America just skipped December’s NATO foreign ministers’ meeting. That’s a first in over two decades. Part of the reason is the alliance’s irrelevance to President Donald Trump’s personalized, high-stakes peace negotiation to end the Russia-Ukraine war. Another is likely the administration’s weariness over Europe’s anemic defense spending. The alliance’s current 2 percent of GDP benchmark has long been a source of transatlantic friction. It is also a dangerously simplistic metric that measures inputs, not outputs.  

The benchmark quantifies treasure, not strategic capability, and overlooks one of the most critical (and undervalued) contributions allies can make: maritime power—specifically, commercial sealift capacity. There is a solution. 

Future major conflicts won’t be won by fighter jets and armored brigades alone. Logistics will be the deciding factor. The ability to transport and sustain forces across oceans will be decisive.  

In this crucial domain, NATO faces a quiet but catastrophic deficit. A European conflict, such as defending the Baltic states from a Russian attack, would require a sealift operation on a scale not seen since World War II.  

The logistical backbone of the “Arsenal of Democracy” has atrophied. The U.S. Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force (RRF), the core of America’s strategic sealift capacity, consists of a few dozen aging, steam-powered vessels, with an average age approaching 50 years. Their readiness is questionable, and the crews needed to man them are in short supply. Across Europe, the picture is similarly bleak, with national fleets having dwindled for decades. 

The Trump administration has recognized the parlous state of America’s shipbuilding and announced plans to revive the yards to rebuild the U.S. merchant marine. As my colleagues at the Hoover Institution recently concluded in The Arsenal of Democracy, “In our estimation, the U.S. military’s logistics system is the single weakest link in U.S. deterrence. The U.S. maritime logistics system is in dire condition in terms of its number of ships, its number of personnel, and its surge capacity.” Yet even on an optimistic schedule, new hulls, trained mariners, and expanded yard capacity are a generational project, not a quick fix for the next Baltic or Taiwan crisis.  

This decline contrasts sharply with China’s meteoric rise. Beijing is not just building a world-class blue-water navy; it is solidifying its dominance across the entire maritime domain. China is the world’s largest shipbuilder, accounting for nearly 50 percent of global output in 2023, while the U.S. languishes with less than 1 percent. China has the world’s second-largest commercial fleet, and its national security laws explicitly integrate this fleet into the state’s military strategy, mandating that many new ships be built to military specifications. In a crisis, Beijing can call upon a vast, state-directed logistical armada. What about NATO? 

This is where the strategic myopia of the 2 percent rule becomes most apparent. Consider Greece. The Hellenic Republic is one of the few NATO members that consistently exceeds the 2 percent spending target. In 2023, it spent around 3.76 percent of GDP, then the highest in the Alliance. Driven by regional security challenges, this commitment equips NATO with a formidable, modernizing military in the vital Eastern Mediterranean. Yet this figure fails to capture Greece’s most profound contribution to Western security. 

Greece is a maritime superpower. Greek shipowners control over 20 percent of the world’s commercial shipping tonnage and nearly 60 percent of the European Union’s fleet. This includes thousands of strategically vital vessels: crude oil tankers, LNG carriers, and bulk carriers essential for transporting fuel, grain, and heavy equipment. The Greek-flagged fleet is among the largest and most modern in the world. It is crewed by a deep pool of experienced personnel from the Hellenic Merchant Marine—a human capital asset nearly impossible to replicate. 

This is not merely a private-sector resource. Under long-standing principles of maritime law and national statutes, Athens can requisition Greek-flagged vessels into state service during wartime or national emergency. These ships are a de facto strategic reserve. In a kinetic conflict, Athens could, by law, mobilize a transport and logistics fleet dwarfing the dedicated sealift capacity of the entire NATO alliance combined. 

The potential is staggering. Imagine Europe’s reinforcement in a crisis. While the U.S. struggles to activate its handful of aging Ready Reserve Force ships, Greece could mobilize hundreds of modern vessels, providing tankers to fuel NATO’s air and ground assets, plus bulk carriers to transport munitions, supplies, and follow-on forces. This is not a theoretical capability; it is a tangible, legally accessible asset that addresses NATO’s greatest logistical vulnerability. 

Maritime capacity must be formally recognized and credited within NATO’s burden-sharing framework. NATO should devise a formula that allows maritime nations like Greece—and others such as Norway, with their significant fleets—to count a portion of the value of their requisitionable commercial tonnage toward their defense contributions. 

This is not an accounting trick or a ruse for allies to evade their responsibilities. On the contrary, it is a call for a more sophisticated, strategically relevant accounting for burdensharing. The current value of Greece’s 3.1 percent contribution would be even more significant in real terms, given its latent logistical power.  

Acknowledging this would do two things: first, it would give a more accurate picture of an ally’s actual contribution to collective defense. Second, and more importantly, it would incentivize the behavior the alliance desperately needs. By crediting the strategic value of national-flagged fleets, NATO would encourage member states to repatriate ships to their own flags, rather than “flagging out” to registries in Panama or Liberia. It would also incentivize investment in mariner training programs and the maintenance of strong legal frameworks for vessel requisition. 

Additionally, it would validate the core national security rationale for maritime cabotage rules, such as America’s Jones Act. These laws, often criticized in peacetime as mere protectionism, are designed precisely to ensure a nation retains a domestic fleet and experienced mariners for a national emergency. By formally valuing this capability, NATO would acknowledge a tangible contribution to the alliance’s collective security. 

History offers clear and costly precedents for the decisive role of commercial fleets. In World War II, Norway’s contribution was indispensable. When Germany invaded in 1940, Norway had the world’s fourth-largest merchant fleet. The Norwegian government-in-exile established the Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission, or Nortraship, placing the fleet at the Allies’ disposal. These ships and their brave crews created a transatlantic lifeline, transporting fuel, food, and war materiel. Their contribution was so vital that Winston Churchill said they were worth more than a million soldiers. This came at a staggering cost: nearly 500 Nortraship vessels were sunk, and over 3,000 Norwegian sailors perished, but their sacrifice was instrumental to Allied victory. 

More recently, during the 1982 Falklands War, the United Kingdom’s rapid victory was enabled by the requisition of over 50 commercial vessels—“Ships Taken Up From Trade” (STUFT)—including the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2, to transport troops and supplies 8,000 miles to the South Atlantic. 

Skeptics will argue that valuing such a contribution is complex. In 2016, I argued for in-kind donations for cyber defense and an “Erasmus Brigade” to defend NATO countries’ networks and data. Is this proposal any more complex than weighing cyber defense expertise or intelligence sharing? Defense economists can readily develop a credible methodology based on deadweight tonnage, vessel type, age, and readiness. A modern LNG carrier, available on 30 days’ notice, is a quantifiable strategic asset. Its value to the alliance in a crisis is arguably far greater than an equivalent dollar amount spent on legacy equipment. 

The 2-percent target—growing to a 5-percent benchmark by 2035—was designed to ensure the Alliance has the capabilities it needs. If NATO treats the benchmark as sacrosanct, it risks ignoring the very capabilities that could determine victory or defeat.  

The nature of warfare is changing, and the geostrategic landscape is being reshaped on the high seas. NATO, a fundamentally maritime alliance, must adapt its thinking. Recognizing the immense, untapped power of the Greek merchant marine—and that of its other shipping powerhouses—is the first, most logical step.  

