Stephen Kotkin: IWM Lecture Series. Sphere of Influence 1 of 3

The Gift of Geopolitics:
How Worlds are Made, and Unmade (Vienna, April 2017)

[verbatim transcription]

It could be better without the notes.

Good Evening. When I was younger, which actually, was not that long ago, we had Steve jobs, we had Johnny cash and we had Bob Hope. Now? That’s right, there’s no jobs, no cash and no hope. I know what you’re thinking. Whats going to happen if Kevin Bacon dies? — that’s it — might as well give up completely — no bacon.

First, let me say thank you for the honour of the invitation. You know, Jan muller who gave the lectures last year as at a distinguished political theorist actually based at Princeton university — he’s here this year but when he saw that I was giving these lectures, he fled the country; he’s not in Austria right now. Ivan krachev who is permanent member of the institute, who invited me to give the lectures, also vanished from the country days before I arrived. Challony tried to escape and she hurt herself, and didn’t get out. You can see the injury to her leg which is evidence of her attempt at escape.

So what explains why you’re here; I don’t know. Everyone else it seems, understood. We do these distinguished lectures at my home institution, Princeton university. The sequence of three distinguished lectures.

And I have to say it is the principle way that we deflate people’s reputations. We invite a famous person. They come thinking they must say something profound. They attempt to say something profound. And you can just see the reputation deflating, deflating in the room. The second lecture has half the number of people as the first, and they are even more angry because they came to the second. And then the third lecture is a dialogue between the host and the lecturer. Maybe it works differently here. Yes we will, exactly what I was thinking.

Anyway, my reputation will also deflate. But I have the fortune of not having such an inflated reputation to begin with so the deflation can only get so far. I also have the advantage I can avoid the profound, and focus only on the banal, which is what I’m going to in the 3 lectures today.

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So let us recall the fantasy of the CIA. The cia fantasised for decades to bring down the soviet union. It did all manner of covert operations. It funded the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe. To try to penetrate into the censored soviet space. It spent a great deal of America tax dollars and achieved almost no effects bringing down the Soviet Union.

Then, all of a sudden, someone begins to say “the system, the Soviet system is rotten”. He decides to relax the censorship. He decides to allow information from the west to flood into the country. Forget about Radio Free Europe, how about TV channel one in the Soviet Union.

He decides to introduce market mechanisms and unhinges the planned economy. He deliberately sabotages the centralised rule of the communist party. As a result of which, the federal states, the sates in the federal union, discover they are no longer beholden to Moscow. He forces the introduction of multi -andidate election and secret ballots; competitive multi-candidate elections.

He declares that the satellite states of Eastern Europe can go free, not exactly, what did he say? he said “We will not defend them anymore they are on their own”.

In a word, what the CIA fantasised about but never made much progress on. The general secretary of the communist party of the Soviet Union, he did it — he did it all — and then some. Things that the CIA were not even bold enough to fantasise about. Still to this day having lived through it and having watched it, and having been there, it shocks me.

So, now, we have a new fantasy. The new fantasy is not the CIA fantasy. It is a kind of combination Russian-Iran-china fantasy. What would that fantasy be? It would be, that someone comes along and discredits and maybe even destroys the American system. What would that someone do?

That someone would say. That the whole system is “completely corrupt”. That there are “millions and millions of illegal voters”. That the elections are rigged. That the courts are packed with completely biased judges. That the civil servants are saboteurs in a deep state. That the US media are “enemies of the people”. That the US Government “kills plenty of people just like Russia’s government”.

This person would sabotage the state department, eliminate its budget, block all its appointments, and have his son-in-law run foreign policy. He would attack American intelligence as “nazism”. He would say that states, that sign mutually consensual alliances with us, are cheaters; that the alliances are unnecessary burdens, even swindles.

That the allies are not part of a larger community of values and interests but freeloaders. He would say that the free trade pacts are self-sabotage. He would give all top government positions to his family members. He would promote generals to run all the key civilian posts. So that an Egyptian diplomat would say quote “you’re just like us now; reporting to generals”.

And of course he would use his political power to enrich himself, his properties, and his products.

Yes, that was the Russian-Iran-China fantasy. And lo and behold here we are; this is the world we live in now. The first world, the Gorbachev world, as I said; I’m still in a sate of shock that the general secretary of the communist party did all of that to the soviet system and buried it. Thankfully, in many ways, because it went peacefully as a result of it.

