Trump with a telephone conversation with former President Barack Obama the following week, during which they spoke about “the importance of Polish democracy within the EU and the significance of the US-Polish alliance.”

As president, Duda’s main foreign policy endeavor has been the Three Seas Initiative, a Polish-Croatian venture bringing together 12 Central European countries, including Austria, that seeks to improve cross-border energy, transport, and digital infrastructure in the region (its recent summits have been attended by representatives of the US and German governments). Although he is not against Poland’s membership in the EU, this has not stopped Duda from making disparaging statements about it. In 2018, for example, he called the EU an “imaginary community from which we don’t gain much …Of course we have the right to have expectations towards Europe—especially towards the Europe that left us to be the prey of the Russians in 1945—but above all we have the right to rule ourselves here on our own and decide what form Poland should have,” he said, speaking at an event in the town of Leżajsk, in the country’s south-east, which tends to be more pro-PiS. On another occasion, also in 2018, Duda likened EU membership to the partition of Poland, when the country was divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia from 1795 until 1918. This kind of rhetoric reflects the wider tendency in PiS to speak of the EU in terms of “us” versus “them.”

An Active Role

In contrast, Trzaskowski—who served as Poland’s Europe minister from 2014 to 2015 in the PO-led government before PiS came to power—has tended to emphasize the active role Poland has to play in Europe, not least after Brexit. “We will not substitute Britain, but we can offer this young spirit, this dynamism, this openness and perspective,” he told me in an interview in Warsaw last year, in English (one of the several languages he speaks). “The partitions, the Second World War, then communism stifled the dynamism and now it’s out in the open, and that is why we crave those possibilities,” he added, explaining that Poland could channel this energy into Europe.

Asked about his first visit abroad if he is elected president during a televised Q&A with journalists on July 6, Trzaskowski said that he would first invite the French and German presidents to Warsaw, to “renew the Weimar Triangle” which consists of France, Germany and Poland.  His first visit abroad will be to Brussels, to “fight for as large a budget as possible for Poland.” The country “is truly strong when it is strong and influential in the EU,” he said, adding that he will seek to rebuild its position, after its marginalization by PiS.

With strengthening fundamental values, notably the rule of law, among the priorities of the six-month German presidency of the Council of the European Union, which began on July 1, 2020, a change in president in Warsaw would also affect the dynamics of the Polish government’s conflict with the European Commission over the courts. Trzaskowski announced this week that, as president, he would use his power of veto to block any decision by the PiS government that does further damage to Poland’s courts.

With the two candidates neck and neck in the opinion polls, Berlin, Paris, and other capitals are preparing for both scenarios. In broad terms, Duda’s re-election would mean a continuation of the status quo. Meanwhile, a Trzaskowski victory could offer new opportunities in bilateral relations and within the EU (such as strengthening the Weimar Triangle at the presidential level, as mentioned above). In the election on July 12, Poles will not only be casting a vote for the type of country they want to live in, but also its role in Europe.

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© John Macdougall/Pool via REUTERS

In times of emergency, in whom do we vest our trust? What does the COVID-19 pandemic say about the future of the various political systems?  Are authoritarians increasing in confidence? Are populists a spent force? Has liberal democracy, already not in great condition, been damaged yet further?

An analysis of success or failure can be divided into three components. The first is social trust—the faith the public has in the state’s ability to deliver on its promises, to play by the rules. In return, citizens will, in extremis, hand over liberties. The second is the capacity of the state. Governments that prioritized long-termism, planning, and investment in public services have been able to find reserves of strength to avoid meltdown in health and other vital areas.

The third and least appreciated ingredient is competence. Which takes me immediately to the populists. At the risk of simplifying, the only one who has dealt with COVID-19 with measure of efficiency has been Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Orbán is one of the world’s most pernicious leaders, a former dissident in Communist times turned right-wing nationalist. He has won a string of elections thanks to a mix of xenophobia and undermining of the opposition. He exploited the early stages of the pandemic to crack down yet further on the media and other democratic safeguards like the judiciary. Yet Hungary is still a member of the EU. It still notionally observes the norms that we recognize. And it has not collapsed during coronavirus.

