Détente is a French word that roughly translates to ‘relaxation’. It is used to denote the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation, according to Wikipedia. Even though the word détente has been in use long before the cold war of post WWII, it is during the late 1960s and 70s it became a widely circulated currency. The main objective behind the détente regime of the 1970s was to restrain the feverish arms race that was raging between the WARSAW PACT countries of Eastern Europe and NATO. At the time, the two groupings were at par (more or less) when it came to destructive weaponry, mostly WMD (including nuclear arsenals). As a result, nuclear confrontation between the two camps became unthinkable. It is this doctrine of madness or MAD-Mutually Assured Destruction that gave rise to the various arms treaties of the détente era!
SALT I, (Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty) Helsinki Accord, ABM Treaty (Anti-Ballistic Missile), Partial Test Ban Treaty, Outer Space Treaty, Non-proliferation Treaty, SALT II (not ratified by the US), START, etc. were the various agreements signed between the US and the USSR, the superpowers backing the military alliances of NATO and the WARSAW PACT, respectively. In 1989, the USSR collapsed and the iron curtain (the ideological curtain that divided Europe into two, east and west) came down, including the Berlin Wall. Russia was devastated and before long all the iron curtain countries joined the reigning global capitalist system in earnest. After the unfolding of the socialist camp, NATO became rather cocky and started war adventures all over, even in places that were inconceivable only a decade ago. Yugoslavia was brutally bombed and fragmented. Balkanization roared all the way to the Baltics. The coup d’état in Ukraine was probably the single most infraction that roused Russia. One should note that Ukraine (Little Russia) was part and parcel of the Russian Empire as well as the USSR. Currently, NATO is contemplating of using small-scale nuclear weapons on the European (and elsewhere) war theatres, which might (most likely) involve Russia!
After the collapse of the USSR in 1989 many thought the world would be a much safer place, compared to the cold war era. Reality proved otherwise. The sole superpower went on war rampages and started to devastate one country after another. A very senior commander of the US/NATO openly boasted, ‘we will knock out six countries in the next five years’! Amongst these targeted countries only Iran and North Korea were spared the aggression. Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen are/were more or less destroyed by NATO/USA. Of course, there are always concocted excuses or false flags, before the unleashing of the systemic terror on weaker states. The late Howard Zinn was puzzled; ‘how can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?’ Iran and North Korea were determined to come up with some kind of deterrent before it was too late. To some extent they achieved their objectives. North Korea is now a nuclear power and Iran has offensive missile systems that can potentially hit all the Middle East US military bases, as well as inflict significant damages on Israel and Saudi Arabia!
Enter Russia! As we have been saying all along, Russia is too grand to be put on the same scale as that of the ‘vassal states’ of the east, to use a phrase coined by former French foreign minister. Russia might be down, but never out! Sadly, hubris blinded NATO undermined Russia’s overall potential, not only in the area of armaments, but also in its geopolitical influences. Only fifteen years after the US unilaterally abrogated the ABM Treaty, Russia came up with weapon systems that are anti-symmetric to western arsenals. Hypersonic delivery, electronic jamming, frying laser, advanced propulsion systems, (cruise missiles with unlimited range) etc. are the new technologies on which the current Russian offensive military posture is based. To be sure, Russia’s formidable defensive weapons are also up and running. The very effective S-300 and S-400, to say nothing about S-500, are, literally, second to none! That is why many defenseless countries are lining up to buy these (defensive) weapons to protect their countries from bombardment (airplanes) and cruise missile attacks. NATO’s irresponsible expansion towards the Russian border has triggered a very firm and unequivocal response from Putin. In his last week’s address to the Russian Parliament, he emphatically asserted that no war using nuclear weapon (small, medium, large, etc.) will be tolerated and Russia will respond decisively by employing its various nuclear arsenals. Protection will also apply to Russia’s allies, declared the president. Therefore, all of NATO’s imbecilic maneuverings and going-ons in places like Poland, Romania and the Baltic states, are now rendered (effectively) useless, unless NATO wants to risk an all out nuclear war that will devastate not only Europe, but also the US mainland!
Unfortunately, MAD round two needed to be revived to bring back détente round two! This time around, however, China has to be included in all subsequent agreements, as an equal partner. China is already an all round super power. Its true economic size is by far the largest in the world (PPP purchasing power parity). The overall size of China’s military, to say nothing about its increasingly advanced technology, puts it on the same level as that of the other two superpowers.
‘Although most Americans may be largely ignorant of what was, and still is, being done in their names, all are likely to pay a steep price-individually and collectively-for their nation’s continued efforts to dominate the global scene.’ Chalmers Johnson. “Nobody wanted to talk to us about the root of the problem. Nobody listened to us; so listen to us now,” Vladimir Putin. Good Day!
DÉTENTE NOW
Lemlem, Solomon & Habitam in record breaking show in Torun
Ethiopian Lemlem whose World U-20 1500m record of 4:01.57 was ratified last week kicked to victory ahead of the race as a favorite whilst World 3000m record holder Kenyan Beatrice Chepkoech also produced a good show in the latest World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold event in Torun-Poland.
Lemlem, Chepkoech and Ethiopia’s Fantu Worku had followed the pacemaker through 1000m mark on a world record pace, clocking 2:44.60, but 200m earlier the world record-holder, Genzebe Dibaba, had dropped out of the race on her season debut.
