The collapse of America Power, just now (2010) - Alfred McCoy

 In 2010, Alfred McCoy wrote: “A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.” A shocking and worthwhile read.

https://www.salon.com/2010/12/06/america_collapse_2025/

How America will collapse (by 2025)

Four scenarios that could spell the end of the United States as we know it -- in the very near future

By ALFRED MCCOY

PUBLISHED DECEMBER 6, 2010 8:01PM (EST) 

A soft landing for America 40 years from now? Don't bet on it. The demise of the United States as the global superpower could come far more quickly than anyone imagines. If Washington is dreaming of 2040 or 2050 as the end of the American Century, a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends suggests that in 2025, just 15 years from now, it could all be over except for the shouting.

Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration's rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.

But have no doubt: when Washington's global dominion finally ends, there will be painful daily reminders of what such a loss of power means for Americans in every walk of life. As a half-dozen European nations have discovered, imperial decline tends to have a remarkably demoralizing impact on a society, regularly bringing at least a generation of economic privation. As the economy cools, political temperatures rise, often sparking serious domestic unrest.

Available economic, educational, and military data indicate that, when it comes to U.S. global power, negative trends will aggregate rapidly by 2020 and are likely to reach a critical mass no later than 2030. The American Century, proclaimed so triumphantly at the start of World War II, will be tattered and fading by 2025, its eighth decade, and could be history by 2030.

Significantly, in 2008, the U.S. National Intelligence Council admitted for the first time that America's global power was indeed on a declining trajectory. In one of its periodic futuristic reports, Global Trends 2025, the Council cited "the transfer of global wealth and economic power now under way, roughly from West to East" and "without precedent in modern history," as the primary factor in the decline of the "United States' relative strength -- even in the military realm." Like many in Washington, however, the Council's analysts anticipated a very long, very soft landing for American global preeminence, and harbored the hope that somehow the U.S. would long "retain unique military capabilities… to project military power globally" for decades to come.

No such luck. Under current projections, the United States will find itself in second place behind China (already the world's second largest economy) in economic output around 2026, and behind India by 2050. Similarly, Chinese innovation is on a trajectory toward world leadership in applied science and military technology sometime between 2020 and 2030, just as America's current supply of brilliant scientists and engineers retires, without adequate replacement by an ill-educated younger generation.

By 2020, according to current plans, the Pentagon will throw a military Hail Mary pass for a dying empire. It will launch a lethal triple canopy of advanced aerospace robotics that represents Washington's last best hope of retaining global power despite its waning economic influence. By that year, however, China's global network of communications satellites, backed by the world's most powerful supercomputers, will also be fully operational, providing Beijing with an independent platform for the weaponization of space and a powerful communications system for missile- or cyber-strikes into every quadrant of the globe.

Wrapped in imperial hubris, like Whitehall or Quai d'Orsay before it, the White House still seems to imagine that American decline will be gradual, gentle, and partial. In his State of the Union address last January, President Obama offeredthe reassurance that "I do not accept second place for the United States of America." A few days later, Vice President Biden ridiculed the very idea that "we are destined to fulfill [historian Paul] Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended." Similarly, writing in the November issue of the establishment journal Foreign Affairs, neo-liberal foreign policy guru Joseph Nye waved away talk of China's economic and military rise, dismissing "misleading metaphors of organic decline" and denying that any deterioration in U.S. global power was underway.

Ordinary Americans, watching their jobs head overseas, have a more realistic view than their cosseted leaders. An opinion poll in August 2010 found that 65 percent of Americans believed the country was now "in a state of decline."  Already, Australia and Turkey, traditional U.S. military allies, are using their American-manufactured weapons for joint air and naval maneuvers with China. Already, America's closest economic partners are backing away from Washington's opposition to China's rigged currency rates. As the president flew back from his Asian tour last month, a gloomy New York Times headline  summed the moment up this way: "Obama's Economic View Is Rejected on World Stage, China, Britain and Germany Challenge U.S., Trade Talks With Seoul Fail, Too."

Viewed historically, the question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be. In place of Washington's wishful thinking, let's use the National Intelligence Council's own futuristic methodology to suggest four realistic scenarios for how, whether with a bang or a whimper, U.S. global power could reach its end in the 2020s (along with four accompanying assessments of just where we are today). The future scenarios include: economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, and World War III. While these are hardly the only possibilities when it comes to American decline or even collapse, they offer a window into an onrushing future.

Economic Decline: Present Situation

Today, three main threats exist to America's dominant position in the global economy: loss of economic clout thanks to a shrinking share of world trade, the decline of American technological innovation, and the end of the dollar's privileged status as the global reserve currency.

By 2008, the United States had already fallen to number three in global merchandise exports, with just 11 percent of them compared to 12 percent for China and 16 percent for the European Union. There is no reason to believe that this trend will reverse itself.

Similarly, American leadership in technological innovation is on the wane. In 2008, the U.S. was still number two behind Japan in worldwide patent applications with 232,000, but China was closing fast at 195,000, thanks to a blistering 400 percent increase since 2000. A harbinger of further decline: in 2009 the U.S. hit rock bottom in ranking among the 40 nations surveyed by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation when it came to "change" in "global innovation-based competitiveness" during the previous decade. Adding substance to these statistics, in October China's Defense Ministry unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer, the Tianhe-1A, so powerful, said one U.S. expert, that it "blows away the existing No. 1 machine" in America.

Add to this clear evidence that the U.S. education system, that source of future scientists and innovators, has been falling behind its competitors. After leading the world for decades in 25- to 34-year-olds with university degrees, the country sankto 12th place in 2010. The World Economic Forum ranked the United States at a mediocre 52nd among 139 nations in the quality of its university math and science instruction in 2010. Nearly half of all graduate students in the sciences in the U.S. are now foreigners, most of whom will be heading home, not staying here as once would have happened. By 2025, in other words, the United States is likely to face a critical shortage of talented scientists.

Such negative trends are encouraging increasingly sharp criticism of the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency. "Other countries are no longer willing to buy into the idea that the U.S. knows best on economic policy," observed Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. In mid-2009, with the world's central banks holding an astronomical $4 trillion in U.S. Treasury notes, Russian president Dimitri Medvedev insisted that it was time to end "the artificially maintained unipolar system" based on "one formerly strong reserve currency."

Simultaneously, China's central bank governor suggested that the future might lie with a global reserve currency "disconnected from individual nations" (that is, the U.S. dollar). Take these as signposts of a world to come, and of a possible attempt, as economist Michael Hudson has argued, "to hasten the bankruptcy of the U.S. financial-military world order."

Economic Decline: Scenario 2020

After years of swelling deficits fed by incessant warfare in distant lands, in 2020, as long expected, the U.S. dollar finally loses its special status as the world's reserve currency. Suddenly, the cost of imports soars. Unable to pay for swelling deficits by selling now-devalued Treasury notes abroad, Washington is finally forced to slash its bloated military budget. Under pressure at home and abroad, Washington slowly pulls U.S. forces back from hundreds of overseas bases to a continental perimeter. By now, however, it is far too late.