Good Campaigners, Bad Governors

By contrast, what do Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump, and Boris Johnson have in common? They are good campaigners. They may have charisma, but they do not have the skill-set to govern. They have each presided over the most chaotic responses to, and highest death tolls from, COVID-19. These leaders, with their bombast and bluster, came to power precisely because they didn’t attempt to unite their societies, to be all things to all people. Instead, they identified the fears of a significant part of the population, their base, and harnessed those fears in a culture war against the other. They are hostile to expertise, equating it to some form elitist conspiracy. They are averse to complexity and thrive on simple them-and-us narratives; they struggle with invisible enemies.

At this point, it is important to distinguish between anxiety and fear. The populists thrived on generalized anxiety over standard of living, access to services, identity. Anxiety is a diffused sense of worry about the future, about a sense of belonging, in which migrants and the “global elites” are the culprits. COVID-19 did not produce anxiety. It produced a classical state of fear. Like in a horror film, you know very well what you fear even if you can’t see it. You fear being infected, you fear ending up in hospital, you fear dying and someone close to you dying and you can’t even give them a dignified burial. You’re looking for somebody to protect you. And the populists have so far failed, lamentably. So—who should we turn to instead? Which system both protects us from the initial, visceral fear and enables us to recover?

The New Authoritarians

A decade or so ago, I spent time at the politics school at the National University of Singapore. I was researching a book I was writing called Freedom For Sale. It was looking at the country’s model, the pact between citizen and state: basic freedoms given up in return for prosperity and security, and the essential difference between private freedoms and public freedoms. I have long argued that 21st century authoritarians differ from 20th century dictators. They don’t seek to control every element of everyone’s life.

China, after its slow start, used draconian measures to crack down on COVID-19.  It has since then mounted a relentless PR campaign to show how it is helping the hapless West.  America’s death toll, the highest in the world, and footage of refrigerator trucks on street corners waiting to pick up corpses, play into its hands.

China’s record has, in spite of its propaganda, hardly been a spectacular success. Its punishment of whistle-blowers is a problem that would only occur in that kind of authoritarian system where ordinary people on the ground are afraid to report bad news up to their leaders. Yet authoritarian governments do have one big advantage: once they get mobilized, they have a degree of state power that can get things done. Yet longer term, the pact with its people only works if the regime can deliver on its side of the bargain, a steadily increasing standard of living and a state that can assure citizens’ safety.

COVID-19 is now accelerating the ideological battle between Right and Left, democracy and authoritarianism, and simplicity and complexity. It is revealing and reinforcing the strengths and weaknesses of the different systems. It is giving regimes cover. At the latest count, at least 60 governments of all types have postponed elections since February. How many will take place any time soon, and under what conditions? One person’s legitimate reason to deal with an emergency is another’s power grab.

Poster Girls

And what of democracies? South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Finland, and Germany would fall into the category of poster boys, or should I say poster girls, of the democratic world’s pandemic response. Is there anything to deduce from the fact that these countries are run by women? Views vary on that single conclusion. If not, what else do they have in common?

It is worth focusing on Angela Merkel, a scientist by profession and a product of a system that prizes reliability over bombast. Written off by many as beyond her “sell-by” date, the German chancellor has risen to the occasion. She’s proved herself to be an effective communicator authentic, credible, and fact-based. She says what she knows, no matter how painful, and what she doesn’t know.

Competence is back in fashion after the cheap charisma fetish of recent years. Competence is necessary for the credibility of any government, but it is also insufficient. Empathy is important, too. The fact that Merkel grew up in Communist East Germany matters when people were being told they couldn’t leave their homes, couldn’t travel and had to have their movements tracked. Unlike others who are more complacent, she doesn’t take her freedoms for granted. Freedom isn’t just a lifestyle choice, a piece of showboating. Perhaps you value things only when you know what it’s like not to have them.

Not Going Quietly

Have the populists really been put back in their box, or are they just biding their time, waiting for unemployment to surge and anger to rise? You can safely assume they are not going to disappear quietly. Trump is more likely to foment civil disorder than to quit the White House with good grace. The contentious victory of George W. Bush in 2000, thanks to the Supreme Court and the so-called “hanging chads” in Florida, demonstrated the fragility of the US electoral system. It has only worsened since, with gerrymandering of constituencies and other potential loopholes for abuse. The once cheerleader for democratic norms is now providing cover for authoritarians to use nefarious means to stay in power. The military’s refusal to be deployed by Trump in states that did not crack down on Black Lives Matter protests was a welcome and vital rebuff. But prepare for a dramatic six months ahead.

