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First Post
05-08-2025
- Politics
- First Post
What is the nuclear treaty Russia has exited after Trump's submarine move? Why does it matter?
Russia has said that it no longer considers itself bound by the terms of the treaty it signed with the United States decades ago. Moscow in a statement said it made the decision due to the actions of Western countries, which it claimed had created a direct threat to its security. But what do we know about the treaty? Why does it matter? read more Photo of President Vladimir Putin released by the Kremlin Russia has announced that it is leaving the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Moscow has said that it no longer considers itself bound by the terms of the treaty it signed with Washington decades ago. Russia in a statement said it made the decision due to the actions of Western countries, which it claimed had created a direct threat to its security. Russia said the conditions for adhering to the treaty had disappeared. It said it thus 'no longer considers itself bound' by the 'previously adopted self-restrictions'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'West's build-up of destabilising missile potentials create a direct threat to security of our country,' Russia said in statement. But what do we know about the INF Treaty? What does Russia's exit mean? Let's take a closer look: The INF Treaty The treaty was signed between the United States and the then Soviet Union in 1987. The treaty witnessed both countries agreeing to tamp down on intermediate and medium range land missiles that could carry nuclear warheads. The origins of the treaty go back to the 1970s when the US was calling for arms control with regard to intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). This came after the Soviet Union began to deploy the SS-20 intermediate-range missiles domestically. These SS-20s, which could hold three nuclear warheads, allow the Soviet Union to hit Western Europe within 10 minutes. North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) responded to the Soviet Union by both pushing arms control. It also called on the US to deploy its own ground-launched cruise missiles and the Pershing II IRBMs to counter Russia. Negotiations for the treaty began in 1980s. However, little progress was made in the early part of that decade. However, things began to change after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985. That year, the Soviet Union suggested keeping the number of SS-20 missiles and the Nato and US' missiles in Europe at a parity – to which Washington listened. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD By 1986, talks had expanded to include all US and Soviet missiles across the globe. Gorbachev and then President Ronald Reagan then began signalling the signing of a treaty. Ronald Reagan signed the treaty with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev X/@ChineseEmbinUS On December 8, 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev signed the treaty in Washington DC. In 1988, it was ratified by the two countries. The INF Treaty took effect on June 1, 1988. The treaty defined shorter-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) as those having ranges from 500 kilometers to 1,000 kilometers and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) as those with ranges from 1,000 kilometers to 5,500 kilometers. It called over 2,600 of them to be done away with, over half of which were deployed when the treaty was signed, by June 1, 1991. This was a landmark pact for several reasons. It was the first time the two superpowers had agreed to arms control when it came to their nuclear arsenals. The country is also agreed to do away with a specific type of nuclear weapon. The treaty also called for on-site inspection of the missiles being destroyed, which was yet another major first. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It was seen a massive thaw in the ongoing Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Around two-thirds of the missiles destroyed belonged to the Soviets, while the rest were from the US. While the two countries were allowed to keep the warheads and guidance systems, missile launchers and other types of equipment were destroyed. INF Treaty in modern times The treaty has been the cause of much back and forth between Russia and the United States in modern times. Russia in particular has been unhappy with the terms set forth under the treaty – particularly with China making strides when it comes to missiles. In July 2014, the then Obama administration in its compliance report accused Russia of violating the treaty. Washington claimed Moscow had violated the terms which stated it was 'not to possess, produce, or flight-test' a ground-launched cruise missile having a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers or 'to possess or produce launchers of such missiles'. Then, in 2017, US officials claimed that Russia had deployed a non-compliant cruise missile. On March 8, 2017, General Paul Selva, the then Vice-Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the development. