Sure A Not

Few in Washington seem overly worried about the apparent stalemate in Ukraine, where Kiev’s forces can’t break through Russia’s fortified defenses. Meanwhile, America is entirely concentrated on the latest from China – complex malware reportedly able to cripple US cyber systems.

According to The New York Times, which broke the story: “The discovery of the malware has touched off a series of Situation Room meetings in the White House in recent months, as senior officials from the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the Homeland Security Department, and the nation’s spy agencies attempt to understand the scope of the problem and plot a response.

“The US government and Microsoft have attributed the recent malware attack to Chinese state-sponsored actors, but the government has not disclosed why it reached that conclusion. There is debate among different arms of the US government about the intent of the intrusions, but not their source.”

These developments may not be extraordinary. Chinese cyber capabilities have been observed for years. However, an alarm of this level could alter many priorities, and an intentional threat to US territory could spin the situation in a new direction, casting a long shadow on the war in Ukraine. It may make sense of something quite odd there.

Fights on the River Hong

In the Battle of the River Hong in 638 BC, Duke Xiang of Song was ready to fight the Chu troops crossing the river. The Song General Ziyu wanted to attack when the Chu were in disarray at the crossing, but Duke Xiang refused, thinking it was unfair. Song waited for the Chu forces to array and attack. Song lost the battle, and the duke lost his life.

The combat went on to be remembered as a stupid military mistake by Song that changed the course of history.

In the past few weeks, Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns has reportedly told his Russian counterparts that the US had nothing to do with Yevgeny Prigozhin’s June 23 mutiny.

Politico says, “The US reached out to Russia at a critical moment to ensure there was no confusion about its lack of involvement.”

Moreover, The New York Times reported that the US advised Ukraine not to take advantage of the confusion caused by Prigozhin to attack Russia.

Why so? Shouldn’t Ukraine take advantage of the confusion and push harder before Russia gets its house in order and its troops arrayed for battle?

Is Burns like the Duke of Song, or does he have other, more subtle plans?

The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and The Guardian averred there had been secret talks between the US and Russia right at the time of the mutiny, and Washington didn’t want to compromise that progress.

Historian and strategist Edward Luttwak is even more explicit:

“Unmistakable signals have been issued from the Kremlin that [President Vladimir] Putin is finally ready to consider a compromise. The final party longing for an end to the debacle is the US.

“Last week, CIA head William J Burns hurriedly called his Kremlin counterpart, Sergey Yevgenyevich Naryshkin, to reassure him that the US had nothing to do with Prigozhin’s march to Moscow. That phone call is as good evidence as any that, contrary to foolish leftist fantasies, the Biden administration (fully backed by most Republicans) does not want Russia destabilized by this war.

“For it knows only too well that Russian power alone keeps the Chinese from absorbing the vast spaces of Mongolia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan – and that Russian weapons still flow to the only countries that fight the Chinese in recurring incidents: India on land and Vietnam at sea.”

There is, in fact, a consensus about the ongoing talks, so much so that the conservative Gatestone Institute criticizes it:

“In public, US President Joe Biden is keen to give the impression that he is fully committed to backing Ukraine’s battle for survival. But it is a different story behind the scenes, where Biden and his senior officials are more interested in ending the war in good time for next year’s US presidential election contest.

“Consequently, rather than upsetting the Kremlin by openly backing Ukraine’s NATO membership bid, the Biden administration’s real objective is to explore possible options for ending hostilities this year.

“Biden’s obsession with ending the conflict helps to explain the recent initiative undertaken by a delegation of high-ranking US foreign-policy experts and former national-security officials to hold secret talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York in April. The aim of the meeting was to lay the groundwork for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.

“Among the subjects discussed were some of the thorniest issues of the conflict, such as the fate of Russian-occupied territory such as Crimea that Ukrainian forces have not been able to liberate.”

Tactics and strategy

There are tactical reasons for that; the Ukrainian army is being depleted, and it will need more significant help: more airplanes, new equipment, and possibly also fresh forces to move to the front.

Besides that, there is the American concern that an utter Russian defeat could trigger the collapse of Russia. Its fragmentation could entail dangerous consequences. First, Russian nuclear warheads and missiles could be lost in the total disarray. Some warheads could end up in the hands of crazy terrorists in Africa or other parts of the world.