Now, Trump obviously is no Gorbachev. I think, actually, this entire room could probably agree on that point. And the West is also not collapsing. My point is rather that the US, and the west more generally, can only be undermined from within. The threat to the West, the threat to the United States is a loss of faith and a loss of will in itself. And unfortunately that’s where we are now.

OK. Let’s think a little bit about this….

I’m not going to talk about, as was already mentioned, Stalin — I have been living with Stalin now for too many years. I wake up he’s in the bed next to me. I turn on the computer its all about him. I goto sleep at night its all I dream about. Fortunately I don’t live under that system but Ive made myself a captive of it. In fact staling destroyed my eyesight I can no longer see very well. But my glasses are not with me they are unfortunately enjoying life in New York city. I’m not going to talk about Trump either. Even though that’s all we talk about, now, in the United States. I don’t know how it is here, but we talk about trump, then we you stop talking about and somebody says “what about trump” ?

And it’s trump and trump, Trump and more Trump. But I swore I wouldn’t do that here. After all, I fled from the US to come here, unlike those of you who are permanently based here.

I’m not going to talk about Trump’s breakthrough and the continuing stalemate in the US political system. I’m not going to talk about how Trump in a single election cycle, drove a stake through the hearts of both the Bush dynasty and the Clinton dynasty — in a single electoral cycle: thru the Bush dynasty and the Clinton dynasty. Only to create actual family rule himself ! I’m not going to talk about that.

I’m not going to talk about the absence of any realignment in the political system. About how one party continues to believe deeply and sincerely that a reduction in marginal tax rates is the answer to every single question. That party is known as the Republican Party. I’m not going to talk about how, another party believes, that the answer to every single question is identity politics. That party is the democratic party. None of that has changed. We have a breakthrough, and a complete stalemate. Just where we were before.

The difference of course is that Trump revealed the misalignment between the Republican Party voter base and the Republican Party donor and intellectual base. And he holds this now. And if you think they’re going to get rid of him, they’re going to impeach him, they’re going to flush him, down the bowl at the first opportunity. You don’t understand, that he can fracture that party. He can fracture that Republican Party because he’s the one that has support in the voter base — they have support in the donor base and the intellectual class. The rest of them in the Republican Party. So its going to be very interesting, but I’m not going to talk about that.

I’m not going to talk about the nihilism of the Trump administration. The failure to appoint people on purpose to positions in the federal bureaucracy. The appointment instead of 400 campaign aids the only. The only people he’s really appointed, 40 or 50 people, on the one hand and then several hundred campaign aides. Loyalists who planted fakes stories about how Hilary Clinton was dying, and concocted videos, falsifying videos to show, how sick she was and how she was dying — for the New Hampshire election. And are now running major departments in the federal gov. One of them graduated from high-school two years ago and is now one of the highest officials in the US bureaucracy. These are known as ‘beach-head teams’. Those are the only people that this nihilistic administration trusts and those are the only people, with a few exceptions, that they’ve appointed. I’m not going to talk about any of that.

I’m not going to talk about Populism at least not ’til the very end. Somehow populism is a surprise, I’ve been teaching modern authoritarianism, for 28 years. The combination of : Democratic deficit, democratic mechanisms and political entrepreneurialism — is an ancient story. The formula of : the will of the people, the corruption of the elites, the strong man who alone can set things right. I know that story I’m writing 3 volumes about it. In any case we often lose sight of the fact that populism bring salutary effects. Because it brings suppressed issues to the fore. It gives voice to people who are not part of the political system. It doesn’t bring solutions but it does serve a democratic purpose — I’m not going to talk about any of that. So, what am I going to talk about ??? I think, we have a little bit more time before, questions, is that right ! Gotta watch the clock. What am I going to talk about ??

Silly old me, I told you it would be banal; truth in advertising. I’m going to talk about success. In fact these three lecture are going to be about success. I know.

Think back to the world in the mid 1970s . 4 or 5 of you like me were alive then I can see looking out into the audience. Think back to the period of the 70s. The oil-shock price of oil went up 400% in a few months, remember the oil shock? — I do.

Remember the Vietnam war, I remember the Vietnam war, remember when north Vietnam seized south Vietnam in 1975?

Remember Watergate and Richard Nixon, I remember that.

Remember Mao and the cultural revolution, the murderous, insane, cultural revolution of Mao, I remember that.

Remember Greece had a military junta?

Remember Franco in the 70s for a time was still alive and still in power.

