EFTA00684328.pdf

From: Office of Tetje Rod-Larsen Subject: February 28 update Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2014 15:22:12 +0000 28 February, 2014 Article I. The National Interest Ukraine: Will Putin Strike? Joergen Oerstroem Moeller Article 2. The Washington Post Putin's Ukraine gambit Charles Krauthammer Article 3. The Daily Beast Does Alleged Corruption Video Spell the End Of Erdogan? Thomas Seibert Article 4. Associated Press Dahlan, exiled Palestinian leader, builds comeback Mohammed Daraghmeh and Karin Laub Articles. NYT What Would Kennan Say to Obama? Frank Costigliola Article 6. The Economist What's gone wrong with democracy Article 7. Jewish Review of Books Original Sins Ronald Radosh Article ft. The Washington Free Beacon TNR editor Wieseltier bashes TNR editor over anti-Israel book Article I. The National Interest Ukraine: Will Putin Strike? ir gen Oerstroem Moeller February 28, 2014 -- The world should brace itself for a Putin strike to prevent Ukraine from turning towards the West. EFTA00684328 For those in doubt, suffice to recall President Putin's statement in 2006 that the collapse of the Soviet Union was "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the twentieth century. Ukraine firmly anchored in the Western system, on its way towards membership of the EU in due course, or even worse, a member of NATO— these are outcomes he will never tolerate. It would be the final straw in dismantling Russian attempts to extend its influence over the `near abroad'—those parts of Central and Eastern Europe that escaped domination by Russia in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Putin has several times invoked Russia's right to influence, labelling the `near abroad' strategically vital for Russia. Giving up, especially under such circumstances as these, would be tantamount to a humiliating defeat more than wiping out his diplomatic triumphs (Syria, for example) last year. And the domestic strongman image Putin has carefully cultivated cannot be reconciled with being outmaneuvered by the West and sidelined by a large part of the Ukrainian population. From Putin's perspective, this is not only a question of geopolitical power, but an omen of what may happen to Russia's own political system. If the Ukrainian people can topple a president propped up by Russia (to the tune of cheap gas prices and a USD 15 billion credit line), the same can happen inside Russia. Consequently, it may be that for Putin no cost is too high to prevent such an outcome in Ukraine. People power and the lure of the Western system must not prevail. What is happening in Ukraine is synonymous with a looming threat to his own power. What can he do to forestall or prevent it from happening? Economic measures as higher gas prices and restrictions for Ukrainian exports to Russia will hardly do the trick. It may even stoke animosity towards Russia, not only among those already distancing themselves from the big neighbour up north, but also among those in doubt. This kind of bullying has nourished the sentiment that the West is the better option. And a "wait and see" approach is also not a very attractive option for Moscow. The coming elections will produce a Ukrainian leadership that will most likely lean West, and whose legitimacy will be in little doubt. Russian intervention will be harder to justify; not the least because a new Ukrainian government will say, "yes, of course we want good and friendly relations with Russia." Signing an agreement with the EU like the one on EFTA00684329 the agenda last year does not stand in the way of pursuing that goal. So Russia and Putin would be back to square one, only facing an even more difficult situation than they do now. This leaves the option of some kind of intervention. Over the last couple of days Russia has indeed warmed up to do exactly this. Prime Minister Medvedev said on February 24 that he doubted the legitimacy of Ukraine's new authorities and that those now in power had conducted an "armed mutiny." The West should carefully weigh that statement. Maybe the most important part is that it comes from Medvedev who—erroneously—is seen by the West as a `better guy' than Putin. He is not. He is as much part of the system as Putin. By using him to deliver the message, Moscow is signalling unity in the Russian leadership—and determination, too. If the Ukrainian government is seen as without legitimacy by Moscow the door is open for playing the card of Russian majorities in the east of the country and/or in Crimea. It could be done in several ways. Rumours about suppression of Russians could be spread—there have already been such rumours on the internet, but without anybody knowing whether they are rooted in truth or planted to serve a purpose. One further step would be to encourage the eastern parts of the country or Crimea to declare that they do not recognize the government now sitting in Kiev. They might then establish their own government. Moscow could then hasten to recognize them announcing a de facto split of Ukraine. There would be no obstacles for doing so, as Moscow has already cleared the way by denouncing the sitting Ukrainian government. The only real barrier is the inability so far to find prominent leaders in the the East to spearhead such a move. The opening moves of this scenario may already be playing out, given the rising tension in Crimea and Yanukovych's flight. It is anybody's guess what the endgame might look like. Having watched and analysed the U.S. stance vis-à-vis Iran's alleged nuclear-weapons programme and Syria, Putin cannot be under the impression that the Obama administration has the stomach for some kind of military confrontation. The ill-timed announcement of drastic c [3]u [3]ts [3] to the U.S. military only reinforces that judgment. So does the ongoing withdrawal from Afghanistan. And the Europeans are not capable of doing much on their own. So in Putin's equation the military risks would be EFTA00684330 negligible. Nothing happened in 2008 