Then there is a strategic factor: America would like to flip Russia against China. Russia could be agreeable to the proposition as it may fear losing its clout in the Far East and Central Asia to China.

This creates the possibility of China being surrounded by hostile forces in the next few months, which could have massive domestic repercussions in Beijing.

The war in Ukraine, China’s initial support, and Russia’s strategic defeat in Ukraine generate a dire situation for Beijing.

China has been supporting Russia rhetorically and also with some equipment. China’s aid was useful but not a game-changer.

Still, a more significant commitment would have alienated entirely the Western world that buys all of China’s trade surplus, and therefore it could have cost China far more than its return.

Besides, supporting Russia fully in this war would also be dangerous because China is not an active party in the war; Russia is leading it. So at best, China would be rowing for Russia while Russia firmly holds the rudder and decides what to do with the combat. China would be politically kidnapped by Russia for its motives – a risky proposition for Beijing.

On the other hand, leaving Russia completely alone creates new difficulties because it could hasten Russia’s defeat, making life harsher for China, and it could quicken Moscow’s decision to flip against Beijing.

In this situation, the mistake was all about what happened at the beginning, sealing a friendship treaty with Russia and initially supporting the Ukrainian invasion rather than keeping neutral and aloof, distancing itself from the conflict.

China’s initial support now creates an impossible situation in which whatever move it makes will backfire.

Beijing is in the middle of impossible political choices. It cannot side with Russia, which is possibly going to turn against China soon; it cannot leave Russia alone because that would accelerate the turn.

China can think of tricks and clever ways to try to delay the endgame, but all in all, perhaps, if it wants to get out of the corner, it has to rethink its foreign policy deeply.

Russians and Americans privately say that the basic agreement of the ongoing talks is mutual, although there are different concerns about China. The United States may want to avoid the collapse of Russia after a possible humiliating defeat in the Ukrainian war.

This strategic assessment does not make finding accommodation in the war theater easier. Here Ukrainians may fear being deprived of a victory that belongs to them after a year and a half of bloodshed and devastation.

It’s not easy to persuade Ukraine to give up now after so much sacrifice, even though a total victory on the battlefield could be difficult to attain. Families have lost their homes, friends, brothers, and sisters; life can be about ensuring the enemy will not return.

Here is also another element to consider. The seeds of World War II were sown in Italy, Japan and Germany. Italy and Japan were on the right side during World War I, but both felt betrayed by what they gained in the peace treaties and soon started to claim more than what had been allotted to them.

A victory that doesn’t persuade Ukrainians to stay out of future Russian recriminations or a peace that feeds Russia’s future thirst for revenge could prepare for another, much bloodier war in Europe in 10 or 20 years.

Therefore, at this point, it is essential to end the war and find a peace balance that can last – and will not patch up whatever results to move the fight somewhere else, in Asia, against China with only half-baked preparations.

Last, Europe can live without peace in Ukraine. It has absorbed the various economic and commercial shocks of war. The fight in Ukraine has become slightly different from the decade-long fight in Yugoslavia, 20 years ago.

But peace in Ukraine is necessary also to try to find a solution with China and for China to start some rethinking. Ongoing fights in the West breed fears and tensions in the East almost naturally. If the war continues, it is all unsettled and unsettling for everybody, including Beijing.

In this labyrinth of opposing forces, it is tough to find a balance. It’s essential to make Ukraine conscious that as the West took on the massive burden to support it in its formidable fight against Russia, so must Ukraine understand the global situation around the war and help to find a solution.

Moreover, Russia must understand peace can’t be just a respite in its 19th-century imperial ambitions. Moscow needs to reconsider its history and find a new path for its future. Russia’s new direction is more critical than whatever compromise is reached on the battlefield.

This might happen or might not. Realistically it might not impact the overall assessment, especially after the malware affair.

Wars are fought with odd bedfellows. In World War II, the capitalist Western countries fought with the anti-capitalist Soviets against their common fascist threat. The Cold War against the USSR was won with the help of radical Islamists and China.

In both cases, the USSR had a brief love affair with Adolf Hitler with the invasion of Poland, and China was under Moscow’s spell for a long decade.