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The US accused Russia of 'violating the spirit and intent' of the INF Treaty. Russia has rebuffed such allegations and in turn accused the United States of violating the treaty. In December 2017, the first Trump administration announced it would be developing a conventional, road-mobile, intermediate-range missile system to counter Russia. Nearly a year later, in October 2018, Trump announced he would be 'terminating' the treaty. Trump blamed Russia and China's efforts at developing intermediate-range missiles arsenal. In December 2018, then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States found Russia in 'material breach' of the treaty. Pompeo said the US would suspend its treaty obligations in 60 days if Russia refused to comply. In February 2019, the Trump administration announced it was suspending its obligations and that it would leave the treaty in six months. Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would also suspend its obligations. In August 2019, the United States formally withdrew from the INF Treaty. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD So, what happened now? The decision came just days after Trump ordered two nuclear submarines to be 'repositioned in the appropriate regions'. Dmitri Medvedev is a former President and Prime Minister of Russia. Reuters/File Photo 'Based on the highly provocative statements of the Former President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, I have ordered two Nuclear Submarines to be positioned in the appropriate regions,' Trump wrote on social media. 'Just in case these foolish and inflammatory statements are more than just that.' 'Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences, I hope this will not be one of those instances,' he added. 'Thank you for your attention to this matter!' This came after former Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the country's security council, made a nuclear threat against America. Russia also cited the US deploying a Typhon missile launcher in the Philippines and missile firings during the Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia as reasons behind its decision. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps', Medvedev wrote on social media in the aftermath of Russia's announcement. What do experts say? Experts aren't surprised by this development. Phil Breedlove, a retired US Air Force general told The New York Times, 'This is a fairly standard approach Russia takes when they're trying to deter or intimidate the West'. 'Every time the West considers a change, like giving new weapons to Ukraine, this is what happens', Breedlove, who headed up US European Command from 2013 to 2016, added. Some have expressed concern to a return to the bad old days of the Cold War, where each side lived in fear of what the other could do. They point to the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, which Russia deployed against a Ukrainian city in November. The Oreshnik's range that violates the INF Treaty. Putin last week said the nuclear-capable Oreshnik will be placed in Belarus – which borders three Nato nations. Russian media has claimed that the weapon could take out European capitals in 15 minutes. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The US last year said it would start 'episodic deployments' of intermediate-range missiles in Germany from 2026. This leaves New Start, which expires in 2026, as the only major arms control treaty between the two countries. Putin in 2023 said Russia would no longer participate in New Start. What will happen next? No one is quite sure, but watchers are playing close attention.
Telegraph
02-08-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
A sinister Left-wing cabal is turning Britain into a dystopia
Who would have thought that a generation after the collapse of communism, freedom of speech would become controversial? Surely we had definitively settled this question of whether governments should prohibit or limit the expression of opinions. The Free World, as it was then known, had won the argument without even having to take up arms. Those peoples who had been subjected to the official suppression of ideas and information had repudiated that tyranny of their own accord. In East Germany, they simply walked out from under it. In Soviet Russia, Gorbachev's attempt at a more open, liberalised regime ended in ignominious collapse because a little bit of freedom just increased the longing for more. So surely there can be no doubt: liberty of thought and expression is what modern peoples demand. Yet here we are. A democratically elected government in a nation which gave the world Magna Carta has apparently installed a dedicated bureau to monitor all opinions put forward in public discourse. Further, it proposes legislation which would compel any forum that gave a platform to opinions considered to be unacceptable, to remove them. This is, prima facie, outrageous: a betrayal not only of the historic principles of open democracy but of the victories of freedom over totalitarianism that marked the last century. So how on earth could anyone – any political party or governing class – in the Western world possibly think that such a move was necessary or desirable? It would be easy (indeed it is easy) simply to condemn it as the arrogant imposition of what a smug elite considers the limits of morally acceptable opinion. Any statement or assertion that appears to be encouraging or condoning racism, or even prejudice against an approved social minority, must be policed out of existence. It is scarcely necessary to warn where this policy could lead – or what it implies about the attitude of the current Government to its own population. But perhaps this is a more complex and confusing situation than it appears and paradoxically, some of the factors that contribute to it may be the result of precisely the ideological successes of which the West is most