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The Print
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Print
G7 is no more than a relic of the past. India should focus more on G20, BRICS
It's worth remembering how the G7 began. A 'fireside chat'-turned-'Library Group' started by US treasury secretary George Shultz in 1970 to address currency turbulence bloomed into G6 five years later. On 15 November 1975, about five months after Indira Gandhi had imposed Emergency in India, leaders of six democracies — the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan — met at the Castle of Rambouillet near Paris. By keeping India out, Canada has missed a golden opportunity to reset bilateral ties and make a new beginning for peace and development. The exclusion is not only unfortunate but might prove to be a great setback for the G7's own ambitions, whether it is addressing climate change and global inequality or building cooperation with emerging economies, agendas it has taken up in the last three decades or so. Canada, which took over the G7 presidency from Japan in December 2024, has made a surprising and controversial decision: to exclude India from the upcoming G7 summit. At a time when the world's economic centre of gravity is shifting towards Asia, and when India has proven its leadership on multiple global platforms — including its recent G20 presidency — this move is not just irrational, it may be self-defeating. Today, none of the leaders from the 'Summit of the Six' — James Callaghan (UK foreign secretary), Henry Kissinger (US secretary of state), Gerald Ford (US president), Takeo Miki (Japan prime minister), Helmut Schmidt (German chancellor), Jean Sauvagnargues (French foreign minister), Valery Giscard d'Estaing (French president), and Mariano Rumor (Italian foreign minister) — are alive, and most of the countries no longer dominate the global economy. The G6 became the G7 in 1976 with Canada's inclusion, and the G8 between 1997 and 2013 with Russia onboard— until Russia's suspension after the Crimea annexation in 2014. Collectively, the group expressed concern about their respective economies, donned the mantle of the 'white man's burden' to discharge their responsibilities toward the 'Third World', and decided to meet again. Fifty years later, none of the world's problems have been solved by these countries, and except for the US, the rest are no better off than the countries of the 'poor South.' Also read: India is walking a geopolitical tightrope. It can shape New Delhi's diplomatic power G7's expanding mandate, shrinking impact Over the years, G7 summits have taken on a broad agenda: gender equality, global health, climate change, and sustainable development. In 2021, the UK-led summit committed itself to a 'green revolution' and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Germany's 2022 presidency established a 'Climate Club' to implement the Paris Agreement, and the 2023 Hiroshima summit reaffirmed commitment to phasing out fossil fuels. India participated in all these meetings, contributing immensely to the resolution and their implementation. Ironically, it was Donald Trump-led 'G1 within G7' that derailed consensus, dismissing global warming as a 'hoax.' Now, with Trump 2.0 back in the mix and India 3.0 out, can the G7's green agenda survive? Patronising rhetoric, no real support The G7's agenda of connecting with emerging economies and adopting an inclusive approach has often rung hollow. Italy included an 'African Segment' in the 2001 summit, but without serious financial commitments and steps to resolve issues of poverty and migration. African leaders left disappointed, questioning the G7's sincerity. In contrast, India, during its G20 presidency, successfully pushed for the African Union—representing 55 African countries—to become a permanent G20 member. Who, then, is more relevant and committed to inclusive global development: the G7 or the G20? The 2021 G7 summit in London also introduced the Global Minimum Tax (15 per cent), aiming to rewrite international tax rules and discourage multinational corporations from taking undue advantage of lower taxes in smaller or developing economies. This again faced serious objections, with critics arguing that the G7 had no democratic legitimacy to act as the captain of the global economy. India: From Bandung to BRICS India's global economic role didn't begin yesterday. New Delhi has emerged as the fulcrum of Asian economic development since hosting the 1947 Asian Relations Conference and leading the Bandung Conference in 1955, where the foundation of the Non-Aligned Movement was laid. Now, it has positioned itself at the centre of South-South Cooperation. The successful Indian presidency of the G20 followed by its developmental agenda with IBSA (India-Brazil-South Africa) are proof of India's unique leadership position in the geo-economic dynamics of Asia and South Asia. It has also championed inclusive global governance in a way that the G7 often only gestures toward. Time to re-evaluate the relevance of G7 The economic, political, and cultural divides of the 1950s and 1960s are out of syllabus, phased out of academic discourse due to globalisation and rapid rise of 'Southern' economies. Between the 19th and the 21st century, there was a total metamorphosis that has left several centuries-old theories, perceptions and ideas redundant. The old binaries of the Cold War — East vs West, North vs South — have blurred into insignificance in the face of a new and emerging global economic order, necessitating a new approach to the contemporary history of global economic development. The G7, once seen as the anchor of global economic stability, is no more than a relic of the past today. India would do well to invest its diplomatic energy elsewhere: G20, BRICS, IBSA, and regional platforms that better reflect the world as it is, not as it was. Let the G7 gently go into oblivion — and take the outdated and irrelevant worldview it represents with it. Seshadri Chari is the former editor of 'Organiser'. He tweets @seshadrichari. Views are personal. (Edited by Prashant)
