Stephen Hadley - Saudi is responding in Yemen to a threat to its people

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Issue 1633 - February 27/02/2017

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Stephen Hadley: Saudi is responding in Yemen to a threat to its people WASHINGTON: Mostafa El-Dessouki Stephen J. Hadley served in a range of national security roles under Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, and ultimately as National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush. He has been a voice of conscience in American foreign policy discussions ever since: He memorably called on President Obama to vigorously respond to Bashar Al-Assad’s chemical weapons attacks on Syrian civilians. Floated as a potential Secretary of Defense under the Trump Administration, he proceeded instead to co-chair a new task force on Middle East policy with Madeleine Albright, a former Secretary of State. It culminated in an extensive report, published recently by the Atlantic Council, proposing a new strategy for American engagement in the region.

In his interview with Majalla, Stephen gives insight into his proposed strategy for US involvement in the Middle East that facilitates the region’s indigenous efforts in shaping their own future. He highlights the positive knockon effects Saudi Arabia’s 2030 vision will have on Saudi society. He proposes rational solutions to the civil wars raging in Middle East and assesses the influence the shift in regional dynamics could have on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Kindly lay out the recommendations you and Secretary Albright have made for a new American approach to the Middle East.

Outside powers have been trying to “arrange things” in the Middle East for a century, and they have not done a very good job. And the days when that paradigm worked are over. They ended with the “Arab Spring.” The people of the region are going to need to define their own future and then win and fashion that future. They have made that clear. We spent a lot of time in this study consulting with experts from the Middle East. We made a lot of trips to the Middle East. We talked to leaders. We had former officials in an advisory board. We had working groups, including experts from the U.S., Europe, and the region. We were trying to crystallize the vision we heard emerging from the region about where the region wants to go, to bend the trajectory in a more positive direction.

We also heard that while they need to and want to take the lead, they understand they need help and support from outside powers. So we make the case that it’s in the interest of the U.S. and other outside powers to help people in the region move in this more positive direction. And there’s a useful contribution to make — but it’s facilitating and enabling, not dictating and controlling.

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Regional players must come together to help wind down civil wars

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley briefs the media June 2008 at the White House in Washington, DC. Hadley spoke on the declaration of North Korea?s nuclear program (Getty)

How do you strike such a balance?

We basically thought the strategy needed to be pursued in two prongs. The first prong is that we need to get an end to civil wars. They’re opening the door for Al-Qaeda.

They’re the vehicle encouraging sectarianism. None of those problems will go away if you don’t start winding down the civil war. We talk about what can be done in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

Prong two is — what we found and you already know, which is not well known in Washington — that there are a lot of positive things going on in the Middle East where both countries and individuals are trying to grasp their future. You see it in some of their policies being adopted, first and foremost in the UAE, and increasingly in Saudi Arabia with “Vision 2030.” You see it in Tunisia — and much less so, sadly, in Egypt — where governments are trying to make the right decisions to include their people in mapping the future of their country, providing better governance to their people, a role for people to play in those governments, trying to provide non-corrupt governments

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to get economic activity and the like. But there’s also bottom-up activity: Business entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs in the midst of violence starting businesses and social organizations to solve local problems. And this kind of activity needs to be supported. But governments need to understand that this kind of activity is not a threat but an asset to the kind of social change required if the Middle East will become more stable and secure. So, it’s working together on prong one to fight the terrorists and wind down civil wars, sectarianism and the violence. And it’s providing humanitarian assistance that enables refugees to find a role in defining their own future, while at the same time encouraging those governments that are making the right decisions in the direction of more accountable, inclusive governance, and in enabling this kind of bottomup activity that’s the future of the region. There are a lot of things that flow from that.

Can you explain how the approach you envision might be applied with respect to Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030”?

If you look at the Vision 2030 that Saudi Arabia is

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embracing, one of the things that’s interesting is, when you talk to Saudi officials, particularly those around the Deputy Crown Prince and himself, they begin to articulate a strategy of bringing the society along. That of course is what is required. So, it’s very interesting. There are Saudi women now who are able to start their own businesses out of their homes, because of the Internet and social media.

It’s an enabler. So consistent with fairly conservative social norms, they're able to start businesses in their homes. Uber is now a way in which women can travel in a manner consistent with local norms. So when you empower women in that way and give them an economic livelihood, over time it’s going to change the social norms, in a way that the society can accept. This is what we hear from people talking about how UAE society evolves. So, one of the interesting things is that it's an economic plan to make Saudi Arabia less dependent on oil which has the prospect over time of gradually modifying — modernizing — the

by partnering with local private sector counterparts, can be a more and better partner from indigenous organizations than some of the NGOs. It depends, but I think the criteria is to find a way to support these efforts that will be enabling and empowering of indigenous activities rather than be discrediting them.

I think most people would say that the era of the kind of major interventions in Middle Eastern countries that we saw in Iraq in 2003, for example, is over. The region does not want it, and Americans don’t want to repeat it. And I think one of the lessons of Iraq is that managing these situations post-intervention is extremely challenging.

So I think the view is, the people of the region are going to chart their own future. The people of Egypt rose up and threw out Mubarak, and the people of Egypt with the military rose up and threw out the Muslim Brotherhood.

And I think the American policy has been in some sense reluctant to recognize that reality — that Sisi’s throwing out the Muslim Brotherhood was in response to the demand of the Egyptian people. We have to respect that, even as we counsel President Sisi that over the long term, if Egypt is going to become more stable and prosperous — which is what I think president Sisi wants for his country — he’s going to have to find a way over time to open up his society, to allow the people of Egypt to have more of a say in their future, and to build a more inclusive political process. And I think that starts with those young people on Tahrir Square who made the revolution. I’m not arguing for bringing the Brotherhood back into the government. That’s been rejected by the Egyptian people and you have to respect that. But I do hope President Sisi will recognize that a more prosperous future and legitimacy over time will depend on the extent to which he's able to open up the political process, make it more inclusive, and give Egyptian people this bottomup activity — more of a role in defining the future of the country. You can’t crack down your way to social peace and prosperity, and at the end of the day while he’s got to deal with the terrorist threats they face, to ensure the security of his country, he also has to develop a plan for more inclusive and legitimate governments providing better services and economic prospects for the future of Egypt. Egyptians will have to find their way to that future, but we should be a friend.

Sisi ousted the Brotherhood because the Egyptian people demanded it now Sisi should give Egyptians more of a role in their own future society, creating a more productive and prosperous society as a whole. So I think one of the challenges in leaders in traditional societies is figuring out how to change in a way that will bring the society along.

More specifically, what forms of assistance do you think the U.S. should be proffering?

What outsiders can do to help is a tricky proposition.

Because when there’s some resistance to these ideas in a society to the extent outsiders seem to be funding and promoting them, it can discredit the indigenous movement.

So one thing governments but even NGOs need to be careful about is how to provide assistance and support that enables indigenous elements, rather than discrediting them. I think in many ways, business may be a safer vehicle than NGOs. They sadly have a lot of baggage associated with them, and they’re controversial in a number of these societies, whereas business seems to be in some sense safer, and it may be that this is an opportunity where the private sector,

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WASHINGTON: U.S.President George W. Bush (R) walks with National Security Advisor nominee, Stephen Hadley, on the South Lawn of the White House, November 2004 (Getty)

How does one go about “winding down” the region’s civil wars, as you have suggested?

Stephen Hadley and Mostafa El-Dessouki at the former National Security Adviser’s office in Washington

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Each civil war is a different case. The approaches are different. In Iraq, we need to be more aggressive in helping the Iraqi people expel ISIS and Al-Qaeda from their territory. The battle is now focused on Mosul, and I think you’ve heard from this Administration that they want to step up the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria, and I think that’s right. In Iraq, for example, as the Iraqi people push ISIS and Al-Qaeda out of Iraqi territory, the Iraqi government needs to come in behind that with non-corrupt institutions of local governance.