Faced with a fading superpower incapable of paying the bills, China, India, Iran, Russia, and other powers, great and regional, provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace. Meanwhile, amid soaring prices, ever-rising unemployment, and a continuing decline in real wages, domestic divisions widen into violent clashes and divisive debates, often over remarkably irrelevant issues. Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal. The world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.

Oil Shock: Present Situation

One casualty of America's waning economic power has been its lock on global oil supplies. Speeding by America's gas-guzzling economy in the passing lane, China became the world's number one energy consumer this summer, a position the U.S. had held for over a century. Energy specialist Michael Klare has argued that this change means China will "set the pace in shaping our global future."

By 2025, Iran and Russia will control almost half of the world's natural gas supply, which will potentially give them enormous leverage over energy-starved Europe. Add petroleum reserves to the mix and, as the National Intelligence Council has warned, in just 15 years two countries, Russia and Iran, could "emerge as energy kingpins."

Despite remarkable ingenuity, the major oil powers are now draining the big basins of petroleum reserves that are amenable to easy, cheap extraction. The real lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was not BP's sloppy safety standards, but the simple fact everyone saw on "spillcam": one of the corporate energy giants had little choice but to search for what Klare calls "tough oil" miles beneath the surface of the ocean to keep its profits up.

Compounding the problem, the Chinese and Indians have suddenly become far heavier energy consumers. Even if fossil fuel supplies were to remain constant (which they won't), demand, and so costs, are almost certain to rise -- and sharply at that. Other developed nations are meeting this threat aggressively by plunging into experimental programs to develop alternative energy sources. The United States has taken a different path, doing far too little to develop alternative sources while, in the last three decades, doubling its dependence on foreign oil imports. Between 1973 and 2007, oil imports have risen from 36 percent of energy consumed in the U.S. to 66 percent.

Oil Shock: Scenario 2025

The United States remains so dependent upon foreign oil that a few adverse developments in the global energy market in 2025 spark an oil shock. By comparison, it makes the 1973 oil shock (when prices quadrupled in just months) look like the proverbial molehill. Angered at the dollar's plummeting value, OPEC oil ministers, meeting in Riyadh, demand future energy payments in a "basket" of Yen, Yuan, and Euros. That only hikes the cost of U.S. oil imports further. At the same moment, while signing a new series of long-term delivery contracts with China, the Saudis stabilize their own foreign exchange reserves by switching to the Yuan. Meanwhile, China pours countless billions into building a massive trans-Asia pipeline and funding Iran's exploitation of the world largest percent natural gas field at South Pars in the Persian Gulf.

Concerned that the U.S. Navy might no longer be able to protect the oil tankers traveling from the Persian Gulf to fuel East Asia, a coalition of Tehran, Riyadh, and Abu Dhabi form an unexpected new Gulf alliance and affirm that China's new fleet of swift aircraft carriers will henceforth patrol the Persian Gulf from a base on the Gulf of Oman. Under heavy economic pressure, London agrees to cancel the U.S. lease on its Indian Ocean island base of Diego Garcia, while Canberra, pressured by the Chinese, informs Washington that the Seventh Fleet is no longer welcome to use Fremantle as a homeport, effectively evicting the U.S. Navy from the Indian Ocean.

With just a few strokes of the pen and some terse announcements, the "Carter Doctrine," by which U.S. military power was to eternally protect the Persian Gulf, is laid to rest in 2025. All the elements that long assured the United States limitless supplies of low-cost oil from that region -- logistics, exchange rates, and naval power -- evaporate. At this point, the U.S. can still cover only an insignificant 12 percent of its energy needs from its nascent alternative energy industry, and remains dependent on imported oil for half of its energy consumption.

The oil shock that follows hits the country like a hurricane, sending prices to startling heights, making travel a staggeringly expensive proposition, putting real wages (which had long been declining) into freefall, and rendering non-competitive whatever American exports remained. With thermostats dropping, gas prices climbing through the roof, and dollars flowing overseas in return for costly oil, the American economy is paralyzed. With long-fraying alliances at an end and fiscal pressures mounting, U.S. military forces finally begin a staged withdrawal from their overseas bases.

Within a few years, the U.S. is functionally bankrupt and the clock is ticking toward midnight on the American Century.

Military Misadventure: Present Situation

Counterintuitively, as their power wanes, empires often plunge into ill-advised military misadventures. This phenomenon is known among historians of empire as "micro-militarism" and seems to involve psychologically compensatory efforts to salve the sting of retreat or defeat by occupying new territories, however briefly and catastrophically. These operations, irrational even from an imperial point of view, often yield hemorrhaging expenditures or humiliating defeats that only accelerate the loss of power.

Embattled empires through the ages suffer an arrogance that drives them to plunge ever deeper into military misadventures until defeat becomes debacle. In 413 BCE, a weakened Athens sent 200 ships to be slaughtered in Sicily. In 1921, a dying imperial Spain dispatched 20,000 soldiers to be massacred by Berber guerrillas in Morocco. In 1956, a fading British Empire destroyed its prestige by attacking Suez. And in 2001 and 2003, the U.S. occupied Afghanistan and invaded Iraq. With the hubris that marks empires over the millennia, Washington has increased its troops in Afghanistan to 100,000, expanded the war into Pakistan, and extended its commitment to 2014 and beyond, courting disasters large and small in this guerilla-infested, nuclear-armed graveyard of empires.

Military Misadventure: Scenario 2014

So irrational, so unpredictable is "micro-militarism" that seemingly fanciful scenarios are soon outdone by actual events. With the U.S. military stretched thin from Somalia to the Philippines and tensions rising in Israel, Iran, and Korea, possible combinations for a disastrous military crisis abroad are multifold.

It's mid-summer 2014 and a drawn-down U.S. garrison in embattled Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is suddenly, unexpectedly overrun by Taliban guerrillas, while U.S. aircraft are grounded by a blinding sandstorm. Heavy loses are taken and in retaliation, an embarrassed American war commander looses B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters to demolish whole neighborhoods of the city that are believed to be under Taliban control, while AC-130U "Spooky" gunships rake the rubble with devastating cannon fire.

Soon, mullahs are preaching jihad from mosques throughout the region, and Afghan Army units, long trained by American forces to turn the tide of the war, begin to desert en masse. Taliban fighters then launch a series of remarkably sophisticated strikes aimed at U.S. garrisons across the country, sending American casualties soaring. In scenes reminiscent of Saigon in 1975, U.S. helicopters rescue American soldiers and civilians from rooftops in Kabul and Kandahar.

