This Week, Today: A Nuclear Cock-Off
Russia and NATO beat their chests. Plus – the U.K. is flailing, Obama says things only he could, and Paul Ryan comes out from under his rock.
Welcome to the inaugural edition of This Week, Today, your one-stop shop for fresh commentary on the newsmakers of the week and the important stories that evaded your radar.
If I’m able to stick to my plan (I don’t chide you for being skeptical), I’ll publish this every week from here on out in addition to the feature stories I’m working on (which I’ll publish on an as-completed basis, dammit!).
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
Nukes for all Occasions
Ask any foreign affairs wonk and they’ll tell you we’re at the closest point to nuclear Armageddon since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The main culprit for this, of course, is Russian President Vladimir Putin and his public saber rattling. He’s a small man with a big ego who’s been backed into a corner. And the conventional thinking is that the more losses he sustains on the battlefield in Ukraine, the more tempted he will feel to press that nuclear button.
If he were to cross this threshold, military analysts think he would probably resort to detonating a tactical nuke over the battlefield as means to shock and awe the Ukrainians into a negotiated settlement that allows him to save face, with at least some territorial gains in his pocket. Luckily this is just an “in the realm of possibilities” scenario as of yet; the U.S. Intelligence Community reportedly does not possess any intelligence indicating Putin has decided to make good on his threats. But things could spiral very quickly, especially if the Ukrainians were to notch a definitive rout of Russian soldiers from any one of their strongholds, like Crimea, which thankfully seems unlikely at this point.
So, I have to admit I was a bit taken when I saw the news that NATO just kicked off a 14-nation military exercise designed to practice the bloc’s ability to carry out an air-based nuclear attack. When I say “taken” I don’t mean it in the sense that I’m disapproving of the move per se. “Fight fire with fire” is deterrence 101 and it’s incumbent that we remind Vladdy that we got em’ too – nukes, that is. I mean “taken” as in the weight of it all finally sunk in for me when I read this headline. It’s hard to overstate just how tenuous the situation can get from here.
That pesky “escalation ladder” you hear pundits name drop willy nilly on cable T.V. is real. We do this. Putin, never one to just take anything on the chin, muscles up and follows suit, maybe even taking it a step further by flying nuclear-capable bombers into Poland’s airspace. We match his escalation and send some B-52s into Kaliningrad. He returns the favor, again. Only by now NATO has revised its air intercept guidelines, allowing its fighter aircraft to fly within feet of the Russians in order to box them out of the airspace. A mid-air collision ensues. Both sides raise their DEFCON status – their militaries are on full alert now. A lower-level Russian commander misreads a sensor notification, interpreting it as a U.S. first strike. Too little time to doublecheck. They hit boom. We hit boom. Nuclear annihilation.
Remember – the world was only spared a nuclear conflagration during the Cuban Missile Crisis because a heroic Russian submariner talked his captain off the ledge and dissuaded him from launching a nuclear torpedo, after other members of the crew had interpreted days of radio silence from Moscow as evidence that nuclear war had already begun. The world was spared again in 1983 when a Russian Air Defense officer properly determined that an early-warning system notification indicating that the U.S. had launched 6 nuclear missiles at Russia was erroneous, the fault of a computer malfunction. God only knows how many more close calls there have been that were never publicized.
Bottom line is nukes are scary. And sometimes the best thing you can do for your mental health is to just to keep your head in the sand.
But at the risk of bursting your bubble a little more, and contravening that which I literally just recommended, I got news for you! Our other kleptocratic buddy, Kim Jung Un, may himself be readying for a nuclear test. Yup. South Korea’s intelligence service predicts “Rocket Man” will conduct a nuclear test sometime before November 7th, meaning sometime before the U.S. midterms. The U.S. Intelligence Community has not come out and disputed the South Korean’s assessment, which leads me to believe they think it may be plausible.