It needs to bring some vehicles for reconciling among sectarian divisions, getting economic activity going, and the rebuilding of infrastructure. If you fail to do that and fail to address some of the underlying tensions in Iraqi society exploited by ISIS, you leave the ground fertile for a return to ISIS in an even more brutal incarnation. And I think over time that the formula the Iraqi people need to find for social peace is a unity government at the national level, but empowered local governance at the regional and

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National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley whispers to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during President Bush’s meeting with Belgium Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt in the Oval Office at the White House, January 2006 (Getty)

local level, so that increasingly these communities — Sunni, Shi’ite, Kurdish — are taking more responsibility for their own affairs in terms of governance, security, and economic prosperity. That is a formula — a “new model of governance” — that can recognize the realities of the demands from the three communities for more control over their own affairs, but in the context of still

It’s too soon to know about the Iranian issue. We do know what the Trump Administration has talked about in the campaign and in their early days in office: Step up the fight against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, defeat ISIS, and do more to check Iranian activity in the region. How that is going to work out in implementation and execution I don’t know. I think among some things that we’re likely to see — and that you’ve already seen in terms of US policy — is an attempt in the fight against ISIS to move ISIS out of Iraq.

You’ve seen an effort by the US to strengthen Iraqi security forces and to help strengthen local tribal groups, particularly Sunni ones, to enhance their ability to fight and throw out ISIS, while at the same time marginalizing the role of the Iranian-backed military or “Popular Mobilization Forces.” I think that is the right strategy: Most Iraqis, even Shi’ite Iraqis, do not want Iraq to be the Western province of Iran. They’re Iraqis first and Shi’ites second, And I think a more robust role by the US in supporting the Iraqi government as it moves against ISIS will allow it to be stronger in resisting the influence of

The U.S. should enable civil reform in the Middle East without attempting to control it a unified Iraq. Again I think that's the path that Iraqis are going to need to find for themselves with support from those on the outside.

How does Iran fit into this equation — and to what extent do you anticipate Trump foreign policies being consistent with the approach toward the civil wars which you suggest?

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US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley (R) shakes hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov prior their talk in Moscow October 2005 (Getty) Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright speaks alongside former US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley during the launch of the Middle East Strategy Task Force at the Atlantic Council, June 2015 (Getty)

Iran, whether directly or as exercised through the Iranianbacked Popular Mobilization Forces. Similarly, in Syria, I’ve argued for a number of years for a more robust US presence in Syria, directed against ISIS and Al-Qaeda, but that will also have the effect of containing what the Russians on the one hand and Iran on the other can do in Syria. I think there’s an opportunity for this Administration to work with Russia and Turkey against ISIS in Syria. But at the end of the day, while it’s ISIS forces that need to leave Syria, so do Iranian-backed Shi’ite militia now in Syria. They’re both alien in Syria and need ultimately to go home.

Do you see — or hope for — greater American involvement in the Yemen conflict?

On Yemen, I think the problem is, most Americans have viewed Yemen through the prism of a geopolitical struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. They think that’s how to think about Yemen. What I think Americans do not appreciate is that there’s been shelling out of Yemen into Saudi cities. There’s been activity by militia groups out of Yemen into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is actually reacting to a security threat to Saudi citizens, villages, and cities.

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As Saudis have said to me, if America was facing that kind of attacks across the Mexican border, you would react, and we Saudis have to react. I think that is not appreciated here, and I say to our Saudi friends, they need to get the American people to understand that they’re reacting to a real security threat to Saudi Arabia and attacks on SAUDI cities and towns. That’s not well understood. I believe we should be doing more to help. I think the outcome that the Saudis and Emiratis want is a political solution — a negotiated outcome between the legitimate government of Yemen and the Houthis that brings social peace and causes Iranians to leave Yemen. Their military intervention is focused on that objective. I think we should support it.

There’s a lot of concern about collateral damage resulting from the killing of innocent civilians resulting from air operations by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. We have the ability to make those operations more precise.

I think we should be providing to Saudi Arabia and Yemen those kinds of capabilities that would allow them to execute military missions in a more precise manner. The prior Administration was reluctant to do that and that was a mistake. You can’t complain about collateral damage without helping your friends and

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allies reduce the risk of collateral damage.

How might the Yemen conflict be resolved in your view?

It should be a political solution in which the Houthis will have a role in the government, and I think they accept that, but I also think one of the conditions they have is if the Houthis have that role, which they’re entitled to, the flip side is that they’ll break their ties with the Iranians.

Is there a precedent you would point to, in which an Iranaffiliated militia willfully broke its ties with Tehran?

We don’t have a lot of examples where these kinds of civil wars have been wound down successfully. I think the formula is that you cannot wind down these civil wars without a regional framework in which the outside parties are willing to sustain the peace settlement, in part by withdrawing their support from the combatants. So I think the formula, and you’re seeing it in Syria, the only way you’ll wind down the civil war in Syria — and in Yemen — is not only is there a process within the country whereby the parties begin to turn away from violence and accept a political solution, but there has to be an agreement among outside powers that they’ll accept that outcome and support it, and stop providing arms to their particular sectarian faction. And the question, can you bring not only the parties within the country but the outside powers to the point where they think it’s in their interest to bring down the violence, I think with respect to Syria, the Turks want this to cool down. The Russians have achieved their objectives in Syria and now may be willing to bring the violence down, and I’d hope that the Turks and Russians would both put pressure on Iran to bring the violence down. It is Iran that is the most wedded to Assad and the most concerned about maintaining their reach from Iran into Lebanon and their ability to support Hezbollah. And the question is, can you find a way to marginalize but nonetheless take into account some legitimate Iranian interests while curbing and constraining their illegitimate interests. That's the challenge for diplomacy. You only get that outcome if you can begin to change the facts on the ground, so both Iranians and Russians have more to lose on the ground in Syria than they do now. The Turks are dealing with the Russians and Iranians because they’re the only parties on the ground. We need to increase our participation in Syria on the ground, as that will give us more leverage to work with Russians and Turks to try to achieve an outcome that brings down the violence.

What is the relationship between the fighting in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq on the one hand and prospects for a

Palestinian-Israeli settlement on the other?

It’s too soon to say. The Middle East is very different now than it was five or ten years ago. Many of the Sunni states in the Middle East view Israel as part of the moderate coalition against extremism. There are a number of people who have written in the press that there is a lot of cooperation going on between Israel and moderate states in the region to try to contain extremism. It’s all under the table at this point in time, and a number of people have said the only way it could become more explicit is if there’s a way to find some kind of political process between Israel and the Palestinians. That’s the prerequisite for Sunni states to be able politically to acknowledge greater cooperation with Israel. One of the issues we’re hearing discussed in the region is whether Arab countries would be willing to come together in some kind of update of the Arab Peace Initiative, and whether that could be a regional framework within which Israel and the Palestinians might begin to have some kind of political dialogue about the future. I don’t know. From what I’ve heard from the Trump Administration, President Trump likes to do deals and has talked about the Israeli-Palestinian peace as the “mother of all deals” — and maybe they’ll be tempted

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Stephen Hadley, national security advisor to the U.S. office of the president, speaks during a news conference in Washington D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Jan 2008 Hadley was speaking about the upcoming trip of the president to the Middle East (Getty)

US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley listens as US President George W. Bush meets with Paraguay’s President Fernando Lugo in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on October 2008 (Getty)

to try to encourage it. I think the first question is, are the regional states willing to sponsor the process in the way I just described? The second question is whether within both Israeli and Palestinian politics, they're ready to actually try and make the peace. I think there are political challenges within both the Israeli and the Palestinian populations. And my question is, are they ready to make another effort at peace, and if they aren’t, are there things that might be done concretely on the ground to improve the atmosphere?