proud. What is it exactly that has produced this panic over unlimited public expression? It is the unbridled, unchecked and irresponsible dissemination of supposed 'information', or opinions based on deliberately deceptive information, on publicly accessible platforms often augmented by fake videos, AI doctored photographs and false 'evidence'. This is a new thing for which traditional democratic societies have no previous experience. We have become aware quite suddenly of the possible consequences in terms of civil disorder and mortal risk that the dissemination of such material can produce – and that it now spreads remarkably, and terrifyingly, quickly. Suspicion, distrust and their anarchic effects can be ignited and propelled at a speed that those responsible for keeping order in the streets have not previously encountered. So yes, as you will have gathered, I do believe that the rise of social media – which has no enforced codes of practice or legal liability – is presenting civil authority with an unprecedented set of problems. That observation, of course, is not original. It is, in fact, the official justification used by the government for its repressive measures. The added element in this toxic mix which has received less attention is the use that these media serve in the infiltration by professional activists of any convenient social cause. As a youthful Trotskyite, I was tutored in the techniques of exploiting any social discontent as a force for undermining trust in capitalism and what was considered to be the sham of democratic freedom. At the end of every meeting of what was then called International Socialism (IS), now known as the Socialist Workers Party, a list was recited of the latest venues at which we were expected to appear, brandishing pre-printed posters and demonstrating solidarity with whatever protest group was currently disrupting the functions of an industry, government department or public agency. When I see all those disparate agitator groups now, whether they are demonstrating on behalf of the environment or against racism – carrying identical placards (generally with the words 'Socialist Workers Party' emblazoned at the top), I can guess what instructions they have been given. Make as much noise and monopolise as much of the television news coverage as you possibly can. Try to make the story about you and your message, even if you have been bussed in to compete with a genuine spontaneous protest over a local issue. I thought of this again when the police got into big trouble for apparently offering protection to, or even escorting, 'Stand Up to Racism' counter protestors at the site of a migrant hotel demonstration. Their presence appeared to be endorsed by the police who seemed to be shielding them from the anger of unworthy locals. But what should be done if, say, an anti-racist group's planned arrival makes it necessary for the police to prevent any potential violent confrontation and breakdown of public order? That would be, in my experience, a classic professional activists' technique. They would exploit the fact that it is the first responsibility of the police to maintain order in the streets whatever the issue. The ultimate irony may be that this phenomenon has been given extra propulsion by the collapse of communism. Back in the dark days of the Cold War, infiltration by the Left was a serious business run by serious people. The Communist party loathed what they considered to be juvenile, undisciplined Trotskyist messing around. My friends and I were regularly warned that our indiscriminate, ill-thought out negativism was going to discredit the sacred Marxist cause. While IS (now the SWP) handed out copies of the Socialist Worker newspaper on street corners, the Communist Party members maintained their terrifying diligence, their 'cover' identities and their dedicated take over of trade unions and nuclear disarmament campaigns. That's all gone now. Anti-capitalism in its most inchoate, incoherent and irresponsible form is running the show and it is making use of all the opportunities modern technology offers to spread dangerous lies and inflammatory messages. There is no easy answer to this.
Atlantic
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
How Scientific Empires End
Roald Sagdeev has already watched one scientific empire rot from the inside. When Sagdeev began his career, in 1955, science in the Soviet Union was nearing its apex. At the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, he studied the thermonuclear reactions that occur inside of stars. A few lab tables away, Andrei Sakharov was developing the hydrogen bomb. The Soviet space program would soon astonish the world by lofting the first satellite, and then the first human being, into orbit. Sagdeev can still remember the screaming crowds that greeted returning cosmonauts in Red Square. But even during those years of triumph, he could see corruption working its way through Soviet science like a slow-moving poison. The danger had been present from the U.S.S.R.'s founding. The Bolsheviks who took power in 1917 wanted scientists sent to Arctic labor camps. (Vladimir Lenin intervened on their behalf.) When Joseph Stalin took power, he funded some research generously, but insisted that it conform to his ideology. Sagdeev said that his school books described Stalin as the father of all fields of knowledge, and credited the Soviets with every technological invention that had ever been invented. Later, at scientific conferences, Sagdeev heard physicists criticize the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics on the grounds that it conflicted with Marxism. By 1973, when Sagdeev was made director of the Soviet Space Research Institute, the nation's top center for space science, the Soviets had ceded leadership in orbit to NASA. American astronauts had flown around the moon and left a thousand bootprints on its surface. Sagdeev's institute was short on money. Many people who worked there had the right Communist Party connections, but no scientific training. Eventually, he himself had to join the party. 