when Russia sent its military into Georgia and South Ossetia. In fact Georgia-South Ossetia 2008 might serve—with some modifications-as a blueprint. The main risks would be economic sanctions imposed by the West on Russia. They may hurt—the Russian economy is troubled of late, with a falling ruble auguring capital outflow. But Russia can respond by cutting gas and oil supplies to European countries that still depend on them. One uncertainty is the Chinese reaction, which Russia can hardly ignore in view of Russian-Chinese energy deals. China has invested heavily in Ukraine. A split may endanger some of those investments. Both how firmly China might react and how much weight Moscow might give that reaction are difficult to judge. Seen from Putin's and Russia's point of view, the downside risk of playing the secessionist card may be less than the political costs of a Ukraine on course to join the Western camp. Worse, Putin may bet that a weak Western reaction would further enhance his image as a strong player who would refrain from nothing in safeguard Russia's interests as he sees them. Succeeding there might turn a potential disaster into a victory. Presuming that leaders to set secession in motion can be found, the decisive factor for whatever decisions Russia's leaders take may well be domestic politics. Will Putin's supporters endorse his gambling on a weak Western reaction? Are there political forces among Russia's population that will turn against him and start a turn of events similar to what has been seen in Ukraine? Joergen Oerstroem Moeller, a former state secretary with the Royal Danish Foreign Ministry, is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and an adjunct professor at Singapore Management University and Copenhagen Business School. Anicle 2. The Washington Post Putin's Ukraine gambit Charles Krauthammer EFTA00684331 Henry Kissinger once pointed out that since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year. All undone, of course, by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which Russian President Vladimir Putin called "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century." Putin's mission is restoration. First, restore traditional Russian despotism by dismantling its nascent democracy. And then, having created iron-fisted "stability," march. Use the 2008 war with Georgia to detach two of its provinces, returning them to the bosom of Mother Russia (by way of Potemkin independence). Then late last year, pressure Ukraine to reject a long-negotiated deal for association with the European Union, to draw Ukraine into Putin's planned "Eurasian Union" as the core of a new Russian mini-empire. Turns out, however, Ukraine had other ideas. It overthrew Moscow's man in Kiev, Viktor Yanukovych, and turned to the West. But the West — the E.U. and America — had no idea what to do. Russia does. Moscow denounces the overthrow as the illegal work of fascist bandits, refuses to recognize the new government created by parliament, withholds all economic assistance and, in a highly provocative escalation, mobilizes its military forces on the Ukrainian border. The response? The E.U. dithers and Barack Obama slumbers. After near- total silence during the first three months of Ukraine's struggle for freedom, Obama said on camera last week that in his view Ukraine is no "Cold War chessboard." Unfortunately, this is exactly what it is for Putin. He wants Ukraine back. Obama wants stability, the New York Times reports, quoting internal sources. He sees Ukraine as merely a crisis to be managed rather than an opportunity to alter the increasingly autocratic trajectory of the region, allow Ukrainians to join their destiny to the West and block Russian neo- imperialism. Sure, Obama is sympathetic to democracy. But it must arise organically, from internal developments. "These democratic movements will be more sustainable if they are seen as .. . coming from within these societies," says deputy national security adviser Benjamin Rhodes. Democracy must not be imposed by outside intervention but develop on its own. But Ukraine is never on its own. Not with a bear next door. American neutrality doesn't allow an authentic Ukrainian polity to emerge. It leaves EFTA00684332 Ukraine naked to Russian pressure. What Obama doesn't seem to understand is that American inaction creates a vacuum. His evacuation from Iraq consigned that country to Iranian hegemony, just as Obama's writing off Syria invited in Russia, Iran and Hezbollah to reverse the tide of battle. Putin fully occupies vacuums. In Ukraine, he keeps flaunting his leverage. He's withdrawn the multibillion-dollar aid package with which he had pulled the now-deposed Ukrainian president away from the E.U. He has suddenly mobilized Russian forces bordering Ukraine. His health officials are even questioning the safety of Ukrainian food exports. This is no dietary hygiene campaign. This is a message to Kiev: We can shut down your agricultural exports today, your natural gas supplies tomorrow. We can make you broke and we can make you freeze. Kissinger once also said, "In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power." Either Ukraine will fall to Russian hegemony or finally determine its own future — if America balances Russia's power. How? Start with a declaration of full-throated American support for Ukraine's revolution. Follow that with a serious loan/aid package — say, replacing Moscow's $15 billion — to get Ukraine through its immediate financial crisis (the announcement of a $1 billion pledge of U.S. loan guarantees is a good first step). Then join with the E.U. to extend a longer substitute package, preferably through the International Monetary Fund. Secretary of State John Kerry says Russian intervention would be a mistake. Alas, any such declaration from this administration carries the weight of a feather. But better that than nothing. Better still would be backing these words with a naval flotilla in the Black Sea. Whether anything Obama says