Snakebit UN: What happens after the US leaves the WHO? – Asia Times

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Donald Trump’s plan to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization ( WHO ) has been met with dismay in the public health field. Some have called one of the US president ’s first executive orders “a grave error ” and “absolutely bad news. ”

The WHO is a United Nations agency that aims to expand universal health coverage, coordinates actions to health emergencies such as epidemics, and has a large emphasis on healthy life. It does not have the power to enforce heath plan but influences plan worldwide, especially in low-income places.

The WHO plays an important coordinating position in surveillance, reaction and policy for communicable and non-infectious illnesses. In reality, infectious diseases have the most pressing need for international cooperation.

Unlike non-communicable illnesses, diseases can spread quickly from one state to another, just as Covid spread to trigger a crisis.

T. Schneider/Shutterstock

We have much to thank the WHO for, including the eradication of smallpox, a miracle which could not have been achieved without international cooperation and authority. It has also played a major role in control of influenza and HIV.

Why does the US want to remove?

The causes for receiving include:

mishandling of the Covid-19 epidemic … and other global wellbeing crises, its failing to follow urgently needed reforms, and its ability to show independence from the improper political influence of WHO member states.

The professional buy also cites the wealthier higher bills the US makes to the WHO compared to China. In 2024-25, the US contributed 22 % of the organization’s mandatory funding from member states compared to approximately 15 % for China.

President Trump initiated departure from the WHO over related problems in 2020. But this was reversed by President Biden in 2021.

What happens future?

The departure may take a year to come into effect, and may require approval by the US Congress. How this will play out is vague, but it seems plausible the WHO will reduce US money.

The US removal may also be the final nail in the coffin for the WHO Pandemic Agreement, which faltered in 2024 when member state may not agree on the final document.

Trump’s professional order states all conversations around the epidemic agreement will continue. However, the buy clues that the US will look at working with global partners to address global health.

The US Centers for Disease and Control ( CDC ) already has such international partners and could feasibly do this. It now convenes a global system of teaching in pandemic response, which could provide a model. But to move in this direction needs finessing, as another target of the fresh US state is to reduce or stop foreign aid.

The WHO likewise convenes a range of professional commissions and network of research facilities. One among many sites of lab is for virus, comprising more than 50 laboratories in 41 member says. This includes five “super labs”, one of which is at the CDC. It’s questionable what may happen to like networks, many of which have significant US components.

With the threat of bird flu mutating to become a people crisis these international systems are critical for monitoring of pandemic risks.

Flock of chicks
Global networks are needed to keep an eye on pandemic threats, including the spread of bird flu. Photo: riza korhan oztunc / Shutterstock via The Conversation

WHO expert committees also drive global health policy on a range of issues. It is possible for the WHO to accredit labs in non-member countries, or for experts from non-member countries to be on WHO expert committees. But how this will unfold, especially for US government-funded labs or experts who are US government employees, is unclear.

Another potential impact of a US withdrawal is the opportunity for other powerful member nations to become more influential once the US leaves. This may lead to restrictions on US experts sitting on WHO committees or working with the organization in other ways.

While the US withdrawal will see the WHO lose funding, member states contribute about 20 % of the WHO budget. The organization relies on donations from other organizations ( including private companies and philanthropic organizations ), which make up the remaining  80 %.

So the US withdrawal may increase the influence of these other organizations.

A chance for reform

The Trump administration is not alone in its criticism of how the WHO handled COVID and other infectious disease outbreaks.

For example, the WHO agreed with Chinese authorities in early January 2020 there was no evidence the “mystery pneumonia” in Wuhan was contagious, while in reality, it was likely already spreading for months. This was a costly mistake.

There was criticism over WHO’s delay in declaring the pandemic, stating Covid was not airborne ( despite evidence otherwise ). There was also criticism about its investigation into the origins of Covid, including conflicts of interest in the investigating team.

The WHO was also criticized for its handling of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa a decade ago. Eventually, this led to a series of reforms, but arguably not enough.

Old sign in French warning about Ebola
Reforms followed the Ebola epidemic in West Africa a decade ago. But were they enough? Photo: Sergey Uryadnikov / Shutterstock

More changes needed

US public health expert Ashish Jha argues for reform at WHO. Jha, who is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House COVID response coordinator, argues the organization has an unclear mission, too broad a remit, poor governance and often prioritizes political sensitivities of member states.

He proposes the WHO should narrow its focus to fewer areas, with outbreak response key. This would allow reduced funding to be used more efficiently.

Rather than the US withdrawing from the WHO, he argues the US would be better to remain a member and leverage such reform.

Without reform, there is a possibility other countries may follow the US, especially if governments are pressured by their electorates to increase spending on domestic needs.

The WHO has asked the US to reconsider withdrawing. But the organization may need to look at further reforms for any possibility of future negotiations. This is the best path toward a solution.

C Raina MacIntyre is professor of global biosecurity, NHMRC L3 research fellow, head, biosecurity program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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US and Spain careening toward a strategic breakdown – Asia Times

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Under the Trump presidency, the future of US-Spain relationships appears to be moving along a way to fix a proper conundrum. On the one hand, the American and Spanish security and intelligence communities communicate a genuine desire to enhance and deepen their bilateral safety agreement.

For Madrid, that stems from the strategic calculus that it is better to hedge with the United States to avoid overdependence, misalignment, and uncertainty in Spain-European Union ( EU) relations. For Washington, that stems from the social essential for greater corporate independence in Europe and increased burden-sharing in North Africa and the Sahel.

On the other hand, the Americans and Spanish find themselves on opposite sides of the political debates over the spending targets for North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ) member states, ongoing military operations by the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and the impact of Silicon Valley on democracy.

The concern for both countries is that it is clear that there are significant events on the horizon, quite as NATO Summit 2025 and South Africa ’s massacre circumstance against Israel trials, that will provide huge policy windows for the Trump administration and the 119th United States Congress to work on their problems.  

The US National Security Council may, therefore, try to take some stress out of the program by engaging in strategic partnership control in a way that strikes the right stability between political grievances and geopolitical interests on both sides.  

One option that they should consider is to immediately relocate select military units from Naval Station Rota ( Spain ) to Ksar Saghir Naval Base ( Morocco ). That includes the Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team ( FAST ) Company Europe. That move do have distinct advantages.

Second, it may solve a communications magnification concern for the White House. Next, it would take an earlier message to the Government of Spain that the strategic relationship is in danger of a break. Third, it would provide a mechanism for broadening and deepening security cooperation between Morocco and the United States, which will be necessary if the Trump administration chooses to abandon the strategic partnership with Spain.

Since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, there has generally been a strong bilateral security relationship between Spain and the United States. In terms of security cooperation, the Government of Spain has regularly deployed its armed forces to fight alongside the United States and other NATO member states.

Examples include Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The Government of Spain has also deployed its armed forces to conduct large-scale non-traditional security operations with the United States and other NATO member states. Examples include Libya, Somalia, and Yemen.

In terms of global posture, Spain hosts an important node in the American overseas basing network. Naval Station Rota ( NS Rota ) is a critical node for logistical support and strategic presence in Europe and Africa. Among other things, NS Rota hosts Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team ( FAST ) Company Europe.

FAST Company Europe is responsible for providing security forces for strategic weapons and rapid response and forward-deployed expeditionary anti-terrorism security forces in large parts of Europe and Africa. This includes evacuations of US diplomatic posts in times of crisis.

That said, there have been some major hiccups in the strategic partnership along the way. One occurred during the first Trump administration. That was over the extension of NS Rota. At the time, the Government of Spain sought to use that extension as leverage in bilateral trade negotiations. That did not go over well with The White House.

Strategic autonomy

Although the prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, once declared that he is “a militant pro-European, ” the Government of Spain has found it difficult to pursue its national interests and adopt a foreign policy of its preference solely through the European Union ( EU) and NATO.

His problem is that Spain’s national security and foreign policy interests are not fully aligned with the national security and foreign policy interests of other major European and NATO powers ( e. g. , France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Turkey ). To compound matters, Spanish citizens tend to have extremely unrealistic preferences for their government on matters of national security and foreign policy.

Examples include a strong desire for the establishment of a common foreign policy and a “true European army. ” As a consequence, the Sanchez administration faces a multidimensional challenge that is preventing his government from being able to “claim” what it perceives to be Spain’s rightful place in the international system.

Under the Trump administration, this dilemma presents a strong incentive for the Sanchez administration to try to pursue national interests and adopt a foreign policy of its preference with much less dependence on either the EU or NATO. That begs the question of how best to achieve such strategic autonomy given the scarce resources at Sanchez’s disposal.

One option would be for his administration to pursue greater strategic autonomy through increased hedging in North Africa and the Sahel. At present, most European countries are single mindedly transfixed on events unfolding in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Spain is watching the balance of power shift radically in North Africa and the Sahel with great apprehension. On the descent are the French, who have now been effectively expelled from their former colonial possessions across the Sahel.