The strength of the alliance is not just in its budgets but in its collective resources. Hulls in the water, ready to serve the cause of freedom, are a resource we can no longer afford to leave off the ledger. 

The post NATO’s Myopic Accounting Ignores Maritime Superpower Greece  appeared first on Washington Monthly.

George P. Shultz, the late Secretary of State, regularly reminded me and my Hoover Institution colleagues that in diplomacy, “trust is the coin of the realm.” Trust is even more critical in intelligence sharing. Without it, even the most sophisticated satellites, signals intercepts, and cyber tools are just expensive toys.  

For decades, the Five Eyes alliance—the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—has relied on trust as its currency across oceans and governments. Born of World War II code-breaking cooperation and formalized in the UKUSA Agreement of 1946, the network of English-speaking nations and bilingual Canada became the world’s most durable intelligence partnership, fusing shared values with shared secrets. But the trust account now looks overdrawn on our side of the ledger. The shortfall isn’t just an accounting technicality—it threatens the alliance’s utility and credibility. 

Washington’s trust deficit is partly self-inflicted. The 2023 Discord leaks, where an enlisted U.S. airman at a Massachusetts base shared classified Pentagon assessments on gaming servers, embarrassed national security institutions and exposed operational details about Ukraine’s defense. The American response has been predictable: tighten the aperture; stamp more reports NOFORN—no foreign dissemination. The label, meant for rare use, increasingly appears on frontline intelligence about Russia’s war against Ukraine, denying even the closest partners critical insights. Classification, once a scalpel, risks becoming a bludgeon. When everything is restricted, collaboration atrophies. 

British caution adds another strain. London has now completely suspended intelligence sharing in the Caribbean, asserting that the U.S. sinking boats off South America is illegal. Further, the U.K. might now be unwilling to believe anything American officials say following FBI Director Kash Patel’s recent broken promises to MI5 to protect a bureau operative in London who was helping counter Chinese surveillance. Such caution isn’t betrayal—it’s accountability. The message to Washington is unmistakable: British officials want clarity on operational intent and legal limits before reopening British intelligence’s legendary vault. 

Canada and New Zealand face their own reckonings. Ottawa has spent two years investigating credible allegations of Chinese interference in its elections. Wellington, with its economic dependence on Beijing and Pacific partnerships under scrutiny, calibrates every data exchange. Meanwhile, Australia, the southern anchor of Five Eyes, doubles down on defense integration through AUKUS—a trilateral pact with the U.K. and U.S. that strengthens cooperation on nuclear submarines and in emerging technologies—but must still soothe regional neighbors anxious about militarization in their backyard. 

Across the broader Pacific, the picture grows more complex. The Solomon Islands’ 2022 security pact with China and Fiji’s vacillation over maritime surveillance cooperation have complicated regional monitoring and raised alarms in Canberra and Wellington. In the Caribbean, overlapping efforts by U.S., U.K., and Canadian law enforcement struggle with intelligence deconfliction amid anti-narcotic operations around Jamaica and the Dominican Republic, testing the alliance’s ability to synchronize protocols across distant theaters when the U.S. acts unpredictably and, perhaps, possibly unlawfully by taking out boats. 

The breakdown in trust among these close English-speaking allies echoes in domestic divisions. As Washington increases power through expanded ICE operations and even the National Guard, it fosters suspicion and resistance among state and local officials. Across the country, officials and citizens worry that sharing data with the Department of Homeland Security or federal law enforcement could be used against vulnerable groups, enabling surveillance or enforcement actions that conflict with local values and priorities. This creates growing hesitation to cooperate—even on essential public services—because the fear of federal overreach undermines the mutual trust needed for information sharing, creating an environment similar to the “NOFORN” mentality that hampers allied cooperation. 

California stands at the front lines of this trust crisis. Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed SB 361, expanding state oversight of data brokers by requiring new disclosures about whether data is furnished to federal agencies and imposing stiff penalties for noncompliance. State leaders cited evidence of federal agencies skirting privacy laws by acquiring information on residents indirectly, raising fears that state-originated data could enable federal actions such as ICE raids or enforcement sweeps despite local opposition. The rollback of a data-sharing initiative designed to expand CalFresh food aid captured the impact: outreach ended not only because of funding constraints, but also because of apprehension that federally accessible data could undermine trust and harm California’s most vulnerable populations. California agencies and community organizations are reluctant to share much beyond the minimum, wary that federal scrutiny could turn collaboration into exposure. 

The stakes go well beyond bureaucratic boundaries. Transnational threats—ransomware gangs, fentanyl cartels, money-laundering syndicates—seize on gaps between jurisdictions. When allies hesitate to share, those gaps widen into avenues. Consider the FBI–Australian Federal Police’s 2021 ANOM sting: agents built a fake encrypted-device platform that criminal syndicates used for years, leading to over 800 arrests and major narcotics and weapons seizures. That success depended on precise, timely collaboration—showing that when trust is strong, five democratic eyes see clearly. 

Today, authoritarian rivals face no such coordination dilemmas. Russia and Iran have integrated battlefield intelligence in Ukraine, from drone production lines to jamming tactics. China expands technological and data-sharing ties with Russia and Pakistan, weaving its “Digital Silk Road” through surveillance networks and telecom infrastructure. Autocracies don’t answer to privacy commissioners or courts; they centralize, coordinate, and deploy. The West’s answer must never be to imitate consolidation, but to outpace it through lawful, verified trust. Voluntary suspension of sharing among democracies becomes an own goal. 

Domestic politics have worsened the situation. The Trump administration’s 2017 disclosure of highly classified Israeli-gathered intelligence to Russian officials inside the Oval Office shook allied confidence. Populist rhetoric that treats alliances as disposable or undermines faith in professional intelligence heightens suspicion even among friends. The result is corrosive: shared information now passes through more channels of doubt than it does through encryption firewalls. 

Repairing this breach requires no surrender of sovereignty. The United States can limit NOFORN use to exceptional cases while developing releasable intelligence tailored for coalition needs. Allies can establish more precise limits on secondary use, with auditable oversight and joint after-action reviews to ensure compliance. Public transparency—within reason—can restore faith that the machinery operates within law and purpose. 

Five Eyes became the gold standard not because its members always agreed, but because they trusted each other enough to argue without rupture. Allowing that collaboration to dissolve into three blind mice chasing shadows would be a historic self-inflicted wound. In a world where adversaries coordinate faster than democracies deliberate, seeing together is not a luxury. It is survival. 

The post Five Eyes Become Three Blind Mice appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Donald Trump may have personally run exclusive clubs, but America, under his presidency, is dropping its membership in global clubs left and right. His administration recently severed our ties to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), as well as other organizations where countries collaborate on addressing borderless challenges and opportunities. In the last week, the Trump administration has been absent from the COP 30 Climate Summit in Brazil. It has no plans to attend the upcoming G-20 meetings in South Africa, which will bring together the world’s largest economies. 

In this moment, as America retrenches from global leadership, cities and states need to step up and join as many multinational organizations as will have them. Whether staying in the Paris Agreement on climate or coordinating with global health organizations to head off the spread of bird flu, measles, and AIDS, subnational actors need to fill the vacuum Washington is creating. Moving fast and breaking things has consequences.  

In response, while the Trump administration withdraws from multilateral accords, international organizations, and global institutions, the U.S. federal system allows for individual states to fill the gap. States need to step up their global engagement in the face of American retrenchment, treaty nullification, and alliance abandonment to enhance America’s global posture and foster economic growth.  