If it were to occur, it would be the Hermit Kingdom’s first nuclear test since 2017 – an event that brought the world to its previous nuclear brink. Remember that? Trump threatened “fire and fury…the likes of which this world has never seen before” then descended into a Tweet fest over the size of his nuclear button and Kim Jung Un responded by calling him a “dotard” and warning that he was now capable of hitting any city in the U.S. with a nuke.
It’s a godsend Joe Biden doesn’t know how to work Twitter.
By golly, though. A two-front nuke fest? Feels like the world hangs in the balance.
Has it always hung in the balance? Asking for a friend.
Truss the System?
It’s official. Liz Truss, the embattled prime minister of the United Kingdom, will vacate her post, effective by the end of next week, the deadline for her Conservative Party to vote on a successor. She made the announcement on Thursday, just 45 days into the job. It’s the shortest tenure of any prime minister in British history. Quite the flop.
Her stint had been marked by turmoil and uncertainty from the start. Just two days after her swearing in, Queen Elizabeth died, sending the U.K. into the sort of prolonged state of mourning only a country with a monarchy could begin to understand (has there ever been another monarch in history that has reigned for 70 years?). Two weeks later, Truss, a superfan of Margaret Thatcher and her trademark trickle-down-economics ideology, unveiled a sweeping plan intended to pull her country out of its recession (they call it like it is) – a crisis brought on by high energy prices, raging inflation, and rising interest rates (sound familiar?).
That plan, of course, came in the form of a massive unfunded tax cut (Britain’s largest in half a century) intended to supercharge growth by putting money back in the hands of corporations and high earners. It was classic supply-side economics of the neoliberal right. The only issue was that the cut was only made possible with just as massive government borrowing – a move opponents of the measure warned would only exacerbate inflation. Financial markets overwhelmingly agreed. And it got ugly.
The value of the British pound plummeted, dropping to its lowest point in 50 years against the U.S. dollar. Bond yields soared as investors cashed out in droves, making the cost of borrowing for the British Government much more expensive. Through some complex financial derivative I can’t even begin to explain, this precipitated a follow-on fire-sale of bonds by British pension funds, driving yields even higher. It got so bad that the U.K.’s central bank had to go on an emergency 65-billion-dollar bond-buying spree in an effort to stop the burning.
The market did eventually stabilize. But the British public, now suffering the consequences of this policy miss in the form of higher mortgage costs, wanted heads. Truss sacked Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng, the man in charge of executing her economic plan. She replaced him with Jeremy Hunt, who promptly reversed the scheme on his first day in the job. But the sudden U-turn couldn’t fix the damage to her political reputation, so she jumped ship.
The Conservative Party maintains a healthy majority in parliament and will thus remain in the driver’s seat until at least 2025, the deadline for which the country must hold their next general election. It’s now up to the party bosses to anoint Britain’s 5th prime minister in 6 years. Among the names in contention is Boris Johnson, the very man Truss replaced less than 2 months ago after his swift fall from grace over a series of ethics scandals.
Man oh man can British politics be entertaining (when you’re an outside observer—a spectator—that is).
To say the country has struggled to find its footing post-Brexit is an understatement. But to say Britain’s economy is in shambles because of Brexit, as the many keyboard warriors of the anti-nationalism left have suggested, is intellectually dishonest. They’d almost certainly be in the exact same position they are in today if they were still in the European Union.
Inflation and high energy costs are rampant across Europe, and indeed most of the world. That’s something us Americans would do well to remember; Old Joe and the Dems may have put gas on the fire with all the stimmy checks they dished out, but we’re not the only country suffering.
And that’s why Britain’s meltdown is a cautionary tale for governments around the world that are trying to find creative ways to curb sky-high inflation without triggering crippling recessions. I’m no financial expert (clearly), but my inkling is that this charade may convince some central bankers that “walking and chewing gum at the same time” is a bit of a pipe dream. Time will tell.