If China now poses a real, massive threat to the US, Washington could be entitled to switch priorities and seek support from Russia, which is also concerned about Chinese encroachment on its home turf. If that happens, it could turn the tables not only in Ukraine but also in the rest of the world.

This essay first appeared on Settimana News and is republished with permission. The original article can be read here.

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Dissatisfaction with government. It is general and universal; systems discredited are socialist and capitalist, examples lie on both sides of the Pacific, the attitudes are on display among citizens as well as leaders. A process so widespread must find its cause in some common factor, some feature of government that is shared universally, today, and yesterday, in places antique and modern.  

Can such a common failing exist, despite the thousands of years during which reformers, kings, despots, autocrats, aristos and founding fathers have been fine-tuning the subtle features of their wide range of designs for civic organization?

Yes, if we are willing to consider important reforms, on both sides of the Pacific, to the “fourth branch” of government. 

The problem lies in the core feature shared by every variation of government. What is this universally shared component? 

It is the fourth branch of government: bureaucracy, ministership, the Crown’s cabinet, the secretariat, the minions, the clerks, the pencil pushers – many names, it is one function that by its nature, that cannot be performed, day after day, place after place, at the level of competence, by the degree of honesty, at the rate of consistency, over the long run required of it. 

To be precise, it seems to be an empirical, historical, generational fact that (for example) during an era when genius-level founding fathers gather so that they may design the intricacies of the first three branches of government, that a parallel group of super-ministers pops up, but only then, at times of great tension, crisis, to take on the task of grand form, reform and reorganization.

Once formulaic bureaucracy falls into ordinary hands, commonplace hands; once clerks become corrupt or at least careless; after office politics and self-promotion take over from public-spiritedness and the eye and pen-hand of the historians move on to other targets (as always is the empirical case), public dissatisfaction with the operations of government becomes inevitable.

Clerks or minions or some other sort of micro-level real human actors are always needed to transform the generalities announced, for example, by a lawmaker into an actual draft bill, putting into blackletter legal words the otherwise vague and imprecise intention expressed in the speeches made in the legislative chamber.

A variegated collection of other sorts of clerks are the sheriffs who enforce and the data-gathering spies who observe events, making sure rules are followed, along with the scribes who commit all to the record books.

It is an empirical fact that despite the real-world power and influence in the hands of these members of the fourth branch of government that, even in times and places such as the events in the American city of Philadelphia between 1787 and 1779, where power as distributed among the three classic branches of government was sliced and diced with great care and close, intense debate (the intellectual roots of which stretched back to ancient times), bureaucrats were, by means of simple neglect of the details of their employment and direction, allowed lifetime tenure, unchecked authority; great trust was placed in their characters and loose rules laid out to guide their discretion.

In other nations, where constitutions were allowed to grow in the manner of common law, custom, tradition, sometimes revolution and ideology, the clerks and “plumbers” who made the practical decisions that make up the real stuff of governance, grew like weeds, nearly wild in the garden of everyday events.

Kings and kingmakers 

In France, Louis XIII and XIV had Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642), succeeded by his clerk  Cardinal Mazarin (1602-1661); the latter put an end to the spirit of war that threatened to disrupt the peace among the Catholic powers of the European continent.

 Cardinal Wolsey (1473-1530) on the other side of the English Channel by means of his magnificent inability to manipulate the pope, Henry VIII could set the stage for British Protestantism.  But once each of these “men of God” was called back to the great episcopy in the sky, much lesser men took responsibility, with ordinary mediocracy marking their efforts at imitation of their ancestors. In France it was terror; in England, Oliver Cromwell.

When leadership and management merge, mere dissatisfaction is not the problem: Gigantic processes are set in motion. 

Josef Stalin was from 1922 until his death the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party. He began his career as a clerk, assigned to his job by the undisputed leader of the revolutionary government; but once Lenin’s mortal illnesses took over, Stalin’s power transmuted from clerkship all the way to despotism by rapid steps. 

Like a caterpillar who spends time in a chrysalis, becoming a mature moth, Stalin evolved from master clerk to master of all.

George Washington’s presidency was, in part, a creation of his main man, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton’s papers on banking, his wisdom shown in nationalizing state debts, the realization he communicated to his leader that without a tariff-protected domestic economic culture based on manufacturing, the infant United States of America might just as well have scrambled back to colonial status as drawer of water and hewer of wood.