CNN
4 days ago
- General
- CNN
The Trump administration revives an old intimidation tactic: the polygraph machine
When President Ronald Reagan's White House threatened thousands of government officials with polygraph exams, supposedly to protect classified data (but probably also to control press leaks), his Secretary of State George Shultz threatened to resign. Reagan's White House backed down and agreed to impose the tests only for those suspected of espionage, according to a 1985 New York Times report. In terms of catching spies, polygraph tests failed spectacularly in key moments. More on that in a moment. First, consider the second Trump administration, which is leaning in on polygraphs, presumably to ferret out leakers, but also as an apparent method of intimidation. 'The polygraph has been weaponized and is being used against individuals who have never had a polygraph requirement, whether pre-employment or security, in their entire federal careers,' said Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in representing people who work in national security, after a slew of published reports about polygraph threats throughout the Trump administration. The tests are frequently being used to identify not leaks of classified information but rather 'unclassified conversations regarding policy or embarrassing decisions that have made their way through the rumor mill or directly to the media,' said Zaid, who has previously testified before Congress about the use of polygraphs and sued federal agencies for their practices. ► At the FBI, the New York Times reports, an increased use of polygraphs has 'intensified a culture of intimidation' for agents. ► At the Pentagon, officials publicly threatened to conduct polygraph tests as part of an effort to figure out how the press learned that Elon Musk was scheduled to get a classified briefing about China, which a billionaire with business interests in China probably should not get. It's not clear if polygraph tests were ultimately administered as part of the probe, according to CNN's report. ► At the Department of Homeland Security, according to CNN, polygraph tests have been used on FEMA and FAA officials in addition to those in more traditional national security roles. Administration officials have defended the practice as a way to protect government information. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the use of polygraph tests during an interview on CBS in March. 'The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive,' she said. Previously, per Zaid, polygraphs have been used as a sort of 'weeding device,' not unlike a physical fitness test for large pools of applicants to national security and law enforcement roles. After that, some employees — particularly in the intelligence community — may be given exams every five or 10 years, sort of like a random drug test. What's happening now is something different. Polygraph tests are 'being used against individuals who have never had a polygraph requirement, whether for pre-employment or security, in their entire federal careers,' Zaid said. Most Americans have never been subjected to a polygraph, and that's in large part because Congress acted to largely outlaw them from use in the public sector in 1988, a time when millions of Americans were being polygraphed each year and companies were using them to bar people from jobs and conduct coercive internal investigations. For an example of why polygraphs were problematic, look back at an old '60 Minutes' segment in which Diane Sawyer submits to an exam and hidden cameras are used to show how the bias of the examiner affects results. 'If you're trying to find one leaker in an organization of 100 people, you could end up falsely accusing dozens of people,' according to Amit Katwala, author of the polygraph history Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector. 'And you might not even catch the culprit — there's no evidence to suggest that an actual lie detector is even scientifically possible,' he told me in an email. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act was signed into law in 1988 by Reagan, years after his showdown with Shultz. But the law kept polygraphs for the public sector, particularly for national security and law enforcement. In the national security world, the principle of protecting the innocent is 'flipped on its head,' according to Zaid. 'We would rather ruin 99 innocent people's careers than let the one new Ed Snowden, Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen get through,' he said. If polygraphs have a spotty record in detecting lies, they have a horrible record in detecting spies. A Senate Intelligence Committee report from 1994 explores how the CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who spied for the KGB, evaded detection for years in part because he passed multiple polygraph exams. At the same time, the same report describes how another CIA employee who aided the KGB, Edward Lee Howard, did so in part because he felt jilted by the CIA after he was fired for failing a polygraph exam. Then there was the shocking trial of FBI official and Russian spy Robert Hanssen, who had never been given a polygraph in his career, there was an uptick in their use at some agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy. At the turn of the 21st century, the US government commissioned a large-scale report on the efficacy of the polygraph undertaken by a special committee at the National Research Council. They found the scientific evidence on polygraphs to be more than lacking. 