Meanwhile, angry at the endless, decades-long stalemate over Palestine, OPEC's leaders impose a new oil embargo on the U.S. to protest its backing of Israel as well as the killing of untold numbers of Muslim civilians in its ongoing wars across the Greater Middle East. With gas prices soaring and refineries running dry, Washington makes its move, sending in Special Operations forces to seize oil ports in the Persian Gulf. This, in turn, sparks a rash of suicide attacks and the sabotage of pipelines and oil wells. As black clouds billow skyward and diplomats rise at the U.N. to bitterly denounce American actions, commentators worldwide reach back into history to brand this "America's Suez," a telling reference to the 1956 debacle that marked the end of the British Empire.

World War III: Present Situation

In the summer of 2010, military tensions between the U.S. and China began to rise in the western Pacific, once considered an American "lake." Even a year earlier no one would have predicted such a development. As Washington played upon its alliance with London to appropriate much of Britain's global power after World War II, so China is now using the profits from its export trade with the U.S. to fund what is likely to become a military challenge to American dominion over the waterways of Asia and the Pacific.

With its growing resources, Beijing is claiming a vast maritime arc from Korea to Indonesia long dominated by the U.S. Navy. In August, after Washington expressed a "national interest" in the South China Sea and conducted naval exercises there to reinforce that claim, Beijing's official Global Times responded angrily, saying, "The U.S.-China wrestling match over the South China Sea issue has raised the stakes in deciding who the real future ruler of the planet will be."

Amid growing tensions, the Pentagon reportedthat Beijing now holds "the capability to attack… [U.S.] aircraft carriers in the western Pacific Ocean" and target "nuclear forces throughout… the continental United States." By developing "offensive nuclear, space, and cyber warfare capabilities," China seems determined to vie for dominance of what the Pentagon calls "the information spectrum in all dimensions of the modern battlespace." With ongoing development of the powerful Long March V booster rocket, as well as the launch of two satellites in January 2010 and another in July, for a total of five, Beijing signaled that the country was making rapid strides toward an "independent" network of 35 satellites for global positioning, communications, and reconnaissance capabilities by 2020.

To check China and extend its military position globally, Washington is intent on building a new digital network of air and space robotics, advanced cyberwarfare capabilities, and electronic surveillance. Military planners expect this integrated system to envelop the Earth in a cyber-grid capable of blinding entire armies on the battlefield or taking out a single terrorist in field or favela. By 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will launch a three-tiered shield of space drones -- reaching from stratosphere to exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by a resilient modular satellite system, and operated through total telescopic surveillance.

Last April, the Pentagon made history. It extended drone operations into the exosphere by quietly launching the X-37B unmanned space shuttle into a low orbit 255 miles above the planet.  The X-37B is the first in a new generation of unmanned vehicles that will mark the full weaponization of space, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before.

World War III: Scenario 2025

The technology of space and cyberwarfare is so new and untested that even the most outlandish scenarios may soon be superseded by a reality still hard to conceive. If we simply employ the sort of scenarios that the Air Force itself used in its 2009 Future Capabilities Game, however, we can gain "a better understanding of how air, space and cyberspace overlap in warfare," and so begin to imagine how the next world war might actually be fought.

It's 11:59 p.m. on Thanksgiving Thursday in 2025. While cyber-shoppers pound the portals of Best Buy for deep discounts on the latest home electronics from China, U.S. Air Force technicians at the Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) on Maui choke on their coffee as their panoramic screens suddenly blip to black. Thousands of miles away at the U.S. CyberCommand's operations center in Texas, cyberwarriors soon detect malicious binaries that, though fired anonymously, show the distinctive digital fingerprints of China's People's Liberation Army.

The first overt strike is one nobody predicted. Chinese "malware" seizes control of the robotics aboard an unmanned solar-powered U.S. "Vulture" drone as it flies at 70,000 feet over the Tsushima Strait between Korea and Japan. It suddenly fires all the rocket pods beneath its enormous 400-foot wingspan, sending dozens of lethal missiles plunging harmlessly into the Yellow Sea, effectively disarming this formidable weapon.

Determined to fight fire with fire, the White House authorizes a retaliatory strike. Confident that its F-6 "Fractionated, Free-Flying" satellite system is impenetrable, Air Force commanders in California transmit robotic codes to the flotilla of X-37B space drones orbiting 250 miles above the Earth, ordering them to launch their "Triple Terminator" missiles at China's 35 satellites. Zero response. In near panic, the Air Force launches its Falcon Hypersonic Cruise Vehicle into an arc 100 miles above the Pacific Ocean and then, just 20 minutes later, sends the computer codes to fire missiles at seven Chinese satellites in nearby orbits. The launch codes are suddenly inoperative.

As the Chinese virus spreads uncontrollably through the F-6 satellite architecture, while those second-rate U.S. supercomputers fail to crack the malware's devilishly complex code, GPS signals crucial to the navigation of U.S. ships and aircraft worldwide are compromised. Carrier fleets begin steaming in circles in the mid-Pacific. Fighter squadrons are grounded. Reaper drones fly aimlessly toward the horizon, crashing when their fuel is exhausted. Suddenly, the United States loses what the U.S. Air Force has long called "the ultimate high ground": space. Within hours, the military power that had dominated the globe for nearly a century has been defeated in World War III without a single human casualty.

A New World Order?

Even if future events prove duller than these four scenarios suggest, every significant trend points toward a far more striking decline in American global power by 2025 than anything Washington now seems to be envisioning.

As allies worldwide begin to realign their policies to take cognizance of rising Asian powers, the cost of maintaining 800 or more overseas military bases will simply become unsustainable, finally forcing a staged withdrawal on a still-unwilling Washington. With both the U.S. and China in a race to weaponize space and cyberspace, tensions between the two powers are bound to rise, making military conflict by 2025 at least feasible, if hardly guaranteed.

Complicating matters even more, the economic, military, and technological trends outlined above will not operate in tidy isolation. As happened to European empires after World War II, such negative forces will undoubtedly prove synergistic. They will combine in thoroughly unexpected ways, create crises for which Americans are remarkably unprepared, and threaten to spin the economy into a sudden downward spiral, consigning this country to a generation or more of economic misery.

As U.S. power recedes, the past offers a spectrum of possibilities for a future world order. At one end of this spectrum, the rise of a new global superpower, however unlikely, cannot be ruled out. Yet both China and Russia evince self-referential cultures, recondite non-roman scripts, regional defense strategies, and underdeveloped legal systems, denying them key instruments for global dominion. At the moment then, no single superpower seems to be on the horizon likely to succeed the U.S.

In a dark, dystopian version of our global future, a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral forces like NATO, and an international financial elite could conceivably forge a single, possibly unstable, supra-national nexus that would make it no longer meaningful to speak of national empires at all. While denationalized corporations and multinational elites would assumedly rule such a world from secure urban enclaves, the multitudes would be relegated to urban and rural wastelands.