Remember Japan, suffered its first post-WW2 recession in the 70s, I remember that.

Remember Breznev. Remember breznev drooling on himself — I remember that — it was on French tv which they couldn’t control; he was overdosing on sleeping pills because he had insommnia, an illness that set in during the Prague spring events when he ordered the tanks to go it.

Remember the economic reforms announced by Kosegin, which vanished without a trace, just like Kosegin would do?

I remember all that, I remember Eastern Europe lived under communism. I remember going to Prague and Berno. And I remember people thought they would live under communism with no end in sight. They couldn’t get out and they had no future that they envisioned especially young people. I remember all of that. I remember the 70s very well.

Ok there were some things in the 70. In 73 the European community expanded remember that. The original six, who did they add? Ireland, Denmark and the Uk. This brought the European community to Nine. If you projected the world forward from the 70s. Would you have been optimistic ? Would you have thought that anything good was coming? Would you have thought the west was the future rather than the past ?

Would you have foreseen the repudiation of Mao ? and the introduction of markets and massive wealth in the monsoon-rice cultivation areas of southern china ??- I didn’t forsee any of that. Would you have foreseen the collapse of the Soviet Union? ; the expansion of the the European Union to nearly all of Europe, not 6 or 9 but 28 minus 1. I didn’t see that. Would you have foreseen the life expectancy we now have on a global scale? The health, the middle class property ownership, the poverty reduction. 1.3 billion people lifted out of poverty by official statistics; I didn’t forsee that.

“The past 250 years has witnessed the most spectacular increase in human wellbeing in history. The economies of China and India have. Supporting recent expansions in global living standards. Life expectancy in most parts of the world has soared on the back of achievements in child mortality. A child born in sub saharan Africa today is more likely to live to the age of 5 as a child born in the Uk at the beginning of the 20th century. “ That’s my colleague Angus Deaton in his book the Great Escape for which he won the Nobel prize.

Strange as it might seem life now is better than at any time in recorded history. More people are better off and fewer people live in poverty. Lives are longer, children die at a much lower rate. One could also add and I know you don’t believe this either, that this is the safest period in recorded history as well. Now, as one of today’s pre-eminent Philosophers Louis Seekay put it best and he said “Right now, everything is amazing and nobody is happy.”

So in a way I have many other Louise cite quotes. In a way that’s what we need to talk about.

We need to remember that we’ve had success and we need to do something with the success that we’ve had. Because were allowing it to slip from our grasp. Now, you’ll tell me that ‘not everything is so great’, that there are lot of people living in poverty still — obviously — that goes without saying. We’re not talking about the elimination of poverty. We’re talking about averages. There’s a problem with averages. Everyone knows there’s a problem with averages. You put your head in the oven, You put your feet in the fridge, And on average you’re comfortable. I agree there is that problem with averages.

The US had 13 billionaires in 1980. It’s got 540 billionaires today. From 13 to 540. In the 1960s the ratio of CEO pay to the Pay of the workforce in the leading 350 companies was 20 to one; 20 CEO pay to one worker pay, on average. By 2016 that ratio was 300 to one. One could also note that unions have dwindled. They were already only one third of the US workforce in 1960. They are one tenth the US workforce in 2016. We could go on with those kind of statistics and they’re important and they tell you something. CEOs making 300:1 is a big change from just a few decades ago.

Now, of course where I sit at the university, they’re a very loud passionate cry for more female and black CEOs in those 350 companies. So that women and blacks, also, can make 300 times what the workers make. And when you point out that might not have much of an effect on the people known as Americans, you are a ‘misogynist’. So, like I say, you can look at this any way you want. But there is an underlying story which is one of success.

The problem is, we weren’t ready for success. The G7 at its height accounted for almost 70% of GDP. It peaked at just under 70, the G7. What does the G7 account for now? 47% of GDP. So the G7 countries have only gotten richer, immensely richer than they were. But they’re share of global GDP is dropping, dropping like a stone. That’s called success, there’re no other word for that. Somehow, however, we were not ready for this success.

Now the most dramatic success of course has been in china. Chinas GDP in 1979? $261 million. China’s gdp today? about $12 Trillion. China’s per capita income in 1979, $270 a year, average income for someone, an inhabitant of China. Nominally today it is $7,500, purchasing power parity is $14,000. China’s income, overall, national economy in nominal dollar terms is now 60% of the US. In 1992, China was 6% of the US economy, in 2007 China was 25% of the US economy.