This is not a new idea.  

During the first Trump administration, no sooner had the White House decided to withdraw from the Paris Accords than California, New York, and Washington formed the United States Climate Alliance and pledged to uphold their environmental obligations. Whether they enhance and align with the federal government or pursue policies that seek to maintain traditional alliance relations and established commercial, climate, and cultural ties, American states have the legal means and political incentives to engage in global relations. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom is actively and assertively testing the case by seeking to expand strategic international trade relationships in light of the Trump tariffs. As Newsom puts it, “California is not Washington, D.C.” 

During the first Trump administration, American diplomats countered foreign countries’ anti-Trump narratives by quietly highlighting the independence of states and the nation’s broader policy pluralism. In global capitals critical of Trump’s policies, American embassies could push back and demonstrate that some of the nation’s largest and most economically vibrant states have maintained good foreign relations and favorable environments—in tourism, for students studying abroad, through independent energy policies, and a variety of COVID-19 mitigation measures.  

States also have strong brand equity. California is a highly respected global brand. Hollywood has seared the easy-going, free-spirited state’s sea, surf, and sun lifestyle into the worldwide imagination. And the state can bring its considerable wares to the global marketplace. For his part, Trump hasn’t hesitated to let the states loose on the world stage when it suits him. During the pandemic, his administration forced every state to fend for itself in a bidding battle to secure limited supplies of PPE and compete against each other for critical equipment on the global market. 

Every state has something to offer and a place to land. States matter. Oil-rich Texas, for instance, could consider joining OPEC+ to bring an American voice to the table and assert a role in the globalized energy market and transition. New York, the nation’s financial center, could seek admission to the World Bank and the IMF.  

In this light, the global economic powerhouse of California should be admitted into the G7, given that the state’s $4.1 trillion GDP and throw-weight are greater than those of five of the current members. 

California’s participation would be good for the state, the G7, and America. It would allow America’s foremost economic entity to represent the nation’s interests and explain economic trends, from AI and biotechnology to fintech and quantum computing. All from a state that is on the bleeding edge of technological and cultural development. California would be able to help shape policy and bring back to Washington early warnings about G7 plans in the offing 

There is some good news for California—a state that makes up around 20 percent of America’s GDP and would now be the world’s fourth-largest economy if it were a sovereign nation-state. The G7, made up of democracies that are economic powerhouses, already allows for “non-enumerated members”.  

Thanks to whiplash policy reversals by the Trump administration, the long-standing G7 organization is confronting a massive challenge to its survival and relevance. The dominant American voice, a strong American dollar, and traditionally stabilizing American economic policies have served as an anchor for the G7 to coordinate nations in developing stabilizing global financial policies, addressing geopolitical tensions, and issuing critical joint communiques.  

No more.  

No sooner had the previous Oval Office occupant moved out than the new occupant floated the idea that fellow G7 members have tariffs imposed on them, questioned their sovereignty (hello, Canada), and reasserted that Russia should rejoin the group and return it to a G8.  

Traditionally, these multilateral institutions have only admitted sovereign nations as members; however, there are exceptions in the multilateral universe where quasi-states are granted either observer or special status, making this concept neither new nor unique. Hong Kong and Macau, for example, are members of the WTO—despite not being sovereign entities. The United Nations and some of its specialized agencies allow non-state actors to participate as observers.  

These exceptions are not only valid on the global stage, but also within our own country. Entities that are territories are given special status in the Congress, within national political parties, and on the world stage (think Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and Washington, D.C.). These players are often referred to as subnational actors.  

Subnationals, whether sovereign or not, have a voice and enough independence to make a difference in the new, revised, and revisionist world order. Canada has been devolving its federal power to its native tribes, sovereign entities that reside within federal boundaries but are granted greater autonomy. State policies now need to reckon and reconcile with their unique status as assertive native councils pursue global energy policies and partners against Ottawa’s wishes. 

America is set up for its states to operate independently, thanks to the founders’ concepts of states’ rights via federalism. In recent history, Supreme Court decisions and administration actions have reinforced the importance of state independence and autonomy. From controversial healthcare issues like abortion to climate policy, states have been increasingly given a free hand at deciding how they will govern, with whom they will associate, and where to allocate their resources.  

Decades of globalization and the freer flow of capital, trade, people, and ideas have further devolved power from Washington, D.C., and given states more say, standing, and supremacy over their internal and international affairs as the Trump administration seeks to withdraw from international conventions, treaties, organizations, and overall engagement. 

Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., seems more concerned with quitting, renegotiating its relationship, or entirely undermining nearly every multilateral organization to which it is a party—and even some where it is not.  

Groucho Marx once said he would never want to belong to a club that would accept him, but California should be a member of a club that has not yet invited her. If the state joins, it will make the G7 club more appealing and maybe even more relevant than ever. 

The post Make California a G7 Member  appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Venezuela’s tragic collapse from petrostate to failed state has a name: Nicolás Maduro. His first stolen “reelection” in 2018, dismissed globally as neither free nor fair, sealed the fate of a nation now hollowed out and starving. It’s time for him to go. Whether by negotiated exit or the combined weight of domestic defiance and American pressure, his departure is both morally justified and strategically essential.

Donald Trump’s second administration has revived its first-term push for regime change, adding clandestine tools to the diplomatic arsenal. The CIA is now authorized to conduct publicly unspecified covert operations in Venezuela, increasing pressure on Maduro. But anything resembling gunboat diplomacy or the CIA intrusions of the Allende era could be catastrophic—rekindling Latin America’s darkest memories of American heavy-handedness and erasing what moral authority the United States still claims.

This caution becomes even clearer relief given President Trump’s recent remarks: The U.S. naval buildup off Venezuela, primarily tasked with curbing drug trafficking, is “looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Such statements underscore the temptation toward direct military intervention or violent CIA dark ops. But the risk of overstepping—with boots on the ground or overt military ground offensives—could provoke backlash, undermine the moral case, and strengthen Maduro’s grip by rallying nationalist sentiment. The Trump administration must balance pressure with prudence, using intelligence, sanctions, diplomacy, and regional allies to increase the cost of repression without igniting a kinetic catastrophe.

Washington’s earlier attempts defined the battle lines. In 2019, it recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president, marshaled more than 50 nations behind a constitutional transition, and suffocated state oil producer PDVSA, the regime’s cash conduit. The United States also indicted Maduro on narco-trafficking charges, a symbolic but significant marker that criminality would carry a cost. Those efforts didn’t topple Maduro, but they tightened the vise—squeezing oil revenues, limiting global banking access, and isolating Caracas.

Inside Venezuela, the real struggle continued. It’s been waged not by diplomats or spooks, but by millions desperate for dignity. Years of mass protest, the bravery of opposition leaders, and an exiled diaspora still sustaining families at home are the nation’s lifelines. I’ve commented on these developments for the Washington Monthly over the years, as an observer and co-author with opposition leader-in-exile Leopoldo López. Few channel the opposition’s strength and spirit more sharply than this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, María Corina Machado, who remains in undisclosed locations inside Venezuela. Her clarity and courage have turned despair into direction. Machado says the Nobel is “an impetus to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.”

Machado and a popular movement have inspired a democratic awakening that may finally topple the Maduro regime. A bonus: A successful democratic restoration would stem the tide of Venezuelan refugees to the U.S. The Venezuelan opposition’s demands—for monitored elections, safe pathways out for insiders, and guarantees against vengeance—offer the only peaceful path to restore constitutional order.