One week ago, a British tabloid began livestreaming an image of a bushel of lettuce sitting next to a framed picture of Liz Truss. At the bottom of the stream read the question “will Liz Truss outlast this lettuce?”
Welp – the lettuce won handily. And it’s not even halfway to rotten. Hell – it’s still salad-worthy!
Something tells me this gag will be replicated in other countries in the months to come.
Some Moderation, Please!
We all know the narrative, whether it’s perceived, real or overstated. It goes something like this: out of touch, master-degree-toting coastal elites steeped in abstract arguments about race and gender are looking down on you, a pronoun-mistaking working-class rural American as a backward bigot not worthy of their time or attention. They don’t refer to the state you live in as “fly-over country” for nothing, so the narrative goes.
To the extent this feeling is felt in rural America, it’s not without merit, as Barack Obama suggested during an appearance on the popular left-leaning political podcast Pod Save America this past weekend. By enforcing a culture of strict political-correctness, Democrats come off as condescending to the very voters that decide presidential elections and tip the balance in competitive Senate and Congressional races: white working-class people in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin.
“People just want to not feel as if they are walking on eggshells…they want some acknowledgement that life is messy and that all of us, at any given moment, can say things the wrong way, make mistakes,” he said, an obvious reference to so-called “cancel culture.” Democrats “get into trouble…[when] identity politics becomes the principle lens through which we view our various political challenges,” he added.
It’s not the first time Obama has cautioned the left about rushing to judgements about working-class Americans, people he affably calls “average folks.” Speaking to a crowd of young progressives in 2019 he said, “this idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff – you should get over that quickly…the world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama knows a thing or two about appealing to working-class voters. He carried the Rust Belt states in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections in large part because he campaigned on the bread-and-butter issues they (and most voters) cared about, like wage growth and access to affordable healthcare. He also put a whole lot of effort into coming off as a relatable family-man and not some out-of-touch D.C. technocrat (he didn’t always live up to this ethos – especially when he was behind a podium). He made more appearances at county fairs, shook more hands, kissed more babies, and schmoozed with more farmers than any other national politician in recent memory.
But most importantly, he didn’t reflexively wade into hot-button cultural issues of the day even if every progressive bone in his body wanted to. This was true both while he was on the campaign trail and when he was in the Oval Office. Real change occurs slowly, when you have durable majorities. You must pick and choose your battles based on your read of where MOST of America is at – not just the intelligentsia class. Move too fast and you risk alienating a large swath of people who are already wary of their place in a country undergoing rapid demographic and cultural changes.
It was only after he had stabilized economic conditions in Middle America and delivered on his promise for expanded (and affordable) healthcare access that Obama felt he had enough political capital to officially come out in support of same sex marriage. That happened in May 2012, 6 months before the election that would determine if he would become a two-term president. Pundits claimed it was his death nail. The conventional wisdom in their circles was that rural America would come out in droves for his GOP competitor, animated by a feeling that the delta between the America that was and the America that is had grown too large. And yet he handily won every Rust Belt state, yet again.
The lesson: prove to working-class voters that you’re attuned to their needs and wants—e.g., a steady job, access to healthcare, decent educational opportunities for their children—and they’ll come around on social issues. (When was the last time you heard a politician on the right make a fuss about gay marriage?)
Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 election is the cautionary tale. She waded too deeply into hot-button cultural issues, focused her campaign too heavily on gaslighting Trump’s character flaws, and scored a huge own-goal when she referred to voters drawn to Trump as “deporables.” To the extent she had an economic agenda that would benefit working-class Americans, it was lost in all this noise. She came off as a condescending, out-of-touch political elite. And Trump’s promise to re-shore manufacturing jobs lost to globalization and to kick out illegal immigrants who had taken work away from Americans won out, however unrealistic or at times xenophobic these promises were. He handily captured the Rust Belt, surprising many by turning long-time blue states Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania red.