'It was the only way to secure stable funding,' he told me when we spoke in June. In 1985, Sagdeev briefly gained the ear of power. Mikhail Gorbachev had just become general secretary at 54, young for the Soviet gerontocracy. He promised broad reforms and appointed Sagdeev as an adviser. The two traveled to Geneva together for Gorbachev's first arms talks with Ronald Reagan. But Sagdeev's view of Gorbachev began to dim when the premier filled important scientific positions with men whom Sagdeev saw as cronies. In 1988, Sagdeev wrote a letter to Gorbachev to warn him that the leaders of the Soviet supercomputer program had deceived him. They claimed to be keeping pace with the United States, but had in fact fallen far behind, and would soon be surpassed by the Chinese. Gorbachev never replied. Sagdeev got a hint as to how his letter had been received when his invitation to join a state visit to Poland was abruptly withdrawn. 'I was excommunicated,' he told me. Sagdeev took stock of his situation. The future of Soviet science was looking grim. Within a few years, government funding would crater further. Sagdeev's most talented colleagues were starting to slip out of the country. One by one, he watched them start new lives elsewhere. Many of them went to the U.S. At the time, America was the most compelling destination for scientific talent in the world. It would remain so until earlier this year. I thought of Sagdeev on a recent visit to MIT. A scientist there, much celebrated in her field, told me that since Donald Trump's second inauguration she has watched in horror as his administration has performed a controlled demolition on American science. Like many other researchers in the U.S., she's not sure that she wants to stick around to dodge falling debris, and so she is starting to think about taking her lab abroad. (She declined to be named in this story so that she could speak openly about her potential plans.) The very best scientists are like elite basketball players: They come to America from all over the world so that they can spend their prime years working alongside top talent. 'It's very hard to find a leading scientist who has not done at least some research in the U.S. as an undergraduate or graduate student or postdoc or faculty,' Michael Gordin, a historian of science and the dean of Princeton University's undergraduate academics, told me. That may no longer be the case a generation from now. Foreign researchers have recently been made to feel unwelcome in the U.S. They have been surveilled and harassed. The Trump administration has made it more difficult for research institutions to enroll them. Top universities have been placed under federal investigation. Their accreditation and tax-exempt status have been threatened. The Trump administration has proposed severe budget cuts at the agencies that fund American science—the NSF, the NIH, and NASA, among others—and laid off staffers in large numbers. Existing research grants have been canceled or suspended en masse. Committees of expert scientists that once advised the government have been disbanded. In May, the president ordered that all federally funded research meet higher standards for rigor and reproducibility—or else be subject to correction by political appointees. Not since the Red Scare, when researchers at the University of California had to sign loyalty oaths, and those at the University of Washington and MIT were disciplined or fired for being suspected Communists, has American science been so beholden to political ideology. At least during the McCarthy era, scientists could console themselves that despite this interference, federal spending on science was surging. Today, it's drying up. Three-fourths of American scientists who responded to a recent poll by the journal Nature said they are considering leaving the country. They don't lack for suitors. China is aggressively recruiting them, and the European Union has set aside a €500 million slush fund to do the same. National governments in Norway, Denmark, and France—nice places to live, all—have green-lighted spending sprees on disillusioned American scientists. The Max Planck Society, Germany's elite research organization, recently launched a poaching campaign in the U.S., and last month, France's Aix-Marseille University held a press conference announcing the arrival of eight American ' science refugees.' The MIT scientist who is thinking about leaving the U.S. told me that the Swiss scientific powerhouse ETH Zurich had already reached out about relocating her lab to its picturesque campus with a view of the Alps. A top Canadian university had also been in touch. These institutions are salivating over American talent, and so are others. Not since Sagdeev and other elite Soviet researchers were looking to get out of Moscow has there been a mass-recruiting opportunity like this. Every scientific empire falls, but not at the same speed, or for the same reasons. In ancient Sumer, a proto-scientific civilization bloomed in the great cities of Ur and Uruk. Sumerians