Yet every autocrat needs their patrons, and for years, Vladimir Putin performed that role—fueling Maduro’s survival with arms, oil deals, and political cover in international forums. Russia’s state oil giant Rosneft helped Caracas evade sanctions, while Kremlin advisors whispered strategies for outlasting unrest. Fast forward to 2025: Putin’s mired in Ukraine, hemorrhaging resources and legitimacy. Russia can no longer bankroll its strongman protégés abroad. Ask Bashar al-Assad. The Kremlin’s reach now stops at its own battlefield lines. Moscow once promised to prop up its friends; today, it can barely sustain itself. For Maduro, that means the cavalry will never come.

Iran long acted as another lifeline for Maduro—providing financing, technology, and networks to evade sanctions, further binding Caracas to Tehran’s geopolitical ambitions. But Tehran’s regional overreach, combined with crippling sanctions and internal pressures, has thankfully sapped its ability to project power abroad. Venezuelan regime change, while unwelcome to Tehran, is no longer preventable by its illegitimate, diminished, and aging leadership. A democratic transition in Caracas would deal Tehran another setback—losing an ideological partner and foothold in the Americas, further isolating the regime against mounting global pressure.

American power can and should amplify Venezuela’s democratic push, not replace it. Supporting continental diplomacy, defending human rights, and imposing targeted sanctions can raise the cost of repression while preserving moral legitimacy. This is the balance Washington must strike: pressure without pretense, influence without too much overt interference. Questionable air strikes on Venezuelan pleasure boats allegedly ferrying drugs to the U.S. haven’t strengthened Trump’s hand.

Beyond Caracas, others are watching. Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua, where democracy is dismantled by design, and Cuba, surviving on repression and nostalgia, both feel the tremors. Any transfer of power in Venezuela would broadcast a warning across the hemisphere—autocracy carries an expiration date, and outside enablers can’t always save their proxies.

The global stakes are no less tangible. China’s multi-billion-dollar love affair with Chávez and Maduro—funded by oil-for-loans deals—has left Beijing deeply exposed. A post-Maduro government determined to audit, renegotiate, or even default on opaque Chinese obligations would puncture that dependency. Venezuela, freed from kleptocracy, could remind China that foreign investments anchored in corruption are ultimately bad business.

The most powerful instrument for change remains Venezuelan. Their courage—magnified but not manipulated by U.S. intelligence, diplomacy, and media strategy—holds the key. Anything smacking of direct or violent American intervention risks staining this moment of liberation with an old imperial dye.

Washington’s role must be catalytic, not commanding. The CIA’s job, this time, is to quietly tip the scales toward freedom, not pull them down.

The last thing Venezuela needs is to be rescued by ghosts of the past.

The post Venezuela’s Best Chance for Freedom appeared first on Washington Monthly.

This story was originally published on October 24, 2020.

California is waiting to be welcomed back into the national conversation after four years of disrespect and neglect from the White House. In a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration, not only will California’s favorite daughter bridge the widened — and widening — federal-state divide, she will team with a President Biden to rebuild America’s powerful role in the world.

In fact, Harris could be key to building new strategic global relationships and alliances. (Disclosure: My wife and I are Harris’ longtime friends.) While Biden shores up NATO, reaffirms multilateral agreements and Zoom calls his close foreign-leader friends, Harris will also bring unique foreign-policy advantage to the table.

As a globally aware Indo-American with African-American roots, her heritage opens up possibilities to grow America’s relationships in new corners. Likely receptive nations to future Harris overtures include the ever-important “Quad” partners — in particular, India.

The tightening Quad partnership is made up of four key Indo-Pacific democracies: the United States, Australia, Japan, and India. They are working together regionally to defend democracy and free markets where China is a persistent and growing threat.

Presidential campaigns simplify candidate narratives, and the one around Harris focuses on her Black heritage and electoral appeal. Her Oakland-Berkeley upbringing is emphasized, as is her attending Howard University, where she joined the African-American Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

There is less public attention and understanding of her potential to expand a dialogue and deepen relations with the world’s largest democracy. India is where Harris spent summers as a child. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, came from an intellectually achieving and privileged class in Chennai and she came to the United States to work and study.

Harris’ personal story means that she viscerally understands and appreciates India. Further, as a Californian, her formative experiences and orientation are westward toward the Pacific Ocean. The Indo-Pacific is home to Harris.

India will always be a reluctant international partner, however. A staunchly independent country, India has rabidly avoided alliances. Since the early days of the post-colonial nation’s history, it has asserted its voice and power to lead other non-aligned nations and to navigate deftly between rival superpowers.

In 1983, I met with India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in Athens, Greece. We spoke about her nation’s tight Soviet relationship and her unwillingness to criticize Moscow’s 1979 Afghan invasion or the tragic shooting down of Korean Airliner, KAL 007. She was unapologetic in her defense of the USSR and responded to my pointed questions by attacking American foreign policy. Gandhi was adept at actively using the Cold War’s superpower rivalry to balance Soviet ambitions with American interests.

In the 21st century, Moscow no longer is as influential on the Asian subcontinent. Instead, the looming regional threat comes from China. India is actively looking for good, reliable friends to balance strategically against Beijing, especially following a recent border clash that killed Indian soldiers. Further, Beijing supports India’s main adversary, Pakistan. As China pushes India closer to the Quad, Harris can help pull Delhi closer to America.

American foreign policy is not dictated by our ancestral affiliations, but they do make a difference for the parties seeking to be seen and heard. In the same way that Clinton and Kennedy and Reagan could be heard in Ireland because of their roots there, Harris has access to the cultural and ethnic links that associate her with her ancestral lands. Bill Clinton — who claimed Irish heritage — partnered with legislative lion George Mitchell, a Lebanese Irish-American, to cajole and wrangle warring parties to come to an unprecedented peace accord: the solidly lasting Good Friday Agreement.

Harris, the mixed-race vice-presidential candidate, can leverage her Caribbean roots and understanding to improve America’s regional presence and leadership. Her time in French-speaking Canada as a high schooler will be a real advantage toward rebuilding the traditionally strong but recently strained Washington-Ottawa relationship.

Her grandfather P.V. Gopalan was a high-ranking Indian civil servant in Zambia, where he managed a refugee influx from the south into what was once Northern Rhodesia. Africa, Canada, the Caribbean basin, and the Asian subcontinent are integral parts of Harris’ person and personality.

A Biden-Harris administration would differentiate itself from the Trump administration in several ways. President Trump prefers one-on-one agreements with nations — bilateral agreements. However, he has had more luck breaking agreements than getting new ones signed and delivered.

Biden and Harris promise to restore respect for multilateral institutions and accords signed by previous presidents. They value global partnerships. The Biden-Harris team shows a strong preference toward building alliances, knowing that America can get more done and is more powerful when it works together with other nations.

What will certainly help America is that Kamala Harris has good friends and admirers not just here at home, but around the world.

The post Kamala Harris: Woman of the World appeared first on Washington Monthly.

California’s technological and demographic power is unmistakable, with one notable exception: We’re underrepresented in shaping foreign policy in Congress. That is bad for us and the country because California’s Pacific perspective, born of 840 miles of coastline and a wave of immigration from across the Pacific and around the Pacific rim, is crucial. Too often, D.C. policymakers overemphasize the importance of issues in Europe and the Middle East and frequently misunderstand or underappreciate threats and opportunities in the more distant Indo-Pacific.