The pace slowed to 3:01.25 for the second kilometer as Lemlem led from Chepkoech and Fantu with 5:45.85 on the clock. A quicker final kilometer saw the 2016 U-20 World champion silver medalist Fantu dropped and a last lap of around 28.8 saw 19-year-old Lemlem surge to a world-leading meeting record of 8:31.24 ahead of Chepkoech’s 8:31.72 PB.
Ethiopia’s world 5000m silver medalist Solomon Barega won the 1500m in an indoor PB and meeting record of 3:32.97 from Marcin Lewandowski with a Polish indoor record of 3:35.71. In third, Neil Gourley ran 3:35.79 to move to fifth on the UK indoor all-time rankings, whereas the time also beat his outdoor PB.
The Torun World Athletics Indoor Tour also offered another surprise victory to Ethiopia’s Habitam Alemu who ran a big PB to improve Women’s 800m’s previous meeting best with 1:58.19. It is the biggest accolade for the 24 year old Habtam who specializes in 800m event. Poland’s Joanna Jóźwik was second with 2:00.42, while Nadia Power had another fine run to smash her Irish indoor record with 2:00.98 in third.
Economics and Elections
Economics and elections form a tight weave. When anchoring economic threads snag, governments can fall. Electorates, the “nation as voter,” are strongly affected by global economic fluctuations, real and perceived. For all democratic nations that have received a reasonable amount of study, plausible economic indicators, objective or subjective, can be shown to account for much of the variance in government support. In multivariate competition, controlling for other aggregate issue measures, the economic indicators hold their own.
Indeed, the savvy modeler, given the choice of only one predictor, would do well to select an economic measure. Which one? The answer varies from country to country. It could be unemployment, inflation, or growth, perhaps measured perceptively, perhaps at a lag. James Hughes, Professor and dean emeritus of Rutgers University stated that measurement variability is not a theoretical weakness.
Rather, it incorporates, as it should, the institutional history of eco-nomic performance and statistical reporting in that particular country. Also, it is in harmony with the value of specifying political context, as is done in the positive cross-national studies. Electoral institutions, which shape the distribution of political economic responsibility in a nation, can affect much. Where government is led by one party, rather than several in coalition, the economy-polity link is especially firm.
Professor Rice Lewis-Beck of Leeds University argued that the powerful relationship between the economy and the electorate in democracies the world over comes from the economic responsiveness of the electors, the individual voters. Among the issues on the typical voter’s agenda, none is more consistently present, nor generally has a stronger impact, than the economy. Citizen dissatisfaction with economic performance substantially increases the probability of a vote against the incumbent.
In a sense, it is even more important than long-term factors such as partisan identification, because of its greater volatility. Opinion on economic performance – satisfied versus dissatisfied – can alter dramatically from one election to the next, whereas party identification and other long-term forces change little. Thus, the fall of a government is more likely to come from a shift in economic evaluations than from a shift in party attachments.
What is the psychology of the economic vote? The classic reward-punishment model appears sound. According to James Hughes, voters, regardless of the democracy in which they live assess national economic conditions and reward or punish the politicians responsible for those conditions. When judging the economy, they tend to look at multiple indicators rather than a single one such as only unemployment and arrive finally at a summary view. That view is subjective; it comes from an internal calculus that may use unique weights, and it is based on impressions from various sources, as well as on hard numbers from statistical reports. For example, a voter may decide that the economy has done badly over the last year.
According to Professor Rice Lewis-Beck, this collective retrospective judgment will tend to produce a vote against a party in government. Moreover, economic voters are not naive. They discern when a party is more clearly responsible for economic policy, and adjust the likelihood of their sanction accordingly. Further, they are capable of prospective judgments on party promises, in conjunction with retrospective judgments of party performance.
The economic voter favors a different party for different problems. For instance, in the United States, Democrats are considered better at dealing with unemployment, regardless of incumbency status. Since economic voters act largely on their perceptions of the national economy, it is important to know what they actually know about the economy. Because a good deal of the average voter’s economic information must come from the media, establishing these media connections is in order.
Taxes are an extremely touch subject amongst all voters across the world. The introduction of or increase in taxes is enough to make a government unpopular. Conversely, repealing or reducing taxes is enough to increase the popularity of any government. This is the reason why pre-election budgets are often marked by tax breaks for the masses. Often, the industrialists and the wealthy are made to pay for these tax breaks. A lot of times, the government is just adding to the national debt which means that the taxes are only reduced temporarily and will have to be increased at a later date.
Industrialists and businessmen are known to avoid taking key decisions during an election year. This is because a change in the government may also mean a change in the priorities of the government. Many times, the policies of a government entirely change the viability of a project. Businessmen want to avoid the risk of their projects becoming redundant thanks to government policies. Hence, they prefer to play the wait and watch game. This obviously has a negative impact on the economy since the economic output, and the jobs which could have been created now are being postponed.
Donovan Bowler of Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy noted that almost all extant economic voting research, assumes the most relevant evaluation dimension is global economic output, i.e. “How is the nation’s economy doing?” But economic distribution may be an emerging relevant dimension. That is, what are the electoral effects of rising income inequality and insecurity?
According to Donovan Bowler, within Europe generally, there is also the question of the effects of the European Union on economic voting nationally and for the European Parliament. Dr. Andrew Martins of Leeds University stressed that little is known about economic voting in developing countries, although this is changing, as different recent study papers attest. One imagines that the reward-punishment paradigm can be extended to transitional democracies in Africa, for example. However, different dimensions, such as economic globalization, may emerge as more important. In fact, in the long run, increasing globalization may change the character of economic voting in western nations as well.