Old Joe recaptured most of the Rust Belt in 2020 by falling back on Obama’s formula. He foot stomped his rough and tumble Scranton, Pennsylvania roots and his decades-long support of unions. And he mixed it up with “regular folk” at the county fairs. Since winning the presidency he’s actually delivered on some legislative wins that would ostensibly benefit the Rust Belt working class. The new Intel semiconductor plant in Ohio, made possible by funding from the CHIPS Act (and set to come online in 2025), stands out.
But there’s a sense in rural America that Biden and the Democratic party have become the sort of governing mouthpiece for the ultra-progressive “woke" ideology that has taken root at many of the U.S.’ most esteemed college campuses and in the editorial pages of its most influential newspapers.
(Defining “woke” is perhaps as perilous as the very phenomenon it represents. Many have tried. I have yet to find a satisfactory definition that can be articulated in less than five sentences. It’s one of those “you know it when you see it” things. At risk of coming off as reductive myself, I will just direct you to this illuminating piece by The Economist and the corresponding podcast conversation on it.)
It’s a sense no doubt intensified by Republican propaganda. It’s also apparent that many people conflate the thinking that reverberates through Ivy-league institutions, certain mainstream media outlets, and in Twitter echo chambers with that of the thinking that occurs in the offices of Democrats around the country, since the party happens to be the political home for the vast majority of voices in these entities. There are certainly corners of the party where differences in thinking are indistinguishable; the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC)-types take the cake on this one. But characterizing this ideology as official Democratic doctrine is a stretch, even if party bosses sometimes seem to greet the “wokesters” with a nod and a wink.
Regardless, the pace of change occurring in the cultural milieu has to be perturbing to rural Americans. I mean, I’m a socially liberal type, born and bred in LA, but when I see a Fox News headline like this “State Department funding 'drag theater performances' in Ecuador to 'promote diversity and inclusion,’” my eyebrows can’t help but furl, even though I suspect the story has been sensationalized. I can’t imagine what they’re thinking.
Perhaps it’s fitting, then, that the Democratic Party is deploying Obama to Wisconsin and Michigan next week to help rally support for its Senate and gubernatorial candidates ahead of the midterms.
There he will meet some familiar faces. He will greet adorning fans with that characteristic smile of his. He will disarm skeptics with that drawl in his voice he brings out at rallies to emphasize relatability.
He will stay on message, outlining how practical items in Biden’s agenda will serve them, the “average folks.” He will not wade into the fraught culture wars of our current moment.
Many will remark afterwards on his calm, cool, demeanor and how he didn’t come across as a Washington elite.
Inflation, however, will be the elephant in the room, weighing on everyone’s mind. If Biden and Fed Chairman Jerome Powell can’t solve that—and quick—Rust Belt voters may determine they’ve given the Dems too much leash on the cultural front for too little on the economic front.
If that happens, they will run to hills, back to the party of Trump.
This will not be because they’re innately racist or bigoted or backward, as certain editorialists will contend. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that they’d placed their bets on a black man with a strange middle name like “Hussein.”
It will be because the Dems grew just too out of touch.
Better Call Paul
Speaking of political throwbacks, Paul Ryan (remember him), former Speaker of the House, vice presidential running mate to Mitt Romney and the onetime sporter of the country’s most famous widow’s peak, came out from the rock he’s been hiding under since his “retirement” from politics in early-2019. Speaking at an event hosted by Teneo, a global consulting firm that he vice chairs, the has-been Republican golden boy made a bold claim: Trump will not win the GOP nomination for the 2024 presidential ticket.
"I think Trump’s un-electability will be palpable by then," he said. "We all know he’s much more likely to lose the White House than anybody else running for president on our side of the aisle. So why would we want to go with that?"
Ryan, who had a notoriously fraught relationship with Trump but nonetheless saw him as a vehicle to pass marque conservative legislation like the 2017 tax cut, predicts a host of Republican figures will come out of the woodwork as the primary nears.