invented wheels that carried the king's war chariots swiftly across the Mesopotamian plains. Their priest astronomers stood atop ziggurats watching the sky. But the Sumerians appear to have over-irrigated their farmland—a technical misstep, perhaps—and afterwards, their weakened cities were invaded, and the kingdom broke apart. They could no longer operate at the scientific vanguard. Science in ancient Egypt and Greece followed a similar pattern: It thrived during good times and fell off in periods of plague, chaos, and impoverishment. But not every case of scientific decline has played out this way. Some civilizations have willfully squandered their scientific advantage. Spanish science, for example, suffered grievously during the Inquisition. Scientists feared for their lives. They retreated from pursuits and associations that had a secular tinge and thought twice before corresponding with suspected heretics. The exchange of ideas slowed in Spain, and its research excellence declined relative to the rest of Europe. In the 17th century, the Spanish made almost no contribution to the ongoing Scientific Revolution. The Soviets sabotaged their own success in biomedicine. In the 1920s, the U.S.S.R. had one of the most advanced genetics programs in the world, but that was before Stalin empowered Trofim Lysenko, a political appointee who didn't believe in Mendelian inheritance. Lysenko would eventually purge thousands of apostate biologists from their jobs, and ban the study of genetics outright. Some of the scientists were tossed into the Gulag; others starved or faced firing squads. As a consequence of all this, the Soviets played no role in the discovery of DNA's double-helix structure. When the ban on 'anti-Marxist' genetics was finally lifted, Gordin told me, the U.S.S.R. was a generation behind in molecular biology and couldn't catch up. But it was Adolf Hitler who possessed the greatest talent for scientific self-harm. Germany had been a great scientific power going back to the late 19th century. Germans had pioneered the modern research university by requiring that professors not only transmit knowledge but advance it, too. During the early 20th century, German scientists racked up Nobel Prizes. Physicists from greater Europe and the U.S. converged on Berlin, Göttingen, and Munich to hear about the strange new quantum universe from Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, and Albert Einstein. When the Nazis took over in 1933, Hitler purged Germany's universities of Jewish professors and others who opposed his rule. Many scientists were murdered. Others fled the country. Quite a few settled in America. That's how Einstein got to Princeton. After Hans Bethe was dismissed from his professorship in Tübingen, he landed at Cornell. Then he went to MIT to work on the radar technology that would reveal German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic. Some historians have argued that radar was more important to Allied victory than the Manhattan Project. But of course, that, too, was staffed with European scientific refugees, including Leo Szilard, a Jewish physicist who fled Berlin the year that Hitler took power; Edward Teller, who went on to build the first hydrogen bomb; and John von Neumann, who invented the architecture of the modern computer. In a very short time, the center of gravity for science just up and moved across the Atlantic Ocean. After the war, it was American scientists who most regularly journeyed to Stockholm to receive medals. It was American scientists who built on von Neumann's work to take an early lead in the Information Age that the U.S. has still not relinquished. And it was American scientists who developed the vaccines for polio and measles. During the postwar period, Vannevar Bush, head of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development under FDR, sought to make America's advantage in the sciences permanent. Bush hadn't liked the way that the U.S. had to scramble to staff up the radar and atomic-bomb projects. He wanted a robust supply of scientists on hand at American universities in case the Cold War turned hot. He argued for the creation of the National Science Foundation to fund basic research, and promised that its efforts would improve both the economy and national defense. Funding for American science has fluctuated in the decades since. It spiked after Sputnik and dipped at the end of the Cold War. But until Trump took power for the second time and began his multipronged assault on America's research institutions, broad support for science was a given under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump's interference in the sciences is something new. It shares features with the science-damaging policies of Stalin and Hitler, says David Wootton, a historian of science at the University of York. But in the English-speaking world, it has no precedent, he told me: 'This is an unparalleled destruction from within.' I reached out to the office of Michael Kratsios, the president's science and technology adviser, several times while reporting this story. I asked whether Kratsios, who holds the role that once belonged to Vannevar Bush, had any response to the claim that the Trump administration's attack on science was unprecedented. I asked about the possibility that its policies will drive away American researchers, and will deter foreigners from working in American labs. I was hoping to find out how the man responsible for maintaining U.S. scientific dominance was engaging with this apparent slide into mediocrity. I did not receive a reply. All is not yet lost for American science. Lawmakers have already made clear that they do not intend to approve Trump's full requested cuts at the NIH, NSF, and NASA. Those agencies will still have access to tens of billions of dollars in federal funds next year—and blue-state attorneys general have won back some of this year's canceled grants in court. Research institutions still have some fight left in them; some are suing the administration for executive overreach. Universities in red states are hoping that their governors will soon summon the courage to take a stand on their behalf. 