Continuation of course of security cooperation between the Palestinians and Israelis is needed. Greater efforts

by Israel to facilitate economic progress within the Palestinian territories is also needed — particularly in “Area C.” Are the Palestinians willing to continue and do more in building the institutions of a Palestinian state, even while under Israeli occupation? Those are the kinds of steps that might be taken now that could over time change the political complexion and calculations, both within the Israeli body politic and the Palestinian community, that might be easier to move in a direction of a political process under the sponsorship of the other Sunni states. That may be how it unfolds over time, but I think it’s too soon to tell what the approach of the U.S. will be, what role

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the Russians want to play now that they’ve returned to the Middle East, and what role Palestinians and Israelis are willing to contemplate at the time.

How do you respond to the view that one of the causes of the longstanding impasse in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has been President Mahmoud Abbas?

I think Abu Mazen is criticized by many on the grounds that he missed opportunities for Israeli-Palestinian peace under Sharon and Olmert. I think Abu Mazen, though, does not get enough credit for the enormous courage he showed in ruling out violence as a vehicle for trying to create prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. It’s a courageous position he took. I know he’s been criticized for permitting too much anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish incitement, and perhaps for not doing enough to rhetorically object to terrorists in terms of the financial support for the families of terrorists who attacked Israelis. I understand those concerns — but Abu Mazen also deserves great credit for eschewing the path of violence to get to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

You have to respect him or taking that position, even as he is criticized with some cause for not having addressed these other matters.

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A Future of the English Speaking Peoples Lie Back and Think of the Anglosphere

By Edoardo Campanella From U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” to Brexiteers’ “Global Britain” and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “Great rejuvenation of the Chinese people,” nostalgic nationalism has become a major force in politics around the world. Appeals to past national glories animate far-right populist movements in Europe, fueling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s expansionism in his neighborhood, and animating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions. Such a world is prone to conflict.

Yet nostalgia can still be consistent with some form of international cooperation, especially where culture, history, and values overlap. And in that context, the re-emergence of an Anglosphere—a long-held dream for many proud Britons—is no longer so far-fetched.

The idea of the Anglosphere dates back to the collapse of the British Empire. In his voluminous History of the EnglishSpeaking Peoples, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill weaved through 2,000 years of history a thread of Anglophonism that then inspired the Euroskeptics who opposed the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Economic Area in 1973. In their view, London should have rather focused on the Commonwealth, integrating with what Churchill once called its true “kith and kin.” More recently, nostalgic nationalism, including nostalgia for the Commonwealth, dominated the Leave campaign, with Boris Johnson, now foreign minister, stating that when London joined the Common Market, it betrayed “our relationships with Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand.”

But the dream of creating an Anglosphere has stimulated the imaginations of non-Brits too. Despite their growing activism

in the Indo-Pacific region, both Australia and New Zealand have always been attached to the Anglo-Saxon world. In his 2009 memoir, Battlelines, Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister, enthusiastically praised Canberra’s alliance with Washington and its ties with London. Canada, given its French cultural heritage, has been more ambivalent about its commitment to the Anglosphere. But Erin O’Toole, a candidate for the Canadian Conservative Party leadership, has made one of the key planks of his campaign his determination to “pursue a Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand trade and security pact.”

In short, the Anglosphere’s time may have arrived.

FROM CANADA TO CANBERRA The Anglosphere is nebulous. It stretches from the Atlantic to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and includes those countries— Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States—that share Anglo-Saxon culture. This political community represents six percent of the world’s population, a quarter of global GDP, and 40 percent of total military spending.

It boasts some of the highest GDP per capita in the world.

Legal systems of Common Law, a relentless defense of democratic principles, English as first language, common business practices, and traditional support for free trade are the glue that holds together countries that are geographically so distant. Cultural ties lower transaction costs between countries and foster trust. No wonder that, in making foreign direct investments, the United States shows a strong preference for Anglo-Saxon countries, with about 23 percent of total American foreign direct investment going to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

In finance, technology, science, and trade, the Anglosphere

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War and Conflict, World War II, Political Personalities, pic: 4th July 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill leaving No 10 Downing Street for the House of Commons (Getty)

already plays a dominant role, albeit in an informal way.

But there are also formal means of cooperation, including the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group; the Air and Space Interoperability Council, which aims to make members’ defense systems interoperable; and the Rhodes Scholarship, which brings students from around the world to study at Oxford University. More recently, New Zealand has offered to send London its top trade negotiators to augment the British civil service as it prepares to renegotiate hundreds of trade agreements with the rest of the world. And a recent poll found overwhelming support within Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom for granting nationals reciprocal rights to live and work freely among the four countries.

The time seems ripe for the Anglosphere to intensify cooperation among its members through trade deals, military arrangements, and joint programs in a variety of fields. London is already working on a free trade agreement with Australia and

Nostalgic nationalism has become a major force in politics around the world

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is likewise looking to strike a deal with Trump’s America. (Of course, the United Kingdom will be unable to sign bilateral trade agreements before actually exiting the European Union, which has jurisdiction over trade.) Britain hopes that, with stronger ties, the Anglo-Saxon countries will end up setting standards for the whole world. Prominent members of the Leave camp

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have explicitly pushed for an invigorated Anglosphere. And with Brexit and the Trump presidency shifting the balance in global politics, it would be worth it for the other Anglophone countries to explore all the possible options for benefiting from this new global order.

To be sure, the Anglosphere would never be a European Union among English-speaking nations. After all, it would be the byproduct of a time when states seek to regain full sovereignty, cooperating when interests coincide but competing when they diverge. The institutions of the Anglosphere would be open and not exclusive, allowing each nation to pursue its regional goals independently. So, for instance, Australia would be free to work on trade relationships with its Asian partners after Trump has dismissed the Trans Pacific Partnership. London, meanwhile, would be free to entertain post-exit relations with Europe.

The British-American historian Robert Conquest wrote in 2000 that the Anglo-Oceanic political association would be “weaker than a federation, but stronger than an alliance.” The first part of this statement is indisputable; members of the Anglosphere

Unlike Trump, however, May is against a progressive weakening of the institutions of the EU, which remains an essential economic partner for London. Moreover, a mediumsized open economy like that of the United Kingdom has incentives to push for increased market access abroad for its goods. All that clashes with Trump’s protectionist stance. In this sense, London is closer to Berlin than to Washington .

However, since the well serves the interests of both countries, the governments will likely find compromise on trade, security, and defense. Outside the European Union, and without an alternative in the Anglo-Saxon world, the United Kingdom would count little in the global arena. At the same time, the Anglosphere could alter the geopolitical balance in Trump’s favor, attracting countries such as India, Israel, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, and other former British colonies. With China and Russia increasingly assertive in the global arena and with the European Union deeply embroiled in internal crises, maintaining close ties with a united and prosperous region such as the Anglosphere would be appealing both in economic and security terms.

TRUMP AND MAY

Besides the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States, within the whole Anglosphere there is momentum behind reinforcing bilateral relationships. In his recent trip to Washington, even Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada, whose political style is very different from Trump’s, declared, “No neighbors in the entire world are as fundamentally linked as we are.” Both Canberra and Wellington are working hard to forge a strong relationship with a post-Brexit London. And despite a less-than-amicable first call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the White House emphasized “the enduring strength and closeness of the U.S.-Australia relationship."