The fears produced by COVID-19, and the palpable failure of the populists to tackle it, may galvanize people to embrace steady-as-she-goes mainstream politics again and to treasure attributes they seemed to have tired of. The most intriguing question for the new era of politics is this: does competence equate to centrism? Does it have to be bland? Is it capable of exciting voters?

Did the politics of social democracy and Christian democracy, New Labour and One Nation Conservatism—denounced as hollowed out and inauthentic—disappear for good or are they returning? Or turn the question around. Can competence live with risk-taking radicalism, a politics that is pragmatic, but that is not incremental?

The Centrist Challenge

This is the challenge for Merkel’s successors and for all Germany’s mainstream parties. It is the same challenge as affects President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders in the EU who adhere to the post-war consensus-based political model. It is the challenge that faces the United Kingdom’s impressive new leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer, and of course Joe Biden, if he wins in the US. Leaders such as these need to find a way of introducing radical change to their respective societies, while portraying that change as both essential and non-threatening. It is easier to play safe (the old center-left, center-right model) or to divide societies (the populists). The next great democratic leader will have to be a responsible revolutionary.

Their immediate prospects, with all the economic mayhem and possible social strife to come, do not look particularly good.  But if the next generation of leaders learn the lessons, invest in the public good, basic services and democratic institutions; if they become less complacent and prioritize competence, they have a chance.

John Kampfner’s BBC documentary, The Smack of Firm Leadership, is available as a podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jvs4

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© REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to the collapse of international cooperation, which in turn is pushing the attempts to end the wars in Afghanistan and Syria into the background. However, the European Union could play a pivotal role in supporting a UN-led peace process in both countries.

In Afghanistan, the February 2020 peace deal between the United States and the Taliban was a remarkable event meant to end 19 years of war. A UN Security Council Resolution in March said the deal presented “significant steps toward ending the war” and offered “sustained support” to achieve peace. However, the proposed peace process does not hold the Taliban accountable, and risks the legitimacy of the government of Afghanistan. In Syria, Russia’s diplomatic and military gains stand on bilateral relations with Damascus, lacking appropriate American and EU cooperation.

A threat-based security narrative during the Obama administration failed to separate legitimate threats from the constructive roles Russia and China could play in ending the conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria. The Trump administration has experienced growing tensions with both China and Russia as well as fracturing relations with the EU, which has further undermined the development of a global approach toward ending these deadly conflicts.

The War in Afghanistan

For the US and NATO, the war in Afghanistan originated as a military response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. For the Afghans and the region at large, the root cause of the conflict was Moscow’s and Washington’s regime-change approach during the Cold War, resulting in the collapse of the Afghan state, the rise of the Taliban, and the establishment of al-Qaeda.

Regime change as an ideological principle in US foreign policy during the 1980s prevented Washington from supporting the formation of a national unity government in Afghanistan. During the Carter, Reagan and Bush administrations, the investment in war overwhelmed any possibilities for conflict resolution. Washington justified its support for Pakistan-led Afghan rebel groups with its policy of bringing about regime change in Kabul, even after Mikhail Gorbachev ordered the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the US signed the 1988 Geneva Accord. This action prolonged the war and produced militant leaders including Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden, Ibn al-Khateb, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Abubaker al Baghdadi. Had the US response to Gorbachev’s actions been different, it might have prevented the collapse of the state, improved regional stability, and spared itself 19 years of war.

Now, Washington and Brussels are looking for a quick end to the prolonged and costly intervention, but entangled regional concerns, particularly from Pakistan, halt progress. In addition, the current US peace deal with the Taliban is limited and contradicts Washington’s Joint Declaration with the Afghan government. A UN-led program within a cooperative regional mechanism could clarify the way forward.

The War in Syria

The US and EU’s lack of a viable political strategy toward Syria was evident from the start of the political unrest. For the US, the objective of Operation “Timber Sycamore” (from approximately 2012) was clear: regime change in Syria by forcing Bashar al-Assad from power. Like in 1980s Afghanistan, the injection of financial and military resources via Timber Sycamore soon caused a growing Islamization of the anti-government resistance forces. Washington’s lack of political strategy dragged regional actors such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel deeper into the conflict, opening political and military spaces for Iranian and Russian influence. By mid-2015, Moscow ordered the deployment of troops to avert a US-backed regime change. The preservation of the al-Assad regime was integrated into Russia’s stabilization program, regardless of the brutalities it committed against the Syrian people.