It may seem to strain credulity to say that California, by far the most populous state, isn’t being heard in Congress. But leaving aside how the constitution weighs in favor of low-population states, there are no Californians on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, or the Senate Intelligence Committee—not just no chairs, no members at all.

These three legislative committees comprise the core of American foreign policy decision-making. They confirm our ambassadors to countries and NGOs, the secretaries of State and Defense, the CIA Director, and the National Intelligence Director. They ratify treaties, shape force structures, conduct important intelligence oversight, and work with the administration to define how America engages with the world. Currently unrepresented and lacking any near-term prospect for direct engagement, 39 million Californians’ voices are locked out of the Senate’s foreign policymaking process and apparatus to the detriment of America’s present and strategic future.

California brings expertise, insight, and resources that America often exploits but does not always strategically leverage in today’s global conflicts. Demographically, culturally, and educationally, California is instead ignored and frequently dismissed.

If California remains underappreciated in U.S. foreign policymaking bodies and their influencing institutions, the consequences for America could be dire. In part, it can also slow America’s economic engine, which remains stoked by California’s active global engagement, agricultural power, manufacturing prowess, massive and developing port system, venture capital concentration, and technological leadership.

The state has an economy equal to India’s. It is home to the nation’s most populous ethnic Indian, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, and Mexican populations and its second-largest Jewish and Ukrainian communities. This diverse population brings family and business relationships that can deepen America’s diplomatic and strategic foreign relations, aiding the Biden administration’s recognized need for greater multilateralism and alliance-building.

Without a prominent California voice, D.C. leadership defaults to Transatlantic-oriented policy inertia and frequent, reflexive Middle East entanglements. (No offense to our fellow Pacific-facing states, Alaska, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.) Rebalancing East and West Coast thinking and interests in foreign affairs could help readjust Europe’s ongoing overreliance on American markets and might. Under President Joe Biden, the long-awaited military pivot to Asia has begun in earnest, but it has a long way to go.

Mexican-American relations, too, could greatly benefit from a Californian perspective, promoting a more managed, rational, and humane approach to immigration policy with our largest trading partner. Mexico’s presidential elections are coming up and hold the promise of a fresh start. It would be helpful to leverage California’s collaborative history, experience, and networks to improve cross-border security, energy, and trade policies with the incoming Mexican administration. California should be relevant.

It wasn’t always this way, but Dianne Feinstein’s passing and Barbara Boxer’s retirement brought about California’s recent national security and foreign affairs vacuum in the U.S. Senate. Boxer (Foreign Relations) and Feinstein (Intelligence) performed vital roles on the U.S. Senate’s foreign policymaking committees.

Kamala Harris was the last Californian to sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Now that she is vice president, however, she represents the entire nation, not just one state of the union. It’s fair to argue that she brings her ingrained California perspective to the executive branch. In that case, it should also be reckoned that President Biden brings a Delaware perspective to the nation’s foreign policy. Lucky Delaware (population 1 million). They also have Senator Chris Coons on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Lucky Maryland, too. The current chair of Foreign Relations is Senator Ben Cardin, who was joined on the committee by the junior Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen. Maryland and Delaware are overrepresented in the exclusive foreign affairs club; California is kept from members-only gatherings.

California Governor Gavin Newsom points out that the 22 smallest population states add up to California’s nearly 40 million people. That means 44 senators have the same or more clout as California’s two senators in the U.S. Senate.

What about the House of Representatives? California congressional members played an essential role in foreign affairs up until recently. The Californian Speakers of the House, Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy were part of the bipartisan Gang of Eight—a group with access to the nation’s most sensitive intelligence. None today are Californians. None come from west of the Rockies. Californians sit on the House committees dealing with foreign policy—Armed Services, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs—but none is a chair or ranking member. Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, is the only West Coaster in the leadership of these three committees.

West Coast consciousness and preferences are further diluted by dominant national media institutions based in D.C. and New York. Broadcast networks and surviving print media both feed and reflect East Coast biases and often characterize West Coast concerns and interests as ranging from quaint to quirky.

Conversely, because of the woes of local media, the largest circulating newspapers in California are headquartered in New York. Respectfully, and as Washington Monthly’s former president and publisher, I understand and even appreciate the success and power of East Coast media and its dominance over the national conversation. It does not adequately represent a rapidly changing American nation and contemporary geopolitical challenges from California’s Central American neighborhood and Indo-Pacific. The Council on Foreign Relations and the Asia Society remain on New York’s East Side and aren’t likely to migrate to California anytime soon.

What needs to be done?

It is up to the U.S. Senate leadership to rebalance and understand the need to find vital California representation on these critical committees. (That’s as long as the Senate stays Democratic.) Seniority may continue to rule the day, but the Senate must first understand the importance of elevating a representative West Coast voice in its body and within the global commons. California will have a new U.S. Senator in 2025. He should be put on one of the three foreign affairs-focused committees.

Further, much of the institutional media power concentrated on the East Coast needs to do more than parachute in reporters or establish minor outposts in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, or the U.S.-Mexico border. A more robust presence and interest in what happens here—and by whom—will help interpret for and impress upon Washington’s decision-makers what the future should be in Sino-American relations or global tech policy.

The nation’s most populous, wealthy, innovative, diverse, and internationally touristed state needs more significant formal influence on global policy decisions made in Washington, DC. America needs to hear and heed the perspectives of its economically most vibrant and globalized state of the union. The U.S. Senate marginalizes or ignores California, the world’s largest minority-majority democracy, at its peril.

The post California’s Stifled Voice on Foreign Policy appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Architects of peace leave legacies of honor and admiration. That’s why Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.  

Architects of global order also leave legacies. If there is one U.S. president besides Richard Nixon who remains admired in China today, it is Carter, who has now forsaken any more hospital admissions, preferring to live out the remainder of his days at his home in Plains, Georgia. His noble life, however, can create a new dawn for U.S.-China relations if Beijing prepares to honor Carter’s legacy and emulate the 39^th president’s bold approach toward peace.  

Blessed are the peacemakers, the children of God, who eventually calls on us all to leave this earthly paradise. Death is both unavoidable and unwelcome. It is uncomfortable to ponder or predict. The timing of a person’s passing should not forestall planning for death or be considered an affront to a magnificent legacy. Journalists pre-write obituaries. Monarchies prepare succession. States plan options and opportunities. 

China should contemplate options to honor Jimmy Carter when he dies and, in the process, open today’s tightly shut door to dialogue with Washington. The U.S. can subtly encourage them to do so. I realize that advising Beijing, even openly, is not typical for an American foreign affairs analyst, but there are enormous U.S. security benefits from improved communications with our strategic competitor.  

While the 98-year-old is in hospice, the Chinese leadership should contact the president and his family through the Carter Center to express sympathy for him and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter. The center recently announced that the former first lady has dementia.  

When Carter passes away, the People’s Republic of China ought to send a high-level delegation to the United States and a message to Joe Biden’s administration—and all Americans—that it wants to build on the Annapolis graduate’s legacy of closer Sino-U.S. ties. Such gestures from China, whose culture values “face”—a deeply ingrained Chinese cultural understanding of personal and societal honor—would show that our nations can get along and share respect for Carter and what he represented. 

China’s delegation to the U.S. should be led by Chairman Xi Jinping, who could personally honor Carter at any state funeral.  