The special relationship between Washington and London would be key for turning the Anglosphere into a concrete political project. On paper, Trump is the best ally British Prime Minister Theresa May could hope for. The new American president praised Brexit and predicts other exits from the European Union. By leveraging a preferential diplomatic relationship with Washington, London hopes to secure a better Brexit deal. Symbols matter in politics; Churchill’s bust is now back in the Oval Office after having being replaced by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s during the Obama administration.

Eventually, the sum of these stronger bilateral diplomatic ties might lead to a more cohesive and united Anglo-Saxon community. Bilateral deals and partnerships could expand to involve all the members of the group. Repeated and frequent interactions on specific issues could eventually give rise to formal institutions with responsibility in those fields. Global problems would be approached and framed from the perspective of the Anglosphere world, which would push for solutions that are in its collective interest. At the same time, of course, each country would continue to retain its voice and independence.

The Anglosphere could alter the geopolitical balance in Trump’s favor, attracting countries such as India, Israel, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong are, by definition, sovereigntists. The second is questionable.

The Anglosphere is unlikely to become a traditional alliance (in defense, for instance, NATO will remain the alliance of choice for the United States and the United Kingdom). Rather, it would be a community of states with preferential relations in a variety of fields who would work to set the global agenda.

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Canadian mounties parade outside Buckingham Palace (Getty)

Trump himself represents a mixed blessing for such a project.

Without the United States, the Anglosphere loses meaning, but should Trump antagonize allies in Europe and Asia with overly aggressive policies, he would become a burden.

FRAGILE FOUNDATIONS To be sure, the Anglosphere rests on fragile foundations. First, there is a problem of leadership. Washington would be the most obvious leader, but the other members of the Anglosphere would risk being swallowed up by a nation representing 70 percent of the population and economy of the new political community. Not surprisingly, some prominent Brexiteers such as the writer James Bennet and Andrew Roberts, a visiting professor at King’s College, favor CANZUK, which brings together Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, as the first post-Brexit option. However, given its small proportion of the Anglosphere population, this association of states would be globally irrelevant.

Second, it will be hard to agree on a common strategy when it comes to China. Washington will play tough with Beijing, while London, which joined the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, will presumably be softer. Australia, Canada,

If the Anglosphere comes together as a political project, it could signal the emergence of a new model of globalization, centered on cultural homogeneity, with regional clusters converging around common cultural factors, and without a rigid underlying institutional structure like the European Union. Even now, according to the Economist, two countries that share a common language trade 42 percent more with each other than those that don’t. Meanwhile, two countries that once shared imperial ties trade a massive 188 percent more. Gone would be the idea of a flat world.

Goods, knowledge, and people would move smoothly within culturally similar areas. Outside of them, a variety of barriers, from walls to suffocating regulations, would inhibit the flow. With fewer trade exchanges and less specialization in production, productivity would further slow down and innovation would stagnate. But governments would enjoy more freedom to protect the weak within their borders from external forces.

Given the complex interaction of historical, political, and economic factors, it is hard to predict how countries will pool together. The World Values Survey, which explores the values and beliefs of nations, identifies eight culturally defined macro-regions. One of them is the Anglosphere. Europe is split along Catholic-Protestant lines. Russia, for its part, could exploit historical and cultural affinities with the former Soviet bloc to create a Eurasian free-trade zone. In Asia, the Confucian tradition brings together China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, though it is hard to believe that the conditions for such a macro-region will exist any time soon.

Other potential groupings include South America and Africa.

The Anglosphere could signal the emergence of a new model of globalization, centred on cultural homogeneity without a rigid institutional structure and New Zealand will follow suit. Although the rationale of the Anglosphere is to preserve national sovereignty, China is too big a challenge for the members to act in an uncoordinated manner.

Third, the United Kingdom will oppose Washington’s potentially accommodating stance toward Russia. And finally,

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Depending on circumstances, the coming together of culturally homogeneous zones might be spontaneous (Europe and Anglosphere) or coercive (Russia and Asia), and the interactions between regions could be characterized by either conflict or peace. Nostalgic nationalism will likely reinforce tensions and frictions between regions that are culturally distant, especially when standards of living differ greatly. But it can bring culturally similar countries closer together. Indeed, nostalgic nationalism is already reshaping the global order, but it will not necessarily lead to outright isolationism or conflict. There is room for new forms of cooperation to flourish.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com

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High Stakes

The Future of U.S. Drug Policy

By Mark A. R. Kleiman * Many people enjoy the psychological effects of various chemicals.

Any chemical can have unwanted side effects, especially when used often, in high doses, or in combination. There is always the risk that a user will lose control over his or her consumption, using too much or too often.

The likelihood of developing what is now called “substance use disorder” varies by person and by drug; except in the case of nicotine, the victims of this disorder are generally a small minority among users. Most people unfortunate enough to develop a drug problem recover without formal intervention, although recovery typically comes after some struggle and several failed attempts.

But an even smaller minority faces graver problems. Their attempts to cut back fail because of withdrawal symptoms or persistent cravings; they have become addicted. Addicts, although relatively few in number, account for most of the damage done by drugs.

Some potentially habit-forming chemicals—including the two biggest killers, alcohol and tobacco—are legal to use and sell.

Others are illegal or restricted to medical use by prescription.

This tends to reduce the number of people who develop drug problems, but it also worsens the problems of those who do develop them. Making a drug illegal creates illicit markets and the need for enforcement, and can lead to violence.

The United States has a variety of legal and illegal drug markets, and more than its share of the evils of addiction, illicit trafficking, and drug-related incarceration. Two of those markets—those for cannabis and opioids—will force themselves on the attention of the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, although for very different reasons.

Cannabis will be on the agenda because of the conflict between state policies and increasingly unpopular federal law. Last October, a Gallup poll found that public support for legalization had reached 60 percent, the highest level since Gallup began asking the question in 1969. In November, four states, including

California, voted to allow cannabis sales without a medical recommendation. More than a fifth of all Americans now live in the eight states that issue permits to grow and sell cannabis— actions that federal law still defines as felonies.

This situation leads to absurd consequences. Some state-licensed cannabis businesses pay their state taxes with sacks of cash because money-laundering laws discourage banks from letting them have checking accounts. Respectable law firms file state regulatory applications to enable their clients to commit federal felonies. Somehow, federal law needs to adapt to the new realities.

Opioids—including both illicitly manufactured heroin and fentanyl compounds and prescription drugs such as oxycodone— are on the agenda for a much grimmer reason: the United States is facing a massive epidemic, with the rapidly rising death toll now great enough to contribute to falling overall life expectancies.

Current policies toward cannabis and opioids are equally unsustainable; the opioid problem is both more serious and harder to fix. Better cannabis policies would accommodate the movement toward cannabis legalization without going all the way to alcohol-style commercial availability; the goal would be to shrink the illicit market while damping the growth of cannabis use disorder and avoiding an upsurge in teenage use.

Better opioid policies would curb the over-aggressive marketing and prescribing of opioids that helped create the current problem without going back to the days when patients suffered needlessly from untreated or undertreated pain; they would also improve addiction treatment and make it more widely available, and offer better therapy to those who suffer from chronic pain.

The new administration has great political flexibility; Trump has not committed to any specific cannabis or opioid policies. On the campaign trail, he promised to solve the opioid problem by stopping the flow of smuggled drugs and expanding treatment for opioid addicts. But the new administration will struggle to reconcile the latter with its commitment to repeal Obamacare,

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A woman from Seattle, smokes a joint at the first annual DOPE Cup, a cannabis competition in Portland, Oregon, on October limited amounts of recreational marijuana became legal for all adults over the age of 21 to purchase in the state of Oregon (Getty)

which greatly increased funding for drug treatment.

states that now permit commercial sales, another 35 allow the sale or use of cannabis on medical recommendation, which also remains illegal under federal law.