This has left a strategic void throughout the region that other powers have sought to exploit in different ways. Some are internal powers like Algeria and Morocco. Others are external powers such as China, Israel, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

In Italy and Spain, this power struggle is viewed as a serious risk to their national security and foreign policy interests. The Sanchez administration, therefore, needs to try to mitigate these risks. Despite Sanchez’s personal animosity toward President Trump and “ultra-Right wing American billionaires, ” the most obvious option would be to try to broaden and deepen its strategic partnership with the United States.

The problem is that the Trump administration does not respond well to world leaders who launch public attacks on his supporters. Nor does the National Security Council want to repeat the past mistakes of the Elysee Palace.

The Trump administration faces its own strategic conundrum. The White House knows that there is a clear and present strategic imperative to fill the power projection void that currently exists in North Africa and the Sahel. However, it does want to take on more financial burdens for American taxpayers in the process.

Faced with this two-way pull, the Trump administration has a strong incentive to search for allies and partners who are willing and able to assume a large part of the burden at their own expense. Finding the right allies and partners will prove difficult, though.

There might be some interest in the NATO bloc from Turkey. There might also be some interest in the Major Non-NATO Ally bloc from Israel, Morocco, and Qatar. And there might be some interest in the Gulf Cooperation Council from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

However, all of these options come with strings attached. Some also come with daggers drawn. Whatever choice is made, none would be seen as a perfect substitute for the United States in the eyes of the Spanish military and intelligence agencies.

Some will not have sufficient power to be able to stabilize the region. Others may have sufficient power but their national security and foreign policy interests will not be well-aligned with the Government of Spain and the Spanish Royal Family.

If the Trump administration offloads the alliance burden inherited from the French onto others, then it is reasonable to expect that the Sanchez administration will pursue secondary against those American burden-sharing partners.

That would interject more complexity into US-Spain relations, which would run the risk of further destabilizing the strategic partnership.

American grievances

The problem with multi-level hedging is that there is already a lot of tension in US-Spain relations without it. On the American side, this largely stems from two major grievances.

First, there is strong opposition against the failure of the Sanchez administration to act on spending targets for NATO member states. In 2024, the Government of Spain reportedly spent a meager 1. 3 % of its gross domestic product ( GDP ) on defense expenditures. Without adjustments, that puts Spain “dead last ” among NATO member states.

That reality stands in sharp contrast to the 5 % target that has been set by President Trump. Second, there is equally strong opposition against the choices made by the Sanchez administration about how to respond to Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

Over the last year, the Government of Spain has recognized the State of Palestine. It has intervened in the South African genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice ( ICJ). And it has reportedly blocked “American-flagged ships from using its ports because it believed the vessels were carrying military equipment to Israel. ”

These moves have infuriated both Israel and the United States. As evidence, the Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz sent the following message to the Spanish prime minister on X: “Hamas thanks you for your service. ” In the coming months, the Spanish response is likely to draw renewed criticism from the Trump administration and 119th Congress for these moves.

The Government of Israel has asked members of Congress to put as much pressure as possible on South Africa to drop the case. Now, there are efforts well underway to impose Global Magnitsky Act sanctions on South African elites who have committed corruption and human rights violations. That includes providing material support to Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies.

If the first day of the second term of the Trump administration is any indication, winter is coming hard and fast for US-Spain relations too. Speaking at a technology industry conference, Prime Minister Sanchez went on the offensive against the “Silicon Valley techno caste” that he claims threatens democratic institutions.

According to Sanchez, Elon Musk and others are “trying to exercise absolute power over social media in order to control public discourse and as a result, government action in the west. ” For that reason, Sanchez urged other world leaders to “rebel and consider alternatives. ”

On the other side of the Atlantic, President Trump appeared to take his own jabs at the Sanchez administration. During a press conference at the Oval Office, Trump referred to Spain as “a BRICS nation. ” He then issued what appeared to be a thinly veiled threat: “Spain. Do you know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out. ”

Whatever the message President Trump was trying to convey, it ’s safe to assume that coercive measures against Spain are being discussed over the NATO spending thresholds and ICJ case in The White House and 119th US Congress. One should expect that those options will include some in-kind response to Sanchez’s attacks on Trump supporters.

If so, then the Trump administration could try to take a page out of the playbook for South Africa– a BRICS member state – and use Magnitsky sanction requests to try to expose Spanish elites who have committed corruption.

Proactive relationship management

With a cold front fast approaching, time is running out for both sides to course correct before there is a severe breakdown in the strategic partnership.

On that note, the Trump administration should take the initiative and immediately start imposing graduated pressure on the Sanchez administration to more fully align with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.

One way to send such a signal would be to immediately relocate a small number of Rota-based military units to Morocco. These units should include FAST Company Europe. Such a move would have the following benefits.

First, it would mitigate the following risk. If there was an attack on a US diplomatic or military footprint by Hamas or another Iranian-backed terrorist organization within the areas of responsibility of the US Africa Command or US European Command, then the US Department of Defense might have to deploy FAST Company Europe from NS Rota.

That, in turn, might spur criticism from American and Israeli foreign policy experts who believe that the Sanchez administration has frustrated their efforts to eliminate these very organizations.

Second, it would send an unambiguous signal to the Government of Spain that the strategic partnership is in jeopardy. However, that signal would be so loud that it deafens both sides. That would open the door to conflict resolution efforts that might help to salvage the future of US-Spain relations.

Third, forward-deployed crisis response operations would provide a useful mechanism for broadening and deepening security cooperation between the militaries, foreign services and intelligence agencies of Morocco and the United States. For the Trump administration, that makes sense either way. Morocco is becoming an even more important security partner for Europeans and the United States “in the crisis-ridden Sahel. ”

However, it could also prove pivotal if the Trump administration makes the decision to freeze the strategic partnership between Spain and the United States.

Michael Walsh is an Affiliated Research Fellow at the Lasky Center für Transatlantische Studien at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He is also a Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the Africa Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The views expressed here are his own.  

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Hungary’s demographic exceptionalism – Asia Times

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Academic demographers have shown that family-friendly state policies can lessen or even change the fertility reduction that has taken birthrates in the business earth well below alternative. Fertility is extremely resistant to common investing, but targeted spending—for case on youth education and family housing—makes a difference.

Hungary is one of the world’s some statistical success stories, and its Corvinus Institute for Advanced Studies next month hosted a conference with prominent international researchers to examine the fall of world fertility and consider remedies.

There is no easy relationship between overall public spending on home rewards and the total fertility rate among the people of the high-income team, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Graphic: Asia Times

Nonetheless, countries with higher fertility mostly spend more to support families, and countries with lower fertility tend to spend less. Shown below are 2019 data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Graphic: Asia Times

The higher-fertility countries – France, Scandinavia, and Hungary – spend about 3 % of GDP on family subsidies, while the low-fertility countries –Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Spain– spend around 1. 5 % of GDP. There are some standout exceptions: Poland, with its fertility rate of just 1. 3 children per female, is a high spender on families, while the United States, with an above-average fertility rate, spends just 1 % of GDP on families.

These anomalies rule out a simple correlation between family spending and fertility, but they point to important conclusions. Japan and South Korea have n’t tried hard enough to direct public policy to reverse extremely low birth rates. Spain and Italy, with some of the lowest fertility rates in the OECD, should be doing more.

Public spending should be targeted to the factors that determine fertility behavior, Nobel Laureate James Heckman argued in a December lecture at Budapest’s Corvinus University, where he received an honorary doctorate. After the great demographic transition from mainly rural traditional society to industrial economies, the needs of women and families have changed radically. The cost of educating children has soared, while women’s choices have expanded.

Heckman cited five key drivers of fertility decline, including the costs of higher education and career aspirations delaying or discouraging parenthood, shifting social norms reflecting parenthood as a personal choice rather than a societal expectation, economic challenges such as housing costs and job insecurity, cultural and media influences, and environmental concerns like climate change.

Government spending on early childhood education, Heckman observed, tends to increase both female workforce participation as well as the total fertility rate. The chart below is reproduced from Heckman’s presentation.

Lack of housing for young families, Heckman added, depresses family formation and fertility. The highest proportion of young adults living with their parents is found in low-fertility countries, including Korea, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Poland, while the lowest proportion is found in Scandinavia, where fertility rates have been among the highest in the industrial world.

Graphic: Asia Times

Hungary’s fertility rate by some measures has had the strongest performance in the world. The Scandinavian countries until recently were the poster children for public policy success, with strong public support for families and fertility rates.

The Nordic Statistics Database reports that “the whole region reported sharp declines in fertility rates in 2022. Finland had the lowest fertility rate of all Nordic countries, 1. 32 children. This is also the lowest Finnish rate since 1776 when monitoring of fertility rates first started. ”

Graphic: Asia Times

Hungary’s fertility rate looks even stronger on a normalized scale ( where data are displayed relative to their past range ).