In "Planet of Slums," Mike Davis offers at least a partial vision of such a world from the bottom up. He argues that the billion people already packed into fetid favela-style slums worldwide (rising to two billion by 2030) will make "the 'feral, failed cities' of the Third World… the distinctive battlespace of the twenty-first century." As darkness settles over some future super-favela, "the empire can deploy Orwellian technologies of repression" as "hornet-like helicopter gun-ships stalk enigmatic enemies in the narrow streets of the slum districts… Every morning the slums reply with suicide bombers and eloquent explosions."

At a midpoint on the spectrum of possible futures, a new global oligopoly might emerge between 2020 and 2040, with rising powers China, Russia, India, and Brazil collaborating with receding powers like Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States to enforce an ad hoc global dominion, akin to the loose alliance of European empires that ruled half of humanity circa 1900.

Another possibility: the rise of regional hegemons in a return to something reminiscent of the international system that operated before modern empires took shape. In this neo-Westphalian world order, with its endless vistas of micro-violence and unchecked exploitation, each hegemon would dominate its immediate region -- Brasilia in South America, Washington in North America, Pretoria in southern Africa, and so on. Space, cyberspace, and the maritime deeps, removed from the control of the former planetary "policeman," the United States, might even become a new global commons, controlled through an expanded U.N. Security Council or some ad hoc body.

All of these scenarios extrapolate existing trends into the future on the assumption that Americans, blinded by the arrogance of decades of historically unparalleled power, cannot or will not take steps to manage the unchecked erosion of their global position.

If America's decline is in fact on a 22-year trajectory from 2003 to 2025, then we have already frittered away most of the first decade of that decline with wars that distracted us from long-term problems and, like water tossed onto desert sands, wasted trillions of desperately needed dollars.

If only 15 years remain, the odds of frittering them all away still remain high. Congress and the president are now in gridlock; the American system is flooded with corporate money meant to jam up the works; and there is little suggestion that any issues of significance, including our wars, our bloated national security state, our starved education system, and our antiquated energy supplies, will be addressed with sufficient seriousness to assure the sort of soft landing that might maximize our country's role and prosperity in a changing world.

Europe's empires are gone and America's imperium is going. It seems increasingly doubtful that the United States will have anything like Britain's success in shaping a succeeding world order that protects its interests, preserves its prosperity, and bears the imprint of its best values.

By ALFRED MCCOY

Alfred W. McCoy is the J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, "From the Cold War to the War on Terror." Later this year, "Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State," a forthcoming book of his, will explore the influence of overseas counterinsurgency operations on the spread of internal security measures here at home. 

Consequences of the defeat of Russia - Nadin Brzezinski (Medium)

Consequences of the defeat of Russia

 Nadin Brzezinski

Medium Daily Digest, Jan 2, 2023

https://nadinbrzezinski.medium.com/consequences-of-the-defeat-of-russia-ec7e12c9971c

The defeat of the Russian Federation will have geopolitical consequences. The defeat of Russia will also have some obvious dangers for the West, but mainly for the global order. This is a look at this from the very big picture level; you might say the 10,000 feet level. So it is, by it’s very nature, filled with generalities.

Russian defeat is coming

The defeat of Russia on the battlefield is getting closer. Granted, most nations would not be doubling down as they lose over 100,000 plus soldiers in the span of ten months. However, Russia is, partly because Vladimir Putin can’t face the reality of defeat at the hands of a country he considers inferior or nonexistent. There is also another reality. Even amid this pain, large majorities of Russians still support the war. However, there is a slowly building resistance that is becoming more adept at sabotage. 

Russia has a nationalist far right that believes in the mission. They know they are fighting NATO, not Ukraine. They believe this war is one of survival for the state. Whether these are Duginists, Rushist (this is a Neonazi formation), or the Russian Imperial Movement, they believe in the expansion of Russia geographically and influence. One reason for this is to secure more defensible borders within Europe. 

Russia also lost a lot of influence after 1991 and many Russians, not just the far right, believe the fall of the USSR was a mistake. There is a revanchist mood and a desire for empire. However, not everybody does, and as the consequences of the war grow, resistance will continue to grow.

Internal consequences

The war's first and most obvious consequence is a direct effect on the economy. People are removed from factories and other productive work within the economy. Even without sanctions, this will affect the ability to produce goods and services. We know that the heart of the economy is extractive industries, chiefly petroleum and minerals. Russia is now under a price cap for its oil with the west. 

Russia has also mostly abandoned hard currencies for its national fund, instead holding them in Yuan and gold. This ties Russia to China in more ways than they will be comfortable with. Russia has a tiny economy when compared to China. Putin is tying Russia to China as he tries to build a multipolar world where Russia is a great power. That Russia will emerge with a greatly diminished influence has not yet dawned on most Russians. 

This is not a world where Moscow is the senior partner. It’s not the 1950s when Beijing depended on Moscow for a lot of help. In time, Even with information control, it will. One way it’s starting is the green ribbon movement and the halting beginnings of Zamisdat. While Russians still support the war, I believe that support will not continue forever. 

Russia is a totalitarian state. Therefore polling, even by the respected Levada Center, is fraught with fear. But the general mobilization is breaking the social contract. Remember, it was I sat on the couch and did not become political as long as you let me live my life however I want to. This is over. And as more Russians face the reality of a grisly death at the front, more and more will become political. 

I am not talking about the far right, which never left the political stage. To their credit, many of them have willingly joined the army. This is about the comfortable middle-class Russians or even the working class who don’t care about politics. They are fully depoliticized, but this is likely changing. When they learn that Artem, who worked in a factory, got mobilized and did not come home, that starts the process. 

For the moment, Russia has been careful to mobilize mainly people with military training. In the Federation, only they get roped in for conscript service, and the comfortable types bribe their way out. That’s not going to continue for long. Soon they will not be able to bribe themselves away from the army. All the St George Ribbons and cult of the Great Patriotic War now become real service in an army that does not care about its personnel.

To be clear, the Russian army never has.

Putin will likely lose power

This brings me to the next reality. When the war is lost, Vladimir Putin will not survive as leader. There is a long history of Russian Tsars not enduring significant defeats. For the moment, oligarchs continue to die in strange circumstances. It’s so bad that a joke online explains that buying a Russian advent calendar is interesting. Every time you open a window, an oligarch falls out. It’s grim, but critics have indeed been dying in mysterious circumstances.

Putin is familiar with the fate of those who are defeated. In 1905 reforms were forced. In 1917 the Romanov Tsar and his family died. Nikita Khrushchev lost power after the stand down to the US during the Cuban Missile crisis. While Mikhail Gorbachev survived, he was despised within Russia while respected in the West. The whole political persona of Vladimir Putin comes from the end of the USSR. That is his identity. So is expanding the reach and influence of the Russian Federation to the former glory and borders of the Soviet Union. 