If anti-communist and former redbaiter Nixon was the only American politician who had the political capital to go to Beijing to open diplomatic relations, Xi Jinping might be the only Chinese Communist leader able to deliver a breakthrough reopening to America at this moment of escalating tension and diminishing diplomacy. This should be Xi’s “Carter Moment.”  

Sino-American relations are at their lowest point in the post-Mao Tse Tung era. Tension over Taiwan, trade, cyber security, forces in the Pacific, and the PRC’s partnership with Vladimir Putin only worsens things, with Sinologists and U.S. military leaders openly predicting a war between the world’s first and second-largest economies. Although Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s mission to Beijing earlier this month was welcome and well executed, it doesn’t end the impasse, as our chief diplomat would be the first to admit. In Beijing, Xi and his advisors continue to balk at what were once frequently used lines of communication between the Pentagon and the People’s Liberation Army. In the straits of Taiwan, China’s warships play cat-and-mouse games with Western navies, and Chinese jets have buzzed American reconnaissance planes. If that wasn’t bad enough, China is actively propagating a worldview of America in rapid and inevitable social, political, and economic decline, with China rising to become the world’s sole superpower.  

Bad beliefs combined with bad intentions can lead to bad outcomes, and that’s why an act of goodwill could change the current trajectory.  

Why should Xi make the trek and risk appearing to kowtow to Biden’s America? 

First, if there is real momentum within China for the PRC to take Taiwan militarily and confront America and her allies in the Indo-Pacific, this would allow Xi to tap the brakes and reassess his position, his power, and the PLA’s preparedness. Russia’s war on Ukraine should be giving him and his forces pause. Kyiv’s unanticipated strength and resolve have reminded the world (including Beijing and Taipei) that national solidarity can stifle a ruthless aggressor, even when outgunned and outmanned. The PRC has fought few wars, none since battling Vietnam in 1979, and won still fewer. A Carter pause would be a welcome breather for a hardline Chinese leadership with no credible feedback loop or red team approach for self-critical decision-making; by all accounts, Xi and his handpicked Politburo Standing Committee are in an information bubble that does not brook bad news or critical analysis.  

Getting out of that isolation chamber, if only for a day or two, would allow Xi to personally assess American power. It would also give him a moment to dwell on any late-stage adventurist trepidation he may be having regarding the use of force in Taiwan or aiding Russia’s war against Ukraine on NATO’s doorstep. An opportunity to cool the Taiwan rhetoric and ease up on the Putin coziness need not be publicly acknowledged. It could also be couched as part of a sincere effort to improve relations with Washington. 

Second, it is a way for China to hold America to its commitment to the One China policy initiated by Carter. It was the 39^th president who withdrew recognition of the Republic of China and handed it to Beijing, opening the door for the PRC to thrive in the global community of nations. It may be hard for Washington and Congress to swallow the implications of a reinforced One China policy at this time, and Taipei will be nervous. After all, the island feels threatened. Taiwan’s seas and skies are regularly and aggressively trespassed, even as its global power has soared owing to its overwhelming production of the world’s microchips. 

Xi’s honoring and reflecting on Carter’s realpolitik balancing legacy would weigh heavily in the current equation of Washington’s support for strengthening Taiwan. As Carter did in 1979, Xi can boldly take advantage of Carter’s passing to articulate his intentions without the bluster of flybys and missile tests. Giving Xi the space to do this does not mean Congress need back down on Taiwan. It can assert its decades-long, bipartisan support of a peaceful resolution of any China-Taiwan conflict and underscore our “strategic ambiguity” policy while intimating an even more muscular American and allied resolve towards assisting Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack.  

Third, state funerals allow for direct diplomacy. They stretch the boundaries of formal discourse. They are breaks from the script and moments for reflection. They can raise the spirits and lower the heat. These are opportunistic moments to have sidebar conversations, as when Barack Obama met Raúl Castro in Panama. Leaders can circumvent formal structures out of public view. Direct dialogue can prevent mistakes and miscalculations. Biden and Xi Jinping are well prepared for this. 

Washington should speed the moment by dropping diplomatic hints that Xi Jinping would be welcome to come and honor Carter and that Biden would informally receive him. 

Our president excels at personal diplomacy and has proven he can both hold his own and have an honest conversation, making clear America’s resolve without posturing. Such ballast comes from chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and from serving as vice president and president. If Xi comes to praise and bury Carter, it will give him a chance to make publicly and privately clear what he wants from the American president who he’s known for years. As is true at all funerals, they could discuss their families, hopes for the future, and eventual legacies. In death, Carter can inspire and continue to champion peace, hope, and love.  

Markos Kounalakis is a Hoover Institution visiting fellow and California’s first Second Gentleman.  

The post Jimmy Carter’s Last Triumph Could Be to Soothe U.S.-China Relations appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Vladimir Putin’s brutal war on Ukraine continues in the nation’s eastern Donbas region, threatening to spread south and west through Moldova into the pro-Russian breakaway state of Transnistria. Moscow’s forces are consolidating their military efforts along the Black Sea, with no credible peace talks on the horizon.

Amid this slog, Kyiv’s friends can do more than supply arms, intelligence, and prayers. America and her allies should open an aggressive diplomatic front on Russia’s isolated flank by recognizing a Belarus government in exile led by the dissident Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

Challenging the legitimacy of Moscow’s client in Minsk will not only undermine the legitimacy of Russian troops occupying Belarus but will also buoy opponents of Putin’s ally, Alexander Lukashenko, who has allowed his nation to be drawn into the war on Ukraine.

For 28 years, Lukashenko has run Belarus like a mob boss. The mustachioed apparatchik has held on to power longer than any leader of a former Soviet republic by fixing elections, arresting opponents, jailing journalists, threatening neighbors, and exiling dissidents. The 39-year-old English teacher Tikhanovskaya is one of those exiles. Her improbable 2020 presidential bid gave her a platform for dissent, and she would have won had the election been conducted fairly. Living in exile in Lithuania, the self-declared Republic of Belarus leader has named a cabinet and says Lukashenko betrayed Belarussian security by collaborating with Putin’s Ukraine invasion, an act she calls “treason.”

Recognizing Tikhanovskaya’s government in exile would force Russia to worry about its western flank as it attacks eastern Ukraine. Telegenic and married to a fellow Belarussian dissident, Tikhanovskaya has been nominated twice for a Nobel Peace Prize and has the kind of political savvy that shows she’s ready for office. Her most recent visit to Washington was for Madeleine Albright’s memorial and to do the rounds with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. She has asked that Belarus have its international reserves frozen and its IMF loans curtailed.

The U.S. should help her through diplomatic recognition, a time-tested approach that both Republican and Democratic administrations have leveraged.

President Donald Trump wielded it to undermine the legitimacy of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, recognizing the National Assembly leader Juan Guiadó instead as interim president. The Trump administration successfully built Guiadó’s legitimacy via diplomatic recognition by nearly 60 other nations, further isolating Maduro.

Over the years, the United States has recognized multiple governments in exile, including Panama in the 1980s and Kuwait and Haiti in the 1990s. Diplomatic recognition is a powerful tool, but it is not always wisely deployed. Since 1959, the U.S. has refused to recognize the Tibetan government in exile led by His Holiness the Dalai Lama because Washington fears angering Beijing. The U.S. has also bestowed legitimacy by recognizing unsavory military coups in countries from Chile to Iran to Greece.