Graphic: Asia Times

Especially impressive is Hungary’s marriage rate, now the highest in the OECD. That is a strong predictor of future fertility.

Graphic: Asia Times

What explains the sudden drop in Scandinavian fertility? The childbearing behavior of immigrants might play a role. Like France, the Scandinavian countries do not report separately births to immigrants and to native-born Swedes, so demographers have to piece together the puzzle from partial data.

A 2024 study concluded, “For most migrants who arrived in Sweden as adults, we found elevated first birth rates shortly after arrival. First birth rates among the second generation were generally close to but lower than the rates observed among native Swedes. ”

It’s possible that immigrants from countries with high birth rates account in part for the relatively high Scandinavian fertility rates during the 2010s, and that the transition from first-generation to second-generation immigrants explains part of the dropoff in fertility rates during the past several years.

If that is true, Hungary’s fertility performance would be all the more exceptional, since Hungary, unlike Sweden ,  has refused to accept significant numbers of immigrants from Muslim countries.

Hungary’s family support may be more effective because it is direct: Couples to have or pledge to have children are eligible for a grant of 10 million Forints, or about US$ 25,000, equal to five years ’ minimum wage. Couples with three or more children pay virtually no taxes.

And the subsidies are directed to married couples, which helps explain why Hungary has the highest marriage rate in the industrial world. Married couples are more likely to have many children than single parents. Hungary’s approach may succeed because it is not only a fertility policy but also a family policy.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban exhorts his constituents to have children and keep the Hungarian nation alive. But rhetoric alone has n’t proven effective elsewhere. Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan has called on his people to have more children for years, but Turkstat, the country ’s statistics agency, estimates the total fertility rate for 2023 at only 1. 53 children per female.

Total fertility includes assumptions about future childbearing, so estimates may vary. But data at the provincial level show core Turkish provinces like Istanbul and Ankara at around 1. 2 children per female, while the Kurdish southeast of the country has over 2. 5 children per female.

Demographers might pay more attention to Hungary’s exceptional success. For East Asian countries with dangerously low fertility rates, Hungary might offer some important insights.

Follow David P Goldman on X at @davidpgoldman

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How will Europe survive without Russian gas? – Asia Times

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Ukraine’s commitment for the passage of its gasoline across Ukraine expired on December 31st, 2013, and Kyiv refrained from taking into account a new arrangement. Ukraine’s decision was supported by the European Commission, even though the lost imports are equivalent to 5 % of European demand.

Some people may have been surprised to learn that fuel had continued to flow while the two nations were at war. And although most pipeline gas from Russia to Europe had ceased, in 2024, Europe imported&nbsp, a record 21.5 billion cubic meters ( bcm ) &nbsp, of liquefied natural gas ( LNG ) from Russia – 19 % of its LNG imports.

Newly published data from Spain reveals that Russia remained its second-biggest supplier of LNG, accounting for 21.3 % of Spain’s LNG goods. With 48 % of the LNG supplied in 2024, the US continues to be the largest distributor to Europe.

Russian LNG that enters Europe is re-exported to second places, a process that will be prohibited by EU restrictions in March.

But, what is Europe’s approach here? And how might Ukraine’s shutting off the presses affect Russian oil revenue globally?

In May 2022, three weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU launched its REPowerEU schedule. Through the growth of strength products, one of its main goals was to reduce the EU’s dependent on Soviet fossil fuels.

The European Commission now points out that 45 % of the EU’s gas imports came from Russia in 2021, and that percentage had dropped to 15 % in 2023 ( although data suggests that it increased to 18 % in 2024 as a result of higher imports of Russian LNG ).

Breugel, &nbsp, Author provided ( no reuse )

The EU has yet to impose sanctions on importing Russian oil, despite announcing sanctions for the Arctic-2 LNG project and related delivery, and outlawing the reloading of Russian LNG in EU slots.

Russian actions like demanding payment in roubles and the damage of the Nord Stream pipelines, an event that is still subject to significant conjecture, have contributed to the rapid decline in pipeline exports to Europe.

The European Commission is also aware that the world oil sector is still carefully balanced, and that Russia’s gas imports would result in extremely high rates, like those seen in the summer of 2022, as a result of sanctioning them.

That energy crisis cost European governments an estimated 650 billion euros ( US$ 669.6 billion ) between September 2021 and January 2023 in measures to mitigate high prices.

In 2024, Russian gas reached Europe via three routes: transit through Ukraine ( 30 % ), via Turkey and the TurkStream pipeline ( 31 % ) and as LNG ( 39 % ). If there is no resumption of Ukrainian transit in 2025, flows may be limited to TurkStream and LNG.

Sinking Russian imports expose Europe to continued rate volatility because the global LNG market is still constrained. However, it is possible that the EU will cease all exports of Russian oil by the end of 2027 as a wave of new Gas production is anticipated to start in 2027.

This is what the EU’s fresh strength director, Dan Jorgensen, announced in November 2024. What the European Commission intends to do is unknown; it is probably a continuation of efforts to increase energy efficiency, expand the transition to renewable energy, and lower gasoline demand. However, it’s doubtful that Russian exports will be completely prohibited until the world’s LNG market is more abundant.

However, the incoming US administration has merely imposed more sanctions on the Belarusian oil and gas industry, which might cause problems for Brussels. Due to Donald Trump’s frequent criticism of Europe’s dependency on Russian oil, some tough choices may have to be made as part of the new plan.

Gas future

What does this imply for Russia and the protection of international gas? In Nature Communications, our team of researchers at the UK Energy Research Center ( UKERC ) published a paper that forecasts how Russian gas sales might behave under two important circumstances.

The first is called “limited industry,” and assumes that the EU will halt all Russian oil exports by 2027. Additionally, sanctions against LNG systems, system, and the lack of fresh network power make it difficult to export.

If the Kremlin and Beijing don’t agree on the construction of the 50 billion cubic meters ( bcm ) Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, this would happen in the latter case. Exports to China would be restricted due to the new 10bcm pipeline from the Russian Far East and the 38bcm Power of Siberia 1 route.

Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia’s prime minister, launching construction of the Chinese section of the Power of SIberia gas pipeline. &nbsp, Photo: EPA / Dmitry Astakhov / ia Novosti/Government press service pool / The Conversation

The second scenario, known as the “pivot to Asia,” assumes that Russia is able to increase LNG exports more quickly and that Power of Siberia 2 is reached. Additionally, Turkstream is assumed to continue to export goods to Europe and that there are no restrictions on imports of LNG ( as is the current situation ).

Additionally, the study takes into account each scenario where there will be a significant increase in the global gas demand in the future, which will be influenced heavily by climate policy objectives.

Overall, the research finds that Russia will struggle to regain pre-crisis gas export levels. Compared to 2020, Russia’s gas exports will have fallen by 31 % –47 % by 2040 where new markets are limited, and by 13 % –38 % under a pivot-to-Asia strategy.

Russia’s prospects won’t significantly improve if China’s demand increases. Any future expansion into Asia is conditioned on Chinese energy security and climate mitigation strategies, according to the climate.

It is interesting to note that Gazprom, a Russian state gas company ,’s stock dropped to a 16-year low in late 2024. This was partly because of a US$ 7 billion ( £5.73 billion ) loss in 2023 and a cancellation of dividend payments. However, there is also geopolitical uncertainty regarding the state-controlled company’s capacity to find new export routes.

Two crucial questions are raised by our research regarding the potential impact of Russian gas on global markets. First, will the EU maintain its resolve and stop all exports of Russian gas to the EU by 2027, or might the end of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine cause a powerful U-turn? Second, come what may, can Russia find new export routes and markets for its huge gas reserves?

The two questions are related because more Russian pipeline gas is exported to China, which lessens the need for China to import LNG, which leads to a more stable global LNG market for Europe to import the gas it needs, primarily from the US.

Ironically, this might lead to a solution that could lessen looming trade disputes between the EU and the incoming US president.

Steve Pye is an associate professor of energy systems at UCL, and Michael Bradshaw is a professor of global energy at Warwick Business School.

The Conversation has republished this article under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Should more economists be reading Marx? – Asia Times

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Ben Golub, an economics professor at Northwestern University, tweeted the following the other day:

Mount Holyoke English teacher Alex Moskowitz responded to the discovery that most economists don’t learn Smith and Marx by&nbsp, calling finance “fake”, &nbsp, declaring&nbsp, that it “hasn’t effectively historicized its own techniques of knowledge creation”:

Moskowitz is correct, correct? If economists all be required to learn, “work through”, and know Adam Smith and Karl Marx? Because the majority of people haven’t done this, is the skill “fake”?