Artilleryman Hamilton brought the onetime plain-spoken General Washington to so sophisticated a political maturity that he was able to walk away from treaty obligations to France because he was shown that national interest trumps middle-class morality.

Hamilton, the first US secretary of the Treasury, opposed by James Madison, even today ranked as the (clerk) who was the Father of the Constitution, fought over whether as president, Washington had the authority to declare the US was neutral in the ongoing (1793) war between France and England, despite a treaty suggesting that the US was bound to support France.

(This high-level propaganda tussle between two of the best bureaucrats ever to face off against each other went on in essence to persuade Washington, but the back and forth documents spoke to the entire nation as well, in what is known as the Pacificus-Helvidius Debates.)

These quasi-ministerial advisers to their political masters were indeed intellectual giants, but only a few years later (1812), advisers had reverted to primitive saber-rattlers called “war hawks” who led America into a war that could have sent the new nation into a state of reconquered subjection.

Whereas Hamilton’s and Madison’s writings kept America out of war, John C Calhoun and Henry Clay (they were congressmen, technically not bureaucrats, but they whipped up public opinion so egregiously and as de facto ministers) browbeat president James Madison so artfully that he signed a declaration of war against superpower England. The result was the burning of the White House by rampaging British troops at the low point of the War of 1812.

The Chinese experience

The Chinese imperial civil-service system lasted more than 2,000 years; it featured a many-layered hierarchical structure of competitive exams, beginning at provincial level and reaching up to the Palace exams, producing an elite phalanx of selectees, who were subject to continuing exams and other testing routines that featured surprise tests.

Personnel were “farmed out” to provincial and other lesser postings before they graduated to serve the emperor. Some historians say the entire tradition of Empire relied for its longevity on the degree of expertise developed among Chinese bureaucracy. If there was a fault in the system, it was that it produced a class of ministers too remote from the lives of ordinary citizens to attract either criticism or support. 

Certainly, the sense of revolutionary resistance that was a feature of Western civil-service systems did not feature prominently in the historical records of the accomplishments of this way of life, which included widespread literacy, a semi-mythical credit for the invention of paper, and a naval force that came within a single counter-directive of discovering the North American continent.

For the purposes of this article, I say the Chinese civil service was a “fourth branch” of government, and it produced stability rather than the reverse. The reason for the contrast in effect was the elaborate “constitutional” level of thoughtful design that was in evidence in its structure, which stands in contrast to typical Western systems, that featured nepotism, aristocratic membership requirements and (by comparison) near random processes by which they were maintained.

And so, in the history of nations, bureaucrats must have been  the ones who carved into a black, finger-shaped solid stone stele the Code of Hammurabi, yet their names were known to history only rarely. 

Once the times “revert to the mean,” the practical operation of civil organization and process, from the interpretation of law codes to the day-to-day reality of civil society was managed by political flunkeys notable for mediocracy. That is, once “normal times” are re-established, so both politicians and their servants become degenerate.

What may be said about the cross-Pacific contrast in “fourth branch” design? 

A merger between the two blueprints cries out for adoption. In the West, no more lifetime tenure, no more political tests for appointees, civil-service exams that are highly selective, retesting on a regular, as well as on a surprise, basis, a thin layer at the top where loyalty to the day’s party-in-power is explicit, but no such loyalty tests “downstream,” a degree on unanimity, but combined with integrity and a spirit of duty-first. 

In modern China, a willingness to remember and adopt the rectitude of the Imperial system, especially with respect to probity rather than ideological tests. A regularization of tests to eliminate (insofar as reasonable) corruption, it being replaced with a sense of patriotic duty and long-term loyalty to some kind of non-partisan single-mindedness to constitutional politics rather than party loyalty. 

In the past, a sharing of power at the top was stabilizing. As in the past, doors should remain open so that ordinary people with extraordinary endowments of skill, honesty, dutifulness and goal-associated persistence are made especially welcome.

On both sides of the Pacific such reforms are lofty in ambition. But that fourth branch of government, if better designed, would yield great dividends in both places.

Tom Velk is a libertarian-leaning American economist who writes and lives in Montreal, Canada. He has served as visiting professor at the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve system, at the US Congress and as the chairman of the North American Studies program at McGill University and a professor in that university’s Economics Department.

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