The presence of the US-led military coalition against ISIS alongside the Russian military offered both countries the opportunity to transform a tactical military collaboration into diplomatic cooperation toward ending the conflict. Yet instead, the US insisted on the removal of the al-Assad regime as a prerequisite toward ending the war, further extending the conflict.

Meanwhile, with US assistance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) became a formidable popular force that drove out the ISIS fighters from strategic areas and brought a physical end of the Islamic State in Syria in October 2017. By December, the SDF controlled around 30 percent of the Syrian territory, including important oil fields and a large population. The success of the SDF offered Washington the needed leverage to press Moscow into supporting the Transition Plan for Syria, which was originally sponsored by the UN in October 2015 and supported by 17 nations, including Russia and Iran. Instead, on January 13, 2018, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced the US intention to transfer 30,000 Kurdish-led SDF fighters into border forces in northern Syria. Two days later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned the US move. This unintended Turkish response forced the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately reverse that decision. Ankara capitalized on American backtracking, portraying it as US willingness to throw the Kurdish forces under the bus.

The sudden withdrawal of US forces in October 2019 opened the door once again to the Turkish military and its allied Islamist militant fighters to attack Kurdish forces in the northeastern region of Syria. This chaotic situation forced the SDF to reach out to Russia and the al-Assad government to protect the border towns. The Syrian and Russian military forces entered key towns ahead of the Turkish military. Turkey reached an agreement with Russia to force the SDF to withdraw from a 120-kilometer-long border region. As a result, the US lost the narrative of regime change, and caused escalating regional hostility that opened cleavages for a reemerging ISIS, and continued Russian and Iranian military presence in Syria.

Throughout the Syrian conflict, Washington, Brussels, and Moscow have all neglected the regional ties and interests. Deconstructing these regional interests requires collective regional cooperation so as to allow pragmatic forces to reconstruct a narrative that fits within a new regional order.

Why Rejuvenate a UN Role?

US peace efforts in Afghanistan and the Russians’ gains in Syria reveal the limits of bilateral approaches toward ending deadly conflicts. In contrast, a UN-led diplomatic framework—with reference to the 1988 Geneva Accord and the 2015 Vienna Peace Talks—could ensure the success of the US-Taliban peace deal and allow the Syrian people a dignified and just peace, while recognizing the shared strategic interests of relevant member states. Now China, with its $23-billion-commitment to the Arab region and hundreds of billions of dollars to Southwest and Central Asia, and its recently expressed strong support for the US-Taliban peace deal, could incentivize stability in both regions. The EU’s commitment to the UN global role and multilateralism is also advantageous for peace, but the absence of active EU-led regional cooperation and fractious relationships between the US, the EU, Russia, and China is the grim reality, which has global consequences.

Given this reality, a UN-led diplomatic effort to capitalize on the peace deal with the Taliban and stabilize efforts in Syria is would be welcome. With a growing level of collaboration among Security Council members, a constructive UN role should allow for comprehensive conflict transformation in Afghanistan and Syria and reignite post-COVID-19 multilateral cooperation.

EU support for a UN-led framework could draw on established relationships with Russia, China, and the US. The EU has ample opportunity to spearhead the construction of this framework; it has been central to the UN-led peace mediations in the Levant and Middle East and the UN mission in Afghanistan. A strong sentiment regarding not leaving the Middle East to “the global power far from [the] region,” expressed last year by the then President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, adds some important energy toward effective peace-building.

EU-supported, UN-led mediation efforts in Afghanistan and Syria should receive bipartisan support from the US Congress, which should encourage the Trump administration to support the efforts as well. A multilateral approach toward key critical regional and global issues would also allow the EU to redefine its leadership role within a global order that will emerge once the COVID-19 pandemic begins to wane.

The Way Forward

Afghanistan and Syria have both emerged as epicenters for terrorism, threatening regional stability with global consequences; therefore, ending hostility is far beyond the ability of the governments in power. To start, two key challenges must be addressed:

Overcoming Deep Mistrust: The lack of trust between the warring factions, regional stakeholders, and the countries’ populations demands an effective impartial mediating body, such as a UN-led mediation effort. In Afghanistan, the US peace deal with the Taliban suffers from significant credibility gaps but can still be seen as a positive step forward to be incorporated into a regionally oriented, UN-led mediation program. Unlike with the 1988 Geneva Accord, this time the Taliban is party to the negotiation and a signatory to its implementation. The biggest hurdle in the process is an agreement between the Afghan and Pakistani governments to honor the peace deal. This can happen only if Islamabad sees a peaceful Afghanistan as a geo-economic gain in terms of its relations with China and Central Asia rather than as the instrument of hostility against India.