There is discontent among the top leadership, and the Oligarchs, in particular, are not too happy. They have lost billions of US Dollars and access to villas in Italy or apartments in London. Worse case, if their military-age children are still in Russia, they may not avoid a military funeral. These people are not apolitical. But they are not fools either. A recent story from the Washington Post pointed to the patterns we all have seen on Telegram channels.

Internal conflict

This brings me to the fight for power inside the Russian Federation. We are facing the collapse of Russia. This is the third collapse in just over 100 years. First, it was 1917, and it was a revolution. This led to the end of the Romanov dynasty. It was followed by a civil war and the rise of Joseph Stalin. The Stalin era was followed by forced industrialization, the gulags, purges, and the Holodomor. It also led to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, which led to Poland's split in 1939. In 1941 Stalin was betrayed by Germany with Operation Barbarossa. 

It likely would have faced defeat without help through American Lend-Lease. However, the Soviet Union emerged from World War Two with full control of Eastern Europe and the maximum expansion of Russia. It reached from the pacific to Berlin.

The command economy of the Soviet system was not resilient or able to cope with the population's needs. In time it became sclerotic. The reforms that Gorbachev introduced were late to save the empire. This led to the second collapse of Russia in 1991.

The withdrawal from Eastern Europe, starting in Berlin in 1989, came partly from troops that had not been paid for months. You might also remember the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which led to a large group of war veterans mostly despised in their own country. They had trouble reintegrating. Ukraine War veterans will likely face the same fate.

Unlike the 1917 collapse and revolution, 1991 was a more pleasant affair. The west also helped. This is from the New York Times archive from 1991:

The United States delivered 75 tons of food left over from the Persian Gulf war to the hungry Moscow region today, part of a relief effort that American and Russian officials said they expected to continue through the winter.

The food, flown in through the snow on two military cargo planes from a supply base in Pisa, Italy, was to go directly to hospitals, orphanages and homes for the elderly.

The delivery from Sheremetyevo Airport in Russian trucks was observed by Americans, including embassy dependents, and by Russian and Red Cross officials, to make sure that its contents were not stolen and put on sale by Russian black marketeers.

The flights had a paradoxical quality: The American military, after decades of cold war training to fight a hot war against the Soviet Union, arrived here to help this country feed its hungry. An Echo of World War II

What we also did was send economists to help a transition to a more western economy. The problem is that the reforms were neoliberal and led straight to the first generation of oligarchs and the gang wars of the 1990s.

This brings me to the next point. In 1991 the Baltic States, Ukraine, and some central Asian republics voted to leave the Soviet Union and become independent states.

New successor states

Under the present Russian constitution leaving the Federation is more complex than just doing a referendum. It was under the USSR. This is likely going to lead to regions leaving regardless. We have the noise of this in Dagestan and Tatarstan, for example. Ramzan Kadyrov may decide it’s time to turn on Russia. His father fought for independence in the 1990s, but in the end, he turned against that effort, and Kadyrovites became strong allies of the regime in Moscow.

There is also a Chechen battalion fighting for Ikhteria (Chechnya) on the side of Ukraine. As things devolve, it may become the heart of a force fighting for independence. It would be the third Chechen war in two generations.

In my view, control of the Far East will become harder, given military losses. However, this war has also been used to dispose of potentially problematic first peoples, such as Buryats, who have suffered incredibly high losses—more on the Far East below.

I believe some regions will take advantage of this central weakness and declare independence. Some of these new states may look at the more democratic rule. Some, like the 1990s, will become dystopias.

This brings me to the geopolitics of this, and again this is a 10,000-foot overview. It’s not very detailed, and at this point, it’s an informed guessing game.

Loose nukes

This is the fear of the west. While Russian nukes may or may not work at this point, we all need to assume they do. However, this was a worry in the 1990s and will be again.

The nightmare is that a group like Al Qaida might get their paws on a device. This could be a dirty weapon going off somewhere in the west. It could also be a Russian group set on revenge for the Empire's destruction. Or, for that matter, successor states may get nuclear weapons.

This was the reason for the Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed Ukraine’s security in exchange for surrendering the nuclear arsenal on her territory. Because of the present war, I don’t expect any successor state to surrender strategic weapons willingly.

Geopolitical consequences

Russia's defeat will not just be limited to her territory and Ukraine. It will have genuine consequences globally. Remember, this is a high-level overview.

The Middle East

Russia has had its hands in the Middle East since World War Two. It supported the Nasser Revolution, and the Israeli-Arab wars were proxy wars with the United States.

At this point, her influence is already greatly diminished. The Arab Spring may have failed, but Arab states have still turned West and increasingly recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Russia still has a naval base at the port of Latakia. She still supports Bashar Al Assad. The west allowed both Assad and Putin to use chemical weapons during the hot phase of the civil war because the west was unwilling to confront Russia. Why? We all thought they had an active military, but chiefly it’s the strategic arsenal.

When Russia is defeated, she might withdraw her forces from Syria. I almost expect it. This includes the port of Latakia. Especially if Russian regions start declaring independence. Russia is facing economic collapse. Unlike in the 1990s, I think we all have lost that fear of the Russian bear.

This means that both Israel and Turkey will grow in influence. If the ongoing Iranian revolution succeeds, many more Islamist groups will also lose support. Russia’s defeat may help that process along.

Latin America

Think Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. These are Russian allies in the region. A defeat of Russia could lead to a similar economic crisis Cuba faced in the 1990s. Venezuela is a basket case, less so Nicaragua.

Without the support of Moscow, Cuba might transition away from the revolution. Internal forces are pushing for this anyway. Venezuela is already selling oil to the west. Nicolas Maduro may be in the process. Chevron has returned to the market. His economy is a basket case with a refugee flow that is quite large, chiefly to Colombia and some to the United States.

There is a history of mistrust of the United States that is very justified. Why some regimes turned towards the Soviet Union starting in the 1950s, but a second Russian collapse might mean that this resistance lessens.

However, the modern form of globalization might be over, and Latin America might finally form a trading block to increase its economic power. Climate change will also change many of those commercial and population dynamics.

Africa

Like Latin America, Africa turned to the Soviet Union in the 1950s. It has increased its influence since many African states, like Angola or the Central African Republic, were not directly colonized by Russia.

These days it gets complicated. Wagner is used precisely for this and to guard extractive industries. This is particularly the case in Mali.

The collapse of Russia will mean Yevgeny Prigozhin will have to recall the troops home. There will be no money to pay him. I also foresee his lucre soldiers as active combatants in a possible Russian civil war.

China

Here we come to the real beneficiary of a Russian collapse. It is not the United States. It is China. First, let me go to the obvious. The Far East is contested by China. Over the decades, there have been firefights by the border. As far as China is concerned, the city of Omsk is China.