THE RISE OF BIG MARIJUANA? In 1992, illegal cannabis sales in the United States totaled about 10$ billion; in recent years, that figure has topped 40$ billion, making the market for cannabis by far the largest illicit drug market. In 1992, when polled, of those who said that they had used marijuana in the past month, only about nine percent reported daily or near-daily use. Today, that figure is 40 percent, or about eight million people; about half of them report the symptoms of substance use disorder, including failed attempts to cut back or quit.

The changes in state law have put the federal government in a bind. The states can’t repeal federal laws, but the federal

U.S. is facing a massive opioid epidemic and rapidly rising death toll is contributing to falling overall life expectancies

Despite steady growth in public support for legalization, federal cannabis law has not changed in decades. But there have been dramatic developments at the state level. In addition to the eight

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government can’t enforce those laws without help from the states: 4,000 federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents cannot replace 500,000 state and local police. The Justice Department could shut down state-licensed businesses by obtaining federal injunctions. But unless the states were willing to arrest growers and retailers, the federal government would simply be replacing

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taxed and regulated sales with untaxed and unregulated sales.

Even with the full cooperation of the states, mounting the enforcement effort required to suppress a 40$ billion illicit market is hard to imagine, given the overstrained criminal justice system and concerns about excessive incarceration. Even the current level of half a million arrests for cannabis possession every year strains the relationships between the police and the communities they serve, especially in high-crime minority neighborhoods. But that level is too low to seriously deter people from consuming cannabis: the risk of arrest per day of use is below one in 5,000.

Under President Barack Obama, federal agencies reluctantly acquiesced to the state-level cannabis legalization, except when state-licensed activity involved interstate sales, sales to minors, the use of weapons, or links to organized crime or terrorism.

Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, criticized the Obama administration for not enforcing the law; he also asserted that “good people don’t smoke marijuana.”

But as attorney general, Sessions will face the same arithmetic

The right set of policies for marijuana would look less like the current policies on alcohol and more like those on tobacco, where taxes and regulations are designed to decrease smoking. High taxes, restrictions on marketing, and relentless antismoking messages have driven tobacco use down sharply—especially among minors—and it will continue to fall. But current state-level cannabis legalization features relatively low taxes, loose regulations, and minimal restrictions on marketing (except to minors). As legal marijuana production replaces illegal growing, cannabis prices will continue their rapid decline: adjusting for inflation and potency, today’s cannabis produces about four times as much intoxication per dollar as it did a quarter century ago, and legal competition will drive prices lower still. Lower prices make it easier for casual users to slip into heavy use: good for the vendors, bad for the users.

A good alternative to full national legalization would be to change federal law to accommodate state-licensed cannabis sales, but only if the taxes and regulations that replaced state prohibitions were strict enough to prevent an acceleration in the rate of heavy use. The federal government could do this by using “policy waivers,” like those it now uses to allow state-level experiments with other policies. But legalizing cannabis without prompting a large increase in heavy use would require very different polices from those adopted so far in the legalizing states. At a minimum, it would require replacing taxation based on price—which means that taxes fall with market prices—with taxation based on potency. More radically, it might entail replacing a for-profit industry with co-ops, nonprofits, or state-operated retail stores.

For now, the current debate on legalization remains at the level of yes or no, with no intermediate options on the table. Proponents of legalization see no reason to compromise, while the remaining supporters of prohibition are holding out to the bitter end, hoping that the steady growth in support for legalization will somehow miraculously reverse. It’s not that voters or officials have rejected the ideas about temperate cannabis policy developed by the tiny group of academic drug policy analysts; rather, those ideas have never been up for discussion.

State medical boards should be more aggressive in revoking the licenses of pillpeddling practitioners, instead of leaving the problem for the police to handle that confronted Eric Holder, Obama’s attorney general: his department doesn’t have the manpower to enforce federal laws without help from the states.

Cannabis prohibition has broken down, probably beyond repair.

But what has replaced it in the legalizing states is far from ideal. The slogan behind the new system—“Regulate marijuana like alcohol”—sounds sensible only to those who ignore how bad U.S. alcohol policy is. Thanks in part to low taxes and aggressive marketing, 16 million Americans suffer from alcohol use disorders, and about 90,000 people die from alcohol-related causes every year. The alcohol industry depends for most of its revenue on the minority of people who drink too much, and the industry’s political clout ensures that public policy doesn’t interfere much with the business of promoting and profiting from alcohol abuse.

Under the current version of legalization, the marijuana industry is likely to follow the same playbook: for-profit businesses will strive to create more and more of the heavy daily cannabis use that accounts for 80 percent or more of cannabis sales.

If the federal government is ever going to move toward policies that support moderation, the time is now. Once California and the other states where marijuana was recently legalized have created multibillion-dollar commercial markets, potent political forces will resist any radical change.

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Jack Branson smokes marijuana legally at his home in Thornton.

Branson, has AIDS and for medicinal purposes, is aloud to smoke marijuana (Getty)

rose from around 200,000 in 1992 to more than 2.4 million a decade later, exceeding the comparable figure for cannabis.

For the most part, those drugs were not smuggled into the country; they were prescribed by physicians and purchased legally from pharmacies. Encouraged by pharmaceutical manufacturers, physicians began to consider pain “the fifth vital sign” that they should monitor routinely, along with body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and respiration rate, and to overrule concerns that the medical use of opioids would lead to dependency.

Rising supplies of prescribed opioids helped create a black market. Patients exchanged and sold unused pills; burglars stole them. Drug dealers began to recruit people to pose as patients and secure high-dosage prescriptions from as many physicians as possible. Drug-seeking patients learned that they could usually get a prescription just by rating their pain at seven or above on an arbitrary ten-point scale.

Prescription opioids penetrated populations left largely untouched by heroin. Finding heroin required finding a dealer, and dealers clustered in places where heroin was already common; the prescription drugs were available wherever there were physicians and drugstores. In some states, such as Florida, lax laws encouraged so-called pill mills, where doctors prescribed—and sometimes also dispensed—opioids to anyone willing to pay. The pills were less frightening than heroin and therefore more appealing. They came in measured doses in pill bottles, not as white powders of unknown composition in glassine bags. They were typically swallowed like normal medicines, rather than snorted or injected. And they were available at a drugstore, or from an acquaintance who had a prescription, instead of from a dealer in a back alley.

Oxycodone pain pills prescribed for a patient with chronic pain lie on display on March 2016 in Norwich, Communities nationwide are struggling with the unprecidented opioid pain pill and heroin addiction epidemic (Getty)

AN AMERICAN EPIDEMIC The costs of inaction on opioid policy would be much higher.

An estimated two million Americans suffer from opioid abuse disorders, and in 32,000 ,2015 died of opioid overdoses—nearly as many as died in car crashes and more than twice the number killed in homicides.

The abuse of prescription opioids, including hydrocodone (sold as Vicodin or Lortab) and oxycodone (or Percodan, Percocet, and Oxycontin), began to grow rapidly in the early 1990s; the annual count of people reporting first-time nonmedical use of opioids

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But the two markets did not remain separate for long. A person addicted to prescription opioids whose need for the drug outstrips his or her budget may trade down to heroin—which costs about a quarter the dose-equivalent price of prescription opioids on the black market—or to the even cheaper, more potent, and more dangerous synthetics of the fentanyl class. Law enforcement efforts can have the unwanted side effect of accelerating the transition: when the police shut down a local pill mill, they rarely identify the users and help them get treatment, and heroin and fentanyl dealers are quick to move in to exploit the new business opportunity. On the other hand, if the police don’t shut down pill mills, they risk swelling the number of prescription-opioid users who may later graduate to heroin or fentanyl.