or does would stop anyone remains questionable. But surely the West has more financial clout than Russia's kleptocratic extraction economy that exports little but oil, gas and vodka. The point is for the United States, leading Europe, to counter Russian pressure and make up for its blandishments/punishments until Ukraine is on firm financial footing. Yes, $15 billion is a lot of money. But it's less than one-half of one-tenth of 1 percent of the combined E.U. and U.S. GDP. And expending treasure is EFTA00684333 infinitely preferable to expending blood. Especially given the strategic stakes: Without Ukraine, there's no Russian empire. Putin knows that. Which is why he keeps ratcheting up the pressure. The question is, can this administration muster the counterpressure to give Ukraine a chance to breathe? The Daily Beast Does Alleged Corruption Video Spell the End Of Turkey's Erdogan? Thomas Seibert A video of the Turkish prime minister allegedly telling his son to hide large sums of money has created a crisis for the once-unassailable leader just weeks before key elections. 2.27.14 ISTANBUL-It was Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 60th birthday this week, but the Turkish Prime Minister could be forgiven for not being in the mood for celebrations. Already under fire for more than two months because of corruption allegations against his government, Erdogan is now facing calls for his resignation after recordings emerged of alleged phone conversations between him and his son Bilal that purport to show he was personally involved in hiding large sums of money from prosecutors. Roughly four weeks before key elections on March 30, the Prime Minister is fighting for his reputation as an honest man who worked himself up from humble beginnings in a rough Istanbul neighbourhood to the highest echelons of power as the most successful Turkish leader in half a century. "Remember when Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal wouldn't process payments to Wikileaks because of U.S. government pressure? Bitcoin allowed supportersto keep sending donations because there wasn't a third party the feds could threaten or squeeze." Some observers predict Erdogan will be unable to undo the damage done by the corruption affair. "The era of Tayyip Erdogan is about to end," columnist Cengiz Candar wrote in the Radikal newspaper on the Prime EFTA00684334 Minister's birthday on Feb 26th. "What we don't know is when and how he will leave." Erdogan denounced the recordings as fake. "We are facing a very serious attack," he told an election rally in the southwestern city on Burdur on Thursday. "This attack is not only directed against me and my family, but against the Turkish Republic." In a total of five conversations that were posted on the Internet late Monday, Erdogan and Bilal appear to be discussing ways to get an undisclosed sum of money in euros, dollars and Turkish liras out of Bilal's house in Istanbul. Bilal, 33, is the younger of Erdogan's two sons. The prime minister also has two daughters, Esra and Sumeyye. "Son, are you home?" a voice resembling that of Erdogan asks at the beginning of the first conversation, said to have been held on the morning of December 17, the day Istanbul prosecutors had several dozen people, including the sons of four ministers of Erdogan's cabinet, arrested on corruption charges. Erdogan, who is allegedly calling from Ankara, tells Bilal about the arrests and says he should "get out everything that you have in your house". Bilal answers: "What should I have here? Your money is in the safe." "That's what . talking about," Erdogan allegedly responds. He then tells Bilal to confer with his brother Burak, his sister Sumeyye and other relatives. In a later conversation on the same day, Bilal allegedly reports to his father that he has not been able to "nullify" the whole sum left in the house and has 30 million Euros left. Many questions were left unanswered. Some media reports claimed that the total sum Erdogan and his son were talking about equaled hundreds of millions of dollars, an immense volume of cash with a weight of several hundred kilograms. No reason was given in the reports why Erdogan should decide to keep such a bulk in a private home. It also remained unclear who taped the alleged conversations and why. As news of the recording broke, Istanbul's top prosecutor said a total of 2,280 people had been wire-tapped over three years by prosecutors who were fired recently. Pro-government newspapers reported that Erdogan was among those targeted. Fake or genuine, the telephone leaks have damaged the Prime Minister. Bilal Erdogan's greeting to his father on the telephone, "Alo babacigim" or EFTA00684335 "Hi Dad," has become a new slogan for anti-government protesters in Turkey. Fans at a soccer stadium in Istanbul this week unfolded a banner saying "Hi Dad—there are thieves about," in a reference to the alleged corruption. Erdogan argues the corruption charges from December as well as the leak of the alleged conversation with his son are the work of supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Islamic cleric. Gulen's movement has millions of followers in Turkey, some of whom occupy key posts in the judiciary, the police and the bureaucracy. After years of support for Erdogan, the movement started to distance itself from the government last year. Erdogan says Gulen wants to topple him, a charge the cleric denies. Following the December corruption charges, Erdogan had thousands of alleged Gulen supporters in the police force and the judiciary replaced, among them the prosecutors leading the corruption investigation against the government. At the same time, Erdogan's government tabled bills in parliament designed to strengthen government control over the Internet and the judiciary and giving more power to Turkey's intelligence service, which is close to Erdogan. The opposition says it is taking the reforms to the constitutional court because they violate basic democratic principles like the separation of powers. Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told Erdogan to "get into a helicopter and flee abroad or resign." Observers say the row is expected to heat up further in the weeks leading up to local elections on March 30. The poll is seen as a key test for Erdogan and an indicator of his chances to become head of state in a presidential election expected in August. Erdogan's aides say the electorate is so far unmoved by the corruption allegations, and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) enjoys a strong lead in opinion polls. But the pressure on Erdogan is unlikely to diminish until polling day in March. Gulen's movement "wants an AKP without Erdogan," Rusen Cakir, a respected columnist, wrote in the centrist Vatan daily. Some observers say Erdogan has already lost much credibility through his handling of the corruption scandal and the country-wide wave of protests that started in Istanbul's Gezi Park last year. Mehmet Yilmaz, a columnist for the mass-selling Hurriyet daily, reminded his readers that Erdogan had misled the public several times during the EFTA00684336 Gezi riots, saying protesters defiled a mosque by drinking alcohol there, an episode that turned out to be untrue. Erdogan's behaviour in the past made it difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt in the current row surrounding the alleged wire-tapped phone calls, Yilmaz wrote. "How are we supposed to believe him, after those lies?" he asked. Anicic 4 Associated Press Dahlan, exiled Palestinian leader, builds comeback Mohammed Daraghmeh and Karin Laub Feb. 28, 2014 -- Ramallah, West Bank (AP) — Fueled by millions in Gulf aid dollars that are his to distribute, an exiled Palestinian operative seems to be orchestrating a comeback that could position him as a potential successor to aging Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. In a phone interview from London, Mohammed Dahlan spoke of his aid projects in the Gaza Strip, his closeness to Egypt's military leaders and his conviction that the 79-year-old Abbas has left the Palestinian national cause in tatters. If staging a successful return, Dahlan, a former Gaza security chief once valued by the West for his pragmatism, could reshuffle a stagnant Palestinian deck. Some caution that Dahlan has made too many enemies in Abbas' Fatah movement and will continue to be ostracized by those planning to compete for the top job in the future. Dahlan, 52, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he is "not looking for any post" after Abbas retires, but called for new elections and an overhaul of Fatah. "Abbas will leave only ruins and who would be interested to be a president or vice president on these ruins?" Dahlan said. "What I am interested in is a way out of our political situation, not a political position." In the past, he and Abbas were among the leading supporters of negotiations with Israel as the preferred path to statehood. Dahlan now believes the current U.S.-led talks "will bring nothing for the Palestinian EFTA00684337 people," alleging Abbas has made concessions that his predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat, would not have. Abbas aide Nimr Hamad and senior Fatah official Jamal Muhaisen declined to comment Thursday on Dahlan's statements. Last week, Muhaisen said anyone expressing support for Dahlan would be purged from Fatah. The bitter feud between Abbas and Dahlan seems mostly personal, but also highlights the dysfunctional nature of Fatah, paralyzed by incessant internal rivalries, and Abbas' apparent unwillingness to tolerate criticism. Abbas banished Dahlan in 2010, after his former protege purportedly called him weak. Dahlan has since spent his time between Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Dahlan grew up poor in a Gaza refugee camp, but as a top aide to Arafat became the territory's strongman in the 1990s, jailing leaders of rival Hamas which was trying to derail Arafat's negotiation with Israel through bombing and shooting attacks. Dahlan was dogged by corruption allegations at the time, like Arafat and several other senior Palestinian politicians, but has denied wrongdoing and was never charged. In exile, he has nurtured political and business ties in the Arab world. Dahlan said this week that he has been raising millions of dollars from business people and charities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere for needy Palestinians. Last year, he said he delivered $8 million to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. "In Gaza, I do the same now," he said. ". collecting money for desalination in Gaza. It's unbearable. Fifty percent of the water in the houses is sewage water. Hamas and Abbas are doing nothing to solve the real problems of the Gazans." When asked if he was buying political support with Gulf money, he said: "This is not political money." He added that the UAE also provides financial aid to Abbas. Dahlan's relationship with Gaza and former arch-enemy Hamas is particularly complex. Security forces under Dahlan lost control of Gaza in a brief battle with Hamas gunmen in 2007. The defeat cemented the Palestinian political split, EFTA00684338 leading to rival governments, one run by Hamas in Gaza and the other by Abbas in parts of the West Bank, and was seen as perhaps the biggest blot on Dahlan's career. However, there are now signs of a possible rapprochement between Dahlan and the Islamic militants — apparently because of Dahlan's close ties to Egyptian military chief, Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. Dahlan said he has met el-Sissi several times and supported last year's coup — he called it the "Egyptian revolution" — against the country's ruling Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is the Gaza offshoot of the Brotherhood. Since the coup, el-Sissi has tightened a closure of Gaza's border with Egypt. That blockade has squeezed Hamas financially, and the Islamic militants have been looking for ways to pry the