'Politically speaking, it's one thing to shut down research at Harvard,' Steven Shapin, a science historian at the school, told me. 'It's another thing to shut down the University of Arkansas.' The U.S. government doesn't bankroll all of American scientific research. Philanthropists and private companies support some of it, and will continue to. The U.S. shouldn't face the kind of rapid collapse that occurred in the Soviet Union, where no robust private sector existed to absorb scientists. But even corporations with large R&D budgets don't typically fund open-ended inquiry into fundamental scientific questions. With the possible exception of Bell Labs in its heyday, they focus on projects that have immediate commercial promise. Their shareholders would riot if they dumped $10 billion into a space telescope or particle collider that takes decades to build and generates little revenue. A privatized system of American science will be distorted toward short-term work, and people who want to run longer-term experiments with more expensive facilities will go elsewhere. 'American science could lose a whole generation,' Shapin said. 'Young people are already starting to get the message that science isn't as valued as it once was.' If the U.S. is no longer the world's technoscientific superpower, it will almost certainly suffer for the change. America's technology sector might lose its creativity. But science itself, in the global sense, will be fine. The deep human curiosities that drive it do not belong to any nation-state. An American abdication will only hurt America, Shapin said. Science might further decentralize into a multipolar order like the one that held during the 19th century, when the British, French, and Germans vied for technical supremacy. Read: 'This is not how we do science, ever' Or maybe, by the midway point of the 21st century, China will be the world's dominant scientific power, as it was, arguably, a millennium ago. The Chinese have recovered from Mao Zedong's own squandering of expertise during the Cultural Revolution. They have rebuilt their research institutions, and Xi Jinping's government keeps them well funded. China's universities now rank among the world's best, and their scientists routinely publish in Science, Nature, and other top journals. Elite researchers who were born in China and then spent years or even decades in U.S. labs have started to return. What the country can't yet do well is recruit elite foreign scientists, who by dint of their vocation tend to value freedom of speech. Whatever happens next, existing knowledge is unlikely to be lost, at least not en masse. Humans are better at preserving it now, even amid the rise and fall of civilizations. Things used to be more touch-and-go: The Greek model of the cosmos might have been forgotten, and the Copernican revolution greatly delayed, had Islamic scribes not secured it in Baghdad's House of Wisdom. But books and journals are now stored in a network of libraries and data centers that stretches across all seven continents, and machine translation has made them understandable by any scientist, anywhere. Nature's secrets will continue to be uncovered, even if Americans aren't the ones who see them first. In 1990, Roald Sagdeev moved to America. He found leaving the Soviet Union difficult. His two brothers lived not far from his house in Moscow, and when he said goodbye to them, he worried that it would be for the last time. Sagdeev thought about going to Europe, but the U.S. seemed more promising. He'd met many Americans on diplomatic visits there, including his future wife. He'd befriended others while helping to run the Soviet half of the Apollo-Soyuz missions. When Carl Sagan visited the Soviet Space Research Institute in Moscow, Sagdeev had shown him around, and the two remained close. To avoid arousing the suspicions of the Soviet authorities, Sagdeev flew to Hungary first, and only once he was safely there did he book a ticket to the U.S. He accepted a professorship at the University of Maryland and settled in Washington, D.C. It took him years to ride out the culture shock. He still remembers being pulled over for a traffic infraction, and mistakenly presenting his Soviet ID card. American science is what ultimately won Sagdeev over to his new home. He was awestruck by the ambition of the U.S. research agenda, and he liked that it was backed by real money. He appreciated that scientists could move freely between institutions, and didn't have to grovel before party leaders to get funding. But when I last spoke with Sagdeev, on July 4, he was feeling melancholy about the state of American science. Once again, he is watching a great scientific power in decline. He has read about the proposed funding cuts in the newspaper. He has heard about a group of researchers who are planning to leave the country. Sagdeev is 92 years old, and has no plans to join them. But as an American, it pains him to see them go.