That’s right, China is the world’s number one manufacturer, no.1 exporter and no1 consumer market for oil, vehicles, smartphones and down the line. Meanwhile we can’t figure out how to provide economic and social opportunity for the lower middle class and middle class anymore. We can’t figure out how to defend democracy.

We have a problem. Success came. The rest of the world advanced. That was the world we were hoping for. That was the breakthrough, the end of communism, China going to a market economy, OK its a Leninist market economy but nonetheless the people are certainly better off in a big way. I could add stories from the rest of the world, Mexico now a middle -income country and a complete success. And you out there could name all the others but you know better than I do. So how could it be? All this success, with the caveats, and yet. Nobody is happy ! As Louis Ciket the preeminent philosopher says.

Well, over the course of next couple of lectures I’m going to try to explain that. The rest of the lecture Today I am going to set some of the building blocks for that explanation. I think I’m actually ok for time so far.

So, one of the things I encounter all the time: I study geopolitics and power, I’ve written a whole bunch of books to the extent I know anything its only that and they’re always about the same thing, geopolitics and power. That’s what these lectures are going to be about. Because to the extent to which I know anything its only that.

Americans, and especially europeans, have long tended to think of geopolitics as a kind of primitivism.

There’s a right wing version of this and a leftwing version. The Right wing dream is a Fantasy of universal democracy; everybody looks like America and supposedly Benign US-lead hegemony. The Left wing version is very different. It’s a world order, governed by supra-national institutions with pooled sovereignty; that’s how you “escape geopolitics”.

What both the left wing and right wing version share is that is a conviction that the rivalry of states obviously produces only conflict, insecurity, impoverishment. Hence, the return of geopolitics is always to be lamented. I don’t know how many times I pick up some august journal in the US and there’s some incredible deep lament about the return of geopolitics. States begin to act according to their interests, which don’t coincide with the interests of other states. Should a return to geopolitics be lamented? Do we really want to escape from geopolitics ? In fact, there is no return, it never went away. And there is no escape.

The West is the greatest sphere of influence that has ever been constituted. It’s a kind of banal point — no denying that that’s what it is, but the West is a sphere of influence. And we forgot that.

We forgot to talk about it that way,
and to defend it that way,
and to defend it against others who would undo it.

Interstate rivalry can obviously unleash cataclysm. We know our history. But the wealthy, democratic west arose not in spite of geopolitics but as a result of geopolitics. The question is therefore not whether geopolitics is escapable or bad but obviously the question is “How can you harness the interstate frictions, to push the major powers not towards war, but towards security and towards prosperity.”?

Let’s think about the period both before the 1940s and the period after. So, Great Britain, beat the French in a 100 years war. Once Napoleon abdicated for the second time. It was a decisive victory for the British. It was kind of bizarre that a country which was much smaller, much smaller population certainly, could beat a country like France. But that’s kind of what happened. And then, we began to live in a British-dominated world, the British created a world market economy, now did they create a fair world market economy , did they create an equal world market economy, did they create a world market economy which was friendly to , no, that’s not what they did, not at all. But Nonetheless they created a world economy.

And the British-dominated world, and it was more and more a British dominated world all the time had a couple of eruptions. One eruption was on the European continent when Bismark unified Germany. All of a sudden a big new dynamic power on the continent. That was a big headspinning turn, all of a sudden. Another eruption was Maji restoration in Japan, this was not a new country the way Bismark’s country was, Japan had existed before but it was reoriented And Like Germany, it went onto an industrial spurt and what could be called a forward and in some peoples eyes aggressive external policy right.

And I could go on, the United States which was the largest industrial economy in the world in 1900, and probably in 1880. Was not a major part of the international system yet. In the British-dominated world, because trade was only about 5% of US GDP and the US had this gigantic Continent itself that it could absorb. But nonetheless it was looming over the international system. Now, why do I bring up this well-known history. It’s because it was the competition among these different states that produced the things that we hold dear. For example science and engineering. If you have ships and I don’t have ships, you’re going to show up at my door and you’re going to tell me how to live — you know what, I’d like everything you have and I’d like to pay as little maybe even nothing, maybe you’ll; Maybe even nothing. Maybe even you’ll pay for it.

And so anybody who wanted to survive in the unsentimental, brutal international order had a choice. It could, do like the British, for example It could build ships, it could build tanks, it could found engineering schools, it could expand universities, it could integrate the polity so that the population could feel part of something larger. And do something called a national culture, create solidarity. All of these attributes we call ‘Modern’ or modernity.