border open. In January, Hamas allowed three Fatah leaders loyal to Dahlan to return to the territory. The Fatah returnees and Hamas officials formed a committee to oversee construction of a new Gaza town to be funded by the UAE, said a Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the contacts. Senior Fatah officials accuse Dahlan of trying to split the movement. "Dahlan has created an alliance with Hamas," Nabil Shaath, an Abbas aide, has told Palestine TV. Dahlan loyalists in Gaza "have distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars without having the movement's permission," he said. Underlying Fatah's fears about a return of Dahlan is the open question of succession. Abbas was elected in 2005, but overstayed his five-year term because the Hamas-Fatah split has prevented new elections. Abbas has not designated a successor and there is no clear contender. Analyst Hani al-Masri said regional support has boosted Dahlan, but that he's not a serious challenger yet because he has not offered any plans. Palestinians "won't support a specific leader without being convinced of his political platform," he said. Associated Press writer Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City contributed to this report. Artick 5. EFTA00684339 NYT What Would nnan Say to Obama? Frank Costigliola Feb. 27, 2014 -- "I don't really even need George Kennan right now," Barack Obama volunteered to David Remnick in a recent interview. Obama got it wrong. He, and we as a nation, do need Mr. Kennan now, as much as at the dawn of the Cold War. Mr. Kennan's diary and other writings offer timely advice about balancing United States policy in the era after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and managing Iran. Though Mr. Kennan is most famous for predicting in 1947 that containment would lead to the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union, his strategic thinking ranged far wider. Whether planning policy at the State Department or writing history at the Institute for Advanced Study, Mr. Kennan stood out as an intellectual who thought otherwise — indeed as a thinker whose thought was often wise. Like the Founders, he believed the wisest foreign policy limited military intervention abroad while affording the broadest scope for hard-headed diplomacy. He saved his most candid advice for his diary, which he kept for 88 years. Along with the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, Mr. Kennan insisted that the challenge facing the United States was containing not only rival nations and threatening ideologies, but also America's own outsized ambitions and self-righteous assertions of virtue. Both men understood that however loud the claims of American exceptionalism, Americans could escape neither original sin nor its secular manifestation, the will to power. In 1946-47, Mr. Kennan laid out his containment policy, intending to limit its application to the major power centers of the world, particularly Western Europe and Japan. He grew horrified as containment exploded into a global venture miring the United States in areas of marginal strategic importance, such as Vietnam. In the post-Cold War era, Mr. Kennan criticized military interventions in Panama, Somalia and Iraq as a waste of scarce resources. Policing the globe exacerbated resentment abroad while neglecting the decaying infrastructure at home. Trying to spread democracy by using military force, he said, "is something that the EFTA00684340 Founding Fathers of this country never envisaged or would ever have approved." Mr. Kennan's strategic vision entailed containing adversaries, curtailing our foreign ventures, and conserving our moral and material assets. This advice pertains to dealing with Iran. Mr. Kennan understood that even if bargaining positions start off at loggerheads, they can evolve toward compromise if diplomats receive reasonable freedom to cut deals. Today such flexibility is threatened by the Senate proposal to fetter the Obama administration's negotiations seeking to thwart Iran's nuclear program. As a lifelong skeptic of legislative interference with diplomacy, Mr. Kennan would certainly protest the Senate measure. Although ardently opposed to nuclear proliferation, he would also dispute the bill's insistence that a negotiated deal reduce to zero Iran's capacity to enrich uranium. That restriction would preclude even the face-saving option of low-grade uranium enrichment for civilian purposes. Diplomacy seeking capitulation rather than compromise was foolish, Mr. Kennan pointed out, because a settlement resented as unfair would be undermined by overt or covert resistance. After the Cold War, Mr. Kennan fiercely opposed the eastward expansion of NATO and other measures that would take advantage of Russia's weakness. Nor was it wise to humiliate even a powerful adversary. When George Shultz, President Ronald Reagan's secretary of state, asked Mr. Kennan how to approach the new Kremlin leader, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the former diplomat replied that the Soviets remained "in many respects insecure people and require reassurance in the form of respect for their prestige." So do the Iranians, who nurture both pride in their history and resentment of their humiliations, such as the C.I.A.