Business Recorder
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Taliban regime recognition
History is subject to strange twists and turns. One such is the decision by Russia to recognise the Afghan Taliban regime, the first and only country so far to do so. One hardly needs reminding of Russian sensitivity on the issue, given that the Afghan Taliban emerged from the womb of the Mujahideen who fought the Soviet occupation with the help of Pakistan and the US-led west for a decade, following which Russia (then the Soviet Union) finally decided to call it a day and withdrew in 1989 after Gorbachev assumed the leadership in Moscow. Arguably, that defeat, or rather being fought to a stalemate, fed into the troubled waters afflicting the Soviet Union and its ultimate collapse. The intriguing question is, why has Russia, given this painful past, 'jumped the gun' in this regard before China, India or even Pakistan?** For one, Russia is seeking to expand its diplomatic footprint globally, including south west Asia, in order to reverse the isolation into which the US-led west has been trying to push it since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. Its decision to formally exchange ambassadors therefore smacks of realpolitik, strategic opportunism, and positioning itself to engage in economic cooperation with the region in the fields of energy, transport and infrastructure. For Pakistan, troubled as it is by the conscious or tacit hosting of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other hostile groups on Afghan soil, Russian lack of leverage over the Afghan Taliban in this regard offers little hope of the betterment of the fraught situation on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Although recent diplomatic moves aided by China, including a visit to Kabul by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, show signs of improving diplomatic relations between the two neighbouring countries, this is still some way from Kabul halting completely the attacks on Pakistan by the TTP, Hafiz Gul Bahadar Group and other fundamentalist groups based on Afghan soil. Russia's diplomatic initiative may well persuade other countries to follow suit. Moscow has recognised the Taliban regime as an acceptance of its de facto control of the country, with little or no resistance left to its stranglehold. Of the countries interested in recognition, China stands out most. Beijing's interest in rare earth and other minerals in Afghanistan is by now a matter of record. China also seeks to blunt the presence and activities of religious extremist and fundamentalist groups such as Islamic State and al Qaeda based in Afghanistan lest this affliction spills over to its restless Xinjiang region, where an Islamic resistance movement has been controlled after much effort stretching over many years. If the Afghan Taliban were to accept good advice, or be willing to learn from the past, they need look no further than Pakistan's experience of supporting proxies in the long war for control of Afghanistan. Not only did Islamabad's Afghan proxies nurture and give birth to the Pakistani Taliban, by now even the so-called 'good' Taliban (TTP, etc) have long since turned against it. If Kabul hopes to use the TTP and similar groups to change Pakistan into a mirror of what it has implemented in its own territory, it should heed the well-meaning warning about proxies being double-edged swords, as Pakistan can ruefully testify from its own experience. Pakistan has clearly stated after the Russian recognition announcement that it is in no hurry to extend recognition, pending the hoped for improvement in the behaviour of the Afghan Taliban regime in scotching the cross-border attacks of the TTP, etc. If that is the case, that recognition by Islamabad may be some way down the road because Kabul's ostensible moves to prevent cross-border attacks by the TTP and others seem more window dressing than consistent, serious policy. As to the Afghan people themselves, precious little except hope for economic and other betterment in a country afflicted with want and hunger, in the wake of Moscow's decision can be heard from those interviewed in Afghanistan in this regard. On the other hand, not surprisingly, Afghan women hold little hope of any betterment under the patriarchal, male chauvinist order the Taliban have once again imposed. In short, those hopeful of better days and those gloomy at the prospects for the future amongst the Afghan people in the aftermath of Russian recognition can only be pitied and prayed for. Afghanistan not only shows no signs of ending the dark night it has been enveloped in after the (second) Taliban takeover, Kabul is being rewarded with recognition (actual and potential) by countries whose own interests (as usual, no great surprise there) override any other principle. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Telegraph
07-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
The Russian potato shortage that shows Putin's economy is on the brink
When the last leader of the Soviet Union visited Chequers for lunch with prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984, one topic of discussion was potatoes. Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of Soviet leader Mikhail, claimed Russia had 300 ways of cooking the humble spud, prompting Michael Jopling, Britain's agriculture minister, to express disbelief. She later posted a Russian cookbook to Jopling with the clarification: 'In fact, there are 500, rather than 300, recipes to cook potatoes.' For Vladimir Putin, Russians' appetite for the vegetable has become problematic, however. Shortages have pushed up prices by 167pc over the past year, the biggest rise of any food. 'It turns out that we don't have enough potatoes,' Putin admitted during a televised meeting in May, adding: 'I spoke with [Belarusian leader] Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko. He said, 'We've already sold everything to Russia.'' Since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made Russia the world's most sanctioned country, eagle-eyed economists have watched closely for signs of economic damage which have proved remarkably elusive. But now surging food prices and labour shortages are keeping inflation high, driving big cracks in the economy. 'We're basically already on the brink of falling into a recession,' economy minister Maxim Reshetnikov told a conference recently. Could Russia's well-oiled war machine be running out of steam? The strain is definitely starting to show, says Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. 