'As a nation, we should not allow ourselves to continue to be blinded by the aura of the polygraph,' Stephen Feinberg, the Carnegie Mellon professor who led the study, testified before Congress. Ames offered his assessment of the polygraph machine in a letter from prison published in 2000, calling the polygraph 'junk science that just won't die' and saying it is most useful as an instrument of coercion. 'It depends upon the overall coerciveness of the setting — you'll be fired, you won't get the job, you'll be prosecuted, you'll go to prison — and the credulous fear the device inspires,' he wrote. Polygraphs are frequently used in criminal investigations, but rarely used in court. The idea behind the polygraph, which was first developed in the '20s, is that lying causes stress. The examiner hooks a person up to monitors that gauge things like blood pressure and fingertip sweat. A pre-interview helps formulate common questions that create a baseline and reactions to more probing questions are compared to that baseline. But it's not a scientific process, and it can be beaten, or misled, since at its core the machine is simply measuring physiological responses. Frequently, incriminating information is offered by nervous exam-takers who don't understand exactly how the process works. Pop culture often suggests that when a person is hooked up to a polygraph machine, their lies will be detected. But that is not exactly true. 'The polygraph works because we think it works. It's a tool of psychological coercion in an already intimidating environment—particularly when it has the weight of the federal government behind it,' Katwala told me. But the intimidation is probably the point. 'Using the polygraph may not help you catch the leakers, but the idea of it could well scare any potential future leakers into keeping their mouths shut,' Katwala said. The man credited with fully developing the polygraph, a Berkeley police officer named John Larson, who also had a PhD in psychology, would later turn on his invention as unreliable, according to Katwala. Larson was inspired by the truth-telling machine of William Marston, himself a psychologist, but one with an active imagination and a flair for the theatrical. Zaid described him as the PT Barnum of polygraphy. Here's a video of Marston using a polygraph-like machine and claiming to identify the varying emotions of blonde, brunette and redheaded women. His conclusion was that redheads like to gamble, brunettes are looking for love and blondes are easiest to scare. Okay. Marston also invented the comic book hero Wonder Woman, with her Lasso of Truth. Katwala warns that there are new technologies being developed with the help of AI or revolving around brain waves, but he argues they should be viewed just with the same skepticism as the polygraph machine. 'None of them get past the Pinocchio's nose problem — everyone's different, and something that works for one person might not work for everyone,' he said. But they could all be used in the same coercive way as the polygraph machine.
CNN
4 days ago
- General
- CNN
The Trump administration revives an old intimidation tactic: the polygraph machine
When President Ronald Reagan's White House threatened thousands of government officials with polygraph exams, supposedly to protect classified data (but probably also to control press leaks), his Secretary of State George Shultz threatened to resign. Reagan's White House backed down and agreed to impose the tests only for those suspected of espionage, according to a 1985 New York Times report. In terms of catching spies, polygraph tests failed spectacularly in key moments. More on that in a moment. First, consider the second Trump administration, which is leaning in on polygraphs, presumably to ferret out leakers, but also as an apparent method of intimidation. 'The polygraph has been weaponized and is being used against individuals who have never had a polygraph requirement, whether pre-employment or security, in their entire federal careers,' said Mark Zaid, an attorney who specializes in representing people who work in national security, after a slew of published reports about polygraph threats throughout the Trump administration. The tests are frequently being used to identify not leaks of classified information but rather 'unclassified conversations regarding policy or embarrassing decisions that have made their way through the rumor mill or directly to the media,' said Zaid, who has previously testified before Congress about the use of polygraphs and sued federal agencies for their practices. ► At the FBI, the New York Times reports, an increased use of polygraphs has 'intensified a culture of intimidation' for agents. ► At the Pentagon, officials publicly threatened to conduct polygraph tests as part of an effort to figure out how the press learned that Elon Musk was scheduled to get a classified briefing about China, which a billionaire with business interests in China probably should not get. It's not clear if polygraph tests were ultimately administered as part of the probe, according to CNN's report. ► At the Department of Homeland Security, according to CNN, polygraph tests have been used on FEMA and FAA officials in addition to those in more traditional national security roles. Administration officials have defended the practice as a way to protect government information. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the use of polygraph tests during an interview on CBS in March. 