PRESCRIPTION FOR CHANGE Policymakers and health-care providers have several options to tackle the opioid crisis. None offers a miracle cure, and each

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involves either spending money or imposing and enforcing regulations.

The quickest way to save lives is probably to expand access to “antagonist” drugs, which can bring overdose victims back from the brink of death. These drugs, such as naloxone (sold as Narcan), save thousands of lives every year. Naloxone is now available as a nasal spray, and it requires no medical training on the part of the person administering it. Changes in policy have made antagonists easier to obtain legally and have put them in the hands of police and emergency medical technicians, and aggressive public information campaigns have spread the word that an overdose is reversible if first responders (or the opioid user him- or herself, a friend, or a passerby) can administer an antagonist quickly.

But reversing an overdose is only a start; many users overdose more than once. Last April, for instance, naloxone was used to revive the music icon Prince; one week later, he overdosed again, with no one around this time to administer the antidote.

Getting opioid users into treatment and keeping them there requires hard work. Substitute drugs, such as methadone and buprenorphine, can relieve withdrawal symptoms and prevent overdoses, but regulatory barriers and a lack of trained clinicians have made them hard to obtain. Methadone clinics, for example, are mostly located in big cities, where they sprang up in response to the last heroin epidemic; today, however, most users live in the suburbs, exurbs, small towns, or rural areas, far from the nearest clinic. Too much of the criminal justice system still insists on strict abstinence and rejects substitution therapy, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that it works. Many drug courts and probation and parole agencies, and most prisons and jails, refuse to let their clients and inmates use substitute drugs. And the substitutes alone aren’t nearly as effective as substitution accompanied by high-quality psychosocial treatment, which not every prescriber of the substitutes is able or willing to provide.

Recent advances in substitution therapy, such as implants that avoid the need for daily dosing, are promising but expensive, and expanded access to treatment would have to be paid for. The same antagonist drugs that reverse overdoses can also be administered in long-acting formulations; a monthly injection can prevent a user from getting high even if he or she relapses, greatly reducing the risk of relapse. But these drugs, like the longacting substitutes, cost more than 1,000$ per month.

required to cover. Subsidies for private insurance through the ACA exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid have provided health coverage, including drug treatment, to about 20 million people who had previously been without it. Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, has called the ACA “the largest expansion of drug treatment in U.S. history,” and the official estimate is that it has improved access for 60 million people.

Trump and congressional Republicans have pledged to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. Last year, Representative Tom Price of Georgia, Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, put forward an alternative that removed the requirement for insurers to cover a specific set of benefits. Since people with drug problems are expensive to insure, under such a plan, insurers would presumably revert to their previous practice of driving them away by offering no coverage, or inadequate coverage, for drug treatment. In addition, Price proposed cutting federal funding to subsidize private insurance and reversing the Medicaid expansion. That approach would make it hard to expand access to high-quality opioid treatment.

While objections to public spending are one barrier to expanding treatment, objections to government regulation—embodied in the Trump campaign’s promise to repeal two old regulations for every new one adopted—are a barrier to reducing the supply of diverted prescription pills. The current crisis is partly the result of inadequate regulation.

Much of the necessary power lies at the state, rather than the federal, level. State medical boards should be more aggressive in revoking the licenses of pill-peddling practitioners, instead of

Federal government must move toward policies that support moderation before states where marijuana has been legalized create multibilliondollar commercial markets

Under the Affordable Care Act, drug treatment is one of the “essential health benefits” that public and private insurers are

leaving the problem for the police to handle. Databases of opioid prescriptions (called Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs, or PDMPs), which states are increasingly using, can help physicians and pharmacists spot pill-seeking patients, shrinking the supply of pills on the illicit market. But those databases are full of personal information that needs protecting; designing databases that are both secure and easy to use is difficult and expensive.

Consulting a state’s PDMP also takes up clinicians’ scarce time,

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Ramping up operations against opioids would require either spending more money or doing less of something else: enforcing other drug laws or suppressing predatory crime, for example. Imprisoning more dealers would require letting other offenders out or reversing the widely desired decrease in the U.S. prison population, which now stands at five times its historical level and seven times the average rate of other rich democracies.

Cracking down on opioid prescribing could also make it much harder for people in genuine pain to receive relief. Opioids are often not the best way to manage pain, especially chronic, nonterminal pain: patients often need help changing patterns of work, stress, exercise, and diet. But too few health-care providers understand these approaches, and many insurers will not pay for them. Prescribing some pills is much cheaper than providing physical therapy.

A long-term solution would require better clinical practice and new drugs on the market both for pain relief and for opioiddependency treatment. Buprenorphine, for example, a fairly cheap generic drug used in substitution therapy, can also relieve pain, and it carries a very low risk of overdose. But it is currently packaged and marketed primarily for treating opioid addiction and severe chronic pain; internists are more likely to prescribe the more dangerous hydrocodone or oxycodone.

A drug company that wanted to make buprenorphine a routine pain drug would have to put a new formulation through a long, expensive regulatory process at the Food and Drug Administration, with no guarantee of regulatory success or sufficient clinical acceptance to recoup its investment.

A man smokes cannabis during the annual NYC Cannabis Parade & Rally in support of the legalization of the herb for recreational and medical use at Union Square New York (Getty)

and without regulations or incentives to encourage their use, PDMPs won’t work.

None of these moves would address the availability of heroin and fentanyl. Indeed, if physicians deny users opioids, or if the price of illicit prescription opioids begins to rise as the supply falls, demand for heroin and fentanyl will rise, possibly raising death rates, at least in the short run. In 2014, deaths from overdosing on prescription opioids fell, but deaths from fentanyl overdoses almost doubled.

As long as there is demand, preventing those cheaper drugs from entering the country will be almost impossible. More than a million cargo containers cross the United States’ borders every month; any one of them could hold enough heroin to supply the country for that month or enough fentanyl to supply it for a year. Cracking down on the retail supply has become much harder since drug dealers started connecting with customers by cell phone rather than by loitering on street corners. Policing is expensive: annual police budgets nationwide total more than 100$ billion.

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The same is true of several promising drugs and formulations for drug treatment: someone has to pay to develop them, and right now there isn’t enough financial reward to justify the gamble.

The federal government could fill that gap, funding not only basic research (as it currently does) but also the clinical-trial process for drugs with high social value but limited profit potential.

Ultimately, the opioid epidemic, like all epidemics, will burn itself out: as the grim joke shared among medical residents goes, “All bleeding stops, eventually.” But how many lives the epidemic takes, and how many it ruins, will depend on choices made today and tomorrow. The worst of the problem is almost certainly still to come.

This article was originally published in Foreign Affairs * MARK A. R. KLEIMAN is Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Crime and Justice Program at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management. He is the author (with Jonathan Caulkins and Beau Kilmer) of Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.

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Trump and the Economy How to Jump-Start Growth

By John Paulson The central economic goal of Donald Trump’s administration will be to boost U.S. economic growth.

Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary, has said that the administration’s objective is to raise the rate of GDP growth to three to four percent, doubling the rate achieved over the last decade.

This will be accomplished by establishing a globally competitive corporate tax rate, adopting a territorial corporate tax system, reducing excessive regulation, boosting domestic energy production, and introducing better trade policies.

The United States has the highest corporate tax rate of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. At 35 percent, the U.S. rate far exceeds the rates of the United Kingdom (20 percent), Germany (16 percent), Canada (15 percent), Ireland (13 percent), and many other countries. This high rate discourages investment, and reducing it will encourage it. The Trump administration plans to lower the corporate rate to 15 percent, eliminating the disadvantage for U.S. companies, making the United States a more attractive destination for investment, and creating jobs for American workers.