-sponsored overthrow of their elected leader, Mohammad Mossadegh, in 1953. Mr. Kennan believed that psychologically astute tactics were the most effective way to manage tensions. He warned that all-out efforts to weaken a rival's capabilities could backfire by hardening resolve or by escalating into a dangerous preemptive war. Diplomacy and soft power were more cost effective in influencing a rival's intentions. "We are ultimately dependent on the intentions, rather than the capabilities, of the adversary, the influence of which is primarily a political and psychological, not a military problem," Mr. Kennan explained. War EFTA00684341 itself should aim not at killing for killing's sake, but rather at changing the enemy's "understanding and disposition." Even during the most perilous periods of the Cold War, Mr. Kennan insisted that the other side retained a lively interest in self-preservation. However much the Soviets might fulminate against the United States, they would not invite certain destruction by bombing America or its allies. Nor, Mr. Kennan would add if he were still alive, would a nuclear-armed Iran risk such devastation by launching an attack, or by giving atomic weapons to a client group. Deterrence works, he argued. As for America's role in the world, Mr. Kennan wanted the United States to abandon its exhausting efforts at playing world policeman. "The greatest service this country could render the rest of the world would be to put its own house in order and to make of American civilization an example of decency, humanity, and societal success from which others could derive whatever they might find useful to their own purposes." As he neared the end of his 101-year life, Mr. Kennan comforted himself that "much of what I have said has a chance of being rediscovered after my death ... and to evoke understanding by that perverse quality of human nature that makes men more inclined to respond to the work of someone long dead than to those of any contemporary." Although President Obama cannot talk to Mr. Kennan, he can rediscover his wisdom. Frank Costigliola is a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and the editor of "The Kennan Diaries." The Economist What's gone wrong with democracy" THE protesters who have overturned the politics of Ukraine have many aspirations for their country. Their placards called for closer relations with the European Union (EU), an end to Russian intervention in Ukraine's politics and the establishment of a clean government to replace the kleptocracy of President Viktor Yanukovych. But their fundamental demand is one that has motivated people over many decades to take a stand EFTA00684342 against corrupt, abusive and autocratic governments. They want a rules- based democracy. It is easy to understand why. Democracies are on average richer than non- democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracy lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children's futures. That so many people in so many different parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for this idea is testimony to its enduring appeal. Yet these days the exhilaration generated by events like those in Kiev is mixed with anxiety, for a troubling pattern has repeated itself in capital after capital. The people mass in the main square. Regime-sanctioned thugs try to fight back but lose their nerve in the face of popular intransigence and global news coverage. The world applauds the collapse of the regime and offers to help build a democracy. But turfing out an autocrat turns out to be much easier than setting up a viable democratic government. The new regime stumbles, the economy flounders and the country finds itself in a state at least as bad as it was before. This is what happened in much of the Arab spring, and also in Ukraine's Orange revolution a decade ago. In 2004 Mr Yanukovych was ousted from office by vast street protests, only to be re-elected to the presidency (with the help of huge amounts of Russian money) in 2010, after the opposition politicians who replaced him turned out to be just as hopeless. Between 1980 and 2000 democracy experienced a few setbacks, but since 2000 there have been many Democracy is going through a difficult time. Where autocrats have been driven out of office, their opponents have mostly failed to create viable democratic regimes. Even in established democracies, flaws in the system have become worryingly visible and disillusion with politics is rife. Yet just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world. In the second half of the 20th century, democracies had taken root in the most difficult circumstances possible—in Germany, which had been traumatised by Nazism, in India, which had the world's largest population of poor people, and, in the 1990s, in South Africa, which had been disfigured by apartheid. Decolonialisation created a host of new democracies in Africa and Asia, and autocratic regimes gave way to democracy in Greece (1974), Spain (1975), Argentina (1983), Brazil EFTA00684343 (1985) and Chile (1989). The collapse of the Soviet Union created many fledgling democracies in central Europe. By 2000 Freedom House, an American think-tank, classified 120 countries, or 63% of the world total, as democracies. Representatives of more than 100 countries gathered at the World Forum on Democracy in Warsaw that year to proclaim that "the will of the people" was "the basis of the authority of government". A report issued by America's State Department declared that having seen off "failed experiments" with authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government, "it seems that now, at long last, democracy is triumphant." Such hubris was surely understandable after such a run of successes. But stand farther back and the triumph of democracy looks rather less inevitable. After the fall of Athens, where it was first developed, the political model had lain dormant until the Enlightenment more than 2,000 years later. In the 18th century only the American revolution produced a sustainable democracy. During the 19th century monarchists fought a prolonged rearguard action against democratic forces. In the first half of the 20th century nascent democracies collapsed in Germany, Spain and Italy. By 1941 there were only 11 democracies left, and Franklin Roosevelt worried that it might not be possible to shield "the great flame of democracy from the blackout of barbarism". The progress seen in the late 20th century has stalled in the 21st. Even though around 40% of the world's population, more people than ever before, live in countries that will hold free and fair elections this year, democracy's global advance has come to a halt, and may even have gone into