First of all, it’s important to point out that studying history of thought isn’t usually helpful. Just as physicists typically don’t read Isaac Newton’s works of art or study John Nash’s unique documents to know game hypothesis, doctors typically don’t study the functions of Galen.

The most important concepts in scientific remain single, divorced from the thought procedure of their progenitors. Everyone can simply pick up Newton’s Laws or Nash Equilibrium and use them to solve real-world problems, without knowing where those instruments came from. This is why they’re but effective.

Think you’re an analyst working for Amazon, using sport theory to layout online markets. Now imagine that an English teacher at a liberal arts college tells you that your entire area is “fake” because you haven’t read Marx. I imagine that practice would be a little strange.

Let’s leave off the topic of whether and when economists should study the history of financial idea and point out that they do examine it as well, just not in the manner that Alex Moskowitz may want.

When I was an economics PhD student, I was assigned a whole bunch of old foundational papers that were influential in framing modern economic thinking. To illustrate what the economics canon actually entails, I’ll give four examples:

1. Paul Samuelson’s ( 1958 )” An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money.”

In economics, there’s an important kind of model called the “overlapping generations” or&nbsp, OLG model, which is basically a model of how old people, young people, and middle-aged people interact in the economy. In terms of those generational interactions, you can think about a lot of economic phenomena.

For example, young people generally have to borrow to get started in life — student loans, starter homes, cars, and such. People work and save when they’re middle-aged and young, and then have to spend down their wealth when they retire. This creates some interesting interactions because the old people can only consume by selling their accumulated assets — houses, stocks, etc. — to the younger and middle-aged population.

Paul Samuelson wasn’t the first to think about this, but he was the first to formulate it in a really simple mathematical model that a lot of people could work with — and which is still&nbsp, commonly used today. He demonstrated in this paper that if there was rapid population growth, problems could arise because there were so many young people who needed to borrow more than the younger generation could lend. In this case, the best thing to do would be to transfer money from each young generation to each old generation in turn, so they’d have enough money to lend each other.

You might be able to identify this as the fundamental tenet of Social Security.

2. Paul Samuelson’s” The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure” ( 1954 ) is the author of.

One of the most important concepts in public economics is the idea of a&nbsp, public good&nbsp, — something that the private sector won’t provide enough of on its own, and so which the government ought to provide ( if it can ). Paul Samuelson was not the first to consider this broad concept, either, but like with the OLG model in the previous example, he was the first to provide a mathematical illustration of how this might operate.

In this paper, he shows that if something is&nbsp, “nonrival” &nbsp, ( if one person using something doesn’t stop someone else from using it ) and&nbsp, “nonexcludable” &nbsp, ( if you can’t prevent people from using it )— then the private sector won’t build enough of it. A lighthouse is a classic example, because using one ship doesn’t necessarily mean stopping others from using it because everyone can see the light and you can’t really stop any particular ship from using it. So building a lighthouse is a dicey investment for any private company— you’re basically encouraging a whole bunch of free riders.

The economics profession debates the solution, and whether it’s to have the government step in and build the lighthouse or whether there’s a private arrangement that could work just as well. And whether you actually need both nonrivalry and nonexcludability in order to get some of the key features of public goods is another open question. However, Samuelson’s original paper essentially predominated the literature on public goods, so its influence is difficult to overstate.

3. George Akerlof’s ( 1970 ) book” The market for lemons” is a good example.

Anyone who has bought a new car knows that when you drive it off the lot, the resale price instantly drops far below the purchase price. Why? It’s the same car that it was an hour ago! People will assume something is wrong with a car if you try to sell it right away after buying it, according to the most likely response.

This insight was the basis for Akerlof’s paper. It’s about how markets can naturally deflate as a result of asymmetric information, which sellers are aware of but buyers are not. In the case of used cars, the process is called “adverse selection” — meaning that sellers want to sell low-quality stuff for more than it’s really worth by concealing how crappy it is.

Akerlof demonstrated how a buyer’s refusal to accept full payment for a used car may lead to a “lemon,” which is why used car dealers keep their high-quality vehicles completely off the market. He used some simple mathematical examples to illustrate this.

How do you solve the lemon problem? Paying for mechanics to check whether a car is in good condition is one option, but that also costs money. Another way might be for the government to pass laws requiring used car dealers to tell prospective buyers important information about a car’s quality.

There is a clear use for health insurance as well. Adverse selection can also happen when a buyer conceals information from a seller, insurance customers will naturally try to hide how sick they are from an insurer, in order to get a lower premium.

This results in healthy people having to pay too high premiums, which keeps them off the market. Laws like the Affordable Care Act ( Obamacare ) that penalize people for not buying health insurance are aimed at preventing the exit of healthy people from the market, based on exactly the kind of principle Akerlof talks about in his paper.

4. ” Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”, by Kenneth Arrow ( 1963 )

This one is intriguing because, despite the author’s fame for mathematical economics, this paper essentially consists of no math; rather, it’s just an essay making various logical arguments. Arrow is trying to explain why health care — including health insurance — isn’t like other markets. He basically just gives a number of reasons why health care is different. These reasons include:

  • People with more insurance may be more reckless, but there are also information asymmetry, the aforementioned adverse selection, and “moral hazard” ( i .e., people with more insurance may be more reckless ).
  • Health care involves&nbsp, extreme risks, including the risk of death. Arrow implies, but doesn’t specify, that both patients and providers may not be competent to make wise decisions in that kind of extreme uncertainty.
  • Humans have strong&nbsp, moral norms&nbsp, around health care — we tend to believe that basic medical care is a universal a human right, that doctors shouldn’t act like profit-seeking businesspeople, a moral disgust at the idea of forcing people to pay for health care before they receive it, and so on.
  • Externalities and causes like communicable diseases put another person in danger if one person becomes ill.
  • Increasing returns to scale&nbsp, and&nbsp, restrictions on the entry&nbsp, of new healthcare suppliers create barriers to entry and inhibit competition.
  • Medical professionals regularly engage in price discrimination, charging customers different prices based on their ability to pay.

All of these factors make the market for health care an absolute mess compared to most markets, which is why the industry tends to be so heavily regulated, and is probably why so many rich countries just go ahead and nationalize their health insurance systems.

Anyway, here are four examples of the fundamental economic ideas that are prevalent ( mostly ) everywhere. PhD students in modern econ departments will be assigned. Reading papers like these is how economists “historicize their methods of knowledge production,” according to Moskowitz, meaning they produced both ideas and methods that are still relevant to economics research today.

This is in contrast to the ideas of Karl Marx, which have mostly fallen by the wayside.

Is this because contemporary economists are neoliberal advocates of the free market who oppose government intervention in favor of the power of markets? No, of course not. Every single article I just mentioned addresses the issues with government intervention in the wake of market failures.

The papers don’t rely on Marxist concepts like the labor theory of value, alienation, exploitation, commodity fetishism, or the inevitable collapse of capitalism. There are many issues with markets that Marx never even considered, but the world of economic ideas is not governed by a one-dimensional axis between Marxism and neoliberalism.

I don’t know how much economics Alex Moskowitz has studied, but my bet is that he doesn’t actually know a great deal about the foundational economic thought of Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, or George Akerlof— or about modern econ research in general. So why does he think he is qualified to say that Marx belongs in the discipline’s foundational canon?

Part of the reason, of course, is that Moskowitz personally&nbsp, likes and values&nbsp, Marx’s ideas. He has conducted research on Marx’s ideas and links them to those of other leftist philosophers, and he also teaches classes on Marx‘s ideas. It’s natural that Moskowitz would want economists to study a thinker he likes.

I like Ursula K LeGuin, so I might suggest to English professors to view her as one of their founding intellectuals. In fact, my suggestion might be justified, and some English profs&nbsp, do &nbsp, teach LeGuin.

However, my suggestion would be that of an amateur outsider because I haven’t done an English PhD or existed inside of humanities academia. ( And I would probably make the suggestion with a little more playfulness and a little less aggression than Moskowitz uses in his comments about economics. )

Because Marx wrote in a literary, discursive, non-mathematical style that Moskowitz, a humanities scholar, is able to understand ( or at least, more easily persuade himself that he understands ), Moskowitz might ask that economists include him in their canon.

Samuelson, Arrow, and Akerlof expressed many of their ideas in the language of mathematics, which Moskowitz, given&nbsp, his educational background, probably doesn’t understand very well. A natural response to something is to prioritize research until you are prepared to comprehend it over something that is opaque to you, but it’s also a form of&nbsp, the streetlight problem.

So I think the salient question here isn’t” Should Marx be part of the foundational economics canon”?, but rather,” Why should an English professor feel qualified to decide who should be part of the foundational economics canon”?.