Xi Jinping understands the power of recognition. The Chinese leader has leaned on Caribbean, Latin American, and Pacific nations to shutter their Taiwan embassies in favor of the People’s Republic of China. Xi’s most recent diplomatic success is causing Indo-Pacific security challenges as the strategically important Marshall Islands government shuns Taipei and expands its military and economic cooperation with Beijing.

Recognition can be an essential bargaining chip in negotiations as wide-ranging as arms control and trade. Full diplomatic recognition and normalization of relations were the primary drivers for the United Arab Emirates entering into the Abraham Accords with Israel.

But recognizing Tikhanovskaya’s leadership should make up half the diplomatic efforts to isolate Putin. The other half should be to designate Russia a state sponsor of terror (SST), which I first proposed in 2014 and which this magazine has been promoting. Russia has been a prime candidate for SST designation since it invaded Crimea, started a war fought by “little green men” in eastern Ukraine, poisoned citizens in foreign lands, and shot down a commercial airliner. It should be so recognized.

Any democratic legitimacy Putin claims is undermined by the disappearance and dispatching to prison or heaven of credible opposition leaders like Alexei Navalny. Russia’s size across 11 time zones, the appearance of a democratic election process, and its historic presence on the UN Security Council make it difficult, if not unwise, for Western allies to take away diplomatic recognition even if it is tarred with SST status.

Not so Belarus. Under Lukashenko, Belarus is a Russian vassal beholden to Putin’s diktat. Following the sham 2020 election, citizens demonstrated, catalyzing a violent reaction by Lukashenko loyalists that landed opponents either in the hospital or in jail. Lukashenko, also known as “Europe’s last dictator,” called on Putin’s forces to enter Belarus to crack heads and cage kids to maintain his grip on power. Lukashenko, already an ally, has become Putin’s handmaiden.

Lukashenko repaid Russia’s support lavishly by providing a platform for the war in Ukraine and intercepting commercial flights to target a Russian journalist. The 67-year-old Belarus leader turned his country into a clearinghouse for Middle East refugees escaping Syrian horrors and Taliban threats, flying them into Minsk before busing them to the Polish and Baltic borders to destabilize his democratic neighbors. 

A Soviet throwback like Putin, Lukashenko is now threatening even greater European instability. May 4 marked the start of massive military training exercises aimed at Ukraine and NATO. The development of a new joint missile system with Russia similar to the short-range Iskander system that can deliver bunker-buster and nuclear warheads is cause for new escalation concerns.

But Lukashenko may be straying ever so slightly from Putin’s script. In an interview with the Associated Press last month, Lukashenko admitted that he was surprised to see the Ukraine invasion “drag on” so long, even using the term “war,” which the Kremlin forbids. The Minsk strongman said he opposed the use of nuclear weapons in the neighboring former Soviet republic. But all this appears to be a too-little-too-late attempt to avoid international isolation and sanctions.

Recognizing the exiled democratic government of Belarus punishes Putin and pushes Belarus closer to real democracy. It is within America’s power to give the nearly 10 million Belarussians their voice by affirming what everyone already sees—a state that has been captured, capitulated, and ruined by the Lukashenko-Putin alliance.

The post The U.S. Should Recognize Belarus’s Government in Exile appeared first on Washington Monthly.

The filmmaker Costa-Gavras immortalized the symbol Z as a protest cry for freedom and against military dictatorship and violence. His 1969 Oscar-winning movie of that name starkly dramatized the 1963 murder of the Greek opposition leader Grigoris Lambrakis by right-wing extremists.

Protests against both Lambrakis’s murder and the sham trial that followed crystallized in the form of a letter: Z. Athenian buildings were spray-painted with Z graffiti; illegal gatherings throughout Greece were punctuated by loud cries of “Z!” When pronounced as zée, the letter in Greek means “He lives.” “Z!” was a raised fist of rebellion, and it also meant “Hope lives.”

No more.

In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with its perverse up-is-downism, the letter Z has been appropriated to represent ethnonationalist militarism, death, and destruction.

Unsurprisingly, the Putin-led regime—which calls war a “special military operation,” decries Jews as Nazis, and shells civilians to “demilitarize” Ukraine—is commandeering a Greco-Latin alphabetic letter. It is not the most criminal act of Putin’s invasion, but it’s a crime against morality and human compassion. Putin has deployed Orwellian “Newspeak” to assault history and corrupt Z’s true meaning.

If Greece’s Z was a subversive peace sign, inspiring survival against all odds, Russia’s Z is an abbreviated war sign for hyper-violent military success. In Russian, Za pobedu means “for victory.” The letter, no longer offering hope, represents death, and is meant to inspire fear.

Putin’s propagandists have spread Z-fever across Russia and the battlefield that is Ukraine. The letter is un-artfully painted on invading tanks and personnel carriers that tear into the Ukrainian countryside and rip up paved urban streets. Z has been stylized and weaponized to become an ostentatious display of support for the war. A bronze medal–winning Russian gymnast trolled the Ukrainian gold medalist next to him by wearing the Z on his chest as if he were some evil Superman. Social media is rife with videos of rallies scored with driving electric guitars where ruffians in black T-shirts with graphically battle-worn Zs are whipped into a bloodthirsty frenzy. The Putin Z has been added to place-names. Posing for photos at a hospice in the Russian city of Kazan, sick children were placed in a crooked line to form the letter.

Interestingly, the letter Z does not exist in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. The sound for Z does, but as it appears on war swag, the symbol has the appearance of a half-drawn swastika, a 1930s echo in the 2020s. The Russian war on Ukraine and its civilians is the cry of rape victims, the snap-crackle of bullets fired on bicycle-riding Ukrainian citizens, and the booming of bombs falling on maternity wards and theaters, marked as children’s shelters in letters so large they’re visible to any Russian pilot. It is a horrendous cacophony punctuated by moments of silent terror where bleeding bodies are left in debris, and barkless dogs walk by indifferently.

Unlike Russia’s Z, the Greek Z was a sign of reverence reserved for martyrs and heroes. It reminded those under the jackboot of the colonels’ junta that time was ticking down for the military dictatorship. Hope was alive because Lambrakis’s spirit “lives.” The letter Z and the rebelliousness it represented were so threatening to the Greek junta leadership that the letter was banned.

It wasn’t purged from the 24-letter alphabet or excised from typewriters, but it was illegal to write the letter alone or decontextualize it in any public forum. The military dictatorship also banned all 1960s and 1970s symbols of protest or leftist leanings. The following were made illegal: long hair, miniskirts, abortion, music by the Beatles, and anything written by the composer Mikis Theodorakis.

Theodorakis was a Communist agitator, peace activist, and recipient of the International Lenin Peace Prize. He never stayed silent and wrote the pulsatingly driving soundtrack for the movie Z, as well as for Zorba the Greek and Serpico. His music was as incendiary as it was illegal, and he remained politically active until his death last year at the age of 96. His compositions were the soundtrack of Latin American liberation movements and still rouse mass rallies.

It was not just Theodorakis’s music that was forbidden. As a vacationing Greek American, I once innocently played a popular Cretan folk tune that I’d learned in my California home. It was a revolutionary song that I absent-mindedly noodled on my accordion while sitting in my grandparents’ backyard in Chania. The first recognizable notes sent my family and neighbors within earshot into a panic as they raced to silence me, warning that someone would surely call the cops. They did show up, but my family explained that my simple rendition was not politically motivated but, rather, politically naive. Ignorance can be an excuse. Years later, as a UC Berkeley undergrad, I saw the movie Z on campus, and it catalyzed my political awakening.