In addition to a high domestic corporate tax rate, the United States also imposes a 35 percent tax on repatriated foreign earnings (with a credit for any foreign taxes paid). This has led U.S. companies to locate their manufacturing operations abroad and to keep their foreign earnings abroad, as well, rather

than bring them back to the United States. Few other countries have such a policy, and it is one reason why U.S. companies have parked an estimated $ 2.5 trillion overseas.

This unfavorable tax structure, moreover, has caused many U.S. companies to behave oddly. Apple, for instance, borrows money in the United States, even though it has over $ 200 billion in cash reserves abroad (kept there in order to avoid paying the taxes that repatriation would generate). The chip maker Qualcomm recently announced a $ 39 billion acquisition of the Dutch company NXP Semiconductors—a move that will help it avoid paying billions in U.S. taxes, according to Americans for Tax Fairness. And scores of U.S. companies have actually “inverted,” turning themselves into nominally foreign companies so as to take advantage of such firms’ ability to bring cash earned abroad into the United States tax free.

To reverse this trend and encourage U.S. companies to bring their foreign cash home for investment, Trump has proposed reducing the tax on repatriated earnings from 35 percent to ten percent. The move has broad support among Republicans in Congress, and some combination of a lower corporate tax rate and a lower tax on repatriated funds will likely be passed into law.

Another factor holding the U.S. economy back has been excessive regulation. Unnecessary regulation makes it harder for companies to succeed and results in increased costs, lower investment, and restricted growth. This has been especially true of the financial sector in recent

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U.S. President Donald Trump (2nd L) greets JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (L) and other guests at the beginning of a policy forum in the State Dining Room at the White House February 2017 in Washington (Getty)

years, as reactions to the financial crisis overshot the mark. Not all regulation is pernicious, of course. Higher capital requirements and the elimination of off-balancesheet financing, for example, have helped strengthen the domestic and global financial systems. But many of the financial regulations in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act have placed heavy burdens of compliance on companies and impeded lending.

The obstacles to growth caused by excessive and poorly conceived regulation are part of the reason the current economic recovery has been so slow compared with its predecessors. Limitations on credit have put a damper on new home construction, consumer spending, and business investment.

Trump has proposed reducing the tax on repatriated earnings from 35 % to 10 % to encourage U.S. companies to bring their foreign cash home for investment

The cost of complying with cumbersome new regulations has been staggering. For example, from 2011 to 2015 alone, the ten largest U.S. banks collectively paid $ 52.5 billion in consulting and advisory fees on compliancerelated issues. In 2014, Citibank had 30,000 employees working on compliance and regulatory issues, up by 33 percent from three years earlier. In the same year, J.P. Morgan increased its risk-control staff by 33 percent, in addition to using thousands of outside consultants.

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The mortgage sector offers an example of the complexity, redundancies, and wastefulness of illconsidered government intervention. Regulators have been fighting one another about who has authority over the area, with each regulator imposing its own layer of often conflicting regulations. The result has been an

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almost total halt in private mortgage securitizations, which have fallen by 99 percent from their 2005 peak of over $ 1 trillion in annual issuance. This near freeze has deprived a huge segment of Americans of mortgage financing. Overregulation and the collapse of the private mortgage securitization market have restrained the recovery in new home construction—which helps explain why, although new home construction has risen from its recent lows, it is still far below its previous peak and below the average level of housing required.

To lead the effort to break up the regulatory clog, Trump has appointed two highly capable executives.

Mnuchin is the former CEO of OneWest Bank, and Gary Cohn, Trump’s choice to head the National Economic Council, is the former president of Goldman Sachs. Both have extensive knowledge of the negative

business-friendly environment. And even my own firm, after reviewing many other locations in Europe, chose to locate its offshore services operations in Dublin for the same reason.

BEYOND TAXES AND REGULATION The United States has abundant energy resources and the technology to exploit them in previously unimaginable ways. A barrage of regulations, however, have made it difficult to reap the full benefits of this situation.

The Trump administration plans to lift restrictions and streamline the permitting process in order to facilitate growth in energy production and infrastructure.

A good example of such barriers to growth can be found in the slow rate of approval for export terminals for liquefied natural gas. American firms have developed technology that allows them to extract gas from previously unattainable sources at extremely low prices.

Unless the gas is liquefied, however, it cannot be exported and remains trapped in the United States.

The construction of liquefied natural gas export terminals would allow it to be sold abroad. This would encourage still more development at home, creating more jobs, reducing the trade deficit, and spurring growth. Unfortunately, such construction has been delayed and restricted because of the vast number of approvals required from agencies that include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Department of Energy, and many others.

Trump plans to lower the corporate rate to 15 % making the U.S. more attractive for investment and creating jobs for American workers effects that excessive regulation has on the availability of credit and on growth. And beyond finance, other sectors ripe for regulatory reform include health care, labor, and energy.

A competitive corporate tax structure and reduced regulation will lead to higher economic growth. There are scores of real-life examples that show the impact of tax and regulatory policies on growth, and some patterns are clear. Generally, countries with high tax rates and high regulation (such as France and Italy) achieve lower growth, while those with low tax rates and low regulation (such as Ireland) achieve higher growth.

With the second-lowest corporate tax rate in Europe and light regulation, Ireland has the highest growth rate in the region and offers a model to follow. When asked why businesses invest there, executives point to the

A final component of the Trump administration’s economic plan will be the renegotiation of trade deals so as to protect and expand U.S. exports. Trump has said that he is not opposed to trade in general—in fact, he strongly favors it—but he does oppose unfair trade.

And dealings with China are a good example of where improvements can be made.

In 2015, the United States imported $ 482 billion worth

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A trader watches a television screen displaying a news channel showing U.S. President-elect Donald Trump making his victory speech on the trading floor at ETX Capital, a broker of contracts-fordifference in London, U.K. (Getty)

of goods from China while exporting only $ 116 billion, leading to a trade deficit of $ 366 billion. Chinese firms have almost unrestricted access to U.S. markets, yet U.S. firms face severe restrictions and roadblocks when

U.S. investors and businesses have responded more favourably to Trump's economic plans than most expected trying to do business in China. Putting the commercial relationship on more equal terms, as well as tightening up the enforcement of intellectual property laws, would help raise U.S. exports and significantly reduce the bilateral trade deficit.

Making the United States an attractive place for investment, supporting export industries, and improving terms of trade with foreign counterparts will go a long way toward improving the U.S. trade balance, boosting U.S. growth in the process.

Disregarding the media’s gloom and doom, U.S.

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investors and businesses have responded more favorably to the incoming administration’s economic plans than most expected, with the S&P 500 rising by more than seven percent between the election and the end of the year and financial services rallying 19 percent. In December, Ray Dalio, chair of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, said that Trump’s probusiness outlook could help boost growth. And in January, Mark Fields, the CEO of the Ford Motor Company, announced that Ford would cancel a $ 1.6 billion project in Mexico and instead expand its operations in Michigan, citing “the more positive U.S. business environment” that he expected under Trump.

Competitive corporate taxes, easier repatriation of foreign earnings, a less burdensome regulatory environment, expanded domestic energy production, and trade deals that give U.S. companies a fair chance to compete—together these will create jobs, accelerate growth, and lead to a new era of American prosperity.

This article was originally published in the March/April 2017 issue of Foreign Affairs Magazine and on ForeignAffairs.com.

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'Speed Sisters' of the West Bank Documentary chases after the first all-female race car team in the Mideast

By Jeffrey Fleishman They rev their engines and race on a battered land. They are five Palestinians in what's billed as the first all-female race car team in the Middle East. They roar beyond checkpoints of Israeli soldiers and zip through the glare of religious conservatives who curse their humming pistons and blowing hair. Shifting gears and beating clocks, they are restless souls in a sequestered world that cannot contain their visions.