And of course, politics is likely to be the answer. I don’t want to put words in Moskowitz’s mouth, of course, but he does seem like a sort of a leftist fellow:

In my opinion, non-STEM academia is seen by many leftist academicians in the humanities and social sciences as a single, cohesive enterprise, not a collection of efforts to advance knowledge in various fields, but a collective political struggle against capitalism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, and so on. In this cosmology, economists are acceptable if and only if they revere the econ-adjacent thinkers whose ideas most closely dovetail with the leftist activist struggle — e. g., Karl Marx.

And in fact, I believe that this is the most significant justification for economists to read Marx. His vision of history as a grand revolutionary struggle is a cautionary tale of what can happen when pseudo-economic thought is applied too cavalierly to political and historical questions.

Brad DeLong is an economist who has read Marx and given his writings a lot of thought. In a 2013 post, &nbsp, DeLong tried to explain&nbsp, what he thought Marx got right and what he got wrong in terms of his economic thought:

Marx the economist had six important things to say, some of which are still very valuable today after more than a century and a half, and some of which are not…

Marx…was among the very first to recognize that the fever-fits of financial crisis and depression that afflict modern market economies were not a passing phase or something that could be easily cured, but rather a deep disability of the system…

Karl Marx was one of the first to realize that the industrial revolution would allow for the existence of a society where we people could be lovers of wisdom without being supported by the labor of a large number of illiterates, brutalized, half-starved, and overworked slaves…

Marx the economist got a lot about the economic history of the development of modern capitalism in England right–not everything, but he is still very much worth grappling with as an economic historian of 1500-1850. His observations that the benefits of industrialization take a long time to begin, in my opinion, are the most significant.

] But ] Marx believed that capital is not a complement to but a substitute for labor… Hence the market system simply could not deliver a good or half-good society but only a combination of obscene luxury and mass poverty. This is a question that is empirical. Marx’s belief seems to me to be simply wrong …

Marx [thought ] that people should view their jobs as ways to achieve honor or professions that they were created or as ways to help others. This leads to a very risky path for societies that attempt to abolish the cash nexus in favor of public-spirited benevolence so that they do not end up in their happy place.

Marx believed that the capitalist market economy was incapable of delivering an acceptable distribution of income for anything but the briefest of historical intervals. But “incapable” is undoubtedly too strong. [S] ocial democracy, progressive income taxes, a very large and well-established safety net, public education to a high standard, upward mobility channels, and all the panoplies of the twenty-century social-democratic mixed-economy democratic state can dissuade Marx’s notion that great inequality and great misery must be accompanied by great inequality and great poverty.

This summary, which seems eminently fair to me, establishes Marx as a peripheral, mildly interesting economic thinker — a political philosopher who dabbled in economic ideas, perceiving some big trends but getting others badly wrong, and ultimately leaving little mark on the field’s overall methodology or basic concepts. ( See Brad ‘s s slides , s video , s other commentary. )

But it’s not actually for his economic ideas that we remember Marx — it’s for his political philosophy of class warfare and revolution. And in this regard, I believe DeLong has just enough vile words to say:

Large-scale prophecy of a glorious utopian future is bound to be false…The New Jerusalem does not descend from the clouds… But Marx clearly thought at some level that it would …

Marx believed that social democracy would inevitably collapse before an ideologically-based right-wing assault, that income inequality would rise, and that the system would eventually collapse or be overthrown…

Add to these the fact that Marx’s idea of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” was clearly not the brightest light on humanity’s tree of ideas, and I see very little in Marx the political activist that is worthwhile today.

Everywhere attempt has been made to implement Marx’s proletarian revolution in an epic human tragedy. Here ‘s&nbsp, what I wrote for Bloomberg&nbsp, back in 2018:

It’s difficult to forget the tens of millions of people who were starved to death in Cambodia’s killing fields, under Mao Zedong, and the tens of millions who were purged, starved, or sent to gulags by Joseph Stalin, or the millions who were murdered there. Even if Marx himself never advocated genocide, these stupendous atrocities and catastrophic economic blunders were all done in the name of Marxism…20th-century communism always seem to result in either crimes against humanity, grinding poverty or both. Venezuela, the most dramatic socialist experiment of the twenty-first century, is currently experiencing complete economic collapse.

This dramatic record of failure should make us wonder whether there was something inherently and terribly wrong with the German thinker’s core ideas. Marxists will claim that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were merely perverted caricatures of Marxism and that the real thing hasn’t been tried.

Others will cite Western interference or oil price fluctuations…Some will even cite China’s recent growth as a communist success story, conveniently ignoring the fact that the country only recovered from Mao after substantial economic reforms and a huge burst of private-sector activity.

All of these justifications sound hollow. There must be inherent flaws in the ideas that continue to lead countries like Venezuela over economic cliffs…The brutality and insanity of communist leaders might have been a historical fluke, but it also could have been rooted in]Marx’s ] preference for revolution over evolution…]O ] verthrowing the system has usually been a disaster.

Successful revolutions typically follow the American Revolution, which preserves largely intact local institutions. Violent social upheavals like the Russian Revolution or the Chinese Civil War have, more often than not, led both to ongoing social divisions and bitterness, and to the rise of opportunistic, megalomaniac leaders like Stalin and Mao.

The successful” socialism” that people cite, the modern-day Scandinavian societies, are actually social democracies, as I pointed out in that post. They achieved their&nbsp, mixed economies&nbsp, through a slow evolutionary process that was absolutely nothing like the revolutionary upheavals predicted and advocated by Marx.

Economists should read Marx, and they should read him with all of this history in mind. It’s a vivid reminder of how social science ideas, applied sweepingly and with maximal hubris to real-world politics and institutions, have the potential to do incredible harm. The biggest instance of social science malpractice that the human race has ever seen is probably Marxism.

This should serve as a warning to economists — a reminder of why although narrow theories about auctions or randomized controlled trials of anti-poverty policies might&nbsp, seem like small potatoes, they’re not going to end with&nbsp, the skulls of thousands of children smashed against trees.

Modern economics, with all of its mathematical formulae and statistical regressions, is a model for academic study, appropriately tamed, and anchored in the quotidian search for truth, hampered by guardrails of methodological humility.

The kind of academia that Alex Moskowitz represents, where the study of Great Books flowers almost instantly into sweeping historical theories and calls for revolution and war, embodies the true legacy of Marx— something still fanged and wild.

Notes

1. As it happens, I&nbsp, have &nbsp, read Marx ‘s&nbsp,” Das Kapital”. I wasn’t really thinking about it in terms of its relationship to contemporary economic theory, so it happened when I was an undergrad physics major. Also, like most German philosophy of the time, I found it both pointlessly dense and frustratingly vague.

This article was originally published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion&nbsp, Substack, and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion&nbsp, subscriber&nbsp, here.

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Trump’s Panama Canal canard obscures hard China truths – Asia Times

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Donald Trump, the newly elected US president, has frequently criticized what he perceives as China’s overstated dominance of the Panama Canal, a crucial sea corridor connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

On December 25, 2024, Trump fraudulently claimed that Taiwanese men were “operating” the Panama Canal, wishing them a “merry Christmas”.

Trump has also straight criticized the Filipino government, arguing that US fees for using the canal were excessive. He added that if his needs on river management were not met, the US may request that the property be “returned to us, in total, and without problem.” He even considered using defense force to seize the river.

Officials in the nation have been quick to point out that a lot of Trump’s statements regarding the Panama Canal are fake. There was no Foreign influence or involvement in the canal’s management, according to Panamanian President José Raul Mulino. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman disputed Trump’s claims while reiterating the canal’s independence.

What is the current level of US and Foreign control in Panama, besides social language? We conducted fieldwork in Panama as experts on US security cooperation for a new book on US military deployments globally. This included conversations with US military and diplomatic employees stationed in Panama in 2018 as well as government officials and journalists.

We think the picture that a nation was aware of the value of its most important political asset and eager to balance its own desire to run the canal without getting too much of a kick out of Washington or Beijing is what came next and continues to exist today.

Panama Canal’s narrative

Without having to go through the remainder of South America, the Panama Canal serves as a passing place for ships moving between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

King Carlos V of Spain explored the idea of a waterway through Panama for the first time in 1534. France began building the river in 1881, but it ceased because of its large financial and human costs, three centuries later.

After backing Filipino freedom from Colombia a year before as a way to safe the right to construct the river, the United States restarted the initiative in 1904.

The Panama Canal Zone, or 5 miles of Nicaraguan place on either side of the canal, was immediately under the control of the United States.

A major US military presence was present in the Canal Zone.

In 1964, a group of Filipino students attempted to raise the Filipino flag alongside the US symbol at the high class inside the Canal Zone, a human assembly that was failing to fly the flag alongside it in violation of a US-Panama deal.

Numerous Nicaraguan people were killed in a violent altercation with the families of the American learners. The day is still referred to as” Martyrs ‘ Day” in Panama.

Negotiations between Panama, which was under the military dictatorship of Omar Torrijos, and the United States, which were sparked by persistent conflicts and local protests.