This is a recent piece on this from Forbes, but the history is long:

While there’s no way to know what Xi is thinking, China’s long-established pattern of behavior suggests that, as Russia redirects border security units to a grinding conflict in Ukraine, it is worth considering if China might be mulling expansionist contingencies to the north, along the sprawling and sparsely held 2,615 mile Russian frontier.

On the other hand, on both the Indian frontier and in the South China Sea, China moved into sovereign territory with little advance notice. In both cases, China’s expansionism was opportunistic, taking advantage of an administrative or military vacuum to suddenly “change the facts on the ground.”

China wanted that territory, not just because it controlled it in the 19th century. This was the Amur annexation of the 19th century. But because this territory is rich in natural mineral resources, China wants it for its growing economy. It also would provide a safety valve for her population.

But let’s look beyond the Far East. China is building a new Silk Road and influencing operations in Africa and Latin America.

All these are areas where Russia, or whatever remains of Moscow, will have to withdraw from. So the big winner in a Russian collapse will be an ascendant China. I will add this since Russia is making the Yuan part of its national wealth fund, it will become dependent on Beijing.

Putin wanted a multipolar world and to finally defeat the main adversary. We may still get a multipolar world. One where the United States, China, and India may play critical roles. While I did not mention India in this piece, she is also becoming a focus of power.

In this list, Russia is nowhere to be seen. Part of this is that she is facing yet another collapse. In this case, I do not think the west will help much. However, like in 1991, we might still see American cargo planes with food on the way to Russian cities. This is mainly to slow down the process of social collapse. In other words, we might try to manage that.

However, given how much the far right in Russia blames us for all their ills, there is a danger in doing that which did not exist in 1991.

Geopolitics is the biggest threat to globalisation - Martin Wolf (Financial Times)

 Geopolitics is the biggest threat to globalisation

The consequences of a great power rupture may be even worse now than during the cold war

Martin Wolf

Financial Times, Londres – 4.11.2022

 

How might globalisation end? Some seem to imagine a relatively peaceful “decoupling” of economies until recently stitched so tightly together. But it is likely that the fracturing of economic ties will be both consequence and cause of deepening global discord. If so, a more destructive end to globalisation is likely. 

Humanity has, alas, done this before. Since the industrial revolution in the early 19th century, we have had two periods of deepening cross-border economic integration and one of the reverse. The first period of globalisation preceded 1914. The second began in the late 1940s, but accelerated and widened from the late 1970s, as ever more economies integrated with one another. In between came a lengthy period of deglobalisation, bounded by the two world wars and deepened by the Depression and the protectionism that both accompanied and worsened it. Finally, since the financial crisis of 2007-09, globalisation has been neither deepening nor reversing. 

This history hardly suggests that a period of deglobalisation is likely to be a happy one. On the contrary, 1914-45 was marked by the collapse of political and economic order, both domestic and global. The Bolshevik revolution of 1917, itself a consequence of the first world war, launched communism on the world. On some estimates, communism killed around 100mn people, even more than the two world wars.

This period of chaos and calamity had some beneficial outcomes: it made European empires untenable; it brought forth modern welfare states; and it made humans a little more aware of their shared destiny. Yet, in all, it was an epoch of catastrophe. 

A controversial question is how and how far peace is linked to globalisation. As John Plender recently argued, trade does not necessarily secure peace. The onset of the first world war at a time of relatively buoyant trade surely demonstrates this. The causality goes rather in the opposite direction, from peace to commerce. In an era of co-operation among great powers, trade tends to grow. In one of mutual suspicion, especially one of open conflict, trade collapses, as we see now between Russia and the west.

People sometimes point to the English liberal Norman Angell as a naive believer in the view that trade would bring peace. Yet, in The Great Illusion, written shortly before the first world war, he argued that countries would gain nothing of value from war. Subsequent experience entirely vindicated this view: the principal participants in the war all lost. Similarly, ordinary Russians will not benefit from the conquest of Ukraine or ordinary Chinese from the conquest of Taiwan. But this truth did not preclude conflict. Under the leadership of psychopaths and the influence of nationalism and other dangerous ideologies, we are capable of grotesque follies and horrific crimes. 

A possible response is that nothing similar to what happened during the “great deglobalisation” of the 20th century can happen this time. At worst, the outcome might be a bit like the cold war. This, however, is unduly optimistic. It is quite likely that the consequences of a rupture of great power relations will be even worse in our time than it was then. 

One obvious reason is that our capacity for mutual annihilation is far more than an order of magnitude greater today. A disturbing recent study from Rutgers University argues that a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia, especially given the probability of a “nuclear winter”, could kill over 5bn people. Is that unimaginable? Alas, no. 

Another reason why the outcome could be even worse this time is that we depend on a high level of enlightened co-operation to sustain an inhabitable planet. This is particularly true of China and the US, which together generate over 40 per cent of global CO₂ emissions. The climate is a collective action challenge par excellence. A breakdown of co-operative relations is likely to end whatever chance exists of avoiding a runaway process of climate change.

One then has to fall back on the hope that today’s deepening global divisions can be contained, as they were, by and large, during the cold war. One rejoinder to this hope is that there were some close-run moments during the cold war. The second is that the Soviet economy was not integrated into the world’s, while China and the west are both competitors and integrated with one another and the rest of the world. There is no painless way of decoupling these economic links. It is folly to imagine there is. The effort seems sure to create conflict. 

Indeed, the recently announced controls on US exports of semiconductors and associated technologies to China looks a decisive step. Certainly, this is far more threatening to Beijing than anything Donald Trump did. The aim is clearly to slow China’s economic development. That is an act of economic warfare. One might agree with it. But it will have huge geopolitical consequences.

Deglobalisation is most unlikely to be the outcome of carefully calibrated and intelligent decoupling. This is not how we humans work. People might pretend deglobalisation has something to do with reducing inequality. That is nonsense, too: the more open economies are frequently relatively equal. 

It is conflicts over power that most threaten globalisation. By seeking to enhance their security, great powers make their rivals more insecure, creating a vicious downward spiral of distrust. We are already a long way down this spiral. That reality will shape the fate of the world economy. We are not headed towards a benign localism, but towards negative-sum rivalry. Our world may not survive a virulent bout of that disease.

"I Don’t Believe in Applying Old Labels To New Geopolitical Developments": Annalena Baerbock, new Germany's Foreign minister (Der Spiegel)

A "chancelera" (no sentido de ministra das relações exteriores) do novo governo alemão, uma Verde, dá uma importante entrevista para o Der Spiegel. A vida não vai ser fácil para o Bozo.