But this was not a socio-political process where you go from tradition to modernity — this was a geopolitical process.

Where you either do it or become subjugated.

Germany was able to do it, Japan was able to do it and a handful of other countries were able to do it. And, it produced the modern world, it produced also a lot of grief. So that was the period before WW1 and then through WW1.

The period after the 1940s, was quite interesting. You still have the state-to-state competition. Sometimes it doesn’t seem that way but you do. But you also have the creation of the liberal, rules-based, international order but that did not take shape because of high-mindedness, it was a classic sphere of influence.

Moreover, it was inspired and sustained by a comprehensive Cold War with the Soviet Union. Or, what used to be called the second world. Remember the first world, and the second world, and the third world. That was sphere of influence thinking: the first world against the second world in competition for the third world. Yes it was. Now, the sphere of influence, known as The West, played a significant part in European integration, the europeans did integration the Americans didn’t do European integration.

But there’s no question that the idea of the west, the idea of a unified sphere of influence the idea of geopolitical competition was a part of that story. It gave additional impetus in the United States to desegregation, to civil rights. Because you had to live up to the promises of the first world. And if you didn’t, courageous people in the streets reminded you of the need to do that.

In fact, the sphere of influence, known as The West, even disciplined the American power. During the Cold War, America did many things that I personally am not proud of, and that I’m sure you have a critique of. But nonetheless, America understood, more of less, that it was part of something — bigger than itself and that it was necessary to remain part of that because that’s where the power came from. There was even an American Grand Strategy. Which, good luck now, trying to get a grand strategy out of Washington and I’m talking about since 1991. Not just since the last couple of months

So, we have this kind of paradox: When geopolitics works the way we kinda like the world to be, we deny that it’s geopolitics. And when geopolitics works in ways that are less benign, that’s when its bad, it’s returning and we don’t want to deal with it.

I would submit to you that we are dealing with some misconceptions and that these misconceptions are non-trivial. They help explain part of our predicament, our inability to defend who we are and what we are.

One misconception is that the Cold War was an era of predictability, stability and relative peace. You know that misconception. I can tell you the Cold War was totally unpredictable, there were crises all the time. There was risk of armageddon several times and not just during the cuban missile crisis, the famous one. There were more that 100 wars around the world during the Cold War. Many more wars than since the Cold War ended. One million Vietnamese died. One million Afghanis died. That wasn’t exacty predictable, stable and relative peace was it ?

Second misconception, I would point to, is that the Current moment is one of profound instability, profound unpredictability and war. I’ve got to tell you, that’s just not true. There is a lot less war now than there was during the Cold War and theres a lot more predictability than there was during the Cold War. I’d be happy to go into various examples to illustrate those points. A third misconception, I’ll only do three, is the so-called clash of civilisations. This is my favourite one because this the panic that sets in when poorer and darker parts of the world begin to gain a little bit of power and say in the international system. That’s known as a clash of civilisations. I just dont think thats true I don’t think there’s a clash of civilisations.

What people are saying when they say the contemporary world, Our world now, is dangerously unstable. What they are saying is that they have television 24 hours a day , 7 days a week with 600 channels, that’s what they’re saying. We’re lucky we didn’t have that during the Cold War. Can you imagine 24/7, 600 channel television about the nuclear armageddon incidents when, we almost fired at them and they almost fired at us.

Now, Having fought and won the very difficult Cold War. The west is poised somehow, to lose the post-Cold War, this is absolutely astonishing. The Cold War was extremely difficult. Communism was a menace. It was a menace predominantly to its own people. The Cold War was necessary, it was not a misunderstanding. Not everything in the Cold War was necessary, not everything in the Cold War was benificent. But nonetheless. It was difficult and necessary and the western sphere of influence won that Cold War. And now we have the post-cold war and we’re on the precipice of losing it. Frankly I’m completely puzzled by this how we could have gotten into this astonishing situation. So the topic of my sphere of influence three lectures is either having an international order or not having one because thats what we currently face.

When you have an international order, you can criticise it: the Americans don’t understand this, the Americans don’t understand that , the Americans shouldn’t do this the Americans shouldn’t do that. That criticism is necessary, and important.

But when you don’t have an international order, you can’t really criticise it. Thats the path that we’re on. We were on that path before trump and we’re on that path now.