In the end, it led to the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which guaranteed that the river would continue to be accessible to ships of any and all nations, established a temporary percentage to oversee it, and secured the canal’s final return to Filipino jurisdiction on December 31, 1999.

This dispatch took position as planned. However, the US continues to be the main recipient of the path, with the majority of traffic passing through the river coming from or going to a US interface.

Foreign control in Panama

However, the river is of great importance to other nations as well, with 2.5 % of international commerce taking place in its waters on average each year. Panama has also grown to be a more significant country to Beijing as China has expanded its market over the past four years and begun to concentrate more on exports.

Trump’s claims that China is in charge of the river allegedly stem from the fact that Chinese businesses do own shares in the canal. The Balboa and Cristóbal slots, which are the canal’s entry and exit points, are now managed by the Panama Ports Company, a company of Hutchison Ports in Hong Kong. The company’s rent to handle these ports will be renewed until 2047.

The Panama Canal Authority, a branch of the Filipino authorities, maintains control over the slots and the waterway despite the Hong Kong firm’s management of these ports.

When conducting interviews in Panama, we asked government officials and citizens alike about Foreign control in Panama. At the time, during the summer of 2018, much of the conversation was about China’s plans to build a new embassy overlooking the entrance to the canal. Though the US eventually pressured the Panamanian government to not allow the construction, the population’s openness to China was clear.

In general, the persons we spoke to said views of China were good in Panama. The largest ethnic Chinese people in Central America is represented by a major ethnic Chinese population in Panama, many of whom are descended from Chinese refugees who came to the country in the 1800s.

Some Filipino officials who we spoke with claimed that the rise in Chinese investment in Panama has heightened US concerns about losing control to China. They even argued that the US was acting unfairly in response to the rise of foreign influence, such as in Brazil or in Europe.

One US official standard who we spoke with had concerns about Chinese purchase, claiming it could lead to fraud and reduced Panama’s economic opportunities.

At the same time, local leaders we interviewed didn’t fully believe China sometimes. They asserted that they were always concerned about the US or China being fair in their interactions with Panama.

The second ship to sail over the expanded Panama Canal was the vessel vehicle COSCO Shipping Panama from China COSCO Shipping Corporation Ltd, which made history on June 26, 2016. Photo: YouTube / New China News

How Panamanians view the US

According to both US and Nicaraguan officials who spoke with us, Panamanians typically have positive opinions of the US.

A Filipino journalist we spoke to referred to Troops as “gringueros” – meaning they have an affection for Americans. Some respondents noted that fewer and fewer Panamanians have powerful memories of the US controlling the Panama Canal Zone or the US invasion of Panama in 1989, despite there still be some anti-US attitude among younger and left-leaning parties.

While US ties with Panama are usually strong, they are not immune to problems. One former US ambassador to Panama asserted that the US government frequently didn’t get regular Panamanians ‘ concerns about US action seriously enough. He noted, for instance, that related local protests may turn into anti-American rallies if they occur at the same time as US military activities.

China has significantly increased its efforts to expand its influence worldwide over the past ten years. This has resulted in a dramatic rise in mortgages and Chinese-funded infrastructure projects to governments all over the world.

We spoke with US officials who were stationed in Latin America, and they had a lot of concerns about how Foreign investment is gaining ground there. US coverage analysts have long expressed concern about China’s “dual-use” tasks like those found in ports, where supposedly human projects can be easily adapted for military purposes.

At a time when, in the terms of one previous Nicaraguan authorities national we spoke with, the US “generally neglects Latin America, and neglects the demands of Panama, specifically”, China has seized the opportunity to expand its presence in the region.

One of the interviews we conducted was with a previous Panamanian leader who had been involved in the discussions of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties before he took business. He was pleased to say that Troops valued their independence and their independence very highly.

This attitude has only been strengthened by Trump’s subsequent responses. As Esmeralda Orobio, the daughter of one of those killed in the 1964 crime, told investigators during this year’s Martyrs ‘ Day remembrance:” The Panama Canal is theirs, and we are going to support it”.

Carla Martinez Machain is professor of political research, University at Buffalo, Michael A Allen is professor of political science, Boise State University, and Michael E Flynn is professor of political science, Kansas State University

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Putting a price tag on Greenland – Asia Times

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It’s doubtful you’ve missed the account. Donald Trump, the newly elected US president, has stated on numerous occasions that he wants to take “ownership and power” of Greenland, a sovereign nation of the Danish Kingdom.

Trump first made a point of getting the US to buy Greenland again in 2019. At the time, he argued, very accurately, that he was not the first US senator to come up with the idea.

Modern-day country sales are unique. It remains to be seen whether Trump may bring them back. However, the query is interesting: How would one choose to offer something for an entire state, territory, or nation?

Not a novel concept

Since the beginning of the Cold War, Greenland’s strategic location has been of enormous benefit to the US.

In 1946, then-President Harry Truman offered to buy the Swedish place for US$ 100 million in gold. According to reports, the Danes responded to that sell in much the same way as they did in 2019 and again in 2025:” No, bless you.”

One royal state purchasing place from another may appear strange at the time, but there are numerous instances where this has happened over period.

In the earlier 19th century, the US largely seized control of its European growth.

This included the” Louisiana Purchase“, vast swathes of land in North America, bought from France in 1803 for US$ 15 million ( an estimated$ 416 million in 2024 figures ).

After the Mexican-American War, the US paid Mexico for significant amounts of place. The US also bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, for$ 7.2 million ( over$ 150 million today ).

And it bought the US Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 for$ 25 million ( over$ 600 million today ) in gold coin.

It isn’t just the US. Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Germany and Saudi Arabia have all purchased place, transferring control over local citizens and gaining area, access to essential waterways or just physical buffers.

What is a country’s price?

Valuing a country ( or an autonomous territory like Greenland ) is no simple task. Countries have a mix of tangible and intangible factors that resist simple financial measurement, in contrast to companies or assets.

A logical place to start is gross domestic product, or” GDP”. Simply put, GDP is the total value of all the goods and services that are produced in an economy over a given period of time (usually a month ).

But does this actually capture the true “value” of an business? When we buy things, the benefits derived from it next – we hope – into the future.

Therefore, based on the value produced over a given time period, a purchase price does not accurately reflect the buyer’s purchase price ( in this case, the value of the entire business ). We must think about whether or not we can continue to add value in the future.

Greenland’s productive resources include not only the existing businesses, governments and workers used to generate its current GDP (estimated at about$ 3.236 billion in 2021 ), but also its ( difficult to measure ) ability to change and improve its future GDP. How useful these tools are going to be in the future will determine this.

Aerial view of skyline at port of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland
Components that aren’t easily included in GDP include how much an entire business is worth. Photo: Yingna Cai / Shutterstock via The Talk

Another value-added characteristics are not included in GDP. These include the value of its investment ( both people and network ), quality of life, natural resources and strategic location.

Beyond what is already there, from a business perspective, it’s the as-yet unexploited tools that make Greenland important.

Greenland has been mining fuel for centuries, with big, proved resources. The soil has been shown to contain rare rocks, precious metals, tungsten and uranium.

In addition to fuel mine, there is platinum, silver, brass, lead, copper, graphite and stone.

Lastly, there is the potential for big oil abuse off the lakes of Greenland. None of this possibility is reflected in Greenland’s present GDP.

Federal resources are easier

Putting a price on a large national asset, such as the Panama Canal ( which Trump also wants under US control ), is a much easier prospect.

View of the Panama Canal with a ship approaching
The state of Panama owns the Panama Canal, which connects the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Photo: jdross75 / Instagram

The financing discipline’s tenets date back to the 18th century, and the concept of asset valuation is one of its most important.

The “asset sales design” has evolved over time, but ultimately, it’s about estimating the future gross income flows from an asset, based on a few inputs.

This may involve estimating the potential future gross income for the Panama Canal based on factors like costs generated by its use and the volume of traffic that is anticipated.

Therefore, you would take action to subtract any predicted harm to the waterway’s health from the projected costs of maintaining the equipment. The risk of really realizing that online income is another factor in determining what you would give.

Working out the present value of all of these future ( net ) income flows is typically used to determine the value or “price tag” of such an asset.

Current country sales are uncommon.

There are a number of reasons why the geographical sales are declining. Generally, land sales typically benefited ruling elites more than ordinary citizens. It is almost impossible to buy land in modern democracies if local residents are against the idea.

For governments operate on the theory that national property may serve the people, not the government’s coffers. Selling a place now may need demonstrating obvious, tangible benefits to the population, a challenging job in practice.

Patriotism is another important factor. Property is closely linked to its regional personality, and selling it off is frequently viewed as a betrayal. Institutions, as custodians of national satisfaction, are anxious to amuse offers, no matter how tempting.