In Syria, there have been extended mediation efforts by the UN, the Arab League, and inter-state programs including the Astana Process, yet these have so far failed to end the war. Like Afghanistan, the Syrian conflict also has complex regional and international characteristics that means it is beyond the ability of the al-Assad government or any armed opposition groups to end it. The key strategic issue preventing any mediation from succeeding up to now is the question of how the war in Syria should end, something that has allowed Syria’s neighbors to support armed political oppositions on the basis of their assumed self-interest. As a result, a new regional trust-building mechanism is needed; a UN-led mediation program would serve as the only impartial, but effective arbiter if it is genuinely backed and resourced by the UN Security Council.

Achieving Regional Integration: The absence of a viable post-war policy for Afghanistan and Syria under the Trump administration opens the window for the EU to play a regionally oriented stabilizing role. To achieve this, the EU should task its Commission for Transatlantic Legislators Dialogue with gaining the needed support from the US Congress for a UN-led Transition Plan in Syria and an inclusive partnership in the Afghan peace process. A UN-led 7+1 (the US, China, Russia, the EU, Pakistan, India, Iran plus Afghanistan) cooperative platform could utilize the current international commitment to regional peacemaking and peace-building. Strong support exists for a US/EU strategic partnership among American legislators, as seen in the January 2019 celebration of the re-launch of the bipartisan Congressional European Union Caucus, co-chaired by Congressmen Gregory Meeks, a Democrat representing New York, and Joe Wilson, a Republican from South Carolina.

What makes the EU role more relevant is the geographical proximity, and the need for preventing new waves of migrants and thousands of battle-hardened Islamist militants from making their way to Europe. The EU Delegate to Afghanistan has been active in supporting the peace process; in July 2019, Germany and Qatar co-organized the Intra-Afghan Peace Conference in Doha. Later that year, the EU Special Envoy to Afghanistan offered a broader spectrum in support of a peace plan, strengthening democratic results gained over the last 19 years. The presence of the Russian military in Syria and Central Asia and Chinese influence in both regions are real. A proactive EU role can de-militarize the political and diplomatic spaces and end regime change as an instrument of foreign policy.

A pro-active EU role has already highlighted humanitarian and economic development programs possible in both Afghanistan and Syria. Active cooperation with Russia and China would enable Afghanistan to advance regional integration via economic development, trade and commerce, and Syrians to reconstruct their war-torn country and achieve a fair and just departure from war. This would then encourage millions of refugees from Europe and beyond to repatriate to their homes and rebuild their lives. A global role for the EU as the defender of liberal democracy should uplift the ability of an emerging multi-polar world order to de-militarize international relations, and could produce a blueprint for 21^st-century conflict reduction via regional cooperation. The post-COVID-19 pandemic world demands multinational recovery programs for demilitarizing international relations, boosting regional economic integration, and ending deadly conflicts.

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© REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

At a much-awaited launching event in early June, held together with his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier lavished superlatives on the cloud computing and data infrastructure project “Gaia-X”: According to Altmaier, it is nothing less than “perhaps the most important digital aspiration of Europe in a generation”—a “moonshot” even.

Indeed, Gaia-X is intended to be a silver bullet. Altmaier wants to tackle the fact that Europe is badly behind the United States and China in terms of cloud services and data availability, be it for nation states, companies, or citizens. Thus, Europe’s striving for “digital sovereignty” is motivated by the fear of losing out in terms of innovation capabilities amid growing market dependencies and data privacy concerns.

A Brief Ride Through the Clouds

Simply put, cloud computing provides IT services—such as procession power, data storage or specific applications—over a network of servers, operating independently of location and devices while being accessible via the internet. But not all cloud services are equal. Roughly speaking, three different delivery models of cloud computing can be distinguished.

When cloud providers deliver access to basic data storage or other computing resources, we talk about “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS). Clients buying IaaS services access storage and servers via a “virtual data center” in the cloud, and not through a costly and labor-intensive on-premise IT infrastructure. Due to its “pay-as-you-go” business model, it is highly flexible and scalable as needed. Using “Platform as a Service” (PaaS), clients can additionally access tools to develop and host user-defined applications on a cloud-based platform. And then there is “Software as a Service” (SaaS), where consumers use ready-to-use applications and software on the cloud. Managed by a third-party vendor and hosted on a remote cloud network, the SaaS approach is the most frequently utilized cloud business model.

