| | | | How NOT to Fight Russian Meddling | | The new report released by a Senate Democrat on Russian election interference overseas offers a useful insight into Washington's thinking on how to counteract it, writes Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg View. But recommendations like ramping up spending on countering Russian influence efforts miss the point – and some lessons from Europe.
"The European nations where Russian strategies have been thwarted haven't neutralized it by outspending Russia but by relying on their civilizing traditions -- like German parties, which agreed not to use social network bots and paid trolls against each other. And if Swedish media literacy education works, Swedes will discount US government-funded counterpropaganda along with Russian-funded propaganda. It's also likely to feed anti-US resentments, which are often at least as strong in European countries as anti-Russian ones," Bershidsky says.
"This is not to suggest the Cardin report contains no useful recommendations. It's strong on exposing dirty and Kremlin-related Russian money inundating the West and making sure it doesn't surface in political campaigns. It promotes international efforts to build up Western nations' cyber defenses -- and suggests, correctly, that the West should pay close attention to Ukraine as the testing ground for all kinds of Russian cyber mischief."
But the "better recommendations in the report are about building general resilience to cyberattacks, corruption, irregular campaign funding and democracy-endangering media illiteracy. Robust efforts in this direction will do more to hurt the Putin regime than counterpropaganda, retaliatory sanctions and hostile rhetoric: They'll make sure it keeps losing, as it lost everywhere in Western Europe in 2017."
| | An Arab Spring Beacon Starts to Dim | | Tunisia has been one of North Africa's few bright spots since the Arab Spring, relatively stable even as unrest and violence have wracked neighbors. But a wave of protests across the country this week against austerity measures and "an unpopular new Finance Act, which saw price hikes and VAT increases imposed from January 1" has resulted in hundreds of arrests – and is leaving that picture of stability in tatters.
The National editorializes: "The new year began for Tunisians with a rise in taxes and a hike in prices for everything from fruits and vegetables to housing and gasoline. In an economy where the minimum wage ($150) falls way short of even a small family's average monthly cost of living (estimated to be around $240) – and where unemployment is above 15 percent – a sudden rise in prices, coupled with a squeeze on incomes, was bound to provoke unrest."
| | Is America's Most Important Election this Year in…Mexico? | | | The midterm elections are already making headlines, as a string of retirement announcements by Republicans has seemingly boosted Democrats' prospects of retaking the House of Representatives. But Duncan Wood suggests in The National Interest that the most important election for America this year might not actually be taking place in America. Instead, keep an eye on Mexico's presidential race – and the rise of a candidate strongly critical of President Trump.
Mexico is "the United States' third largest trade partner (in 2016 this amounted to almost $600 billion), the second largest importer of American goods and services, and it is the first or second export market for twenty-nine states," Wood says.
Mexico has also "become a reliable and crucial partner in controlling flows of Central American migrants: for the last two years the Mexican government has deported more Central Americans during their journey across Mexico than the United States has from American territory."
"For all these reasons, July's election will have far-reaching implications for the United States. The next government in Mexico will determine the extent of ongoing cooperation with the United States and whether or not the friendly nature of bilateral relations will continue. Although bilateral affairs have been transformed over the past thirty years from enmity to friendship and partnership, continuity is far from guaranteed. While it is true that the majority of the contenders profess an amicable approach to Washington, the current front-runner [Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador] has a complicated relationship with the United States and is perhaps the most stridently nationalist." | | Why China's Communist Party Is Playing Cupid | | Decades of China's one-child policy -- and a preference for having boys -- left the country with a surplus of men. That has the government worried – and playing cupid, writes Emily Rauhala in the Washington Post.
"The number of unmarried men between 35 and 59 will reach 15 million in 2020, according to one Chinese estimate," Rauhala writes.
"Concerned the gender imbalance could create instability, the ruling party first tried to shame single women into marriage, calling them 'leftover' and comparing them to yellowed pearls.
"Now it has settled on a more robust market intervention: mass matchmaking."
In the province of Zhejiang, for example, "an estimated 100,000 young people attended Communist Youth League dating events last year, the group says."
| | America Really Isn't Ready for Another Recession | | The stock market is booming, unemployment is low, and consumer confidence is high. But while the next recession might be the last thing on many Americans' mind, it should be – because the United States is ill-equipped to cope with it, writes Barry Eichengreen for Project Syndicate.
"Policymakers normally respond to recessions by cutting interest rates, reducing taxes, and boosting transfers to the unemployed and other casualties of the downturn. But the US is singularly ill-prepared, for a combination of economic and political reasons, to respond normally," Eichengreen notes.
"Congress has cut taxes at the worst possible time, leaving no room for stimulus when it is needed. Adding $1.5 trillion more to the federal debt will create an understandable reluctance to respond to a downturn with further tax cuts."
Meanwhile: "[S]cope for the kind of international cooperation that helped to halt the 2008-2009 contraction has been destroyed by Trump's "America First" agenda, which paints one-time allies as enemies. Other countries will work with the US government to counter the next recession only if they trust its judgment and intentions. And trust in the US may be the quantity in shortest supply."
| | The Kids Are Alright. Or Better Behaved, At Least | | Concerned about the behavior of young people today? You shouldn't be – or not too concerned, anyway, The Economist notes. Because by several measures, they are better behaved than ever.
"Perhaps the most obvious change is that teenagers are getting drunk less often. They start drinking later: the average age at which young Australians first try alcohol has risen from 14.4 to 16.1 since 1998. And even when they start, they sip rather than chug. In Britain, where a fifth of 16- to 24-year-olds do not drink at all, the number of pubs is falling by about 1,000 a year, and nightclubs are faring even worse. In the past young people went out for a drink and perhaps had something to eat at the same time, says Kate Nicholls, head of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, a trade group. Now it is the other way round," The Economist says.
"Teenagers are also having less sex, especially of the procreative kind. In 1991, 54% of American teenagers in grades nine to 12 (ages 14-18) reported that they were sexually experienced, and 19% claimed to have had sex with at least four partners. In 2015 those proportions were 41% and 12%. America's teenage birth rate crashed by two-thirds during the same period."
"In short, young people are less hedonistic and break fewer rules than in the past. They are 'kind of boring,' says Shoko Yoneyama, an expert on Japanese teenagers at the University of Adelaide. What is going on?" | | | | | | |
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