'The authorities that I have under the Department of Homeland Security are broad and extensive,' she said. Previously, per Zaid, polygraphs have been used as a sort of 'weeding device,' not unlike a physical fitness test for large pools of applicants to national security and law enforcement roles. After that, some employees — particularly in the intelligence community — may be given exams every five or 10 years, sort of like a random drug test. What's happening now is something different. Polygraph tests are 'being used against individuals who have never had a polygraph requirement, whether for pre-employment or security, in their entire federal careers,' Zaid said. Most Americans have never been subjected to a polygraph, and that's in large part because Congress acted to largely outlaw them from use in the public sector in 1988, a time when millions of Americans were being polygraphed each year and companies were using them to bar people from jobs and conduct coercive internal investigations. For an example of why polygraphs were problematic, look back at an old '60 Minutes' segment in which Diane Sawyer submits to an exam and hidden cameras are used to show how the bias of the examiner affects results. 'If you're trying to find one leaker in an organization of 100 people, you could end up falsely accusing dozens of people,' according to Amit Katwala, author of the polygraph history Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession and the Birth of the Lie Detector. 'And you might not even catch the culprit — there's no evidence to suggest that an actual lie detector is even scientifically possible,' he told me in an email. The Employee Polygraph Protection Act was signed into law in 1988 by Reagan, years after his showdown with Shultz. But the law kept polygraphs for the public sector, particularly for national security and law enforcement. In the national security world, the principle of protecting the innocent is 'flipped on its head,' according to Zaid. 'We would rather ruin 99 innocent people's careers than let the one new Ed Snowden, Aldrich Ames or Robert Hanssen get through,' he said. If polygraphs have a spotty record in detecting lies, they have a horrible record in detecting spies. A Senate Intelligence Committee report from 1994 explores how the CIA officer Aldrich Ames, who spied for the KGB, evaded detection for years in part because he passed multiple polygraph exams. At the same time, the same report describes how another CIA employee who aided the KGB, Edward Lee Howard, did so in part because he felt jilted by the CIA after he was fired for failing a polygraph exam. Then there was the shocking trial of FBI official and Russian spy Robert Hanssen, who had never been given a polygraph in his career, there was an uptick in their use at some agencies, including the FBI and the Department of Energy. At the turn of the 21st century, the US government commissioned a large-scale report on the efficacy of the polygraph undertaken by a special committee at the National Research Council. They found the scientific evidence on polygraphs to be more than lacking. 'As a nation, we should not allow ourselves to continue to be blinded by the aura of the polygraph,' Stephen Feinberg, the Carnegie Mellon professor who led the study, testified before Congress. Ames offered his assessment of the polygraph machine in a letter from prison published in 2000, calling the polygraph 'junk science that just won't die' and saying it is most useful as an instrument of coercion. 'It depends upon the overall coerciveness of the setting — you'll be fired, you won't get the job, you'll be prosecuted, you'll go to prison — and the credulous fear the device inspires,' he wrote. Polygraphs are frequently used in criminal investigations, but rarely used in court. The idea behind the polygraph, which was first developed in the '20s, is that lying causes stress. The examiner hooks a person up to monitors that gauge things like blood pressure and fingertip sweat. A pre-interview helps formulate common questions that create a baseline and reactions to more probing questions are compared to that baseline. But it's not a scientific process, and it can be beaten, or misled, since at its core the machine is simply measuring physiological responses. Frequently, incriminating information is offered by nervous exam-takers who don't understand exactly how the process works. Pop culture often suggests that when a person is hooked up to a polygraph machine, their lies will be detected. But that is not exactly true. 'The polygraph works because we think it works. It's a tool of psychological coercion in an already intimidating environment—particularly when it has the weight of the federal government behind it,' Katwala told me. But the intimidation is probably the point. 'Using the polygraph may not help you catch the leakers, but the idea of it could well scare any potential future leakers into keeping their mouths shut,' Katwala said. The man credited with fully developing the polygraph, a Berkeley police officer named John Larson, who also had a PhD in psychology, would later turn on his invention as unreliable, according to Katwala. Larson was inspired by the truth-telling machine of William Marston, himself a psychologist, but one with an active imagination and a flair for the theatrical. Zaid described him as the PT Barnum of polygraphy. Here's a video of Marston using a polygraph-like machine and claiming to identify the varying emotions of blonde, brunette and redheaded women. His conclusion was that redheads like to gamble, brunettes are looking for love and blondes are easiest to scare. Okay. Marston also invented the comic book hero Wonder Woman, with her Lasso of Truth. Katwala warns that there are new technologies being developed with the help of AI or revolving around brain waves, but he argues they should be viewed just with the same skepticism as the polygraph machine. 'None of them get past the Pinocchio's nose problem — everyone's different, and something that works for one person might not work for everyone,' he said. But they could all be used in the same coercive way as the polygraph machine.
