Read Around the World in a Weekend: March 11, 2022

Russia/Ukraine

>      Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy “Reroute, Reduce, or Replace? How the Oil Market Might Cope with a Loss of Russian Exports After the Invasion of Ukraine”

This paper examines the potential for disruptions and possible direction of change in Russia’s participation in the global oil market, and in the market itself. For a companion discussion of the natural gas dimensions of this issue by the Center for Energy Studies, please see “Strategic Response Options If Russia Cuts Gas Supplies to Europe” (February 2022).

>      Pew Research Center “Split between Ukrainian, Russian Churches Shows Political Importance of Orthodox Christianity”

The recent decision by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to split from its Russian counterpart after more than 300 years of being linked reflects not only the continuing military conflict between the two countries in recent years but also the important political role Orthodox Christianity plays in the region

>      Politico EU “Russian Military’s Corruption Quagmire”

Bogged down in Ukraine, Russian forces battle the consequences of systemic sleaze.  This article references a Transparency International report detailing the corruption in Russia’s defense sector.  You can access that report HERE.

>      BBC “Ukraine: Why so many African and Indian students were in the country”

Ukraine was home to over 76,000 foreign students, according to government data from 2020. Nearly a quarter of the students were from Africa, with the largest numbers coming from Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt. India easily accounts for the highest portion with over 20,000 students. Why were there so many foreign students in Ukraine?

United States

>      Office of the Director of National Intelligence “2022 Annual Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community”

This assessment focuses on the most direct, serious threats to the United States during the next year. The order of the topics presented in this assessment does not necessarily indicate their relative importance or the magnitude of the threats in the view of the IC. All require a robust intelligence response, including those where a near-term focus may help head off greater threats in the future, such as climate change and environmental degradation.

>      Federal Reserve Bank of New York “Cyber Risk and the US Financial System: A Pre-Mortem Analysis”

The New York Fed models how a cyber-attack may be amplified through the U.S. financial system, focusing on the wholesale payments network. We estimate that the impairment of any of the five most active U.S. banks will result in significant spillovers to other banks, with 38 percent of the network affected on average. The impact varies and can be larger on particular days and geographies. When banks respond to uncertainty by liquidity hoarding, the potential impact in forgone payment activity is dramatic, reaching more than 2.5 times daily GDP. In a reverse stress test, interruptions originating from banks with less than $10 billion in assets are sufficient to impair a significant amount of the system. Additional risk emerges from third-party providers, which connect otherwise unrelated banks, and from financial market utilities.

>      Lloyd’s of London & Cambridge’s Centre for Risk Studies  “Cyberattack on US Power Grid Could Cost Over $1 Trillion”

The report examines scenarios in which hackers crash sections of the US power grid in 15 states and Washington, DC – an attack that could leave 93 million people in the dark. The report claims that the blackout would result in a “rise in mortality rates as health and safety systems fail; a decline in trade as ports shut down; disruption to water supplies as electric pumps fail and chaos to transport networks as infrastructure collapses.” In the end, the damage to the US economy would be anywhere from $243 billion to $1 trillion depending on the scenario. It estimates that insurance claims related to the blackout could range between $21.4 billion to $71.1 billion depending on the severity of the attack.

>      Pew Research Center “Majority of Workers Who Quit a Job in 2021 Cite Low Pay, No Opportunities for Advancement, Feeling Disrespected”

The COVID-19 pandemic set off nearly unprecedented churn in the U.S. labor market. Widespread job losses in the early months of the pandemic gave way to tight labor markets in 2021, driven in part by what’s come to be known as the Great Resignation. The nation’s “quit rate” reached a 20-year high last November.

Italy

>      European Council on Foreign Relations “Italy’s Challenging Divorce from Russia”

Russia’s war on Ukraine has prompted urgent changes in Italian foreign policy. Rome’s efforts to distance itself from Moscow are creating major challenges at home.

Tunisia

>      Carnegie Middle East Center “Becoming Toast”

The Ukraine conflict has led to a sharp increase in global energy and wheat prices, exacerbating Tunisia’s fragile economic situation. Tunisians had already been suffering from delays in the payment of public-sector salaries and shortages of wheat, medicines, sugar, and sunflower oil.  Egypt is facing similar challenges, too.

China

>      National Defense “Algorithmic Warfare: China Outpacing US in Key Science Metrics”

China is pulling ahead of the United States when it comes to key indicators of science and engineering prowess, the National Science Board is warning. The nation is falling behind China in important areas such as growth in research-and-development investment, the manufacturing of critical emerging technologies, and patents for innovative systems, according to the National Science Board’s “State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2022” report (which you can access HERE).

India

>      European Council on Foreign Relations “Why India’s Silence on Ukraine is an Opportunity for Europe”

India’s dependency on Russia has left it reluctant to publicly criticize Putin’s war on Ukraine. Rather than pressure India to pick a side, the EU should show India that it is a serious geopolitical partner.

>      Foreign Policy “In Sri Lanka, Organic Farming Went Catastrophically Wrong”

Faced with a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, Sri Lanka called off an ill-conceived national experiment in organic agriculture this winter. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa promised in his 2019 election campaign to transition the country’s farmers to organic agriculture over a period of 10 years. Last April, Rajapaksa’s government made good on that promise, imposing a nationwide ban on the importation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and ordering the country’s 2 million farmers to go organic. The result was brutal and swift. 

Book Recommendation of the Week:

>      The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross

In 1864, Hapsburg Archduke Maximilian, the brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, landed in Mexico to establish a monarchy where he would-be Emperor of Mexico.  Done at the behest of France’s Napoleon III (who famed historian AJP Taylor said “learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones”), the effort was doomed from the start.  In his engrossing book, Shawcross brilliantly details this last pathetic gasp of European colonial aspirations in the Americas.  The United States, in the grip of a bloody Civil War, nevertheless was having none of Napoleon’s grand plans and helped the legitimate President, Benito Juárez, defeat Maximilian (who ended up in front of a firing squad).  This sad episode in Mexican history has had ramifications on Mexico’s politics as well as impacting broader US Latin American policy ever since.