reverse. Freedom House reckons that 2013 was the eighth consecutive year in which global freedom declined, and that its forward march peaked around the beginning of the century. Between 1980 and 2000 the cause of democracy experienced only a few setbacks, but since 2000 there have been many. And democracy's problems run deeper than mere numbers suggest. Many nominal democracies have slid towards autocracy, maintaining the outward appearance of democracy through elections, but without the rights and institutions that are equally important aspects of a functioning democratic system. Faith in democracy flares up in moments of triumph, such as the overthrow of unpopular regimes in Cairo or Kiev, only to sputter out once again. EFTA00684344 Outside the West, democracy often advances only to collapse. And within the West, democracy has too often become associated with debt and dysfunction at home and overreach abroad. Democracy has always had its critics, but now old doubts are being treated with renewed respect as the weaknesses of democracy in its Western strongholds, and the fragility of its influence elsewhere, have become increasingly apparent. Why has democracy lost its forward momentum? The return of history THE two main reasons are the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the rise of China. The damage the crisis did was psychological as well as financial. It revealed fundamental weaknesses in the West's political systems, undermining the self-confidence that had been one of their great assets. Governments had steadily extended entitlements over decades, allowing dangerous levels of debt to develop, and politicians came to believe that they had abolished boom-bust cycles and tamed risk. Many people became disillusioned with the workings of their political systems—particularly when governments bailed out bankers with taxpayers' money and then stood by impotently as financiers continued to pay themselves huge bonuses. The crisis turned the Washington consensus into a term of reproach across the emerging world. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party has broken the democratic world's monopoly on economic progress. Larry Summers, of Harvard University, observes that when America was growing fastest, it doubled living standards roughly every 30 years. China has been doubling living standards roughly every decade for the past 30 years. The Chinese elite argue that their model—tight control by the Communist Party, coupled with a relentless effort to recruit talented people into its upper ranks—is more efficient than democracy and less susceptible to gridlock. The political leadership changes every decade or so, and there is a constant supply of fresh talent as party cadres are promoted based on their ability to hit targets. China says its model is more efficient than democracy and less susceptible to gridlock China's critics rightly condemn the government for controlling public opinion in all sorts of ways, from imprisoning dissidents to censoring internet discussions. Yet the regime's obsession with control paradoxically EFTA00684345 means it pays close attention to public opinion. At the same time China's leaders have been able to tackle some of the big problems of state-building that can take decades to deal with in a democracy. In just two years China has extended pension coverage to an extra 240m rural dwellers, for example—far more than the total number of people covered by America's public-pension system. Many Chinese are prepared to put up with their system if it delivers growth. The 2013 Pew Survey of Global Attitudes showed that 85% of Chinese were "very satisfied" with their country's direction, compared with 31% of Americans. Some Chinese intellectuals have become positively boastful. Zhang Weiwei of Fudan University argues that democracy is destroying the West, and particularly America, because it institutionalises gridlock, trivialises decision-making and throws up second-rate presidents like George Bush junior. Yu Keping of Beijing University argues that democracy makes simple things "overly complicated and frivolous" and allows "certain sweet-talking politicians to mislead the people". Wang Jisi, also of Beijing University, has observed that "many developing countries that have introduced Western values and political systems are experiencing disorder and chaos" and that China offers an alternative model. Countries from Africa (Rwanda) to the Middle East (Dubai) to South-East Asia (Vietnam) are taking this advice seriously. China's advance is all the more potent in the context of a series of disappointments for democrats since 2000. The first great setback was in Russia. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the democratisation of the old Soviet Union seemed inevitable. In the 1990s Russia took a few drunken steps in that direction under Boris Yeltsin. But at the end of 1999 he resigned and handed power to Vladimir Putin, a former KGB operative who has since been both prime minister and president twice. This postmodern tsar has destroyed the substance of democracy in Russia, muzzling the press and imprisoning his opponents, while preserving the show—everyone can vote, so long as Mr Putin wins. Autocratic leaders in Venezuela, Ukraine, Argentina and elsewhere have followed suit, perpetuating a perverted simulacrum of democracy rather than doing away with it altogether, and thus discrediting it further. The next big setback was the Iraq war. When Saddam Hussein's fabled weapons of mass destruction failed to materialise after the American-led EFTA00684346 invasion of 2003, Mr Bush switched instead to justifying the war as a fight for freedom and democracy. "The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat," he argued in his second inaugural address. This was more than mere opportunism: Mr Bush sincerely believed that the Middle East would remain a breeding ground for terrorism so long as it was dominated by dictators. But it did the democratic cause great harm. Left-wingers