'Slowing economic growth coupled with high inflation leaves Russia close to stagflation,' says Prokopenko, a former adviser at Russia's central bank. It means Putin is vulnerable. Further falls in oil prices or a tightening of sanctions can now inflict far greater harm than they did previously, Prokopenko warns. 'None the less, we are not quite there yet,' she cautions. Another economist at a European bank, who didn't want to be named, said the waters were still muddied when it came to Russia's economy. 'The momentum is much slower than it used to be. If we look at the deficit, it has been widening. That suggests that despite the fiscal support, which is most likely aimed at military-related areas, the Russian economy is clearly not as robust as it used to be,' they said. In other words, Putin's war economy is likely at capacity: 'The potential to draw more people into the army and military production has been used. There is a limit to how many shifts people can work in factories, producing munitions and military uniforms.' As a result, inflation was running high at 9.9pc in May, fuelled by billions of roubles ploughed into the war effort, worker shortages and other price pressures. To quell it, interest rates are at 20pc, even after a one percentage point cut in June. 'The financial resources are not endless. The central bank, which maintains some sort of independence, has to maintain a very restrictive monetary policy. That lowers the availability of finance for the rest of the economy,' the economist adds. Still, experts caution against concluding this means all Russians must be struggling. Unemployment is hovering around record lows, high interest rates are boosting savings and mortgage borrowers are to some extent shielded. Wages have also surged. 'Yes, inflation has been high in the last three years, but nominal incomes have been growing much faster, therefore the average real wage actually increased quite substantially. I travel to Russia quite often, and there doesn't seem to be any discontent which is about to bubble to the surface,' says Tatiana Orlova, from Oxford Economics. She believes the economy minister's warning of recession was an attempt to cajole the central bank into cutting rates further – a more underhanded attempt than Donald Trump's frequent angry social media outbursts against Jerome Powell, the US Federal Reserve chief. She says that people in some sectors – teachers, doctors and others – will probably feel worse off because of high inflation. But the war has also created a big class of winners in poor towns across Russia. 'The families who are affected by the war because someone has joined the contractual army, for example, are using it as a social lift. The government is paying very high bonuses equivalent to between $20,000 [£14,600] and $35,000 just for signing up,' Orlova says. 'Those fighters are also receiving monthly wages, which are quite above average. So the families are suddenly able to afford more things. They can make a down payment for a new flat or buy a new car. It's a weird paradox that the war actually brought prosperity to families at this horrible cost,' she adds. This is echoed by the other economists who study the Russian economy. The country is experiencing the slow-burn effect of sanctions, but with very different impacts across the population. 'It's important to understand that the Russian households are not poor. The situation is far from catastrophic. The mood from now on will likely deteriorate because of the lack of new stimulus. These are the longer-term consequences of everything that the Russian government put upon itself in 2022,' said another economist. 'The politically liberal middle class that was formed in the early 2000s, which was mostly employed in the private sector, left the country in response to Putin's war. Since 2022, the new middle class has emerged among those beneficiaries [from the war], and they have been upscaling their consumption patterns,' they add. And this brings us back to potatoes. Prices of the beloved vegetable have surged because of poor harvests have reduced supply. They have only just started easing slightly. Bellwether of household finances Any sign of heightened popularity is worth watching: 'Potatoes are a Giffen good. That means if household wealth is going down, then some lower quality products such as potatoes see increasing demand,' the economist says. In other words, if people feel poorer they typically buy more potatoes, making it an unusual bellwether of household finances in a country with sparse reliable data. But says Andrey Sizov, a Russian commodity expert, other food types like butter, eggs and meat have also become much costlier after shortages. This may in fact reflect people trading up from potatoes. 'My speculation is that supply went down, and actually demand went down a little bit. Potatoes are not an expensive food. In the previous two years, it was first of all poor Russians who were making more money. So they could consume something else – less potatoes, more meat and butter, for example,' Sizov says. The humble spud's mixed signals underline that even as Russia's economy has lost momentum, some are feeling the gain and others the pain. But with the longer running toll from sanctions mounting and a costly war nearing its fourth anniversary, Putin has few options to trigger another growth spurt. 'The central bank could cut interest rates. But that would risk another surge in inflation. Another option is for the government to increase spending, but this is also more likely to increase prices than stimulate growth,' says Prokopenko, the former central bank adviser. 'Protectionism is yet another option. But this only works at the expense of consumers. In other words, it is ordinary Russians who will feel the consequences – through either increased prices, falling income, or less choice on the shelves,' she adds. Will the economic strain matter to Putin? He has been emboldened by a friendlier regime in the US under Trump administration, which has just paused some arms shipments to Kyiv. 'I do not see that the finances are at breaking point. This could go on for years,' warns Orlova. 'In Russia, people have very low expectations. They expect their life to be hard. They expect to always fight and find new ways of surviving. So it's just life as usual. When the population has very low expectations, it actually helps those who rule the country to do whatever they want,' she adds.