Companies have different options when accessing cloud-based computing capabilities, including exclusive organization-based “private clouds” that promise a higher degree of control and security over firm-owned data and “public clouds” run by an external cloud services providers. These can be combined in different ways: for example, a “hybrid cloud,” that outsources non-critical information to a public cloud while protecting a firm’s critical data on a private one, or “multi clouds,” which use multiple public cloud providers in order to benefit from the individual advantages of each provider.

And then there is “Edge Computing.” Instead of moving data to a central cloud, this brings computation and date storage closer to the device or data source, thus away from distant data centers towards the edge of the network. This leads to faster data processing and low-latency levels, important requirements for innovation such as autonomous driving, smart cities, or smart industries—they all rely on the almost real-time availability of data and processing power. In sum, cloud and edge computing offer services lay the foundation of the digital economy, driving innovation and economic competitiveness.

Europe as an Also-Ran

Given this importance, the cloud market is highly competitive and has rapidly grown lately;  total revenue was $96 billion in 2019, over twice as much as in 2017. With over two thirds of the market share, Amazon Web Services is leading the cloud computing market (including PaaS and IaaS models as well as hosted private cloud services), followed by Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. When looking at the SaaS cloud market, which is the largest market segment of the three cloud models, US providers are again in the global lead: As of 2019, Microsoft had a market share of 17 percent, followed by Salesforce with 12 percent and Adobe with 10 percent. Notably, Germany-based SAP is one of the top five providers in the SaaS market—one of the very few notable European players in the global cloud computing market. Meanwhile, Chinese tech giants are trying to break the strong US dominance. Alibaba  and Tencent recently announced that they were each investing billions of dollars over the next couple of years in cloud infrastructure. However, US providers have traditionally a strong presence in Europe, while Chinese firms are less represented.

The strong dependency on cloud services of American tech companies also raises legal and data privacy concerns. In that context, the US Cloud Act is a contentious issue since it theoretically compels US companies to grant US agencies access to critical information. The problem: this might even apply when data servers are located outside of the US. Therefore, the law possibly opens the door for US agencies to access data of European companies and citizens. Particularly from a European perspective, where regulation explicitly protects and strengthens the integrity of an individual by giving them power over their data under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Cloud Act has been subject to heavy criticism and has ignited a debate among legal experts

Gaia-X: The Silver Bullet?

How does Gaia-X fit into this universe of data and clouds? The prestigious Franco-German project is attempting to tackle the mentioned predicaments by aiming at reducing overall external dependency, protecting data to European standards, and promoting innovation. However, strictly speaking, it skips the extreme difficulty of creating a new, competitive European hyperscaler. Instead, it envisages connecting different existing providers to establish a central, federated data infrastructure system. This ecosystem is supposed to be open to all interested cloud providers, as long as they accept the technical requirements of Gaia-X and the specific architecture reflecting European data privacy standards.

Gaia-X will be steered by a Belgian non-profit organization which has been founded by 22 German and French companies, including SAP, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, and Atos. The first prototype of Gaia-X should be ready by the end of the year. According to Gaia-X’s technical architecture unveiled in June 2020, it will encompass the three cloud computing models IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS as well as Edge Services. Furthermore, with various providers operating in one standardized infrastructure, Gaia-X is supposed to allow for individualized strategies of companies for multi-cloud approaches.

Decreasing dependency on US providers is a core aspect of Gaia-X by facilitating control over data. Firms are supposed to have a choice on handling and storing with the help of clear set standards and regulations—an idea also embraced by the recently issued EU Data Strategy. Although Gaia-X mainly functions as an alternative to already existing providers, non-European market participants can also join, when they adhere to the strict data privacy standards of Gaia-X. Furthermore, Europe’s future competitiveness is among the objectives of the project. With the possibility of accessing large data pools, framed by an open source approach and coherent standards, a significant amount of data should become accessible feeding smart machines or Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.