"There’s a handful of people that are going to run, because it’s the only cycle they can run in. They can’t wait until 2028," he said. "They’ve got to go now if they’re ever going to go. And they don’t want to die without ever trying."
However, he suggested it’s a bit of a cat and mouse game right now among presidential hopefuls. No one wants to make the first move and declare their candidacy because they fear it would exact a pile-on from Trump and his base that would be so strong it would nuke their chances out the gate. "I think people will delay their decisions, and they’ll wait for somebody else to take the first plunge to take the ire of Trump, to have him go after that person and try and hurt them with MAGA voters, so then they can follow behind," Ryan said. “It’s kind of a prisoner’s dilemma.”
I’ve given up trying to predict Trump’s political fortunes. The guy has weathered more storms than Jim Cantore. I’m mentally prepared for that moment he descends the stairs of Mar-a-Lago holding up the letters from Kim Jung Un that he hid from the National Archives and promising a “Drain the Swamp” Part Two.
But if he decides not to run, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis certainly remains the frontrunning GOP contender. He’s postured himself as flagbearer of Trumpism by wading into the culture wars and taking on the “woke left.” But behind all the noise he’s known as a shrewd, if aloof, technocrat who at least puts a good faith effort into governing. What also goes unsaid is that he’s more of an establishment Republican than he lets on. He supports traditional conservative policies, such as repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes for big business, reforming the immigration system and opposing abortion.
Other rumored candidates tend to fall in this category too, even if they’ve taken pains to appear otherwise. They include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Vice President Mike Pence, Arkansas Senator Tim Cotton, and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
One thing the Teneo interviewer failed to broach, however, is whether Paul Ryan will make a go for the nom too.
Maybe it’s a stretch. But in the slim chance he ran and managed to stay competitive in the primary, it might just prove that the Trump Era was but a long cold – a blip in history.
But don’t make any bets just yet.
Now if you’ve made it this far, this is the part where I share links to essays and investigative reporting I found enlightening and give you some inside baseball on the storylines I’m keeping an eye on. But of course, this was all self-explanatory to you.
What I’m reading:
Scheduled to Die: The Rise of Canada’s Assissted Suicide Program , Common Sense
A Lost Manuscript Shows the Fire Barack Obama Couldn’t Reveal on the Campaign Trail, New York Times
Inside the Shameful Cancellation of Jihad Rehab, National Review
Everything/Nothing is "Illegal" in International Relations, I Might Be Wrong
Trump Was Betrayed by His Diet Coke Valet, New York Magazine
How to Avoid a War Over Taiwan, Foreign Affairs
The Solution to the Global Food Crisis Isn’t More Food, Foreign Policy
Tulsi Gabbard’s road not taken, The Spectator
As infrastructure money flows, Buttigieg’s choices will shape U.S. for generations, Washington Post
Threads I’m watching:
Tomorrow, China’s 20th Party Congress will come to a close and Xi Jinping almost certainly will emerge with the rubber stamp he needs for an unprecedented 3rd term. I’ll provide my take on the implications of all of this in next week’s edition.
Midterms, Midterms, Midterms. Latest polling suggests Democrats won’t actually manage to blunt the trend of presidents getting whacked in their first term. But who knows, our polling has resembled guesswork in recent years.
The Federal Reserve is eyeing another .75% rate hike by early next month. I’ll be watching for market reactions and sentiment. Will inflation ever cool?
Winter is coming on the eastern front. This will affect not just the energy situation in Europe (gotta keep homes warm), but the scenario on the battlefield in Ukraine. Fall rain showers will create muddy terrain – rendering Ukrainian and Russian military tanks immovable, or at the very least incredibly vulnerable to enemy strikes. The sub-zero temperatures that will follow will do a number on soldiers’ morale. Could this provide an opening for a diplomatic breakthrough? My guess is no. But I’ll be keeping an eye on it.
See you next week!