They are the Speed Sisters of the West Bank. Male competitors have accepted them in a culture where tradition and patriarchy run rigid and deep. The young women have also grown up with the pop of Israeli tear gas and the whistle of stones hurled by Palestinian youths. They fix their makeup and paint their nails because, as Betty, one of the swiftest among them, says, "it's very important for me to show I'm not a tomboy.”

Amber Fares has captured their spirit, victories, rivalries and defeats in her documentary "Speed Sisters." The film moves past the politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict and into the lives of five women with fuel-injected dreams. The trappings of the region are inescapable _ razor wire, barricades, gunfire _ but the film's Palestinian women, at least those in the West Bank, are more fully realized than the repressed portrayals of Arab mothers and daughters common in the West.

"There's a tendency for us to paint the Middle East with broad brushes," said Fares, whose film is available on iTunes.

"Palestinian woman have been involved in social movements throughout history. They were active in the intifadas. The U.S., especially, now really needs to see the nuances. Things besides terror, (Islamic State) and what we're exposed to so many times.

I think the film breaks a lot of stereotypes."

The documentary focuses on Marah, Noor, Mona, Betty and team

captain Maysoon. Noor boxes and lifts weight, Maysoon plans her marriage while driving along the walls that divide Israelis and Palestinians, Marah shares the racing zeal of her dentist father, Mona tends to get into wrecks and Betty has a ferocious desire to win. They are dedicated to the auto-cross racing of navigating obstacles and cones on small tracks, a fitting metaphor for the geographical and political constraints that define the lives of Palestinians.

"What are we supposed to do, stop living?" asks Marah. "When this happens, the occupation wins.”

Fares met the women in 2009 at a race in Bethlehem at the helicopter pad of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

"Engines were revving, and these girls were putting on helmets, and I said, 'What's going on?'" said Fares. "They each have amazingly strong personalities. Even when you're on the same team, emotions run high. It's the nature of competition.”

That is born out in the rivalry between Betty and Marah, with Maysoon acting as peacemaker. Betty is horsepower and flash; Marah is quieter but no less ambitious. At once intrigued and amused, men and boys watch them from rooftops and walls surrounding vegetable markets and vacant lots. Women have raced in the Arab world for years, but not on a team and not in Palestine. Their notoriety spreads and headlines _ "Palestine's Fast and Furious Females" _ create an air of gritty exoticism.

"It's like the pepper in your food," Betty says of the team. "The race without the girls is no fun.”

When Noor does an interview with a Dubai television station, the Internet reacts quickly. Many support her, others think she should be spending more time with the Koran.

One post reads: "You should resist the (Israeli) occupation with stones, not sports and fashion." Maysoon shakes her head. Her fiance is a race-car driver from Jordan who has

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Mona Ennab, Maysoon Jayyusi, director Amber Fares, Noor Daoud, Betty Saadeh and Marah Zahalka attend the Opening Night and Speed Sisters Premiere during the Ajyal Youth Film Festival on December 2014 Doha, Qatar.(Getty)

accepted that she's particular about rpms and scouring junkyards for parts.

Bethlehem to Ramallah, slipping into racing suits, squealing tires and counting the clock's tick.

"The problem," said Maysoon, who runs a clothing store, "is that men are afraid of a strong woman. They worry she will take over."

But at home and along roads, where they often wait for sheep to scatter, the women follow news of the latest clashes and whether new curfews will be imposed. While driving to a practice course, Noor, Maysoon and Betty encounter an Israeli army roadblock. The women get out to see what's happening, and a soldier fires a tear gas canister, hitting Betty in the back. Noor and Maysoon drive her to the hospital. She is all right, except for a large bruise.

On one day off, Maysoon, Noor and Marah head to the Mediterranean Sea. May-soon and Noor have Jerusalem identification cards, allowing them quick passage through Israeli checkpoints. But Marah must endure lines and searches. They arrive on the coast around dusk.

Marah has not been out of the West Bank for years. "We are separated by only a checkpoint and a wall, yet the difference is huge between here and

Palestinian woman have been involved in social movements throughout history. The U.S. really needs to see the nuances

The film allows such moments to linger at the edges as if bits in a troubling, ever-present mosaic.

"We wanted to show," said Fares, whose family migrated from Lebanon to Canada more than a century ago, "how the occupation and the politics were authentic to their lives.�

"Speed Sisters" reminds viewers of the failure of the Arab Spring revolutions that swept the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. The promise of those revolts, except in Tunisia, fell away to autocrats and chaos, diminishing prospects that the IsraeliPalestinian conflict would be resolved. Palestinian attacks on Israelis, an expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and President Donald Trump's comments and suspicions about Islam have further narrowed the likelihood of a two-state solution.

Still, the women are emboldened. They drive from Jericho to Jenin, from

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there," she says in the film. "They took the most beautiful places we had.�

Wind blows through the palms. The sun slips toward the horizon. Noor and Marah run into the sea with their clothes on. They swim beyond the waves.

Maysoon waits on the shore, yelling for them not to go out too far.

This article was originally published in the Los Angeles Times 27/02/17

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Rural Cuban 'Van Gogh' transforms ramshackle home into art museum

By Sarah Marsh Lack of money has not kept Remigio Hernandez from making striking art. Without formaltraining or access to supplies, the Cuban artist has still managed to turn his ramshackle home into a museum featuring sculptures made from scraps of aluminum, busts molded from m ud and portraits daubed onto discarded televisions.

"Museum of Baby", in the sleepy town of Moron in central Cuba, is named after Hernandez's late wife Barbara, or "Baby". In

remain penniless in a world where greed and ambition have caused so many wars and tragedies.

Family and religion are his subject matter.

"I want to distance myself from all that and live dedicating my painting to poverty, humility," he said. "What I have is a history, and I consider history to be greater than fame or money."

Hernandez has lived alone with his dogs since his wife died three years ago. He scrapes a living by giving cars and walls a new lick of paint or painting small landscapes and portraits.

Hernandez is inspired by the European masters El Greco, Rembrandt, Da Vinci and Van Gogh one life-size sculpture, she gallops off on a white steed into paradise. In a painting, she is the Mona Lisa.

"I go looking for things thrown away in the rubbish, aluminum, cardboard, and I find ways to recycle them," says Hernandez, dubbed locally "The Van Gogh of Moron".

Frowning, the -64year old says he is happy to

But in a country where the average state salary is around $ 25 per month’ his clients give him whatever they can, sometimes just donating him leftover paint.

The artist gets basic foodstuffs from the "libreta", or rations book, supplementing that with bananas and mangos from his back yard.

His passion for making art is all consuming.

Hernandez has no mattress, just a bed frame covered with metal sheets. When an acquaintance gave him a large piece of cardboard to make it a tad more comfortable,

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27/02/17

Artist Remigio Hernandez, 64, sits with his dog at his self made 'Museum of Baby' at his home in Moron, Cuba, February 2017 (REUTERS)

he used it instead to paint a religious scene inspired by a canvas by El Greco.

"I can't stop painting, I was born like this," he said.

European masters El Greco, Rembrandt, Da Vinci and Van Gogh are among the artists who inspire him. In his dark shack, he has grubby piles of books and magazines that he has been given or found in the rubbish.

"I have a few books but I like doing original things," he said. "My first teacher was life itself."

While most of his work is earnest, some displays classic Cuban humour in the face of adversity. In one sculpture, a fisherman dangles his rod into the backyard that floods when it rains heavily.

Artist Remigio Hernandez, 64, talks about his self made ‚Museum of Baby› at his home beside a painting representing his late wife in Moron, Cuba (REUTERS)

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This article was originally published by Reuters.

27/02/17