Scarce Funds, Complex Implementation

But before Gaia-X can turn into a success, the initiative has to deal with huge obstacles: The enormous investments Chinese and US hyperscalers have made in cloud infrastructure run into billions of dollars on a yearly basis; in contrast, Gaia-X private and public investments will only amount to a two-digit millions figure, according to current plans—a comparatively small amount for a project of such complexity. Moreover, the technical implementation is highly complex, raising the question of whether Gaia-X—the enthusiasm of its French and German founding members notwithstanding—can convince on operability, cost, and applicability. If not, Gaia-X will have a rough ride growing into a pan-European project.

However, Gaia-X may still show the way. Its concept indicates that “digital sovereignty” is not defined as having “mastery and ownership”—a term used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen—over key technologies and operating its own hyperscalers in this particular context. Moreover, the “European Cloud” intends to achieve this overarching goal by setting clear rules and standards and protecting its own values. The journey to the moon may still end up in a crash landing; but at present it looks like the best shot Europe has at safeguarding its technological competitiveness.

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© REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin

On April 21, the US filmmaker Michael Moore released his latest documentary, Planet of the Humans, on YouTube. The film accuses environmental activists of corruption and contends that renewable energy technologies are often worse for the planet than fossil fuels: producing solar panels, it points out, requires consuming energy and mining metals.

A month later, in Moore’s home state of Michigan, two hydroelectric dams burst after heavy rains, forcing thousands of residents to flee their homes and destroying properties across the nearby city of Midland. It was lucky that no one was killed.

The Michigan dam disaster offers a chance to test Moore’s hypothesis about the dark side of renewable energy. Whereas solar power is a relatively new part of the electricity mix, humans have been using water, a renewable resource, to generate electricity at scale for over a century. Looking at the history of hydropower reveals that renewable technologies have always had flaws—and that’s just fine.

Not so Modern

The first commercial hydroelectric power plant began operating in Wisconsin in 1882, the same year that Thomas Edison opened the world’s first central coal-fired power plant. Small-scale hydropower spread quickly around the world, and by the 1930s engineers were building massive hydroelectric projects like the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River. The “white coal” cascading down the Alps provided almost all of Italy’s electricity at the outbreak of World War II.

In the post-war decades, people added hydropower almost everywhere financial and natural resources allowed it. The Soviet Union began construction of the giant Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam in 1963; it remains the biggest power plant in Russia today. In the 1970s Brazil and Paraguay built the even larger Itaipu Dam, now the second-largest power plant in the world, behind China’s gargantuan Three Gorges Dam. European countries kept expanding hydropower too, and today Norway, Switzerland, and Austria generate more than half of their electricity in this way. By 1975 humans were generating over 20 percent of their electricity from this renewable resource.

Hitting a Water Wall

However, hydropower faced mounting problems in subsequent years, even as people woke up to the dangers of oil spills and coal-related air pollution. One issue was that the dam-building spree of the long boom years meant “most of the good sites in rich countries had been taken” by 1980, as environmental historian J.R. McNeill has written.

Just as relevant was the realization that building hydroelectric dams could have some nasty social and environmental side effects.

Living near dams can be deadly. In 1975 a typhoon in China’s Henan province caused the Banqiao Dam to collapse, inundating a highly populated area. Tens of thousands drowned, and over 100,000 people died during ensuing epidemics and famines. Chernobyl may be more infamous, but Banqiao was vastly more lethal. (Like the Michigan dams, Banqiao provided not only hydropower but also vital flood control and irrigation; of the 57,000 large dams in the world, around 6,000 exist solely to produce electricity and another 4,000 both produce electricity and perform other services.)

Dams can do major environmental damage even when they don’t break, preventing fish migration and altering the ecology of the surrounding area. Take the well-known Aswan High Dam in Egypt, whose ecological impacts will endure longer than the memory of Gamal Abdel Nasser playing the US and USSR off each other in his quest for funding. Its turbines produced around a third of Egypt’s electricity in the 1980s, and it protected Egyptians and their cotton crops from heavy Nile floods. Unfortunately, the dam also prevented fertile silt from flowing from Ethiopia to Egypt, and Egypt had to use much of that new electricity to produce chemical fertilizers. Without the Nile floods, the Egyptian soil accumulated more salt, and without the Nile water that had once reached the Mediterranean, shrimp and sardines in that sea were deprived of nutrients and died.

Dam-building can have other direct impacts on humans. When serving as his country’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru dubbed hydroelectric dams the “temples of modern India,” though they also displaced tens of millions of his compatriots in the 20^th century. In tropical areas, creating reservoirs can lead to increases in waterborne diseases such as malaria.