German Foreign Minister-Designate Annalena Baerbock

"I Don’t Believe in Applying Old Labels To New Geopolitical Developments"

Annalena Baerbock of the Green Party is slated to become Germany's first female foreign minister. She spoke to DER SPIEGEL about the policy challenges the country faces abroad and the more immediate crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interview Conducted by Valerie Höhne, Martin Knobbe und Jonas Schaibl

Der Spiegel, Hamburgo – 30.11.2021

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Baerbock, you have just spent several weeks negotiating with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the market-oriented Free Democratic Party (FDP) behind you. What have you learned about future chancellor Olaf Scholz?

Baerbock: When you sit together day and night, you also get to know each other as people. And I can say: The later the hour, the more humorous the conversations.

DER SPIEGEL: And the FDP? It’s often viewed by your party as being neoliberal, right-wing and frivolous.

Baerbock: We often have different points of view, but they can really enrich debates. It is precisely the considerable common ground between the Greens and the FDP in social policy that is reflected in the coalition agreement.

DER SPIEGEL: FDP head Christian Lindner said at the presentation of the coalition agreement that the three parties are united by the fact that they want to overcome the status quo. During the negotiations, though, voices from the Green Party frequently said that the FDP had proven to be a status quo party. Which is true?

Baerbock: Probably both.

DER SPIEGEL: Can you please explain?

Baerbock: It's not that complicated. In Germany, you still have to go to City Hall with paper documents. In such instances, the FDP says clearly: Things can’t continue the way they are. We agree. In other policy areas, we have different ideas about whether something needs to change and what. With financial market regulations, for example, we would have liked to see more change.

DER SPIEGEL: What is the main message of this coalition agreement?

Baerbock: That we can really make a difference. Our aim is to bring politics up to date with reality and to break the stalemates that exist in our country regarding major, future-oriented projects. In digitalization, climate protection and societal cohesion.

DER SPIEGEL: The reality is that the coalition is already facing a major crisis. Olaf Scholz has finally presented the new coalition government’s coronavirus containment policy, but he hasn’t even uttered the word "lockdown." Is the new government acting with as little foresight as the old one?

Baerbock: Everyone is very conscious of the dramatic nature of the situation. We must now do everything in our power to ensure that hospital care remains secure and doesn’t collapse. To that end, we have jointly presented a catalog of seven acute measures. It is good that, in the future, there will be a crisis unit in the Chancellery with representatives from the federal government and from the states. In addition, there will finally be a scientific advisory board that will evaluate the situation on a daily basis.

DER SPIEGEL: Even without a scientific advisory board, you can conclude that the seven points won’t be enough to prevent disaster.

Baerbock: What we have to do now is consistently enforce the protective measures, including 2G and 2G-plus in broad areas and 3G at the workplace and on public transport and in rail transport. (Ed’s: 2G means people have to either be vaccinated or have recently recovered from a coronavirus infection in order to participate in certain aspects of public life, while 2G-plus means they must recently have tested negative on top of that. With 3G, a person has to either be vaccinated, have recovered from corona recently or have undergone a same-day corona test.) The council of experts is reviewing whether that goes far enough. If necessary, we will take further action.

DER SPIEGEL: Do you rule out the possibility of another lockdown?

Baerbock: I do not rule out the possibility that further steps will be needed, possibly sweeping measures. That’s why it is so important to use the next few days to get an honest picture.

DER SPIEGEL: If you’re aiming for a certain centralization of pandemic control, isn't the recent decision to let a law expire that granted the federal government sweeping powers in implementing virus containment measures counterproductive? Instead, the center of power has been shifted back to parliament, which reacts more slowly.

Baerbock: Parliament has shown that it is capable of acting very quickly. We changed the legal basis, not the fight against the pandemic. We have re-enforced those efforts with other measures, such as the 3G rule in the workplace. And, I reiterate: If necessary, we will tighten the rules as quickly as possible.

DER SPIEGEL: Does it make sense to introduce a general vaccination requirement now?

Baerbock: We are not ruling out a general vaccination requirement. But that will not help slow the fourth wave we are seeing right now. Part of the uncertainty among the population also stems from the fact that things are too often announced that aren’t carried out in the end. Before a general vaccination requirement could be adopted, it is necessary to clarify the legal basis and what conditions must be met. Vaccine doses must be available immediately and in sufficient quantities, and vaccination facilities must be available everywhere. It is also important to me that, in parallel to booster vaccinations and compulsory vaccination in sensitive areas such as nursing or in day-care centers and schools, logistical preparations for child vaccinations absolutely need to be made. Adults can stand in line for hours for a vaccination if need be. But you can’t do that with children.

DER SPIEGEL: You were your party’s chancellor candidate, but now you won’t even be vice chancellor. Does that bother you?

Baerbock: I am looking ahead. Our government will likely be taking office in the midst of the most serious health-care crisis this country has ever seen. We have big tasks to tackle. That is where I am currently focusing my energies.

DER SPIEGEL: Has the internal power struggle in your party between centrists and the left wing over cabinet posts hurt the incoming coalition?

Baerbock: No. Debates are part of inner-party democracy. It’s never easy when there are a lot of smart people, but only a limited number of ministries. But the national committee was unanimous in its nominations. Now it’s full steam ahead for the vote in parliament that will put the Green Party back in government after 16 years.

DER SPIEGEL: During the election campaign, you repeatedly said that this would be the last federal government that would still be able to influence the climate crisis. Is the coalition in a position to stop current developments?

Baerbock: We must do everything we can to at least slow down further global warming. Globally, we are currently on track for a temperature increase of 3 degrees Celsius. Of that, 1.2 degrees are already irreversible. That is why these actually are the decisive years for turning things around. Four years isn’t enough to do it, but we can and must get started.

DER SPIEGEL: What precisely does the coalition plan on doing?

Baerbock: The measures needed for our country to contribute to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius are contained in the agreement.

DER SPIEGEL: That’s an ambitious promise. The coalition agreement still states that the coal phase-out should "ideally" be brought forward to 2030. Where is the leverage for starting a real turnaround?

Baerbock: With a CO2 price in European emissions trading of 60 euros per ton, coal-fired power plants will no longer be profitable by the end of the decade, especially with renewable energies continuing to get cheaper. A CO2 certificate currently costs as much as 70 euros, and the price is likely to grow more expensive. However, if the European market price falls, we will introduce a national minimum threshold of 60 euros, that has been agreed. That gives industry planning security. Companies that switch to climate-neutral cement or steel can be sure that they are not throwing their investments out the window.

DER SPIEGEL: You are saying that the use of the word "ideally" in the coalition agreement in lieu of a firm commitment is irrelevant?

Baerbock: Yes, that only means: as soon as the supply of renewable energies is sufficient to replace coal. Of course, we will still need reliable electricity in 2029, whether at three o'clock in the morning or at minus 7 degrees. That is why, logically, the coal phase-out is linked to the expansion of renewable energies, which will entail the greatest effort.

DER SPIEGEL: Again: Where are the binding rules?