People seen singing as part of Greenland's National Day festival
The purchase of a place like Greenland doesn’t occur without the people’s express permission. Photo: Lasse Jesper Pedersen / Shutterstock

A strong international standard against changing borders serves as a powerful endorsement of this, which was created out of concern that one regional adjustment might lead to a wave of disputes and conflicts abroad.

In today’s world, buying a state or one of its provinces may be little more than a notion test. Governments are social, cultural and historical companies that resist commodification.

Greenland may potentially have a cost, but the actual question is whether or not such a transaction always complies with contemporary values and realities.

Susan Stone is credit union SA head of finance, University of South Australia and Jonathan Boymal is interact professor of Economics, RMIT University

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How Trump can break China’s tightening grip on Central Asia – Asia Times

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The royal release of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan rail on December 27 was the latest evidence of China’s growing effect in Central Asia.

China’s growing deal with a crucial area that the US has de facto abandoned since its military withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021 will be supported by construction, which is anticipated to take six decades.

China’s deal with Central Asia, comprised of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, hit US$ 89 billion in 2023, making it by far the state’s largest business partner.

China’s trade was followed by the EU with$ 53.9 billion, Russia’s$ 44 billion and Turkey’s nearly$ 13 billion. Russia’s sphere of influence has long been viewed as having a broader scope, but China’s affect is now clearly shifting, at least in part as a result of the Ukraine conflict. &nbsp,

The Office of the United States Trade Representative has released data for the last year, but America’s combined deal with Central Asia in 2022 was a modest$ 4.4 billion.

This is in spite of the” United States Strategy for Central Asia 2019-2025: Advancing Sovereignty and Economic Prosperity“, published in February 2020 under the preceding Trump presidency.

India trailed behind at$ 2 billion in 2023 followed by Iran at$ 1.5 billion in 2022 and Pakistan at just$ 309 million that same year.

Given their involvement in the International North-South Transport Corridor and the US’s waiver to conduct business with Afghanistan from Iran’s Chabahar port ( and apparently throughout the rest of the place ), India and Iran’s lower level of business is relatively unexpected.

In that regard, next spring, India and Iran signed a 10-year deal with the Chabahar port, but the Biden administration unexpectedly threatened to impose sanctions despite the waiver for India’s use of the city’s facilities.

Pakistan’s sluggish trade with Central Asia is due to its worsening hostilities with Taliban-run Afghanistan, which scuppered plans to join with the area after the US government left in 2021.

There are still programs to reconstruct and upgrade the Pakistan-Afghanistan-Uzbekistan rail, but rising security-related conflicts and money problems have impeded development.

Even so, the Minister of Maritime Affairs of Pakistan asserted in early January that all of the nations in Central Asia still want to deal through Muslim ships.

Now, Central Asia’s most trusted business associates are neighboring China and Russia. Although EU business is higher than that of Russia, there are reasons to believe that a sizable portion of it is transshipments to Russia to avoid American sanctions, as Brookings Institute older brother Robin Brooks has suggested.

Their business must also pass through the Black Sea, the South Caucasus, and Anatolia or the Baltic Sea. Similar to Turkey’s deal with Central Asia, which is also bidirectional and results in significantly higher costs and longer travel times.

Georgia is a crucial factor in facilitating trade between the EU and Turkey along the so-called” Middle Corridor,” but a potential resolution of Baku’s Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute was ease this process in the future.

A flowing issue over that debate, but, risks disrupting their trade.

Last year, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated to reporters that” Armenia does not have in our manner.” They shouldn’t serve as a boundary between Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Zangezur hall may remain and will be opened. The sooner they understand this, the better”.

He also called for demilitarizing Armenia and “eradicating” what he described as its “fascist philosophy” in vocabulary related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s in the run-up to what the Kremlin has referred to as its” specific function” in Ukraine.

Even if a local conflict doesn’t start, the EU’s relationship with Georgia could be hampered by Tbilisi’s latest parliamentary elections and Tbilisi’s deteriorating unusual agents laws, which could complicate trade between the bloc and Central Asia.

Regardless of whether the Zangezur Corridor actually comes into being or not, China may end up being the biggest winner, which would cause the place to deteriorate further into its sphere of influence.

It is most likely that the US would be able to avoid that situation by facilitating Central Asia’s business with all of its partners, with the exception of China. That, in turn, would allow them to function as a social counterpoint to China.

For that to occur, the US will have to make some hard, if not controversial, decisions. For example, the incoming Trump presidency would need to evaluate some of its Russian punishment, many of which haven’t worked as punitively intended.

According to Maximilian Hess of the Foreign Policy Research Institute,” It may seem counterintuitive, given one of the key goals of the restrictions imposed on Russia has been to restrain deal with Russia, but deal with Russia has increased for Central Asia and the Caucasus since 2022,” according to Hess. Much of this has been caused by trade rerouting, whereby Western exports to Russia have fallen and were instead routed through the area.

Hess noted that sanctions have caused some difficulties in their trade, notably because Russia is no longer a member of SWIFT, but their only real impact on the area has been the de post forwarding of some pre-war Western business to Russia via Central Asia.

While specific information is hard to find, it’s obvious that a major share of the EU’s deal with the location is transshipments. That implies that true trade between the EU and Central Asia is likely to be lower than what is currently known, implying that China has more influence than the data suggest.

Greater financial clarity about Central Asia’s real existing business could be gained by reversing some sanctions, extending waivers to Western companies, or threatening secondary sanctions in response to violations, some of which might be included in a package deal with Russia on Ukraine.

That’s imperative to better understand the EU’s competitive advantages there vis-a-vis China, which could then be more effectively leveraged.

The second difficult choice is whether or not Iran will continue to impose sanctions on India for trade with Afghanistan ( and presumably also Central Asia ) via Iran’s Chabahar port.

Significantly, Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellog, revealed over the weekend that the incoming administration &nbsp, plans to revive&nbsp, its “maximum pressure” policy against Iran.

India’s trade with Central Asia lags far behind its potential, and if the US wants to keep China’s influence in check in the strategic region, then it must rely in part on India as a counterbalance.

If India and Central Asia are confident that their businesses won’t face secondary sanctions for trading with Iran and other countries, this only can occur.

Pakistan’s best course of action would be to reconcile with Afghanistan and India, allowing India to establish a pioneering overland route to Central Asia, but that’s currently politically unrealistic. That’s why Iran must be relied upon as a transit state, which requires the US to be flexible with sanctions.

Finally, Trump ought to think about changing Biden’s pressure policy toward Georgia and urging the EU to do the same. Such a rapprochement would ensure the EU can continue trading with Central Asia across Georgia’s territory, thereby lifting present uncertainties.

In parallel, Trump’s incoming government could also consider taking the lead in resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani dispute over the so-called” Zangezur Corridor” in order to avert another war.

Trump and his advisors are known for their business-minded worldview and thus may agree that compromises toward Russia, Iran-India and the South Caucasus ( Georgia and Armenia-Azerbaijan ) are acceptable to counter China’s rising influence in Central Asia.

If the US doesn’t take action, China will undoubtedly grow to be a dominant economic force in the strategic region, giving it more access to its resources and minerals and acting as a ready hub for more trade with Iran.

Because China already relies on imported energy by sea to give the US Navy leverage in any potential conflict with China, including through a blockade of the Malacca Strait chokepoint, those outcomes would conflict with US interests.

Meanwhile, greater overland trade between China and Iran via Central Asia would serve to neutralize Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy on Tehran.

Thus, it would be wise for the incoming Trump administration to emphasize Central Asia more prominently in its foreign policy strategy; otherwise, its planned pressure tactics against China and Iran will be less likely to succeed.

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US-Germany alliance may not matter so much to Trump – Asia Times

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The European state-owned news agency Deutsche Welle published an article with the article” Trump’s election defeat is a problem for Germany” less than 24 hours after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2024.

A few hours afterwards, Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, announced that his three-party social alliance had collapsed. A major factor in disagreements regarding how to help improve Germany’s fragile market was the US election resulted in the coalition breaking up, according to Scholz.

One month later, Scholz lost a trust vote, ending the state he has led since 2021. Federal votes will take place in Germany on February 23, 2025.

Germany is regarded as one of the United States ‘ most enmity partners in Western Europe, working on everything from financial industry to military protection.

However, this may change if Trump retakes company. As Angela Merkel, the lifelong former chancellor of Germany, said in November 2024, the looming following Trump administration “is a problem to the world, particularly for multilateralism”.

However, Trump’s US-centric approach to international politics runs counter to diplomacy, which is the notion that various countries working together helps people involved.

European officials worry that the incoming Trump presidency poses a major threat to the relation as someone who studies German-American connections in the 20th century.

Trump’s potential launch of a tariff-induced industry war, as well as the likelihood that the president-elect would withdraw his financial and military support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia, are among the European problems.