The backlash against such impacts began to slow the growth of hydropower in the 1980s. People had seen too many of the negative impacts, seen too many post-colonial governments empty state coffers and risk angering their affected neighbors for the chance to cut the ribbon on a massive infrastructure project. In the early 1990s local critics, backed by Western NGOs, forced the World Bank to withdraw its support for a dam-building project on the Narmada River in India, and World Bank financing for hydroelectricity dried up around the turn of the century.

Between a River and a Hard Place

Today hydropower exists in a sort of purgatory between the polluting energy sources of the past and the safer renewable sources of the future. Its uncertain position is reflected in the language used by energy experts to describe it. For the International Energy Agency, it is one of the “modern renewables” along with wind and solar. The World Bank offers data from “renewable sources excluding hydropower,” while BP actually lumps hydropower in with nuclear energy, another low-carbon energy source that was providing almost a fifth of global electricity when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor exploded in 1986 and has become slightly less important in relevant terms since.

In any case, hydropower is still the most important source of low-carbon electricity: hydropower generated 16 percent of global electricity in 2018, more than nuclear (10 percent) and other renewables (9 percent). With demand for low-carbon electricity increasing, the World Bank has stepped up its financing of hydropower since 2008, and private companies and regional development banks facing less scrutiny have backed new dam construction in developing countries. China has stepped in as a funder in recent years in the framework of its Belt and Road Initiative, providing loans for big hydroelectric projects with few strings attached.

Yet concerns about new construction remain, which is why the European hydropower industry is focused on renovating old hydropower plants, adding turbines to existing dams, or backing smaller “run-of-river” projects that do not involve the construction of large dams. It also sees promise in “pumped storage” hydropower, which uses excess wind or solar power to pump water upwards and store energy for later.

Only a few countries are ploughing ahead with landscape-altering mega projects, costs be damned. China is building two huge dams on the Jinsha River, raising tensions with downstream neighbors who fear for their farmland. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on its part of the Blue Nile has brought it and Egypt to the brink of a “water war.” Rather than finance this contentious dam, the World Bank is now mediating between Egypt and Ethiopia.

Those three controversial projects will be a responsible for a quarter of hydropower’s modest projected growth over the next five years—IEA analysts expect hydropower generation to increase by 2.5 percent per year in the 2020s, compared with 16 percent per year for solar.

Renewable If Not Necessarily Sustainable

Hydropower, then, is an old source of renewable energy that can do major environmental damage. It is also a crucial component of the current low-carbon energy mix at a time when carbon dioxide emissions are a serious threat: China would have had to build about 20 coal-fired power stations to generate as much electricity as the Three Gorges Dam. Dams can be a useful climate change adaptation tool as well, irrigating fields to help farmers keep farming in the face of climate change-related rainfall variability and drought. Responsible policymakers know that they have to balance climate and environmental concerns, reducing the impact of hydroelectric dams and generating low-carbon electricity in other ways where possible.

And yet renewable skeptics like filmmaker Moore present the drawbacks of wind, solar, and hydropower as if they are some new issue whose discovery undermines the rationale behind the energy transition. This is uninformed nihilism. As climate policy expert Leah Stokes put it in her review of Planet of the Humans, “Renewables have downsides. As do biomass, nuclear, hydropower, batteries, and transmission. There is no perfect solution to our energy challenges.”

In short, Moore’s film misunderstands both the past and present of renewables. Renewable energy was creating problems for humans well before anyone worried about greenhouse gases: muscle power is renewable, though the horses that powered 19^th-century urban transport also coated city streets in a layer of manure and forced farmers to dedicate vast tracts of farmland to growing oats. What’s more, every energy transition is necessarily powered by existing sources: early coal miners used horses; the bulldozers that built the first nuclear power plants ran on oil.

On the flip side, utilizing fossil fuels instead of renewable resources has had incidental benefits for the environment in some cases. The advent of kerosene lighting, for example, reduced the incentive to kill whales for their oil, while the switch from wood to coal spared countless acres of forests. And if the billions of people in poor countries who burn renewable wood, charcoal, or dung in open fires had gas- or electric-powered cookstoves instead, they would live longer, healthier lives.

No, renewables are not perfect. Solar panels rely on energy-intensive mining, and wind turbines can kill birds. Yet they are the best option we have. Renewable critics lean too hard on the adage that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” when the proverb they need to reach for is “take the lesser of two evils.”

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