Baerbock: The crucial thing is that it was agreed in the coalition deal that the expansion of renewable energies will be defined as a public interest in the future. Which was always the case with mining law – coal mining came first. Now, it’s renewable energies. And we need them not only for the electricity sector, but also for the transport sector and industry. Green power plants will have priority in planning processes and we will provide the state with the appropriate enforcement rights. That may sound technical, but it is a small revolution.  It means that on balance, the importance of renewable energy and infrastructure is increasing. In this way, we are accelerating the planning and approval processes.

DER SPIEGEL: Many experts have called for a higher CO2 price for transport and heat. Why hasn’t that happened?

Baerbock: In light of exploding energy prices, an additional price increase right now wouldn’t be good for social reasons. And we’ve always said that you can’t rely on price alone. Otherwise, the richest people in the country will buy their way out, and everyone else will be left out in the cold. That’s why we now have a good mix of a price effect, regulatory law and subsidy policy.

DER SPIEGEL: Contrary to expectations, the Greens didn’t get the Transport Ministry. Will FDP control of the ministry slow down the transportation revolution?

Baerbock: In terms of content, we have anchored strong guardrails in the treaty. The coalition is committed to supporting the Europe-wide phaseout of the internal combustion engine by 2035. It will also ensure that there are 15 million fully electric cars by 2030, and that the charging point infrastructure will be expanded. Together, this will mean that only zero-emission cars will be newly registered in Germany at the beginning of the next decade.

DER SPIEGEL: How painful is it for you that you had to forego the Transport Ministry?

Baerbock: You can’t have it all, and in the coalition agreement, we fought for the foundations of the transformation in drive systems. We will be responsible for three key transformative portfolios: economy, environment and agriculture. Working together, we can really make a difference, especially if the economy and the environment are no longer played off against each other.

DER SPIEGEL: But aren’t you running the risk of losing the interpretive battle right from the get-go if there’s no high CO2 price, you don't have control of the Transport Ministry and you’ve already given up on imposing a mandatory speed limit on autobahns?

Baerbock: I would, of course, preferred to see the diesel subsidy abolished, for example. But more crucial is the fact that, over the next few years, we’ll be building thousands of wind turbines and power lines and expanding charging point infrastructure. The coalition agreement provides a very solid basis for this.

DER SPIEGEL: Will your critics at the environmental organizations or Fridays for Future see it that way, too?

Baerbock: A strong civil society has to put its finger on the weak spots. I have no problem with that. The task now is now that of building a complete climate infrastructure in the country, which is extremely difficult, especially considering that so little has happened in recent years. But there is no way around it. We have the opportunity and the obligation to bring our industrialized country into an era without fossil energies and to secure prosperity for future generations. It is clear that the 1.5-degree path can only be achieved if European and international partners join in. That is why we need an active foreign policy element for dealing with climate change. The technologies we develop in Germany over the next few years must be exported to the world.

DER SPIEGEL: That will be your job, too. You are about to become Germany’s first female foreign minister. What does that mean to you?

Baerbock: At the beginning of the 1960s, women had to protest in front of the entrance to the Chancellery to finally get a female minister into the cabinet. There was strong resistance to overcome. But women before me did it. I am grateful to these women.

DER SPIEGEL: You said in a television interview before the election that if you became chancellor, your first trip abroad would be to Brussels. Will the same apply to a Foreign Minister Baerbock?

Baerbock: First, our party members have to vote on the coalition agreement and the tableau of cabinet appointments. Regardless: A strong German foreign policy can only be a European one. It is urgent that the Weimar Triangle be revived – Warsaw, Berlin and Paris are crucial to Europe. And even though we have several points of controversy with the Polish government, it is clear: We need close cooperation with our Eastern European partners.

DER SPIEGEL: You have spoken out against putting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany into operation. What is your plan here?

Baerbock: My criticism of the gas pipeline is well known, for geostrategic and energy policy reasons. At the moment, the pipeline can’t be put into operation anyway. The Federal Network Agency just suspended certification.

DER SPIEGEL: Once you are sworn in, you will immediately have to address a significant developing conflict. Russia is mobilizing troops on its border with Ukraine and it is supplying less gas to Europe. In Belarus, refugees are being smuggled to the border. Is this a hybrid attack by Russia against the EU?

Baerbock: These are anything but easy times. We are experiencing a double blackmail by Lukashenko. On the one hand, refugees are being abused to divide Europe. On the other, the government wants to be recognized by the Europeans as negotiating partner, even though it is suppressing the opposition. You cannot allow yourself to be blackmailed by dictators. The EU must stand together as a community of values. That is why it is right to tighten sanctions and continue to put pressure on the Lukashenko regime. At the same time, diplomacy always means seeking dialogue.

DER SPIEGEL: So, unlike your fellow party members, you have no problem with the fact that Chancellor Angela Merkel called Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko?

Baerbock: You cannot pursue foreign policy without dialogue. We are also talking to the Taliban to get people to safety, after all. But it did not need to be the chancellor calling Lukashenko.

DER SPIEGEL: Poland isn’t letting migrants and refugees into the country at the EU’s external border. Is this the right way to handle the conflict?

Baerbock: Poland needs European solidarity. But of course international law must also be respected at Europe’s external borders, that is clear.

DER SPIEGEL: What might a solution look like?

Baerbock: There is no simple solution. But it is important that Germany, the EU and Poland act together. Even if, from my point of view, providing for the refugees – also on Polish, i.e., EU territory – must be the top priority.

DER SPIEGEL: Are we in a new Cold War with Russia and China?

Baerbock: I don’t believe in simply applying old categories to new geopolitical developments. We are in a systemic rivalry with authoritarian regimes and must make every effort to defend the international rules-based order. It is a matter of protecting the principles of international law, human rights and the international peace order. For several years, it has not only been a matter of military threats, but also of hybrid aggression.

"It is good that the evacuation mission in Afghanistan will be dealt with in a parliamentary committee of inquiry."

DER SPIEGEL: You personally rejected Germany’s participation in NATO’s atomic deterrent, but now nuclear sharing is in the coalition agreement. Do you have to go against your beliefs?

Baerbock: In a coalition, each partner has to move a bit so that we can make progress together. The coalition agreement contains a commitment to nuclear sharing. At the same time, we reaffirmed our common goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and a Germany free of nuclear weapons. Germany will advocate nuclear disarmament as an observer at the Meeting of States Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We have always emphasized that these efforts are only possible in close consultation with our European and international partners.

DER SPIEGEL: Thousands of local hires who worked for Germany – who saved the lives of German troops – are still stranded in Afghanistan. What will your message to them be once you are sworn in as foreign minister?

Baerbock: It is good that the evacuation mission in Afghanistan will be dealt with in a parliamentary committee of inquiry. We must learn our lessons for future missions. And, of course, every effort must continue to be made to protect and welcome people who are at risk because they worked with us in the past.

DER SPIEGEL: Ms. Baerbock, we thank you for this interview.