Given that, in addition to the US and the EU, Germany is the third-largest donation to Ukraine and would be required to make even more of this financial assistance if the US stopped giving Ukraine wealth, both scenarios may hurt the German economy even more.

Despite the fact that he has previously served as president, German officials continue to be perplexed by Trump’s unique political bent.

Merkel wrote in her 2024 autobiography” Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021″ that when she first met Trump in 2017, she acted as though she were having a conversation with” people totally normal”.

Merkel immediately realized, nevertheless, that Trump was not like other British officials. She noted that Trump seemed to believe that all nations competed, and that one victory could mean another disappointment.

A woman wearing a light blue jacket stands around a table with men wearing dark suits. She faces toward a man seated with his arms crossed.
Angela Merkel, German’s then-chancellor, speaks with Donald Trump on the outside of a G7 conference in June 2018 in Charlevoix, Canada. Photo: Tesco Denzel / Bundesregierung via Getty Images/ The Talk

A long-lasting empire

Merkel and another Germans were not used to doing that, which was not the American leader.

Merkel was born in 1954, when Germany was split into two countries: socialist, Soviet-aligned East Germany, where Merkel grew away, and bourgeois West Germany, which was formed out of the three northern areas controlled by France, the US and the United Kingdom at the end of World War II and was aligned with the US.

Shortly after the war, the US accepted West Germany as an essential alliance. This alliance made certain that Germany, who was once a US foe during World War II, would never again pose a danger to international peace.

West Germany even served as a crucial front line for Europe as the US fought the Soviet Union in the Cold War starting in 1947.

Despite the fact that West Germany enjoyed having an American overpartner during the Cold War, West Germany benefited most financially from the issue. East Germany’s market, on the other hand, was somewhat poor throughout the Cold War.

Perhaps the most obvious sign of Germany’s section was the Berlin Wall, a 96-mile split that cut through Berlin. In 1961, East German authorities constructed the roof to avert East Germans ‘ frights.

Merkel entered politics only after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which represented the looming end of the Cold War that year and opened the door to German unity.

United States and Germany combined

In the 1990s, Merkel served as a politician and witnessed how former British Prime Minister George H. W. Bush persuaded France and the United Kingdom to put their worries about a fresh German rule over Europe to allow their original adversary from World War II to unite and reclaim their former country’s independence.

The United Kingdom, US, Soviet Union, and France were the four main Allied allies in Europe at the start of World War II, but they had originally denied Germany the right to self-determination.

However, the four Friends signed the Two Plus Four Treaty in 1990, an international arrangement that made it possible for Germany to consolidate as a completely independent state in October 1990.

Soon afterwards, Bush praised the transatlantic alliance between the US and Germany. The British leader praised the two nations ‘ shared “love of liberty” and expressed his desire for them to “partner in leadership.”

Bush’s terms signaled a significant change in how well-known internationally and how necessary it is for Germany to exercise its political and military dominance in international politics.

It was a turn, however, that some Germans did not necessarily allowed. Germans were hesitant to assume the powerful leadership position that the US desired for the nation.

Following two bloody war, it was widely believed in Germany that defense restraint had suddenly brought stability and prosperity.

In fact, in almost all the global crises since 1990 – from the conflict in Bosnia in 1992 to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 – Germany has shown a reluctance to take the result. Germany prefers to play a secondary role in navigating global issues, largely through its participation in the NATO and UN military alliance.

A group of men wearing black jackets stand at the edge of a platform and look toward gray buildings over a wall.
George H W Bush, then-vice chairman of the US, surveys East Germany over the Berlin Wall in 1983. Photo: Sahm Doherty / Getty Images via The Talk

Germany’s foreign location nowadays

Germany’s approach to international issues drastically changed after Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and it suddenly assumed the leadership position that Bush had envisioned in 1990.

In a traditional speech on February 27, 2022, Scholz called the strike a” Zeitenwende”, meaning” a boundary time” in German, and announced a major boost in military spending.

This change has been welcomed by the US and other Eastern allies. NATO members had now agreed to dedicate a minimum of 2 % of their GDP to defense spending in 2006, but Germany– like additional European nations– did not follow through on this promise for many years.

In the wake of the ongoing Russian-Ukraine conflict, it was only in February 2024 that Germany finally met its 2 % spending goal for the first time. That it did that wasn’t just a side effect of the issue itself.

Stress by American president, above all Trump, even played a key role. Trump’s repeated threat to “pay your expenses or we leave NATO” throughout his second term as president had apparently paid off.

The new German government may be required to keep Trump informed of the intercontinental alliance’s several benefits and the history of German-American relationships.

Sylvia Taschka is professor of training of story, Wayne State University

The Conversation has republished this essay under a Creative Commons license. Read the original content.

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Nonhuman espionage agents: the world’s most bizarre secret weapons – Asia Times

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Due to the secrecy surrounding the death of a detective, it is rarely reported. However, by the time a light beluga whale suspected of spying for Moscow was discovered dead in Norway waters in September, it had lost its status as a small brand.

Hvaldimir ( a play on the Scandinavian word for dolphin, hval, and the first title of Russian leader ) was also given an official examination by the Norway Directorate of Fisheries.

The whale, one in a long range of animals that have been used by the brains service, was exposed as a detective in 2019.

One Russian initiative to train sea creatures as spies and murderers failed in 1991.

The US ran related experiments with pets, some dating back to the 1960s. Operation Acoustic Kitty was one of the CIA’s more strange tries to use species as informants.

The idea was to use the cat to eavesdrop on possible interesting conversations by implanting a microphone and antenna into it. When the rabbit ran over by a car and the evaluation of the “prototype” went horribly wrong, leading to the program being quickly abandoned.

The use of spy birds was a more effective case. With their extraordinary homing skills, pigeons could readily enter usually unrestricted areas and take photos without praising suspicion before securely returning to their home base.

From creatures to devices

Over time, tech gave humans the opportunity to utilise the stealthiness that is unique to animals while removing the unpredictability. A bird-like aircraft would be built using a smaller, more adaptable design to get closer to its intended target in the manner of more conventional spy planes.

What developed into a very popular CIA system during the Cold War derived its inspiration from European efforts during World War II.

The insectothopter, which the CIA developed in the 1970s, was an even smaller type. Although neither the cheekbones nor the insectothopter designs previously achieved full operationality, they are regarded as modern-day’s innovators.

In a longer line of properly operationalized underwater drones that are more efficient and less susceptible than the unsuspecting Hvaldimir, look back and see if Charlie, the robotic catfish of the CIA, is any exception.

Exploding mouse corpses

However, the success of an unexpected spy technique is not always ideal gauged by its effectiveness.

The Germans intercepted the first shipment of about 100 dead rats, which was a European plan to apply explosive-filled rodent carcasses to be destined for European factories, where they would finally explode when shoved into a boiler.

However, the rats ‘ discovery and the sheer ingenuity of the Britons ‘ plan caused such a level of fear that the” difficulty caused to them was much greater success than if the rats had actually been used”

Although working with animals frequently proved challenging, attempts to gain advantage by disguised as inert objects have also proven to be embarrassing. The MI6 place in Moscow attempted to boost the “dead email cut” method of obtaining secret information from informants in Russia.

MI6’s rendition of James Bond’s Q didn’t want to risk leaving key info in a predetermined location, instead developing the idea that a receiver may be hidden in a fake rock close to the government in question, which would allow people to download the information during a walk-by.

However, the discovery of the rock was a result of the concentrated exercise of many guys in suits in one section of this area. The UK state was severely embarrassed by the revelations of the function in 2006. The fact that this wasn’t MI6’s best hour was suggested by stories who criticized the Moscow spy-rock as “more Johnny English than James Bond”

Although knowledge organizations are constantly looking for new ways to improve their spying skills, human improvisation is arguably the most effective application of intelligence. In 1985, a significant example of this occurred when one of the West’s most significant double agents working for American intelligence was hidden under cover.

A helpful bag of biscuits

Three Russian and two Estonian checkpoints had to be negotiated by the group of two European diplomats and their wives. One of the group offered the sniffing Alsatian a butter and vegetable bright as the first watch dog came in, quickly detaching the Alsatian from the scent of Gordievsky who was hiding in the boot of the car.

A very clever and effective technique of spycraft was used when another dog started sniffing at the heel. The family of one of the diplomats properly distracts the dog and its operator by placing her 18-month-old child on the car shoe, changing the baby’s wet, and then dropping the newly filled and steaming deposit on the ground.

These actions were not a part of Gordievsky’s extraction plan, but they were an likewise instinctive and creative improvisation by those skilled in working in hostile environments and who had a knack for deceiving enemy agents.

In some situations, costly research budgets and encouraging technological advancements give rise to the most effective spy techniques, but they may also rely on quick judgment and daring, fearless action.

In the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham, David Hastings Dunn is a teacher of global politics, while Stefan Wolff is a professor of global security.

This content was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original content.

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