regarded it as proof that democracy was just a figleaf for American imperialism. Foreign-policy realists took Iraq's growing chaos as proof that American-led promotion of democratisation was a recipe for instability. And disillusioned neoconservatives such as Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, saw it as proof that democracy cannot put down roots in stony ground. A third serious setback was Egypt. The collapse of Hosni Mubarak's regime in 2011, amid giant protests, raised hopes that democracy would spread in the Middle East. But the euphoria soon turned to despair. Egypt's ensuing elections were won not by liberal activists (who were hopelessly divided into a myriad of Pythonesque parties) but by Muhammad Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. Mr Morsi treated democracy as a winner-takes-all system, packing the state with Brothers, granting himself almost unlimited powers and creating an upper house with a permanent Islamic majority. In July 2013 the army stepped in, arresting Egypt's first democratically elected president, imprisoning leading members of the Brotherhood and killing hundreds of demonstrators. Along with war in Syria and anarchy in Libya, this has dashed the hope that the Arab spring would lead to a flowering of democracy across the Middle East. Meanwhile some recent recruits to the democratic camp have lost their lustre. Since the introduction of democracy in 1994 South Africa has been ruled by the same party, the African National Congress, which has become progressively more self-serving. Turkey, which once seemed to combine moderate Islam with prosperity and democracy, is descending into corruption and autocracy. In Bangladesh, Thailand and Cambodia, opposition parties have boycotted recent elections or refused to accept their results. All this has demonstrated that building the institutions needed to sustain democracy is very slow work indeed, and has dispelled the once-popular EFTA00684347 notion that democracy will blossom rapidly and spontaneously once the seed is planted. Although democracy may be a "universal aspiration", as Mr Bush and Tony Blair insisted, it is a culturally rooted practice. Western countries almost all extended the right to vote long after the establishment of sophisticated political systems, with powerful civil services and entrenched constitutional rights, in societies that cherished the notions of individual rights and independent judiciaries. Yet in recent years the very institutions that are meant to provide models for new democracies have come to seem outdated and dysfunctional in established ones. The United States has become a byword for gridlock, so obsessed with partisan point-scoring that it has come to the verge of defaulting on its debts twice in the past two years. Its democracy is also corrupted by gerrymandering, the practice of drawing constituency boundaries to entrench the power of incumbents. This encourages extremism, because politicians have to appeal only to the party faithful, and in effect disenfranchises large numbers of voters. And money talks louder than ever in American politics. Thousands of lobbyists (more than 20 for every member of Congress) add to the length and complexity of legislation, the better to smuggle in special privileges. All this creates the impression that American democracy is for sale and that the rich have more power than the poor, even as lobbyists and donors insist that political expenditure is an exercise in free speech. The result is that America's image—and by extension that of democracy itself—has taken a terrible battering. Nor is the EU a paragon of democracy. The decision to introduce the euro in 1999 was taken largely by technocrats; only two countries, Denmark and Sweden, held referendums on the matter (both said no). Efforts to win popular approval for the Lisbon Treaty, which consolidated power in Brussels, were abandoned when people started voting the wrong way. During the darkest days of the euro crisis the euro-elite forced Italy and Greece to replace democratically elected leaders with technocrats. The European Parliament, an unsuccessful attempt to fix Europe's democratic deficit, is both ignored and despised. The EU has become a breeding ground for populist parties, such as Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen's National Front in France, which claim to defend ordinary people against an arrogant and incompetent elite. EFTA00684348 Greece's Golden Dawn is testing how far democracies can tolerate Nazi- style parties. A project designed to tame the beast of European populism is instead poking it back into life. The democratic distemper EVEN in its heartland, democracy is clearly suffering from serious structural problems, rather than a few isolated ailments. Since the dawn of the modern democratic era in the late 19th century, democracy has expressed itself through nation-states and national parliaments. People elect representatives who pull the levers of national power for a fixed period. But this arrangement is now under assault from both above and below. From above, globalisation has changed national politics profoundly. National politicians have surrendered ever more power, for example over trade and financial flows, to global markets and supranational bodies, and may thus find that they are unable to keep promises they have made to voters. International organisations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation and the European Union have extended their influence. There is a compelling logic to much of this: how can a single country deal with problems like climate change or tax evasion? National politicians have also responded to globalisation by limiting their discretion and handing power to unelected technocrats in some areas. The number of countries with independent central banks, for example, has increased from about 20 in 1980 to more than 160 today. From below come equally powerful challenges: from would-be breakaway nations, such as the Catalans and