Movies, music, books, and even letters—cultural symbols and popular memes—possess the power to be politically subversive. Until 2022, the letter Z threatened dictatorships.

Now Z is a perverted symbol, a MAGA-like representation of unquestioning support for Putin’s war, which has sent more than 10 million Ukrainians fleeing their homes. Putin and his henchmen commit these premeditated atrocities, and now they have stolen my personal relationship with a letter, a Greek symbol of hope, and a global democratic movement.

The post Putin’s War on Ukraine and the Perversion of the Letter “Z” appeared first on Washington Monthly.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is criminal on multiple counts, but some of them should be leveled at one of his main accomplices: Belarus’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko. 

Russia’s military is executing an unprovoked and unprecedented attack on a peaceful neighbor on many fronts, from the air and sea. The land war, however, would not be as effective or lethal were it not for Lukashenko providing a front along Belarus’s southern border, not far from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. 

Indeed, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky put it bluntly—Belarus is “not neutral,” he said—when weighing potential negotiations in the country’s capital, Minsk. “Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku—we proposed all that to the Russian side,” he said. “Any other city would work for us, too, in a country from whose territory rockets are not being fired.” Belarus is, in fact, far from neutral. It is complicit with the Russian attacks, and Zelensky has reckoned that any negotiations on its land would be on enemy territory. 

It didn’t have to be this way. Belarus was early roadkill on the path to Putin’s widening Ukraine war. While the world’s shocked attention is now understandably fixed on a besieged Ukraine, the people of Belarus long ago lost any real shot at their own independence. Lukashenko stole a recent presidential election, used lethal violence to put down popular dissent, surrendered the nation’s sovereignty to Putin, and has since welcomed Russian troops to overrun and occupy the nation. The country has since become the most important staging area for an ongoing war against Russia’s neighbors and NATO strongholds—all of it coordinated and conducted by Moscow. It looks and feels like a throwback to the days of the USSR.

There was a brief moment when Belarus, along with Ukraine and other former Soviet states, appeared to be on the verge of independence and political reform. An independent modern Ukraine painfully and painstakingly grew out of that moment and became an inconvenient fact for Putin and his hopes of reconstituting a Soviet-lite territorial Slavic Leviathan.

In Belarus, however, the independence movement and reformist moment were barely a blip; in fact, the same Communist boss who ruled with an iron fist shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union remains in place today. Lukashenko is one of the longest-running illegitimate leaders in the world, having climbed to power in 1994. He almost makes Putin look like an authoritarian slacker.

Belarusian citizens pay the price for Lukashenko’s power-grabbing impunity. The nation’s economy is rated 45th out of 45 in Europe. The people’s attempt to elect a legitimate leader was thwarted by a Lukashenko-driven suppression machine that aimed to kill, jail, disappear, crush, or cast out any opposition during last year’s presidential referendum.

In a free election, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya would have had a real shot at victory when she ran for president in 2020. She became an opposition leader after her video blogger husband and erstwhile presidential candidate, Sergei Tikhanovsky, was capriciously arrested that year. He was tried and sentenced to 18 years in prison for doing what video bloggers do—pointing out political corruption and organizing for political change. Tikhanovskaya now lives in exile in Lithuania and tries to make her voice heard over the deafening sound of Putin’s beating war drums in Ukraine.

On Sunday, in a Twitter video, she declared herself the national leader of Belarus—a move reminiscent in part of Venezuela’s Juan Guiadó, who is currently recognized as the legitimate government representative by nearly 60 nations. It is highly unlikely she will be at the negotiating table representing Belarus anytime soon, but if the Putin-Lukashenko axis is defeated or overthrown, she may be first in the line of succession. 

For now, however, Ukraine is subjected to a bloody invasion aided and abetted by Russian troops crossing the Belarus border. Many of the 45,000 Russian troops that were stationed in offensive positions throughout Belarus are on the move in Ukraine. Those Russian troops served as both a Belarusian occupying force and an assembled offensive corps poised to threaten Europe further. 

Russian forces made themselves at home in Belarus, operating in a quasi-recognized Russo-Belarusian “Union State” that effectively melded Minsk into a vassal capital of an aggressively muscle-flexing Putin-led Russian empire bristling with tanks, missiles, and cyberweapons. If those offensive conventional forces and digital tools aren’t enough, not only did Putin’s oversized mini-me leader in Minsk threaten to host nuclear weapons pointed at the West, he has now voted to allow Russian forces and nuclear weapons to be permanently based in Belarus.

This is perhaps the most dangerous move and moral affront to the civilized world. Amid Putin’s war of choice, a new nuclear power has arrived on the international scene. Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous of armaments and effective of deterrents; they are the latest, greatest threat to peace and security. But the current hot war started a long time ago as a hybrid war against the West initiated by both Putin and Lukashenko. 

Indeed, a synchronized Minsk-Moscow hybrid assault on NATO member states Poland and the Baltics started a few years back—and has been steadily picking up steam. The weaponization of refugees last year was an early offensive assault on Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It was a cynical move that took advantage of desperate people and allowed Minsk to profit from human misery. The Putin-Lukashenko tag team leveraged a weak Western moment, and the poorly executed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan further amplified the narrative of NATO division and decline. Moscow mocked the alliance as America tried to manage a peaceful end to its longest war—and as Washington’s friends and allies felt abandoned. 

During this time, Minsk enticed migrants to buy one-way plane tickets to Belarus. Once there, they were shuttled to weak points on the European Union’s borders, then pushed over the semi-permeable boundaries to plead for refuge. To add insult to injury, the Russians then set off a disinformation campaign to draw scorn from rights groups in Poland and the Baltic nations, whom Moscow depicted as not wanting to accept these vulnerable refugees.

The first shots fired in Putin’s latest war were not just the cyberattacks beyond Belarus’s borders, they were also the cynically sent shock troops made up of tired, poor, and huddled masses of men, women, and especially children. The younger the involuntarily conscripted people, the more effective the propaganda of pity. Twenty-four-hour news coverage of the ongoing assault on Ukraine brings steady streams of images of the new refugee class spilling into Poland and other Ukrainian border states. These people are being welcomed and accommodated for now, but the attackers are counting on the refugee flows toward the West to further destabilize NATO and the EU. Instead, they seem to have stiffened the resolve of these institutions and of the European citizenry.

This is the year that Putin’s war on Europe aims to destroy a sovereign Ukraine and turn it into a more resource-rich subjugated nation—a bigger Belarus. For a man bent on survival, Putin seems to see the destruction he wreaks on this border nation as simply the cost of doing business. But such an action could sow the seeds of his demise. 

NATO, the EU, and most of the world are witnessing Ukrainian citizens’ bravery and its leaders’ resolve, and are answering the call for support and unity. Ukraine cannot become another Belarus.

Still, over the last several weeks, as the world watched troop movements and listened to Moscow’s disingenuous diplomacy, Putin pulled off a neat trick. He completed a task he had initiated only a few years earlier. He took over a pliant Belarus without firing a shot or raising a discordant voice in the international community. If he survives this moment, Putin’s gambit will still result in him bringing one more nation into his irredentist game. Belarus is now Russia.

The post Meet Vladimir Putin’s Biggest Accomplice in His War on Ukraine appeared first on Washington Monthly.